Death

“DEATH”.. period

Just one word, that put a end to a era. All those moments filled with fun and sorrows, victories and losses, moments of trusts and deception.. everything is just halted.

A word that most of the people don’t like. Nobody wants to talk about it. But it is the fact that nobody live forever. There is no guaranteed tomorrow. We all know we are going to die someday but secretly hope, it will be when we have lived enough to see the world, maybe when we are old.

Now why to talk about it, when we know it is bound to happen SOMEDAY?

I believe, if you accept the fact that there is no guaranteed tomorrow you will see a BIG change within.

Two years back I experienced the terrifying moment. A moment that changed my life.. for a period of time.

I was returning from our vacation from Kerala by flight. It was 4pm and a hot sunny day. Air-Hostesses were selling the stuff when there was an announcement -

“Good evening gentlemen, this is your captain speaking. I request you to please be seated and tighten your seat-belts, as we will be experiencing a medium turbulence.”

The lights of seat-belts flashed above and in no time everybody was at seat. I could see, outside the window, the sky darkening. Bright sun was gone and blue sky was soon covered by dark clouds and then there was a big hick-up of the plane. A BIG one, as if you are driving on a smooth express-way and you hit a big pot-hole. Plane was dropped down by couple of feet and soon it became a regular one. I could feel the luggage in above compartments bumping, seats were shaking. Occasionally somebody from the passenger were shouting. I could sense the tensions around. Pilot might have decided to lower the plane to avoid the turbulence and so the plane started going down slowly but steadily.

That was the moment i was literally scared to death. I looked around my wife and my son. My wife already have traveled to Japan and she was used to this. But for me, it was a first-timer. I thought this IS the end. I might not be able to land safely, not able to see all those near ones and dear ones. I felt sorry for those whom i said wrong things couple of days back, to whom i haven’t behaved properly, those to whom i haven’t talked for months or for some .. years because of the reasons, that then seemed foolish to me.

To god’s grace, we landed safely and the moment i got down the plane, i remembered i kissed my wife neglecting the people around staring at me strangely.

That moment changed my life for a period of time. I behaved nicely to everybody. But days passed by and i was back to a human-being

My previous two posts, one related to that book and the other about the Wake-up have shaken me inside out.

My mind is filled with so many things since last couple of days -

Why do i have to say those things to friends and others, which i could have neglected, or avoided?
Why do i have to spend time on computer or in front of television set when my kid is around, playing all alone.
Is more time with him important? or a cricket match of India (which 90% of time we are going to loose)

All sorts of uch things are floating within. I am happy about my decision of not leaving my country for what-so-ever reason. Neither I will suffer nor will let them suffer just for some $$. I want to be with my people, my family, my friends, my culture.

I remembered the face of a person who proudly offered me a job with a tag of immigrating to Canada and i calmly said, “Sorry, i am not interested!”

There is a smile on my face now. I haven’t lost everything. Things can be improved in no time. I am not scared of Death, but i am scared of its consequences of loosing so many good peoples.

I am up from my chair, shut-down the computer, called my son who was busy playing near and said..”Come on kid, we are going down for a cycling. We will have a cycle race and then we will just run around like crazies”.

I see his face brightened, he throws his toys around, jumps into his crocks and ready to have a bash with his dad.

I think I’ll find another way
There’s so much more to know
I guess I’ll die another day
It’s not my time to go
..I’ll die another day.. I’ll die another day

Wake-up!

When I got home that night as my wife served dinner, I held her hand and said, I’ve got something to tell you. She sat down and ate quietly. Again I observed the hurt in her eyes.

Suddenly I didn’t know how to open my mouth. But I had to let her know what I was thinking. I want a divorce. I raised the topic calmly.

She didn’t seem to be annoyed by my words, instead she asked me softly, why?

I avoided her question. This made her angry. She threw away the chopsticks and shouted at me, you are not a man! That night, we didn’t talk to each other. She was weeping. I knew she wanted to find out what had happened to our marriage. But I could hardly give her a satisfactory answer; she had lost my heart to Jane. I didn’t love her anymore. I just pitied her!

With a deep sense of guilt, I drafted a divorce agreement which stated that she could own our house, our car, and 30% stake of my company.

She glanced at it and then tore it into pieces. The woman who had spent ten years of her life with me had become a stranger. I felt sorry for her wasted time, resources and energy but I could not take back what I had said for I loved Jane so dearly. Finally she cried loudly in front of me, which was what I had expected to see. To me her cry was actually a kind of release. The idea of divorce which had obsessed me for several weeks seemed to be firmer and clearer now.

The next day, I came back home very late and found her writing something at the table. I didn’t have supper but went straight to sleep and fell asleep very fast because I was tired after an eventful day with Jane.

When I woke up, she was still there at the table writing. I just did not care so I turned over and was asleep again.

In the morning she presented her divorce conditions: she didn’t want anything from me, but needed a month’s notice before the divorce. She requested that in that one month we both struggle to live as normal a life as possible. Her reasons were simple: our son had his exams in a month’s time and she didn’t want to disrupt him with our broken marriage.

