No Distance too Short !

When you look into her eyes and when you hold her fragile hand in your all you believe is one thing, just this one thing that no matter what the world decides to throw at you the very next second nothing can spoil this moment, because the moment is already perfect in itself . You believe no distance can ruin this for you anymore, you are here, she is here and then there is love, what more can you ever ask for ?

The truth is you always wanna be close to her, you believe have you had to leave her alone for just a fraction of a second and the wolves will descent. All you want is hold her close, feel her pulse, taste her lips, look in her eyes and let the world carry on because you have everything you ever wanted. You are here, she is here and this is all you ever wanted, ever. 

Photographs courtesy : Aziz
Email : info@airaphotography.com
Website : www.airaphotography.com

The Many Dreams of You and Me

Every single night its in your dreams that I cherish, in the long voyages that we take through uncharted waters, in the beautiful strolls through gardens and boulevards from very pricey magazine pages. The colours and the emotions that we share and cherish are truly remarkable. Though I expect nothing less from a beautiful dream, you’re here presence makes it unimaginable magnificent. Dreams that I have are all so wonderful so are the ones I believe you have, but the ones we share like our heart and our soul are sure to be unworldly.

Its been a couple of years since I met her, I still remember it be on a very ordinary day in a very ordinary chemistry lab, She came and stood next to me , she turned and she gave a smile that told me that we are meant to be. But the blind idiot I was made sure that nothing happened for the many days to come. It was certainly not the first time we have seen. Studying in same class seeing would not have been a problem. As days went on and on, our hearts grew closer and closer, the cold winters made us come close in search of warmth and the sizzling showers in envy, the scorching summer in search of shades and finally the spring in search of love. 

I do know that every one tells it, but I promise you this that what I tell is the truth and nothing but the truth. I do believe with all my heart that I knew her way before the first time I  laid eyes on her petite being. I assure you I have enjoyed the taste of her delicate throbbing lips way before in generations unknown to me. Her being is not strange, not any stranger than that of myself. May be this is what they call 'LOVE', may be this is how being in love is, If it is so and this is what I get from being in love and being loved, then I require the warmth of no stranger bosom than that of beloved one.

When she walked into my life at the time of great crisis, A time when I have had lost faith in all the worlds love, I trusted no one not even god for that matter, sinking into the depths of despair, alas! those were the dark days. Her touch was the guiding light that led me ashore, when romantic voyages after voyages failed and I was no better than a sinking soul. I am no great lover but at the moments I despise myself I keep telling my wounded soul, its not all that wounded. But much latter only I realised that had I not made those mistakes I would never have been able to see the right things, when it appeared before me. Had I not seen the darkness and experienced the piercing thrones I would never have realised it when I saw the rose bloom before my very eyes. Love does happen but so is it a search, it’s a special journey like none other, it will show you what that is that rightfully belongs to you and you rightfully belong to.

I am no great lover and mess up a little a lot of times, but I have done no such thing that by which I had betrayed her. It weights down my neck a duty to remain faithful. I know that a girl like her deserves much more and what I have is too pure to be in such dirty hands. But I see no reason to let go, call it lust call it selfishness, for she is mine and I indent to keep it that way for eternities to come. I do wait for the days that are ours to live, and the dreams that we share are ours to realise.

-          A tribute to my other half.

 " You have taught me love and how to love, in your hands i blossomed and in your love I grew and in you arms I wish to die"

A Million Candles of Hope

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How marvelous and symbolic it would be if we could light a million candles on this eve, A million candles to celebrate hope. Of all the days that we could do it on, today it would make most sense. When over 4 million people alone suffer in silence under the evil reign of AIDS, we could instigate hope in their heart and light up their spirits. We would move them from the dark worlds they are now confined to and show them that there really are butterflies and gardens in this world and there is a world where the sun shines bright. I know I cannot do it alone, I would have done it if I could have done it alone, but still that doesn’t mean we can’t! If we all try and try hard maybe we could make the ‘Million Candles of Hope’ much more than a daydream.

