Catharsis XVI: Of friendships and expectations

Posted on January 16, 2015 by Guria

Disclaimer: Yet again, sarcastic post ahead! You don’t have to read. Turn back now. There may be several resemblances to people alive or dead, which is purely coincidental, or is it? But I am not telling. If you are offended, chances are you have behaved this way, and you know it. Write a rebuttal (on your own space, please) or shout out insults or hatch nefarious plans or bitch to your cronies (all of which you probably do anyway); but kindly don’t bother me. Remember, I will never reveal if this is about you; in fact, will deny it.

Relationships are not for everyone. And yes, I am definitely speaking from experience. I don’t know how to make friends, and worse, if even some friendships happen in twisted turn of fate, I don’t know how to keep it. Blah, and finally I throw up my hands in the air and shout from the top of my lungs, “Hell! Yes, you win! I give up.” I am freaking idealistic in a very real and very selfish world, and I would have been dead by now, if it were a few hundred years back (murdered in bed, by the looks of it!).

Don’t get me wrong, I have friends- the long-standing kind, the ones who have known your heart and locked it away with their own, away from the evil, prying glances. But there are still the ones, who you love, who you defend against the whole world, the ones you wouldn’t blink an eye for before laying down everything, to rush to their side and ironically the ones who look down on you, and smirk, of course they care, while turning away their faces to hide their sniggers.

Honesty apparently is much high a price for a relationship. A relationship is nothing but a means for your own ends, the price of which is negotiated over the usefulness of it. It is measured in favors, gotten and returned. As an example one of the easiest way to measure a relationship is how much food you have fed the others (in weight or dollars, your pick) and how much others have fed you, in return (My parents didn’t bring me up right when they forgot to teach me this!). It is measured not in loyalty or love, but in following and serving. It has a price tag that costs your integrity, tests your loyalty and needs your servility, with nothing in return, especially not the truth.

The sad truth is when you treat people nice and proper, they don’t care, they simply take you for granted, and someone not worth giving any time, effort or thought to. Because you don’t harm back, harming you becomes fun, and you are a joke, because your trait is considered to be one of cowardice, not virtue. Funny, that when I go against my innate nature, and treat people with practiced indifference and even, mild derision, they do a double-take and rush forward to coax and please me. One day, I will venture into the world of affected reckless rudeness and am eagerly anticipating the reactions. How is that we, humans, are so imbecile that we respect those who mistreat us, but hurt and insult who’d never disrespect us?

Every day I have honored every little thing that one has done for me (and they have done, from a little to a lot, that I always respect and never conveniently forget), but I never treated it as a one way street. I have tried to honor my friendships and help out when I could (for some, even when it meant making me and what was mine secondary) and all I asked for in return was courtesy. I never wanted accolades, and I wasn’t keeping tabs, and cross-checking. But apparently that’s exactly what I was doing wrong! Forget courtesy or gratitude, I got shot down brutally, lied about, insulted even, for what I did for them.

The very friends sometimes you love, protect and care for, are the ones bad-mouthing you to the world when you are not around. It seems like an recurring lesson that I seem not to learn. Do a thing, never out of your way, and only if it hands out some benefits for you in return, or you know you’ll extract something back eventually as a price for your effort. And you’ll be friends for ever!

But there are compensations. There are them, who don’t go around preaching and proclaiming to be your ultimate well-wisher, and actually care and look out for you, without needing the fanfare and big, fancy words. It is that goodness in the world that still gives me hope, and makes me feel that I am not a complete idiot after all. I do learn my lessons the hard way, but the journey brings me those wonderful beings (they know who they are) as well that I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world. For the others, I tell myself, the Universe knows that I did my best, at least I tried.

Yup, I have severe case of misplaced and abused love (and I am a work-in-progress replacing it and using it right), but what the hell, they’ll realize it themselves one day what they lost.  Meanwhile, I’ll concentrate on the people who don’t take out their “book of accounts” every time we interact.

