“Love is not a commitment"

As usual, we met by the sea. I saw her coming from afar. She looked beautiful. 

The new summer breeze danced around the palm trees, rolling over the lamp post and curling around her waist, acting funny.  

I had been meddling with the issues playing and replaying at the back of my mind. So much that I didn't realize when she came.  

Busy chatting with my girlfriend, I almost forgot that she was with me. She has never complained of me ignoring her or taking her for granted.

She never looked so beautiful as she did that night. She looked subtle and yet full of life in her white dress.  Her golden brown hair let loose. The cool breeze played with her hair…falling on her shoulders. Her twinkly eyes shone with the street lights. She looked like a goddess of Love.

We spoke and spoke almost the whole night…about work, families, life, countries and cultures. And she would, as always give the most beautiful view point to all that I thought was fixed. She saw timelessness where I saw limits. She enjoyed the pleasure of confusions wherever I felt nuisance. She indeed has mastered the art that I had not even yet learnt to appreciate. I created philosophies and she skillfully would mend them in beautiful verses.  

Her company seems like the most precious gift I could ever have. I tried holding back myself to express how overwhelmed I always was when she was around. I wanted to hold her and tell her all that I felt for her.

“I want to say ‘I Love You’ but I cannot.” I said, hesitatingly.

Her rose petals lips curved for a smile and her starry eyes as if giggled.

“You can”, she said turning back.

“Love is not a commitment. Love is neither restricted to marriage nor a binding relationship of dedication or loyalty.” She said smiling complacently.

“Did you just try to ‘specify’/limit/set standards/draw guidelines’ for Love?”
I went speechless.

“So just say it…. express, say all that you have, dig yourself deep inside and take out and say everything you have about you loving me”, she said.

Even if I said “I love you”, that would not have been enough for what she had just made me realize. 

P.S. There is no Love.

A Hong Kong I had never seen

“Hong Kong is my first on site” in the IT professionals’ lingo. I have always been fascinated with her culture, the ways in which she works, her people, their beliefs, the sea views, her vibrancy, the transportation system. I have written quite a bit about it and this city still, never fails to surprise me.

Probably surprise is a neutral noun. It can be pleasant as well as unpleasant.

Last evening, I went out for shopping with Mom. Mongkok had been unusually crowded with people not selling but standing with Chinese banners. I couldn't really fathom. Here’s my struggle with the surprise I got:

1. As we were still in the MTR (train), I heard the Driver announce that the train will not stop at Admiralty Station. Admiralty station is link station that connects the Island and the Kowloon line. I have read news in the newspaper of MTR apologizing for delaying trains by 2 minutes. Yesterday, I knew that this was something 'big' happening.

     2. Hong Kong Policemen are extremely helpful, courteous and very nice. They seem to be true the mission of “for the people”. Yesterday, I saw them with red eyes, carrying shields and truncheons marching towards public parks, jostling with the public.

3. Crossing the signal at Peddar street takes forever. You have to wait as well as hurry up irrespective of which time of the day or night you are at. Yesterday, Peddar Street was evacuated.

     4. Be it 12 at noon or midnight, the city is never short of luxury cars or public transport. If a bus stop is temporarily suspended, advance notice is issued. Yesterday, not a single bus/tram on the road. I saw a monotonous....a vehicle-less Hong Kong.

     5. The Taxi stand near Central Station is always gushing with taxis, people queuing up, hurrying up. Yesterday, I saw military vehicles parked at the taxi stand while innocent queues waited at the mercy of hesitant cab drivers.    
    
     6. More than anything else, Hong Kong has 'human traffic'. Yesterday, I saw quiet streets and hardly anyone on the road. Hong Kong bore an uncomfortable silence with police/ ambulance siren in the background. 

     7. When I had to undergo a dental surgery, I chose Hong Kong and told Mom- “Mom, I trust HK more”. When I go to office during Typhoon and Mom asks me to be careful, I reply, “Mom, I trust HK more”. When I go to ChungKing Mansion alone I go “Mom, I trust HK more”.

Yesterday, while my tired Mom with painful knees stood at Central station while I was running out on my hunt for taxi, I looked back. Mom sitting on a bench holding her knees, and military armored vehicles and armed forces on the right, it took me not more than a moment to change my decision. 
“Mom, can't leave you here alone....I don’t trust HK anymore”. 

P.S. No Tainanmen Square in Hong Kong please. 


                                                                                                                                                                                                              

Your Mother is Your Child

".... Probably children are the experiments of mothers in their attempt to live hand-crafted destinies of their hopes"

Mother.

What’s the first thing that comes to your mind when you read this word?

Your mother? Motherhood in general?

I am not writing general mother’s love articles but something different that I am observing while staying with my mother. And the realization is very intense.

Noticing her will make you realize that you still have roots even when you had thought that all you have ever cared for in life was how hard your branches hit the skies.

Looking at your mothers limbs, eyes, facial expressions, you’ll see the unadulterated you. Observing her unveils your evolution. Evolution in terms of your development as well as your dilapidation. She is the alive evidence of your coexistence with the Universe.

In her playfulness, her witty jokes, her smile, choice of colors, thought process, even the way she poses for photographs, I see so much of me and keep telling myself that she is like me. And then tapping myself back saying- No, I am like her. Your mother is your source. 

Your mother is your milestone. She reminds you from where you have started your journey and keeps setting it further for you at all the occasions till you allow her to. 

I see that my relation with my mother is under transformation.

Most of the areas where she needed to understand me are over. May be now it is the time for me to translate what she never did and to explore those areas where she needs to be understood.

I think adolescence reappears after fifty. I see a mystified (and hesitant) longingness of being carefree, instruction-free, impression-fee, judgment-free, society-free in her.

Probably children are the experiments of mothers in their attempt to live hand-crafted destinies of their hopes.

A child gives birth to a mother. And being her first child, I gave her that joy. And having said that, I feel I am the only one capable (and responsible) of making her a girl again. 
Your mother is your child. 


P.S. I am still not done with my realizations. Will be writing more about it.

  

Life... a pathless journey

Life is...

an Untranslatable experience

of a pathless journey.