Lighting up their lives

It is true that HIV is not all that taken lightly in the nation, the sadder truth is people are more afraid of the people than the disease. There is an urgent and imposing need to change the public perspective of this disease. It needs to be made sure that having HIV is not a crime and the victims need to be looked at with an eye of care rather than through an eye of discrimination. They are people much like me and you, they have a heart and they do have a feeling. To have a disease is no reason to tag them untouchables. We have made progress in instilling in many the truth of the matter, but the way is still long to the dreams that we share.

It will be but a matter of time before we have a cure and a real solution, a solution that is accessible to all. Then there will be no hypes that surround this disease, it will be like any other disease just like it should be. But till that day comes it is the duty bestowed upon us by virtue of the divine order to show men who are blinded by misconceptions the truth. The truth, touching a person or hugging someone is not going to get you HIV. A truth that everyone knows and many find convenient to forget and live with the lesser beliefs.

May be one day my dream of a million candles of hope will come true and though I have already lighted them in my mind and one in my room one day a million dancing lights will show the way. They will show the way to hope and better still will they stand to see the day when we shall all walk n hands, like we are meant to be, like brothers and sister, like one big family, one big caring family. One day a million candles will dance, A Million Candles of Hope.

A Million Candles like these for hope ?

Now! That's a Birthday

19Th of November is no ordinary day, Its my other halves birthday. Its that one day a part of me was created by god and conceived upon this crooked world, so that she could be all that she is today. Yes! you guessed it I haven't made such a loving opening because of how much I love her ( I do love her greatly) but its because of how terrified of her I am. Don't worry you will come to know what I mean by theses conflicting worlds I drew up for you, trust me you will come to know her today.

She is real cute and real small, she got one packaging that can deceive even the cleverest of people I know. Oh! no! I am not telling this because I am hopelessly in love with her and she apparently in her own words will love me to death, but I am telling you this so close I am to her that I know what she is. I am a happy to be small 5ft 3in guy with a 1.5in heeled Woodland shoe ( By the way me and fried has still not agreed to the exact height of the heel, He claims it to be 2inch and I as always ridiculed it, after all which guy in the right sense wears a shoe 2inches right). But to the point again, she is almost just the same. She is smart, she is cute and she is real small. Oh by the way I forgot one thing she is  a psychopath( Please don't tell her what that means).  

Now that you have come to meet her, Let me tell about her birthday and why this is a wee bit special-er that the rest of the ones we had enjoyed together. Today was one hell of a roller coaster fiasco. No! I did not take her to the amusement park, But she did have her fair of fun and bruises. Let me remind you, you are to read the story of a very special individual and the author of this blog is a very sweet young fellow who is taking for your pleasure a very brave move by writing this article without her permission.But even before I can get into the details of the birthday I have to tell you about one more thing and then I promise we will go straight to the story, no more excuses. 

So the last thing before we begin is about a special ritual practiced by some very primitive people who live in thickly populated concrete jungles under the influence of I don't know what, It is called Birthday bumps. If you have not yet heard of birthday bumps, let me tell you this Oxford dictionary would have to define its as an act of physical torture and extortion practiced by insanely sadistic friends on a persons body on his birthday, in the pretext of loving and caring for that person, when in their minds all they want is actually to beat him up. No apparent date is associated with the origin of this strange cosmopolitan ritual but it would be the same everywhere to both the practioners and the practiced upons. A typical Birthday bumps ritual starts with the cliched cutting of cake and once it is finished cut the ritual starts with the ceremonial application of cake on the birthday boy/girls face and then the viewers set the things in motion by kicking and hitting and do god knows what on the body of this poor chap.

Now! just as promised let me get down to my dear ones birthday, Being a cheeky chocolaty lover, I called her up at midnight and had already placed her gifts in her friends safe hands for giving it to her at the precise time. And by the way this time I let my mom pick up a gift for her and that was highlight of her birthday gift from my side. So as I called up and I wished I was a bit early so through the conversation I could here her friends all sing the birthday song in unison and then she cut the phone and I left for the bed. So that's when the big things happened. I should tell you uptil her birthday it was not a custom in the girls hostel to have birthday bumps but my guess is that there are quite a few people who love just too much. So while I was out this si what happened, they all ritually bet her and took her up by her legs and hands and started swinging her 21 times and I heard they got tired by the time they reached 15 and they stopped soon enough. But here is were the twist is she had a small a change of heart and decided beat all those guys who bet her on the birthday. talk about keeping tabs.