Posted in Catharsis, Friends, Laughs, Observer, People and Relationships, Sarcasm, Soliloquy | Leave a comment

Seven

Posted on January 8, 2015 by Guria
Image Courtesy

Distance is a bitter pill to swallow, especially when time too refuses to co-operate. Gifts are too mundane and wishes, too commonplace but the love needs to transcend all. And words are all that I have… and then, even my words fall short, sometimes just insufficient, or just too simple to lend shape to all that inexplicable feelings that course through me. It is not tough to wish happiness for someone, who smiles every time you do. It is not difficult saying, “may all your wishes come true” when I am told, that I am all that was wished for. So, I wondered what I could want for you, on this day… And all I could think of was, that may be I make you as happy as you make me, that may you be as blessed as I am to have you and be yours, may your life be as rich and as complete as mine is ever since I pushed myself into your life, and you decided that it isn’t such a bad idea to let me stay on. And as an aside (since wishes are sacred), I’ll be selfish and want something for myself too, and wish that I can be with you without too much delay.

Happy anniversary, my love!
Posted in Life, Love, The Other Side of the River, You | 2 Comments

Battle scars

Posted on December 28, 2014 by Guria

Losing you wasn’t an option, it was predestined. Like the gleaming sand that slowly seeps through the clenched fingers in a tight fist gone numb, I knew that I would never be ready for it, not now, not today, not ever. A million years later would ache the same way as now will – and as the prophecy whispered, now was a good time as any.

The sun was on its way down, slowly robbing the warm earth of its light and sustenance. The beauty of the darkness had always called out to my black heart. The world can burn, as long as I can be with you. And the darkness always beckoned me, with its heavy-lidded eyes and shapely hands, to indulge deeper, as all melded into nothingness in its being. But tonight I wasn’t looking forward to my ally’s ever victorious ride into this realm. This time the darkness heralded the end, it was here to siphon my very existence into itself, into oblivion.
I stared at my reflection on the glass in the light of the setting sun; the eyes that looked back were dark yet bright. Dry and cold, it felt nothing. There would be no more shed tears.
Turning away, I shivered momentarily, as the dam threatened to give away, refusing to hold back the deluge within. But the moment of weakness lasted less than the span of a blink. I straightened my back, and held up my head, as my lips pressed down into a stubborn straight line. And in my mind I saw that beloved face, right in front of me; those bewitching eyes, that I could never get tired of, gazing down at me like I was love incarnated. And I said, we are finished. 
Crisp and clear. I didn’t flinch, my voice didn’t tremble.
I was ready. Ready to face him, in the final battle.

N.B. There’s been an idea brewing in my mind for long. And I have been neglecting my writing and thus, my ideas. Maybe it is time to put it onto paper (metaphorically speaking of course!). The beginning is always from the end. Love, G.
Updated to add the picture… it echoed perfectly with the idea bubbling away in my head. ~G.
Posted in Abstract, Chapters, Creations, Darkness, Heart, Loss, Love, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Random | Leave a comment

Catharsis XV: Overthinking is a type of dementia

Posted on August 26, 2014 by Guria

Disclaimer: Any resemblance to any person, living or dead, is purely coincidental, or sadly circumstantial, or simply may be due to a continued growth in my popularity. No living creature with a heart has been harmed during the making of this piece of art. So, if you sustain any injury (to your ego or otherwise) after reading this, please go to your nearest doctor for an immediate check-up!

Eons ago, when the concept of universe was an exhilarating exercise for the mind, I used to have a sense of humor. Now, it has been overshadowed by sporadic bitchiness, and a recurring tendency to be mournful.

Worrying about whether I am liked or not, appreciated or not and what people are talking about me has suddenly become an important activity of the day. Worrying about the chronic liars, the compulsive hypocrites, the wreckers, breakers and manipulators take precedence over the other trivial hobbies – the latter are more constructive to your personality and peace of mind, you see. Of course, in my more sane days, I wouldn’t have given my time of the day to these people (classified previously as an infinite source of hilarity, and pity definitely) but senility is apparently more common in the old age.

