Trekking Through the Park

As I took a step into the place I loved the most, but this was in an area I had never seen before, an area I had never been to before. Nonetheless it still had my heart, it still made me feel at peace, it still felt mine.

I take a deep breath and take in the beautiful, crisp, fresh air. Probably the only place in this city where you can enjoy pristine, clean air, that fills you with you joy.

Though you can hear crackers in the distance, you know it will never disturb the pristine nature you are in. And you are happy it’s far, far, away.

The smell of wet grass fills my lungs, intoxicating me, taking me high. And no, before you assume me to be smelling another kind of grass, I would never permit myself to pollute myself with it.

The sun has been kind, and not harsh, and creates perfect picture postcard moments as it burst through trees, illuminating our path. Causing the grass to glisten from the dew that settled on it.

As I trudge along the kaccha road, along with my fellow trekkers, many of whom I have greeted a number of time during my run in the park, but who were now my fellow trekkers.

We trudge along the route, occasionally stopping to form a circle and hear what Srini sir has to say, a speech, a message he has delivered a numerous time but one that always remains poignant and important on how we are blessed to have a green lung within our city, how now, more than ever, we need to protect it from the greed of men.

You also learn about a beautiful soul, Machindra, who from his own experiences and struggles, has been striving to uplift his little community, give them the resources and life that he didn’t have, that he had to work hard for, with the support of many generous souls, some who were with us.

As you walk over kaccha roads, trails, and dried up stream beds, you wonder if you are being watched  by the original inhabitants of the park, to whom the park rightfully belonged, and we in a way were trespassing on their territory. You wonder if they were observing you from the trees and grasses.

You continue to walk, discussing every topic under the sun, literally and figuratively. 

Low and behold you reach the small hamlets, after all the detours, and all the pictures you tried to click.

You marvel at the Warli Art that adorns the house. You admire every inch of this beautiful red wall, and the white figures painted on it.

You meet Machindra, who’s truly a beautiful soul, a son of the soul. Humble, kind and dedicated, working tirelessly for the upliftment of his people.

You snack on the wonderful Diwali faral laid before you, and pour over the albums that the villagers have shared.

You visit the study area that has been built for the children, marvelling at the artwork created by the children, which is beautiful, and I would not be exaggerating if I called it stunning. 

Once again you click a group pic, visit their mandir, which has tree that bears the marks of the original inhabitants.

We say our goodbye with a promise to visit again, and will be back bearing all the supplies that would be needed. 

As you walk back, you can’t help but smile, you can’t help but feel this joy in your heart, you can’t help but feel blessed, hoping you can too, in your own way contribute to help Machindra and his community.

Indeed it was morning well spent, trekking through the park, a walk to remember.

A Summer Romance

Their’s was a summer romance, but somewhere down the line he lost his heart and he fell in love. Unknowest to him, he didn’t feel the same way.

He made it known to him, from the start, that he was not looking, he was not looking for anything substantial, anything long-term, anything that would be labelled. But despite it all he fell in love with him.

He knew what he was getting into, and though he tried to ground himself, he let it his heart heart flutter, he let his guard down, brought down the fences that he put up to keep the unwanted out, to keep them from trampling on his lawn that he cultivated with pain. He let himself be vulnerable and bare for him.

He waited with baited breath for his call, and cancelled all his plan just in case he called, if he wanted to meet , or just hangout, or to just hookup. He was ready to drop it all just to spend sometime with him. He was always willing to drop it all just spend time with him. 

His heart fluttered whenever he used “us” to refer to them. He quivered whenever he touched him, whenever he  put his hand on his shoulder, or grabbed him by his waist. 

When he hugged him him he felt he could melt into him, just having his body pressed against his.

And he felt he could die whenever he kissed him, even when it was just a simple peck on cheek, or kiss on his forehead. To feel his lips against his, against his skin, was all he wanted in his life.