She was on a rampage until some one got the brilliant idea to run and my unyielding girl friend decided not to give up that easily and tailed her. The tailing only ended when my girlfriends was lucky enough to trip on the wet floor before catching her friends and that very friend had to take her back to her room. These thing could get much notice from even her had she not been having a tight pinching sensation on her hands then onwards. But she didn't bother she called me up again on own routine 'got to call before falling asleep' calls and she told me of all her adventures and how she enjoyed her unique birthday and by the way for the record, she did like the cake, even though she practically had to eat out of her face.

And the things went on calmly till I could see her again in the morning in our class, She was beautiful as ever but certainly not 21, she could easily pass as a 12 year old but 21 that's not a easy visualization to be made. She came in with a swollen ankle and a very bad expression of pain in her face. So, anyhow she decided to go see the doctor and I should thank my friend for popping that to her. Anyhow there she was gone again. Now this sis the better part, she went all the way to the doctor with the girl whom she was chasing around yesterday night. The doctor was quite a happy folk or may be was in a very nice mood that he was so happy to see her. Anyhow its not everyday that a birthday girl pops in with two ankles completely swollen like a pumpkin. The couple of hours she spend with doctor was so cool that at the end of the day she managed out with a free treatment, a free x-ray scan and a book signed by him as a birthday gift. He even said that had she managed to do more of some acrobatics, he could be happy to give her a bed in the hospital.

Now that's all that went bad if you do not consider the long lecture hours that we had to endure, five hours in length it was boring, really boring. But then again its her day and her birthday went in as unique as ever. I have got gifts on my birthday, I have got cards but treatment as a gift, she really nailed me to that. Anyhow I wish her a happy birthday and just if she doesn't know I wanted to say I do really love her. So Happy Birthday dear.

Love: A Search for Meanings

Love is still as strange to me as it has always been, in my many pursuits to understand it; I have only succeeded in failing again and again. There was a time that the very search for its meanings made me tangle myself in thoughts, so strange that I myself wonder how I ended up brewing these thoughts in my mind. Strange as it may be, I still search for its meanings, even when it had cost me many a things.

In and out, I went of many relationships. Some were a ship wreck from the very beginning while others just went in through a series of unexplainable and unfortunate events before it could finally settle itself into a sense of awkwardness. But, believe me when I say, ‘ Every one of those relations were a lesson learned’. I should also admit that some lessons were much more than what I could have ever bargained for. The sense of tarnish and humiliation that was inevitable, even when I have done it all to keep it afloat, now that’s a wee bit uncomforting.

I beg pardon from all the ladies that had to read these words, and I do accept that not all the women are of the nature I may be discussing. I would also assure you that I have always thought highly of women, but these are a few that I had to face in my small life. There were quite a few women in my life that had come at me in ways that I myself could have never envisioned. The fact is they had in me vested interested that either I have not seen or have cunningly enough hid from my eyes. I have to say this that second one was of higher probabilities. The way those things turned out were particularly humiliating for me for one simple fact, they were not of my doings.

Those were events good enough to make any reasonable man lose faith in love and I do consider myself a reasonable man indeed. The real thing I had no more trust in anyone any more. All that I loved turned out to be more of a wreck and less of any help. The one factor was common, the one thing I could no longer find in any of romantic relationships were ‘Romance’.

Magic do happen when we are least expecting it and it did itself to me. It took me over a dozen years and a couple dozen relationships before I could see it. There it was in all its glory presenting itself to me, an offering from the gods. May be the heavens had enough of my little whining that they finally decided to show me the way. There was a  new day break and there was this girl nothing special , nothing profound, simple and natural. I will tell you made her special, it was not me and it was not love, There do exist a thing called a good heart and I could see one for the first time. She touched me in a way none has ever had, her touch was not of lust nor licentious, but it was of care and it was of sincerity and guess what I was in love again and I still am.

It would be a lie if I say I have not thought of any other girl since her, but this is true no matter whom I saw and whom I fancied and the end of the day she was the one whom I wanted to go back to. She was the only one whom I would care to care about, other were just beautiful to watch but she was beautiful to live with. And hence here I am happily committed and no longer in futile searches of meanings of this that I now believe are meant not to be understood but to be experienced.