When I was younger, way younger, like in my prime, being talked about, in lies or in semi-truths was a matter of pride. Others have to pay for this kind of popularity, dammit, whereas I, I have a network functioning for free! But now, with creeping age and deeper understanding of how the world works (not in deeds, but in money and lots of mutual flattery and fakery) I need to be convinced over and over again that it’s not me, it’s them. It almost like apologizing to a robber who steals your chain, and finds that it’s 18 carat instead of 22. Of course, often in my case, I have to fight the compulsion to apologize for being a decent person, for being helpful, non-fussy, honest and oh, sometimes for being unable to put on weight. Having a set of morals, and not even the high-handed ones, but the basic ones, as a habit, is a pitiful example of how badly one is faring in this world. If you cannot commiserate with the need to please, and be pleased in return, if you cannot lie and distort facts effectively or create miscommunication, your way in this world is yet to be paved, my dear.

You are your own priority, the only thing that is important, and to hell with the rest. Actually it is better, even advisable, that in your advent to greatness try and trample some others underfoot. Sadly, I have crossed the age for learning new things, I ask too many questions and haven’t yet digested these lessons in my quest to be an exciting, sought-after, popular fixture. Hence, success has always been remiss in my case. I could say, it’s all simply jealousy, over what I am that they cannot be, but then that would be untrue, and naive. Jealousy only goes that far. It is much more greater than that. It is a need to enjoy leisure time effectively. And if one can’t create, what is better than to destroy, even with fiction! But first you need a scapegoat, and therein lies my worth! Need a ‘friend’, anyone?

All those adages about great minds discussing ideas and small, little minds discussing people are all just crap. Great people are born by comparison where the person they’ve chosen to discuss is much less than them in one certain obsolete, inconsequential fact. It is the all important corollary to Einstein’s theory of Relativity: one’s success is directly proportional to the next person’s failures and losses, under the assumption that you also convinced the latter of your grand worthiness. Of course, fishes don’t climb trees and monkeys don’t breathe underwater but why let good, common sense get into the middle of really exciting and effortlessly destructive feel-good bitching and undermining sessions?!

So, anyway, here I was moaning and lamenting, feeling all misunderstood and unloved, when on a day of sudden clarity (one of my better days ever since this what-the-others-are-thinking dementia set in) the colored glasses fell off, and I saw these people for what they were (well, that’s a whole another essay, for another day) and I actually started laughing, at myself!

For whatever’s worth, I have always had a great deal of pride, so what’s with this low standard in people anyway? But ever the optimistic, I must say the last few months have given me a lot of writing material, along with a shocking revelation- I was a lot smarter when I was a teenager.
P.S. May be I haven’t lost that sense of humor yet. I can still laugh at me! ~G.
Posted in Catharsis, Friends, Laughs, Observer, People and Relationships, Sarcasm, Soliloquy | 6 Comments

Catharsis XIV: the cynic’s love

Posted on August 6, 2014 by Guria
It’s strange how far we have grown apart. We talk, for we have to, being scared of the silence that looms so loud. Yet while we talk, we check ourselves, our words, turning them over in our minds and praying that they won’t be misread, misunderstood. And mulling over the words we hear, trying not to read too much, trying not to find dual meanings. When at the crux of it all, the words don’t matter anymore, unless it’s fodder for meaningless but harmful chatter for the idle times and idle minds. Anger battles despair when we cannot charter back the path to the when and where it started to disintegrate. But anger hurts. A derisive laughter is startled out of me, when I realize it’s better spending this self-destructive emotion on ones who would matter. Ones actually worth being loyal to, worth caring for, losing for, dying for. Even if they weren’t with you anymore. The ones who never lied. And that wasn’t us. Give me one truth and I will forgive all your lies.  But the time’s past now, and then you would just lie further propagating your own imagined scenario of how things should be, had you been the puppeteer. We ceased to matter, or maybe we had never begun. How can one love someone, and not even know who the person is? It’s so tough to reconcile, for the heart and the head, even when both know that the hour’s gone by and our time is up. But the pain comes back in different doses and intensities. The sad truth? The cynic is as gullible as she always was, and the lessons of love never abated, they only changed, into lessons of hate.

