Love, if defined, is confined. It dies.

When two people are in love, usually one always loves the other person a little more, one always waits a little more, one is attached a little more and tends to feel the joy of bondage and the pains of sorrow a little more. I still try to interpret love, try to understand what it means, as a layman in its truest most purest form. Love can take so many forms, viz, love, affection, concern, fondness, attachement, worship, devotion are just few of the ways of defining love. t's not necessary to have all or a few of the above to be interpreted as love. Love is capable of taking new forms, as it ften does.

My limited exposure suggests that no philosopher, poet or author has ever defined any guidelines or a timeline for love. 'S' says that she feels strange when I talk about love that has been tested over time. "What on earth has time got to do with any set of emotions"?, she'll ask. "You can easily get attached to a person for a brief period and stay that way (for however long) and still call it love", she always argues.

I know people to whom love has happened more than once. Each time it happened to them, it has scaled to new heights of delight, expectations and fantasies. Love does keep you going, it does not come with a guarantee tag and neither does it deny you the joys of falling in love again. Love is a teacher..it helps us do better the next time.

Love is never all sorrows and not all joys, it is a lively mixture of the two as long as the people involved can afford. The capability lies in us whether to savor it or devour it. Love has always taught me to live my today and looking forward with enthusiasm for the coming tommorrow. Love has always made be do things that I thought were always beyond me.

You will never be able to understand or capture the moment love strikes you. It generally happens silently and unconsciously. Love has a way of sneaking into ur brain, identifying the hidden desires, wants, expectations and fantasies. As we meet people, interact with them over a period of time, the vibes enter our brain. Most of these vibes fickle away after a momentary lapse of time, there are a few that stay on and we call it love. It is very hard to sustain or keep any emotion captive if it is not willing to settle down naturally.

There is no science for love, no methods defined to make it happen. There are no ways to make love last forever. There is no way you could be sure that the person you love, loves you just as much, or even a little more. *Sigh*

The conversation never took shape, I lapsed into an unxpected silence, yet again. I knew for sure what she wud ask me, "Tell me, what you're thinking"? I wish I had an answer to that, how I wish I cud tell her the thoughts that occupy my mind. I do try; to reflect back, a deeper silence follows the one before, and blends in to the vaccum, the amorphous form of random thoughts.

Why can I not tell her what I think? I have really nuthing to hide, nuthing to escape from, does my silence mean anything, or does it not? I cannot capture the thoughts that surround my mind; I cannot decorate them up. Just like the morning sun, I cannot hold my thoughts in my fist and neither can I define them. I must say something that might help us answer the questions that are now beginning to bother her.

"Can you understand silence"? I asked.

"Silence according to me is space to reflect and think" she said.

There are simple things in life that make so much sense when you hear them from someone else. I have always had the urge to run back into my shell because of loss of words. There is a sudden longing to start conversing with myself, in the middle of a conversation, when I am at a loss of words. How do I tell you what I have just said to myself. Most of my journeys into the inside me have begun and ended with self-conversations. There is a hidden voice that guides me.

Silence is space, I agree. It's also a pause, a momentary check on feelings and emotions.

"Can you hear it" I asked.

"I can understand your silence and I can hear it, too" she said.

"My silence is so hidden from the world and yet you say you can hear it"

"Your silence is just a reflection of your own self, niks"

This is beginning to look comfortable and more easy. If it really is so beautiful, then why can the world not see it, why is that I get hurt when the words d'nt come. Living my life is like flipping thru the pages of a book, pausing at the end of each page, the noise of the ruffled papers breaking my isloation before I go back into my comforting shell again.

"Thank you 'S', for holding my hand and making me walk through life."

Home is where the heart is.

Whatever the occassion, whatever is the reason, no matter who you are with, whatever the time and place - eventually you wud hear someone, or even say yourself, "I am going home". There is something comforting and reassuring in those words that bring out loads of kindness, affection, warmth, love and closeness that can mean different things to different people.

For a child who is tired after an exhausting day at school, coming home would mean shelter under the soft covers of his/her bed, for a battle-weary soldier, it would mean the loving arms of his parents, wife and children and the aroma of home cooked food, for a profuse son or daughter, it would mean parent's forgiveness and a new life and for a person who has stayed/worked abroad for several years, it wud mean an end of several years of sacrifice for family and income. Home is the only place on earth where you know you would be loved unconditionally and accepted wholeheartedly. One also finds life withing running the major and minor crises - the ups and downs of health, success and failure in career, marriage, seperation, divorce, et al. A home is tied to people, events and histories - which make up the package called 'memories'; that is where we go back to when we say home.