Remembering my Great Grand Mother

There was a picture hung by the wall of by old countryside home, it was a gray scale picture of three young girls and a grandmother. At first I wondered who they would be and I kept until one day when I asked my grandfather who those girls were? He held me up in his arms and pointing to the picture with other hand. He told me that, it was my mother and her sisters. I was so shocked for till then I definitely believed that they were born that way and they will remain so for all eternity. If I recall my grandpa’s version of the story I cried, but mind you, I never accepted his claims what so ever.

Years later I came in terms with my mother and her sister who are so big now being so little then, The thing that still caught my attention every time I  looked at that picture is old lady in the picture with silver hair and a grandeur that was there in her face. Her stance had a stature that I seldom saw in people then and before. By the time I procured all the courage to ask who she was it was then again years later. This time I asked my grandpa who would be by then asked all kind of stupid questions by me, who she was. And He said she was a grandmother and I was confused. I already had one grandmother and extended him the same enquiry with an ‘innocent smile’ (in his words). He smiled and said of course you have but she was my mother grandmother so my great grandmother she was!

From then own I heard a million wonderful stories of her and her life, she was never a stereotype and she was always a person I grew up to respect. I never knew her and she was long gone the time I was born. But still I loved her and I loved the picture of hers. There was definitely something special about her and it was evident in the picture. My mother told me many wonderful memories of her’s. She told me of her times with her grandma and how wonderful a person she was. All these stories I used to create for myself the great grandmother who was truly great for me by them. Great as in life as in day dreams she was.

Born in the dark times to a wealthy aristocratic family, she was never the one for stereotypes. When education and profession eluded women, she showed the courage to step up and break down the barriers. She learned and exceled and then became a teacher, the first one from anywhere in her area. But that was not all, my mother always told me how she used to manage her carrier and the large paddy fields she inherited and all her children all alone. She was the most respected one of her lands and the local folks used to come to her for permission. She loved her men as they loved and respected her back.

My mother used to tell whenever gypsises came to the lands near hers they would come ask her permission before they would go anywhere. This is just one among the many stories I heard of my great grandmother. There is one another story that I always loved. My aunt told me once that whenever they went to hers for the summer breaks she would have by then plucked all the mangos in her plantation and hid it neatly under the hay stacks so that they would be ripe and the three of them would go scavenger hunting for mangoes.

I do wish I was there to witness it all. Bound in these concrete jungles of modern times, these little good times are for memories alone and any one who dares to dream of it as anything else is bound to disappointment as always. Those are the good time that will never be back upon us and they are special people who will be born once and if u missed them then you missed them. There is no going back. Yet I wish that was not true.

When a bird came calling

There is no day such as this that suits the writing of a piece as this. A tribute to her, on her birthday, telling no more than how “I miss u to” her. Our story took a sweet twist recently when out of the blue I got a call from an old from of mine. He called me up and told me she had asked my number and he was going to send it to her. I didn’t hesitate and seized the moment to get cell number and dial her up.

Of all the decisions I made in life that one of those which I will be thankful to myself for a very long time to come. That single day from just another day to the best day in a long time. Now just one month from that wonderful day I am still as happy as I was that day when I called her up. The initial excitement might have worn off but then still I really do have her with me. It is wonderful how life turns around in a couple of moments. People who you believed lost forever, whose memories you tried so hard to bury. Whose funerals you vowed to miss no matter what, just so that memories of past will not be dead weight upon your legs for years to come. Those who you wish never knew so that you would not miss them like this, so that they would not come again and again in your day dreams reminding you what you lost.  And after all this, they still coming walking into your lives killing all those memories you made up and trashing your castle of lies to the lies like a house of cards. They come in as if nothing has ever happened.

But, even when all the above still stand true, I just realized what have I earned. I earned another shot at life, I got what many people never get in their live, I got a second chance. When I her again, when I saw her smile just again, I would feel my heart well up and I had to try it all to avoid it reflecting in my eyes. The moments of awkward silence that followed where not silence as she might have seen, but times of great conflict tried hard to hide. She might have felt it bad that I did not talk at first and found it rather odd on my usually talkative self. All those nights of frivolous preparation that I had of how our meeting will be after all these time. But one thing about all this I really liked, she was what I remembered her to be and wanted her to be. She was herself.

