the look.

she answered the phone. i had called the pizza place to order a pickup.
i had sensed her roughness on the phone itself. could only have been her.
when i reached the restaurant, i was confirmed. not that i was surprised.
i thought it must be her on the phone. not that i remembered her face, but i knew it was her.
and there she was. with her expertly sculpted beautiful face. the face wearing the look that was.

while the other waiter served me and i paid, i gave her the best of my....ignorance.
i thought as i headed out, what, if at all, i'd say to her should she come out from behind the counter.
"i have a question", i'd say.
"i don't have an answer", she'd say.
"you most certainly do", i'd say.
and before she'd have any chance to respond: "what bothers you?", i'd say.
"nothing", she'd say.
"that look on your face", i'd say.
"what about it?", she'd say.
"what is it that might be on a woman's mind when she wears that look you wear?", i'd say.
"i don't know, why do you ask?", she'd say.
"because i had a friend and she puzzled me with a similar kind of look", i'd lie.
"i don't know", she'd say. like i was expecting her to say anything at all.

"does it mean that i'm pissed off bad, stay off me?"
"does it mean i'm not in the mood?"
"does it mean something more specific, like, i really love guys who order a personal size pizza with two toppings?"
and she'd laugh.
"or does it mean something even more specific, like, the guys who order a personal size pizza with two toppings, can't be served by the hottest waiters in the restaurant?"
and she'd laugh again.
and look at me with that look of hers.

the look that she gave me now. as i finished my pizza and walked over in front of the counter across from her.
the look that she gave me now. as i walked out the door and left.
the look that she gave me now. before i could ask any of those things that were.

Taken.

On this random day and exploring at random I was,
   In this random and endless space of people I was.
I find her, with a speck of fortune, that's you my lady,
   And oh did I get taken, and 'twas you who took my breath away my lady.

I wondered what it was about you, inclined to analyze as is this weird mind of mine,
   Was it they those heavenly eyes that had me mesmerized?
Or was it your lovely hair the color of wine that run down your skin that shined?
   Or was it your pretty lips that glistened as do dew drops on leaves on a moist morning?

They say, well, that the beholder's eyes is where lies beauty,
   And yes I agree with 'em, with my smitten heart I do.
And although beauty is common, yet this beauty of yours is unique my lady,
   Unique as is that of her...the Mona Lisa and her smile my lady.

From exile, with love...

And in these very dark days that pass me by,
although miles there be uncounted that do us deny;
there is yet something, some spark, some magic untold,
that makes me feel you right here in my hold;

'cause those words you say are not that, just words,
they my darling bring our souls together, our world;
it was passion, it was kisses, it was our bodies back then,
it is words, beautiful words, that manifest the same love just yet.

So let the magic transcend those miles,
and let the power connect us in our exiles;
and the darkness shall lift, and the miles shall be fathomed,
one day my love, that day is certain to come.
□□□

About soul mates

Someone just said “I don’t believe in soul mates.” A thought ran down in me. Do I? I think I do. Come to think of it, what a pity someone can’t. You could extend it and connect it with the ability to fall in love, and how much does one know about oneself.

Let me put it this way. The claims that we often make while still in our “single status” about incompatibilities that two people have – and then tout it as the element that will prevent two people from coming together in total heart-to-heart connection, points to an overestimation of our knowledge about the self. When I happen to find the woman I’d like to spend the rest of my life with, I’d really like to have her as my soul-mate. I’d like to connect with her at deep levels. And if that calls for “changing” myself a bit to endear myself even more to her, then how do I know if I won’t mind doing it? Having never actually been in a long-term relationship, how do I know I might not respond in surprising ways when I go for it? Because simply put, without having an actual experience, I have no basis to make claims like “this is how it’s going to be” or that “there’s going to be differences”. Because when I happen to fall in love, it might just be that connecting with the person with uninhibited closeness will turn out far more important to me than differences in personalities – which then I might not even like to think as “differences” any longer, and that reconciling them might not even require any real effort.