Posted in Catharsis, Friends, Heart, Observer, Philosophy, Soliloquy, The Other Side of the River | Leave a comment

Football: A Religion

Posted on July 2, 2014 by Guria
It’s been a while I have been ensconced in the Americas, but I haven’t still transitioned completely.  For instance, I am yet to comfortably lapse into the word “soccer”, it is still “football” for me in a country where that word means an entire different ball game. And that sport, that I call football, still happens to be the greatest game on earth for me.
Four years ago, I was preparing for my journey over the Atlantic while watching the World Cup, reveling in the joys and despairs of the game with my family, in the middle of the night. Today, the timings of the live matches are more convenient but I miss the furor of my city, the madness of my co-enthusiasts. (This is one of those rare moments where I feel I need to thank Facebook in keeping me connected with the revelers scattered all over the planet, albeit sometimes at the expense of the uninterested getting spammed, to discuss, argue and celebrate)

The thing about football/soccer, it is not about individuals, it is about a nation, any nation, and them coming together with all others on the greatest platform that is there. There are 193 countries that are the members of the United Nations (UN), and the International Federation of Association Football, better known as FIFA, has 209 countries today. I have learned names of new countries from this sport, and I have learned of their plights, their everyday struggles and of their prides from this sport. This is one sport where there is no inequality, no judgement but the spirit and the skill of the game. I don’t care if the origins of the sport is European, today the sport is owned by the world.
Coming from a country where cricket is touted as the best sport, and a country that is divided (as it is united) by barriers of regionalism (or languages), I cannot emphasize enough on the beauty of this sport that cannot stand simply on the shoulders of one individual, albeit a great one. Messi cannot be the glorious Messi we know all by himself, if there were no team members that set him up, or let him be at his best. It’s not often that one player can shoulder a whole team forward. Football can be played by one great player, but it is beautiful when played by eleven not-so-great individuals playing to and playing for each others’ strengths, and playing together. To me it’s a lesson in basic humanity, the strength in numbers, the strength in unity.
But even without becoming philosophical about the sport, it is wondrous that how simple the game actually is. With only 17 major rules, it is one of the easiest sports to follow, even if it is not the easiest to play. It is indeed, as simple as the metric system. The game is addictive. Like every other sport, it has its boring matches, but it can be fast-paced, exciting and thrilling as well. Yes, there are matches which are scoreless, but the score doesn’t always say the whole story. Spouting philosophy again, but it’s always about the journey, never only the destination.
Maybe girls and boys can play the sport together, it only helps to bring forth the divides that this sport has managed to transcend. This sport is not played for ‘justice’, but for equality, for amicability. Of course, there will always be the joy of winning, the urge for winning but it won’t take away the glory of playing together without any barriers. And then there are the upsets, Senegal beating France (2002), Ghana upsetting the Americans (2010) and scaring the Germans (2014), Costa Rica emerging victorious after being written off (2014), Brazil/Argentina, two impoverished states, being the fore-runners.
Again, I am from Calcutta/Kolkata. I inherited the love for football by tradition, and maybe took that love to the more exciting level of obsession. But there are worse things to learn, or to be obsessed about. With the World Cup 2014 being held in Brazil now, and being in America where people are beginning to get interested in the sport, not least due to their own team doing marvelously, I find it strange that some sects find it difficult to participate in the global joy of the game, only because it’s not just theirs.

On a different note, one of my hopes (I have very simple wants in life!) is that India will play the World Cup in my lifetime, or at least have a team worthy of competing at the international level with all the biggies (currently we are ranking 154!). I don’t know what that will do to my blood pressure levels, which already sky rocketed marvelously with Brazil going into penalty shoot-out with Chile last Saturday in the Round of 16 – and Brazil is not even my country! And of course, I will cheer for India against Messi or Brazil or Italy- hoping against hope!