This was agreeable to me. But she had something more, she asked me to recall how I had carried her into out bridal room on our wedding day.

She requested that every day for the month’s duration I carry her out of our bedroom to the front door ever morning. I thought she was going crazy. Just to make our last days together bearable I accepted her odd request.

I told Jane about my wife’s divorce conditions. . She laughed loudly and thought it was absurd. No matter what tricks she applies, she has to face the divorce, she said scornfully.

My wife and I hadn’t had any body contact since my divorce intention was explicitly expressed. So when I carried her out on the first day, we both appeared clumsy. Our son clapped behind us, daddy is holding mommy in his arms. His words brought me a sense of pain. From the bedroom to the sitting room, then to the door, I walked over ten meters with her in my arms. She closed her eyes and said softly; don’t tell our son about the divorce. I nodded, feeling somewhat upset. I put her down outside the door. She went to wait for the bus to work. I drove alone to the office.

On the second day, both of us acted much more easily. She leaned on my chest. I could smell the fragrance of her blouse. I realized that I hadn’t looked at this woman carefully for a long time. I realized she was not young any more. There were fine wrinkles on her face, her hair was graying! Our marriage had taken its toll on her. For a minute I wondered what I had done to her.

On the fourth day, when I lifted her up, I felt a sense of intimacy returning. This was the woman who had given ten years of her life to me.

On the fifth and sixth day, I realized that our sense of intimacy was growing again. I didn’t tell Jane about this. It became easier to carry her as the month slipped by. Perhaps the everyday workout made me stronger.

She was choosing what to wear one morning. She tried on quite a few dresses but could not find a suitable one. Then she sighed, all my dresses have grown bigger. I suddenly realized that she had grown so thin, that was the reason why I could carry her more easily.

Suddenly it hit me… she had buried so much pain and bitterness in her heart. Subconsciously I reached out and touched her head.

Our son came in at the moment and said, Dad, it’s time to carry mom out. To him, seeing his father carrying his mother out had become an essential part of his life. My wife gestured to our son to come closer and hugged him tightly. I turned my face away because I was afraid I might change my mind at this last minute. I then held her in my arms, walking from the bedroom, through the sitting room, to the hallway. Her hand surrounded my neck softly and naturally. I held her body tightly; it was just like our wedding day.

But her much lighter weight made me sad. On the last day, when I held her in my arms I could hardly move a step. Our son had gone to school. I held her tightly and said, I hadn’t noticed that our life lacked intimacy.

I drove to office…. jumped out of the car swiftly without locking the door. I was afraid any delay would make me change my mind…I walked upstairs. Jane opened the door and I said to her, Sorry, Jane, I do not want the divorce anymore.

She looked at me, astonished, and then touched my forehead. Do you have a fever? She said. I moved her hand off my head. Sorry, Jane, I said, I won’t divorce. My marriage life was boring probably because she and I didn’t value the details of our lives, not because we didn’t love each other anymore. Now I realize that since I carried her into my home on our wedding day I am supposed to hold her until death do us apart.

Jane seemed to suddenly wake up. She gave me a loud slap and then slammed the door and burst into tears. I walked downstairs and drove away.

At the floral shop on the way, I ordered a bouquet of flowers for my wife. The salesgirl asked me what to write on the card. I smiled and wrote, I’ll carry you out every morning until death do us apart.

That evening I arrived home, flowers in my hands, a smile on my face, I run up stairs, only to find my wife in the bed – dead. My wife had been fighting CANCER for months and I was so busy with Jane to even notice. She knew that she would die soon and she wanted to save me from the whatever negative reaction from our son, in case we push thru with the divorce.– At least, in the eyes of our son— I’m a loving husband….

The small details of your lives are what really matter in a relationship. It is not the mansion, the car, property, the money in the bank. These create an environment conducive for happiness but cannot give happiness in themselves. So find time to be your spouse’s friend and do those little things for each other that build intimacy. Do have a real happy marriage!

If you don’t share this, nothing will happen to you.

If you do, you just might save a marriage. Many of life’s failures are people who did not realize how close they were to success when they gave up.

A CHRIST-CENTERED MARRIAGE IS A MARRIAGE THAT IS SURE TO LAST A LIFETIME.

So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate. Matthew 19:6.

- By Stephanie Halmilton

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I anyways was speechless since the time i finished the book “I too had love story”. Life is so unpredictable, i remembered murmuring inside, and then today i read this just to realize so many things.

I started re-thinking about my life.. our life. We are so busy with things. Me with the office work and my wife with kids that we haven’t had time for each other since long. A time that can bring smiles for many more years to come. All those fun moments together we had in our college life, seems like history to me.

So many thoughts passed by and i am shaken now, kind of a wake-up call, and i am determined to have a excellent quality time with love of my life, once this project is over and I swear myself, that my wife will be surprised to see this sudden change in me..

