Random Musings- Letting go!

The past always has its way of creeping back to our present. Try as we might, we find it difficult to cut the past off and commence life in the present. I guess a part of us is left behind in the past and it just refuses to let go… It clings on to the past, making it difficult to adapt to the present. I guess thats how most of us are, we crib about the present, glorify the past and fear the future…

I think at some level, the past never ends… it just continues in a parallel space-time continuum… its stays exactly where and how you left it… And when past and your present intersect, the past takes over… It is as if the present never existed… It appears as though there never was a break…

This failure to give up the past and this itch to continue to live in the past and let go probably manifests in our behavior… I guess that is what people mean when they talk of baggage… Our experiences shape our views and we continue to cling desperately to those views even if the evidence overwhelmingly points towards something else… I guess we end up stepping on other people's toes… We forget that time changes everything, even though outwardly everything remains the same… What you felt was right at one point of time, need not necessarily be agreeable to someone else at the same place… And probably, it isn't even your place to say it… But you can't hold back now, Can you?

We must leave behind the people, the place, the setting and everything else…They are all ephemeral... The only thing we must carry and cherish are the memories… 

April Fools!

Remember the other day, I was cribbing about how my gharwallahs are itching to get me "settled" and get done with "their" responsibility! Well,this shaadi topic had been going on for way too long and I had mostly been at the receiving end of all discussions around the topic… So, I decided to strike and take revenge as and when the opportunity presented itself… And what better day to embarrass my tormentors than 1st April… and so that is what I did!

I called up a cousin of mine, who is very active on the "Aashay ki Shaadi karvao front" and told her that I wanted to discuss some serious matter with her… I told her that I had a serious "affair" going on with a Tamil female since college days and that now things had suddenly begun to go haywire as her parents were putting pressure on her to get married and close the chapter (Classic story innit?)… I told my cousin that I needed time and that what was the hurry anyways… She asked me the name… I improvised… JayantHi (yep the 'H' makes it Tam)… She asked me the surname, in a mater of nanoseconds, I ran down the list of my Tam friends who have surnames (there aren't many I tell you!!!), and settled down on Iyer… She asked me, where is the girl from… I told her Chennai (couldn't think of any other place)… she asked where was the girl based out of currently… I answered with the planned response… 'she works in PwC at Kolkata' (as advised by a friend with whom I had gone over the plan once)…But then when she asked where are her parents based out of, I realized that her list of questions would be endless and that I would run out of improvisations sooner rather than later…. So, I stopped her then and there and asked for her advice… For 10 minutes, as she rattled off advice after advice… the need to plan ahead… the need to inform my parents and the need to keep the whole damn thing a secret... I could barely stifle my laughter…. the need to sound believable meant that I frequently ran out of breath and had to keep the phone at a distance to be able to release that suppressed giggle…

I hung up after around 10 minutes of chit-chat… I thanked her from the bottom of my heart and told her that I would keep her posted… I then proceeded to call up my other cousins and tell them of the killer April Fool for the day… We had a good round of laughs at the expense of my poor, concerned cousin, who I realized later had lost her appetite and nap because of the bomb that I had dropped on her…

Hours after the conversation, when I realized that my cousin had still not figured the whole thing out, I dropped in an innocuous little message "Aaj date kya hai"… And then came her phone call, accompanied with a flurry of choicest vegetarian marathi abuses…. I guess she felt 'used' and 'cheated'… She got even more worked up when I told her that I had shared her advice with the rest of the family!… At the end of it all, there was good round of laughter and a well spent April Fools day!

All in good jest!