The newly conceived Indian Super League gives me the hope that may be in another decade (or maybe longer) we will be able to have a proper team of eleven talented players (which shouldn’t be too hard from a pool of over a billion people) who will play for the glory, the love of the game and be compensated for it too (something that primarily happened only to cricketers in our country). Of course, Kolkata was the most sought after team which is now owned in part by Sourav Ganguly (who interestingly was initially a footballer before he went on to become one of the best Indian cricket captains) and by Athletico Madrid. If I had known about this ownership, I’d have supported Athletico Madrid against Real Madrid in the Champions League Finals earlier this year! Anyway, it seems the Kolkata team is going to called Atlético de Kolkata. Funny but exciting! Of course, the other sought after teams are the states that are similarly enthusiastic about football, the North-East, Goa and Kerala. The remaining teams are Mumbai, Pune, Delhi and Bangalore, which makes it look like that the whole country might be gearing up for league football.

As for the ongoing FIFA World Cup, the Round of 16 just completed yesterday and the teams that are in the quarter finals are Brazil, Colombia, Netherlands, France, Germany, Costa Rica, Argentina and Belgium. None of them had it easy. Experience gave them an edge but they had to fight tooth and nail with the younger teams to earn (convincingly or no) their places in the quarters. So, today is an off day for football and I am already suffering from the withdrawal symptoms of adrenaline. Football is like having an addiction – it is not easy to juggle day-to-day life, work and the matches together, but not having the matches to look forward to is worse. But we are still in the middle of the season, and the tournament in not over yet. So, at least all the heated discussions, the angry conversations and the passionate arguments are still on!

I am rooting for Brazil, as usual, or at least a Brazil-Argentina final (or even a third place match)… Who are you rooting for?

N.B. For reference, look up a certain American columnist, Ann Coulter’s article on how American interest in soccer, moral decay, the metric system and true Americans (versus, immigrants) are inter-related. Pardon my reluctance to post the link here. ~G.


Added on July 6, after USA wins the Fifa Women’s World Cup 2015:

I am doing myself injustice and giving voice to stupidity, but still am posting the Ann Coulter link here, if for nothing but the laughs and the enjoyable discussion this article brings forth! ~G.  

Posted in Calcutta and Bengali, Observer, Passions, Random, Reviews | 1 Comment

Unbridled

Posted on June 2, 2014 by Guria

It will hurt, it will ache
And you’ll think, that you will break.
It will smart, it will mock,
Like your world is balanced on a rock.
You’ll think, and will think again
Thinking what could be done
To make it all undone-
And start it all from a scratch.
But you know nothing will change,
Nothing will be different-
Even if it was done all over again.
For people are, what people will be.
Uncaring, selfish, and wielding self pity.
Liars, and uncouth, and destroyers of faith.

P.S. This is a very constructive way to channel anger, wouldn’t you agree? ~G.

Posted in Creations, Heart, Me, People and Relationships, Verses | 2 Comments

To My Cherished

Posted on May 30, 2014 by Guria
I would love you unto death,
Like I have loved you in life.

I loved,
Breathing, asphyxiated or barely gasping
The life within of my soul, with its beating frantic heart
There was no end, nor a beginning to the tale of circles
It went away and it came back, but always to you

I loved like a madman,
Like a nomad in search for home
Like the dry earth that opened up to the skies
In thirst, in love and in expectant joy.
I loved like I have no tomorrow,
Like you’ll never be mine…
Like it’s this moment that is my lifetime.
I have loved without boundaries
Without judging, without wrongs or the rights

I loved when there was nothing for me
Or when I was all that was left for you.
In moments when you had the world, in its glory and all
In the suspended time in space, when we belonged
It was there in despair,
In joy and celebrations,
It was there in successes, in losses
And in the mere days of mundane.
It lived and grew, and spread its wings
For you, in happiness, in songs, in words
And even in melancholy, it rings.
It was there, when you weren’t
It will be there even if I wasn’t.

I would love you unto death,
Like I have loved you in life,
But I will walk away if I have to,
For I have loved, in truth and across time.

