Of Blackmagic and Voodoo Dolls.

Yesterday I had a very interesting conversation with my childhood friend who came to visit us home. It was interesting because apart from catching up on the latest and old gossips, we ended up discussing a lot about black magic, voodoo dolls, curses, paganism and evil spells and of magic that draws on assumed malevolent powers. It was interesting. But a bit scary too. A bit for me, a lot for my wife. And just so because Deepu narrated to us about true life incidents that seemed to have affected him too – in a large way. In a way that we couldn’t have imagined and in a way you couldn’t possibly ignore.

What started it all was when he asked me if I knew a certain child from school, of the time when we were kids. I did not know her that well, but I knew she existed. Facebook has this concept of sending friend suggestions right? So I had got her connection many times. With about 60+ common friends. But did not add her just because I did not know her personally and did not want to look stupid. Anyway, the point was – this particular friend could see ghosts from the age of 7. But she wouldn’t tell anyone about it because as expected, no one would believe her. And she had reached a stage where she would not talk to anyone because she feared something. Something considerable. Something dark. Something so compelling.

What was it? No one guessed.

As if that was not enough, she could talk to ghosts too. As much as your jaws dropped reading this, ours did too when we heard it. Living with this problem or gift that she possessed, she knows now that it is not advised for mortals to have a conversation with the ghost. She recalls the time when she used to be aloof from everybody else and says she had talked to a spirit of an old man and he kept stalking her for a long time, disturbing her a lot. He wouldn’t leave her side even when she was asleep. She had reached a point where she almost lost her mind, but then like some miracle, she pulled herself out of it. And we still don’t know how.

She says that ghosts should not be talked to. They are present all the time, at many places and we would have no clue that they would be present with us. (Now that sounds creepy, doesn’t it?) But they believe that they cant be seen and its best if we don’t try and communicate with them. Because if we did, they would try and communicate back. Since they always have some unsolved issues that stopped their flight into the heavens, they would try and vent their frustrations on you and you never really can say how. Sometimes its by following you everywhere like what happened to her or maybe by trying to harm you. But a connection they will definitely try and establish. And that’s not good.

Today she says that whenever she sees a ghost, she pretends as if she hasn’t seen them and life is okay. She also finds it hard to differentiate between a mortal and a ghost sometimes when she is in an unfamiliar place. At home or a place she knows who should be there at that time, she knows when they are there too. And hold your breath because now, her kid can see them too.

She says that all kids have a power to see ghosts, but this power vanishes the moment the child starts assimilating memories in the memory bank. And she says that so do animals, especially dogs.

And this is how we embarked on a very very interesting conversation that lasted for a while.

When have you actually felt something alive in the other dimension? What real-life incidents do you have to share? Think about it. A whole lot of interesting stories which I intend to share with all of you in the posts to come. So sit back and enjoy reading. Atleast you know that even if you think you are doing that alone, you never really might be.

To be continued...

L.O.V.E.

Marriage

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I've got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn't know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.
She didn't seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn't talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn't love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.
She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn't have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.

When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn't want anything from me, but needed a month's notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month's time and she didn't want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.
She requested that every day for the month's duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife's divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn't had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don't tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outsidethe door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn't looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.
On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn't tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me... she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it's time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn't noticed that our life lacked intimacy.
I drove to office.... jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind...I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won't divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn't value the details of our lives, not because we didn't love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.
Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I'll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed - dead.
My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.-- At least, in the eyes of our son--- I'm a loving husband....

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse's friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

If you don't share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage.
Many of life's failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

[Stumbled upon this piece somewhere on the internet by some unknown author. Was worthy enough to share.]

Quotes..

"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget."

- Arundhati Roy

The Rainbow Bridge

Someone sent this poem to me a few months ago when I had written about our aging dog back home, Bruno and I truly believe it gave me comfort. Just want to share it with all of you who live with your pets and are blessed with their unconditional love.

The Rainbow Bridge

Just this side of heaven is a place called Rainbow Bridge.

When an animal dies that has been especially close to someone here, that pet goes to Rainbow Bridge.
There are meadows and hills for all of our special friends so they can run and play together.
There is plenty of food, water and sunshine, and our friends are warm and comfortable.