He cherished every moment they spent tangled between the sheet. He called it hooking up, but for him it was making love. He gave himself wholely to him, to do what he pleased, and in it he found pleasure.

He loved the their clandestine meetings , they making out in places where he would never dare to be this bold, to be this open.

He made him feel bold. He made him feel free. He made him feel sexy. He made him feel desired. Most of all, he made him feel loved.

And then with the end of summer he was gone, leaving him behind pick the pieces of his broken heart. He had moved on to another, just like he said he would. He said he was free bird who couldn’t be caged. Who’s spirit couldn’t be pinned down.

And though he knew this day would come, cause he knew he was never his, but he rued the fact he let his heart love him. He cursed himself for letting himself fall in love (he couldn’t curse him, no matter how bad he would have wanted to).

He felt hurt and betrayed by himself though he tried to stay practical and grounded, though he knew what was to come.

So he let him slip away, let him become a memory, cause he was never his, cause it was only summer romance for him, but in this all he lost his heart and got it hurt.

Being YOU

It’s not easy being who you are. Its not easy being different, something that society terms as not normal and unnatural. It’s not easy to live out proud and loud, for all to see. It’s not because you are afraid, or you are hiding in your closet. It’s the way you choose to be. And this is not easy to be when you feel constant pressure and judgement.

They may say that love is love is love is love, but this is not true. Love is not the same everywhere. A non-heteronormative love has many labels and boxes that you need to fit into. And you need to navigate through it all these labels and obstacles to find what you are looking for. And when you get to the one, you are all fatigued from navigating the hurdles and obstacles, making you wonder if it is worth it all. You end up being paranoid.

When you find the one you wonder if you are able to vibe, whether you are compatible, sexually and emotionally. And when it comes right at the start, it can make or break what you worked so hard for.

And no matter whether you are out and proud, or quiet and to yourself, happy being who you are, you are emotionally fragile. 

You think and overthink everything, you read and over read into every word and line and situation. You let your paranoia get the better of you when you keep analysing and overanalysing every situation, every word, every action, trying to understand what was the purpose of the action, when you try to read between the lines, when there’s nothing there between those lines. 

You let your past experience work you up, build up fears, form clouds of doubt in your head. Every situation works you up, every action, or inaction, is scrutinised to extent of paranoia. And then you are labelled too emotional.

Its being someone who doesn’t follow the the norms of the community. Your lack of interest for all the parties and orgies like get together, makes you feel quite, quite boring, quite vanilla. You end up wanting a very heteronormative relationship and commitment, which is so difficult in community where promiscuousness is rampant (and there are instances where you too fell for this ). But isn’t men in general supposed to be promiscuous, wanting to speed their seed. 

All you want is to spend time with the one you love. To be in their company. To have their presence in your life. To feel their touch, their caress, their love. You love the attention. But at the same time you are socially awkward. You are not comfortable in parties, you don’t really smoke or drink, you tend to go into your shell, and prefer to be home before midnight (and no, you’re not Cinderella).

All this makes you feel like the least interesting person, boring, bland and vanilla (there I used the term again).

This makes it difficult for you to find companionship, and if you find it, it’s difficult to sustain it (but then aren’t every relationship difficult to sustain). So you end up going through breakups and heartaches. But instead of giving yourself time to heal you find yourself falling in love, cause you’re a fool for love.

And despite it all you can’t help but be who you are. Who you are meant to be. And whether it’s not easy to be you, there’s no other you who you would rather be, no matter how many times you wished you would rather be someone else.

Like a Fish Out of Water

I stood there, like a fish out of water, watching them twirl and swirl around  in a blur. Wanting to jump right in, but fearing that I would not be able to keep up and would drown in their flow, and would be literally be trampled over.

It was not that I have two left feet, not by far. But this was another beast altogether, one that would need sometime to tame, sometime to learn. But this was not the time, this was not the place, and this was not your complex where you could get way by merely mimicking what others were doing.