P.S. This would have been an ode that I would have written in a small wrinkled piece of paper, with a quill dipped in bright ink, in the light of my oil lamp, to woo and convince my damsel of my love, and my good intentions.  ~G.

P.P.S. Re-reading it after publishing… and I am thinking, romance and love is just not my thing. I am better off spouting philosophy! Sigh! ~Guria

Posted in Creations, Happy, Heart, Love, People and Relationships, Verses | 2 Comments

Cast Aside

Posted on January 26, 2014 by Guria
Lost in an ocean of misery
Travelers, dark and dreary
Friends, who were friends no more-
With only sailors,
Sailing in the same boat.
Of need and usefulness,
That was of use no more;
Cast aside and forgotten,
A cheap shell, washed ashore.
Told to get lost and never come back-
Of diminished importance, and courtesies that lack
You are a nobody, and nobody cares.
No glitter, no sparkle says no gold in there.

P.S. In general, people amaze me. But their treatment of others (and their friends) flabbergast me. Sometimes in a good way and sometimes, in not-so-good ways. This is one of those latter times, when realization of the presence (if not the reason) of such behavior baffled me… And as always it makes me wonder, would they do what they do if they knew, or understood, what is it they are actually doing? My faith in humankind, says no, they wouldn’t. But my cynicism just smirks… Well, it is a question for another day. Keep reading (and trying to decipher) poetry. ~Love, G.
Posted in Catharsis, Creations, Friends, Life, Me, Observer, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Soliloquy, Verses | 4 Comments

Disappointments

Posted on January 20, 2014 by Guria
That I could call heartbreak a disappointment told me that all wasn’t lost. That even as I lay amongst heaps of the broken shards, I held on to that power of becoming whole one day. That there was a stronger me, who may be was struggling now, but would eventually emerge victorious. That there would be a better me, who’d discover greatness in self, and laugh away the breaking of her heart as a matter of no consequence.
But tonight, my heart ached with every beat. Beaten and battered, it counted every hurting moment with the ticking of the clock. And wondered, how many times would it believe in the same lie over and over again, just before the truth would surface to dash every hope. Every whispered wish will get blown away again, all the smiles would dissolve into crushing misery and the heart would be smashed into smithereens all over again.
My eyes stay wide open but refuse to see. All they seek was solace in the fleeting lies, forgetting every time that no one, no one would be there to pick up the pieces when the pretenses ended, when the charade was too tiring.
I am a child- refusing to believe that there is no Santa Claus, holding on to the conviction that there are always happy endings. That one day this sorrow will all be worth its while.
It was the most dangerous thing. To be let down, to be cast aside, to be thrown away and forgotten times over times but the spirit refused to balk. It refused to be crushed in its wavering but omnipresent faith. Hope kept giving it life, against all odds. Was it weakness or was it strength? The line between the two is blurred, but it definitely was foolhardy.
I’d make pacts with the Gods, closing loopholes, asking for miracles! I was foolish but with tied hands, that folded on its own in the middle of the night as the tears dripped into the pillow, I knew not what to ask for. The freedom from the deadly cycle, or to travel back to the beginning of the cycle, to those incomparable moments before the heartbreak, all the while hoping that it would be different this time.
Hope is a terrible thing. It keeps you alive, when you would have died a long time back.


P.S. It is crazy how I discover inspirations in the most unlikely, and definitely unwanted, places. This piece happens to be a fragment of what was begun earlier a continuation to “the realization of an old dream”, the inspiration of which I could have easily done without. The piece that preceded this one, is The Beginning of An End, but can be read standalone too.
In other news, the news from BlogAdda egged me on like never before, and I am back at my blog. It’s not about the votes or who wins from now on, but that fact that I got discovered, and rediscovered, not only by BlogAdda and other bloggers (and a jury, no less!) but also people who didn’t know me as a blogger-writer was the biggest prize of all. (Though I am hoping that the latter will do me a favor and never read me! It’s embarrassing!)  ~ G.
Posted in Abstract, Catharsis, Chapters, Creations, People and Relationships, Philosophy, Soliloquy | 8 Comments