After so many log years, it’s wonderful to have back your friends. People who supported you and encouraged you in each step you took. The people who pushed you off the cliff, because you were you afraid to open you wings and flap it hard. She was the one who made who I am today and it was wonderful to have her back in my life.

Today on her birthday, I would just sit and think of all the time we spend together and all the stupid things we did together and now that she is back in  my life, I have a lot of new stupid things to look forward to. This story just got started; I can feel it in the winds and in the air. We have a million plots to go through before we reach the last chapter.

Happy birthday my dear !

The Story of a Kiss

" The day was dry, moments wary ,

and then there was the kiss.

The sun shone and clouds gone,

and there was the Spring

Butterflies had come, birds sang

and then there was the KISS. "

This is the story of my very first kiss, of how our lips wrote a new story. The very first of our secrets was born that day, when my lips touched the soft skin of her cheek and the next was born when hers made the slightest impression upon my temple. To lock your lips in a frantic desperate kiss may be exciting, but this was exquisite. The kiss was classy, so was her smile, the way her eyes lit up and the faint lines on her face popped up adding the lightest rosy tinge to her pale face. She was beautiful as ever then.

The details are the part of a very precious memory, something that will be remembered no matter how life turns out to be. Those were moments of decision, the moment when you decide is it the one you will live with. I have heard from somewhere that when it comes to love whether you are going to go the length no matter how long it turns out to be is the true test of your love. Kissing is sure the way to find that out, Kissing is not just about passion and tongues getting twisted in a cannibalistic macabre, but it is the like the dew drops settling upon the rose petals even without waking up the little flower.

I do miss the days of these prince princess kisses !

The thing that most specifically appeal striking to me about my first kiss is that it were at a time when we were still more of friends and less of lovers. May be cupid saw his chance then and moved in, as i discovered the most beautiful girl in the world as she cuddled by me. These kisses were more than just kisses, they were exchanges, excahnges of soul and feelings and some mystical bond was strengthening slowly in the deapths of our hearts. We were getting bounded by a bond stronger than anyother, yet so invisible. Thus the kiss had grown and had united us in one

As I sit now and write about it, I can see the events of that wonderful day unfold before my eyes, like a movie being played back. I can savour the scent in the air and the ambience that were set that day. The details sit at the cosiest part of my heast to write about, but one thing can be told. The kiss was magical, too good to be true. The smile that broke after that, striking a curve through her delicate lips and the way her eyes lit up and wetted those were the things for the most precious of my memories. I still remember her face that day like it was just moments ago. Those were time when moments stopped and universe howered. 

True love may meet but once and to have it is one thing but to recognize it when it is right there, in front of you is another. They call it star crossed and we call is 'kismet'. Love is always adorable how it pans out affects anything and everything around you. you see flowers and butterflies you have never seen before, its not that they were not there but you were too narrow to notice. Love widens you up and a kiss can tell you whether you are in the love you want to be in.

Ever since my first kiss and the love of my life ( not the first one ) I have had the most bedazzled life ever. Yes, Mine is still a short time on earth but i belive life is measured not in years but by the life lived. Belive me when I say my last year with her was the best I ever had and it still looks to get better only. One year, It just has been one year but the spark is not gone and it feels like its been ages since in love. Wow! wonderful was what that kiss did to me.

This is the story of my very first kiss and it is not going to end anytime soon. As new stories are wriiten and new character are born I should tell you this. Keep your eyes open wide and heart wider, you never know when your star croosed other choses to pay you a a visit.

Tell me What Love is

                                I have been sitting here long enough. I have seen many a sunrise and many a sunset , I have thought hard and long. Every moment in life flashed before me  and relived every moment I have lived. Carefully caressing every memory of mine. Still then I look up at the sky, I still cant find my answer. Where is the flair and where is the passion. Where is every of those moments in life I have witnessed the sparkle, where are the times I rejoiced in love. The moments of intimacy and where is the endless hours I stared into her golden eyes?

                                I have never married, at least not yet! But I have been committed and I have dreamt many a life for myself. Many a times I have bit to the every last straws to keep those moments from vanishing for ever. Every girl I lost I was convinced she was not mine to be with , but still I never wanted to be the one to give up on it , may be that is not fair , may be I should have told the truth. The truth I was too afraid , too afraid to lose the moments they have given, too afraid in finding a new person for me. What if I find no one else , What if the next is even worse. I have not been fair and then I have not been in love as well. They might just have been relationships of convenience.