It was not that I thought I would pick the steps up in a jiffy (well a part of me thought I could). 

So I stood in the periphery and admired them dance rhythmically to the beat, round and round like a merry-go-round, twirling and swaying, but their energy never dipping. If they sat out a few round, they tagged another who matched up and even exceeded their vigour.

I stood there wishing I could dance like them (like I always feel no matter the form, a certain lack of confidence), dance with them, matching their steps, matching their energy, their stamina, their finesse, their enthusiasm, their rhythm, their josh, their joy, their passion. 

And when I tried , I got sidelined with a a few seconds of me trying, asked to step aside if I couldn’t keep up.

And everywhere I looked I saw people dancing with such passion and grace, something I lacked. 

So I would rather stay out of their way and watch, and try to do my own thing, and just enjoy myself.

Being Whole

What if we are whole the way we are? What if we are never meant to be complete? Or we are complete the way we are? Never needing another soul to complete us?

Wanting something or someone to complete us leads us to longing. Longing leads to loneliness, sorrow and pain, if what we long for is never found, never comes to us, never is ours to be. 

And we continue to live in loneliness and despair, always longing, always hoping, but never getting what our hearts desires, what our soul wants, what our flesh needs.

What if we do find something or someone. But then we bind ourselves in the shackles of our own expectations. And if these expectations aren’t meant to be met, then we buckle under the weight of our own expectations, often leading to disappointment, hurt, resentment, doubt and pain. 

And like a cage it imprisons us never letting us out, never letting us soar, never letting us love, never letting us be happy. Always holding us back, always weighing heavy in our hearts, always sowing the seeds of doubts and pain in our mind, driving us insane.

What if we are whole the way we are. Complete without needing anyone us else to complete us. And if someone should enter they are absorbed, rather than fitted, into our world. Cause we are complete the way we are.

Turning 43

For me birthdays have always been special. It’s your day, a day you celebrate you, it’s your name day (it looks like I am back to GoT mode once again). It’s the day for cutting cakes, dressing in your finest, wining and dining, and toasting you. Raising a toast to growing older, to another year under your belt. You made it through another year, or should I say, you survived another one. 

But turning 43 felt different. It felt lonely and melancholic, rather than joyful and celebratory. It had me feeling low and lost, a bit flustered and frustrated, a bit broody and weary and disturbed. It had me internalising and being an introvert.

And no, I have no problem with growing older, or even greyer. I have accepted that a longtime back and embraced it. Growing older has it perks, except when you get called an uncle. 

You are down not because of growing older but because of your circumstances, your situation.

2022 has been (so far),  a tough year. From struggling with health issues of the mental and physical kind, to the stubborn weight that refused to leave your side (literally). If that wasn’t enough you end up having to cope with break ups and heart aches. And then you have your loneliness that makes you wonder if you are ever going to find a suitable mate, even before you have given yourself time to heal from your past wounds. You wonder, do good men deserve to find love, even the vanilla, boring kind.

Your expectations, your loneliness, your fear from your past, your past mistakes, your past situations, your past experiences, lead you down the path of anxiousness, of self-doubt, and self-inflicted pain.

There were times (and there are still time) where you wish you could escape it all, where you wished that this pain would end, that this feeling of loneliness could just go away and leave you to yourself (the irony of the statement). Where you could sleep and never wake up.

All you wanted to do is runaway from it all, put an end to it all, find some peace of mind, when you feel there’s no end in sight. Somehow you struggle with your loneliness the fear of being alone, fear of being rejected, fear of not being accepted cause you don’t vibe, or you don’t satisfy them physically. All leaves you wondering if you deserve to find someone to love you like the way you are willing to love.