All the animals who had been ill and old are restored to health and vigor; those who were hurt or maimed are made whole and strong again, just as we remember them in our dreams of days and times gone by.
The animals are happy and content, except for one small thing; they each miss someone very special to them, who had to be left behind.

They all run and play together, but the day comes when one suddenly stops and looks into the distance. His bright eyes are intent; His eager body quivers. Suddenly he begins to run from the group, flying over the green grass, his legs carrying him faster and faster.

You have been spotted, and when you and your special friend finally meet, you cling together in joyous reunion, never to be parted again. The happy kisses rain upon your face; your hands again caress the beloved head, and you look once more into the trusting eyes of your pet, so long gone from your life but never absent from your heart.

Then you cross Rainbow Bridge together...never again to be separated.

Author unknown...

Love in the time of censorship.

Tom and Jerry is now rated PG13! It’s Tom and Jerry for chrissakes!! C’mon! We all watched it and a few of us went out there and became extremists, but violently speaking, the majority of us turned out alright, right? Ok, I’ll admit, it’s not so much the Tom and Jerry thing that’s bothering me; it’s more that the hype around sex and violence is made such a big deal out of, that when you give a kid a Bob Dylan record nobody even raises an eyebrow. Kids can’t watch the same cartoons as us but they can and do listen to the same music and nobody questions it? What’s my problem with love songs, you ask? They’re deceiving, and have been for generations!
Love songs make you believe that the person you fall in love with will be able to express his love for you as romantically as Bob Dylan or the Counting Crows. And the disappointment on learning that not everyone is as lyrically in tune with the world of romance as these heartbroken conjurers of poetry are, is likely to cause much more damage to a kid than watching a cat and mouse beat the living daylights out of each other with pots and pans. At least the violence depicted in Tom and Jerry is real and not some cover up trick for the real thing.

Love is real, as is heartbreak… but these guys make it sound like it’s an amazing, beautiful feeling. It’s not! Having your heart broken and dealing with the emotions of falling in love are the most painful things you could ever experience. A physical wound will heal faster because you can see it and heal it. You could live with the pain of a broken heart forever and noone will see it, so noone will care and when they step on it, they won’t know because they can’t see it…but you’ll still feel it. And it’s not the kind of pain that’ll go away with a painkiller and there’s no heartbreak ward in the hospital that you can check into. You are in it alone and only you can get yourself out of it. And no matter how many times you listen to ‘Something’ by the Beatles or (if you have bad taste) ‘Total eclipse of the heart’ by Bonnie Tyler, the pain is not going to go away. But you’ll still listen to it on repeat... making yourself more miserable and falling deeper into the hole of self-pity.

People will warn you about sex, drugs and violence…but nobody prepares you for heartbreak. The only thing you can hope for is that it hits you so hard and so fast that it dulls you and your heart, forever. Should you be so lucky, you’ll have on that invisible cloak that all of us have been wishing for since we were kids. You’ll think you’ve conquered the world; that you’re indestructible. But in truth, they’ve taken your soul and rendered you dead. But it’s such a smooth, clean kill that there’s not a trace of evidence. No evidence means not guilty, so the love song gets off scot-free. In the meantime, while the heartbreak casualties increase, censorship boards continue to waste their time with sex and violence. I don’t get it.

House Warming Party

That was the invitation we made for inviting the 2/4 GR family to our house. All officers and their families. This event should have happened as soon as we settled down at our new home, but then, all of us have been in a spin with various commitments and finally today the stars have been aligned and Babi and I am all set to play host to 20+ guests at our home for dinner.
This is going to be the point in Babi's cooking tenure because she has cooked almost all of the hors d'œuvres, main courses, bread and pudding by her self. It amazes me to see her doing all this in immaculate style. This mind you is the same Babi who just knew how to cook 2 minute noodles. Today she knows what should be the theme for a dinner night, what the spread should be, cutlery and crockery, flower arrangements, everything. She never fails to surprise me by her eye for detail. And today when I told her that she needn't put so much of effort and that we will outsource it, she said,"I know its a big thing for you and I would go to any extend to make sure it clicks!". What can you ask more from life after you have someone like this in your life as your spouse. Its in moments like these that I feel a lump in my throat and I can barely speak.
Shall update you all about how it goes tonight. Wish us, especially her, all the luck.
Btw, SWAAGATHAM. :)