                                There were times of magic in life that one remembers life by, and by the grace of god I have many to live with. There were times when every thing under the sun was made of gold and all I could see where flowers and butterflies and gardens and beauty. There were times I thought I knew what love was and there were time I thought I owned love. But for every one of those times love has had surprises form me. May be god did want to empty my hand for the ultimate prize. May be I already have her.

                                The magic in the first touch and the softness of the first kiss that many talk of, I wonder sometimes whether I have found or not. Sometimes its the silence or sometimes its the rain that brings in the love , May be love is not something to always have like the heart beat but may be its something that come and goes like the spring. I have heard poets talk of love and I have read writer write of love, But those are things that are still left for me to experience. 

                                There again I stand by the sea shore, where the waves break open there heart and sweeps away ones sorrow. I can no more run and I can no more hide , I need to know and I know I am entitled for the answer. In whose quest I have been I think already have , but I need to know for sure, What I have now is unlike anything I have ever had , It's surely exceptional . But , is it love , I need to be sure. I need to know what is love.

So she came and So she went : My fist love

                             True Love happens once some say, and some say love is just a discovery and just like any discovery, Its is the product of great persistence. I do fall under the latter school of thought. Some are truly lucky to find themselves getting right on the very first time and some just need to keep trying so hard that they loose themselves from love just before they discover it. I do believe that the discovery of love itself is so great a feeling, especially since in this world when many do die before they get a chance to taste something so pure.

                             When for the very first time, I got the taste of love i was in 8th grade, Being born where I am and being raised how I have been, it was altogether a different world for me. Love may be a breather, but it did suck hell out me, On that day, when the dew drops had hardly settled, the sun so warm, sitting by the cold metal window of the dreary school bus, I saw her. She was exceptional, something so magnificent to my eyes that I have seen none so exquisite and splendid that time slowed around me. My eyes followed her as she entered the bus and disappeared in the crowd. I still remembered how her dark hair flew with wind and how lips curled as the cold wind teased her cheeks and turned them rosy.

              

                             Its just wonderful what love does to you, There certainly is something in it that transcends yourselves and radiates itself to whole world. It will manifest in ways that you may have never imagined yourself. Some write some sing and some paint, they discover themselves in areas that may have once seemed alien for them. That matter set aside, the next few days went by so slow are so fragile, tranquility all around. I almost discovered my love for nature with it, I ended up appreciating all those small things that once I never saw. I enjoyed the sun and the rain alike, everything was so beautiful. Love lets you see things differently.                                                                            

                             Every day I would rush to class sit in my desk and wait for her to walk in, Somehow my friends got the smell of it, but never knew the girl at least not until years later. I could hardly keep my eyes of her did everything possible to escape her gaze, and there i was fairly successful. You may ask why i was so scared in her catching me staring her. I too have no idea why it scared me so much, But of all the things that killed my sleep, this was the top scorer.

                             The end was not a very good one for this beautiful love story of mine, When after two years of desperately losing my mind on her I came up with courage to tell her my state of mind. She simply turned me down, That was so unbelievable when heard and that incident has for the very first time made me think of the words " being heartbroken ". The days that followed were very bad but some where down the lane i caught my reins and sat down to think. The process somehow enabled me to convince myself to let my wounds heal naturally.Those days i felt the prick like no other, What pains does a teen has to bear than that !, Those things that were taken so seriously feels so stupid now.

                             Thinking of those days i feel that the days in love and the days after the heart break both has taught me a lot, like any boy in the part of growing up , the ability to not to lose faith has served well. I will tell you why one should never lose faith, It is very possible that the heartbreak may be just the beginning of something wonderful and if it is so, how can you be sure of being damned even before giving life a chance to make up ? As wonderful as love is so is the small things that are taught by it.

                             

                             The sweet little girl i saw on that wet day is the image of my very first love, and as days and years have gone by, these memories has just got ever the more dearer. Later as I have gone on to find my real love over several years of break ups and patch ups I can only be thankful, for love and all the wonders it brought along.