If I could sum up my head, before my birthday, I could do it in these lyrics by Roxette -

You want to hide when you're alone

Where do you run to when everything's gone

You're looking to find a good thing in life

But nothing's in sight at the end of the line

So where do you hide when you're alone

Where do you run to when you're on your own

That dream in the dark just sank like a stone

That voice in your heart

It won't come to the phone

It never comes

Rishikesh has always been on the list of places I wanted to travel to, with all the people visiting it , and yes wanted to do rafting and bungee jumping. Also, I wanted to take a stab at solo travels. I heard of so many people talk about doing a solo travel, it made me want to do the same and see what’s the fuss was all about, experience it all.

But then there was also a fear and sense of hesitation and nervousness, considering I was going through a low, confusing, patch in life. You have this sense of apprehension of whether if this is the right thing to do, is this the right moment go on such an undertaking. But you need to to get away from it all, cause if you don’t, it threatens to consume you whole.You need to find your sanity, you need to find a peace of mind and so you go on the trip.

While in Rishikesh, I may not have found the answers to the questions that riddled my mind, or a way out of the circumstances I had put myself in, the predicament I found myself in. I don’t think I even expected to find answers and solutions, for that matter even love (though somewhere you hoped you could have one those romantic stories where you find love on trips).

What Rishikesh did give me were moments of peace and tranquility, moments to sit in silence and take it all in. Moments to declutter my mind, moments to make sense  of the insanity in my head. It gave me moments to appreciate the faith and beliefs of humanity, to not view everything from a religious point, to open your mind and just accept. 

So be it sitting quietly at the ghats, observing the mighty Ganga as it flowed steadily, while devotees took dips in her, trying to find a way to wash away their past transgressions, to get her blessing, to find moksha.

You found peace while dipping your feet in a stream, or just observing it flow, overcoming all the obstacles, the rocks that came in its way, and in it you found a lesson for yourself.

You found serenity just staring at the mighty Ganga as she flowed through the valley down below, or the Misty mountains covered in clouds, with the moon right over it. 

But then there were crowds and crowds of people with their mobile phone trying to click pics and selfies as they crossed the bridges, or pedestrians walking in lanes meant for vehicles. And while you want to take in the Ganga Aarti, you have these aunties who insist on video calling their relatives, or capturing it on their phones which they held up, even though they had the best seats on the ghats. But then you realised you too were one of them.

You have crowds and crowds of people  in places where you wish you could have some peace and tranquility.

Then you had your dorm mate who insisted on being your guide and show you around the place and take you through lanes and by lanes and telling you about places and myths, when you just wanted some alone time to be with yourself and thoughts. But in hindsight, I did appreciate his company, cause me alone with my thoughts would have been a recipe for disaster.

My decision to stay in dorm of a hostel, rather than at a hotel, actually helped quite a bit. It pushed me to get out of introverted shell, which I keep going into, make acquaintances and find my own way, rather meander around, dragging my feet feeling sorry for myself.

So at the end of this little strip, little solo adventure, I may have not found the solution to my problems, answers to my questions, ways to stop reading into things too much, to stop overthinking. I was still still a bit disturbed, still had heaviness and anxiety. 

However, what I did get a from this trip were moments of clarity, moments to realise that if I need to find peace, I need to make peace in my mind, accept the situation , have no expectations, anchor myself. I had to avoid letting my emotions to get the better of me, though it’s alright to be emotional at times , to cry at times, but not let it control me. I have to stop overanalysing and overthinking and over reading into things, cause the more I did it the more I am leaving myself open to hurting myself. I had to stop having expectations from others, cause everyone has their own ways and agendas.

But most importantly I learned I desperately needed to be by myself for sometime, not let my loneliness become my desperate need to be loved and in a relationship. I needed to be more kind to myself, more appreciative and respectful of myself as I am of others. And accept myself for who I am, a little broken, a little damaged, a little disturbed.

So there you have it, I am 43 and sure hope I can put these realisation to effect to help me be better and saner.

And do I want to do more travels on my own, well the world is large and life is short, so why not I enjoy my own company while making memories.