The line of thinking is quite simple, but not simplistic. The point to realize is that the * desire * to connect with someone itself has great value – and underestimating it is what causes a misdirected thinking as the one mentioned above. Like it’s said, love can conquer all ^_^

Don't Think...Just Do It!

when we are doing some activity, typically there are two parts to it at the psychological level. the first is the actual activity itself, while the second is the mental activity representing the awareness one has of the former.

just to expand on the latter, it's a kind of meta-activity. when engaged in any activity, we experience, to different extents, certain consciousness of what we are doing. it may include thought patterns like why am i doing this, how am i doing this, how good am i working on the task, that people around me are observing me, what they would be thinking about my behavior, whether i should be working on the present activity in a different way, how much time has elapsed, and so on.

i have come to make an important observation with regards to the activity and meta-activity. it strikes to me as so important that i couldn't help but write it down to identify it clearly - to remind and reinforce it to myself later, to share it with readers, and to seek reaffirmation, clarification and further insight from the more learned. moreover, i guess it's really nothing new - for the experienced and high performers it might just be common wisdom. nevertheless, it's the following.

we maximize our "performance" on an activity if and when we are able to completely eliminate the meta-activity component, and focus our entire energy on the activity itself.

i personally have had feelings about the above on countless occasions, since i have this particular personality trait of analyzing stuff and oneself continually, occasionally to the extent that it starts to interfere with the main activity. to this extent, it clearly is an undesirable thing. and i'm pretty sure that i'm hardly unique in exhibiting this trait - every individual experiences it, to varying extents, at different times. the above observation hit me yesterday while i was at a game of sport. and with profound clarity. after much rounds of unimpressive performance, i observed that i might just be engaging too much of mental bandwidth on "how i am playing". that very instant, following my instinct, i cut out the meta-activity part, immediately switching over to simply playing the game, and forgetting about everything else. and you guessed it right, i was playing dramatically better.

the idea is to literally get lost in what you are doing, to get engrossed in the activity so completely that everything else is just shut out of the mind. i guess this must be, at least in part, what they call "zen" in the buddhist literature. it's like literally loosing consciousness of the self while working at something. well, i guess it's time for me to read some stuff on Zen Buddhism :) ^_^

a self-inflicted April's fool

...and at a random day like today, some stupid randomness manifested itself as a random thought inside my random mind when i was struggling to stay asleep till late in the morning, and gave me the weird impression that it's a monday morning, and i'm alarmingly late for my class...

...and against an overpowering desire to continue in hibernation, throwing out of bed my poor a** broken from a game of table tennis the day before, getting up and ready at record time of under 30 minutes, rushing all the way to my department, and reaching the classroom bang on time, i was (unpleasantly) surprised to find a bit too low an attendance, too low even for the lights to be on, too low even for the security guys to have opened the doors...too low even for the random assumption that it's a monday morning at all...too low for me not to realize that it's after all, still a lousy sunday...

...so a big disgusted thanks to nature and it's randomness who have had their nice way of wishing me April's fool on this 1st morning of April...and thanks for making me wish i could cry on the unbelievable stupidity i exemplified the first thing in morning...and then end up opening these blasted set of websites and search through random messages and write random blogs like this...

straight from the heart...

Let me please present here THE sher that "someone" i just "came across", made me compose; the reason to share the sher being, that a hopelessly romantic heart, having just composed a literary piece of such genuine spontaneity, understandably finds it simply impossible not to let it out, the tragedy being, that even before the romantic soul had a chance to profess the unprofessed, that even before the poet had a chance to express his poetry, the object of the poetry seemed, by some mystical tragedy, to just vanish into thin air, leaving the poet in a hopelessly melancholic state of depression that he and only he would ever knoweth and ain't noone ever doeth nothin' about...

...arz kiya hai:-

♥ kya tha woh in aankhon ka noor ya phir thi koi in zulfon mein baat...,

♥ ke dekha jo humne ek baar, to kahe dil ki dekhein ek aur baar...,

♥ aur koshish to ki humne zaraa samjhaayen is dil ko mudh kar...,

♥ mudhe hum jo lekin to dekha ke reh diya ye dil to aapke paas...!

^_^