Home is where we learn to put up with rules and regulations, learn the importance of discipline, learn to submit our wishes. Where we told to clean up our rooms, do our homework; where we were allowed to make honest mistakes and were given enuf freedom and room for self-expression. Home is the place where we got acquainted with traditions. I learnt well that with freedom comes a sense of responsibility and that faith makes a true prayer.

Truly, home is where my heart belongs. Sometimes tempers do flare, feelings are hurt, things are lost, money runs short, and sometimes something unxpected happens that succeeds to upset the day. I have dealt with upset situations, dissapointments, failed xpectations, and a few sleepless nights that were spent crying. But even then we find ourselves comforting, supporting and consoling each other. This is the place where every success, tear and struggle is rejoiced, shared and comforted; where every member - old or young matters. This is my imperfect world - but home to me because home is where my heart is. I am going to miss home and wud hear myself saying some years down the line, "I am going home".

Happy Diwali

This Diwali here's wishing you
All shades of happiness,
And all rays of hope
For you and your family.

It's between "Me" and "I".

When Love is right, you see it in each other's eyes,
When Love is right, you hold onto it all thru the years,
With all your heart and soul,
And nuthing could feel, more right,
Than the love you share.

When you look at me
I touch the skies
I know that I am alive.

...Have u ever outlined someone's forehead.. eyes... cheeks... nose... lips and the tip of ones chin with your fingertips; gently..electrifying ur senses...barely touching the skin...feeling the space between your fingers and his skin get electrified..

It feels like as if there is no end to the fondness you feel under your fingertips...his unshaved chin, his eyebrows...long lashes. You loose urself into this blissful moment of silent closeness, the kind of chemistry and as you memorize "HIM", you realise he is so vulnerable, not able to xpress his feelings the way he wants to and that makes you love him even more, as you're there to protect him - *sigh* if he'd only know.

"He's so special" is what you think, and tht's the most precious gift you take home with you - but he never must know abt it..'cause it's between "I and Me".

Men and Wimmen : that's what matters.

She : "Men just don't understand us".

He : "That's just not true".

She: "Wish I cud make all the men disappear from this planet"

We'll never get anything settled with that. Gosh! Why don't we endeavor to understand than to be understood? After all we've been taught to be a person for others and least for ourselves. I look at things this way - if men (or women) weren't the unusual characters that we think they are - how wud the fun and excitement of these "odd differences" be created in our lives? There wud never be the 'revelation', 'chase', 'discovery' or a 'surprise'.

If men and wimmen were created 'predictable and alike', then there wud be the need of only one gender. Then we wudn't have to worry abt wracking our brains trying to figure out what makes him or her behave the way they do or what makes them tick. Can you imagine a world where each one is same and alike? Where everyone is like the other? No creature called 'man' and none called 'woman'. Just beings who think alike, talk and behave the same. So boring! They wud just be clones - each mirroring the other - the good and the bad of its character.

There are certain bits of me that I'd rather live without. Now if I cud see it mirrored back into my partner, how on earth wud there be any chance of improvement or any hope to change? I wud want to meet someone who is positive to my negative traits and I xpect that to work vice-versa. I wud want to shake off things that don't contribute to my growth and be guided by his positive traits which cud help me grow to my fullest potential as a person.

Men and wimmen wud never run out of things to say to each other. And no matter how hard we try we will still find it all insufficient and end up being all puzzled as ever. Yet as life keeps playing its funny tricks on us we do get to meet the wrong ones. Well, I believe there must be a reason for that. Nuthing in our life happens by accident - there is a larger and an inexplicable 'design' why things happen the way they do. Honestly, I am still trying to figure that out myself. But the 'revelation' comes only at an auspicious time - when we are prepared or when we have learnt the lesson it wanted us to learn..that's when we understand the truth. I have learnt - Life is all about growth and we have been sent the 'tools' for growing. You never know, it may have been a good thing for us, to experience a mis-match. And this growth comes with a price. We pay the price of shattered feelings, failed dreams and broken expectations.

Please don't go wishing for anyone disappearing from this planet - it's half a planet without the other. That's what I wanted to say - Men and wimmen complete each other. One isn't whole without the other. It's really not important as to who is better or best, who is strane and crazy, a puzzle or a mystery - it’s all designed to make this fantastic package called a human being to make your life complete. A small 'thank you' to HIM up there - it sure is a nice plan.