Thank you to the author of that book, and thanks to the guy who wrote the above post

I too had a love story

Yesterday Vikrant buzzed me, informing about the novel that he read day before yesterday named “I too had a love story”. He told me the book is so good, that he finished it off in one go.

Frankly speaking, i am not a good reader. But he kept telling me the things in that book and i felt i should at least take a look at the book. Especially when Vikrant is saying, it has to be good, is what i believed.

So accordingly i got my copy and browsed through initial pages.

The book claimed itself as a “Heart-breaking true love story”. What interest me more is that it was a debut book of the author. More to that, the author is not a “author” but a software engineer working for infosys. That made me curious. Well i believed then that the book will be simple, sticking to its princinples. This might not be yet another marketing book which says “National best seller” and then nothing much in that.

“not everyone in this world has the fate to cherish the fullest form of love,some r born just to experience the abbreviation of it“, interesting line printed caught my attention and i started reading the book.

This book is about a love story of a guy “Ravinder Singh” and a girl “Khushi”. They found each other on a matrimonial site. They keep talking on cell, just to find out that they are the perfect match for each other. Love flourishes between them, mostly through cell conversations. They don’t see each other in person for as good as 3+ months.

All this thing, the conversation, the mind-sets, everything is so very romantic. This guy get a chance to see his life-mate just for a day before going to USA for official work. They meet, to find out that they are madly in love with each other.

75% of the book is about the romance and 25% is about the tragedy that separates them.

I was going through all sorts of emotions while reading this book. I was smiling, blushing, laughing, tensed, scared and at the end, very close to sobbing. I don’t recollect a single page where i was bored or have skipped the paragraphs. Even-though the book said “heart-breaking”, i was praying that this story of a ‘Shona’ and ‘Shonimoni’ should turn out to be a “perfect happy ending”, but it didn’t.

Last three or four pages were too much for me. I could not read it, felt like my heart is aching with pain. I wanted to close the book and forget it, yet at the same time, wanted to see what is written in it

Later lying on the bed, i could not sleep. I kept thinking about both of them. I could visualize everything that happened right from the beginning. I was cursing human life. It is such a weired thing. There are thousands of souls who are in pain, waiting for the death, yet they are living like hell. And there are few who have so much from life to come and their destiny took them away.

Death might be the end for the person who is died, but, it is just a beginning for the near and dear ones.

I woke up in the morning, still with the thoughts filled with the couple and the story narrated in the book. I am truly convinced that this is the best book i have ever read.

It was over-cast in the morning with a chilled wind. Travelling on my bike, still thinking about the book, i felt tiny water drops dripping from my eyes. I don’t know if it was because of the windy weather or i am really crying in pain just like the author

Spencer Tunick

Couple of days back, i was watching “Fear Factor” on AXN. First round itself was shocking. All the 6 contestants (3 men and 3 women) were supposed to walk Ramp, one by one..urgh.. NUDE! You do it and you will be in the next round, you don’t and then you are out, kind of situation.

For a “chance” to win a sum of $50,000/- everybody did it. Considering the show to be telecasted on a National TV, it was a gutsy thing to do.

Nudity is no more a BIG DEAL in most of the foreign countries. In my stay in USA, i could see that there are lots of serials telecasted around 10pm, have lots of nudity and sex-scenes and these channels are openly available to mass audience. Nudity is part of their life since then. Even in India, long back i have seen “Nude-News” channel. The reporter starts dropping his/hers cloth after every news.

Nude beaches are no more secret now-a-days. Not sure, if it is also there in other countries, but in Japan they have hot-water swimming pools segmented in small squares and people enjoy that hot bath NUDE.

Ancient indian’s sculptures e.g. Khajuraho also portrays nudity. Lots of painters also have nudity in their pictures as a essence when they try to project beauty. Kumbh Mela, which is a mass Hindu pilgrimage, also hosts lots of Nude “Sadhu Babas” who travel from Himalaya.

For most people, nudity is sexually arousing, whereas some disagree. For those some, Nudity is a art. And one, out of such people is “Spencer Tunick” He is a photographer, and he specializes in clicking photos of group of Nude people. And this group of people is literally in thousands. Malls, Bridges, Offices, terrace of buildings filled with Nude peoples.

When asked to the participants, they said they never felt shy, rather they felt relaxed, free, minds filled with joy and close to nature. Interesting hmm!!

Click here and/or here to know about him and look at his art-work.

I was tempted to use some of the “art-work” for this post, but then last minute, i opted out. If you have to look for more, there are videos on Youtube of such photo shoots. If you google for “Spencer Tunick”, you will get many more of his “Art Work”

Do take a look if you agree Nudity is beauty, provided you are above 18 years of age.

Mean

Thinking loud, How can i be so mean to someone who was and is always been nice to me. Thats not fair on my part. And i am doing this for whom? for someone about whom silently i always have cribbed?? Why can’t we control our mind and the things we speak? Why there is always a term called repent or regret?

What do i do now? There is no such thing called ‘Undo’ in real life but atleast i should take care henceforth. I can’t go and say sorry, because, then that means to say WHAT I DID. Really shame on me. I am such a bad a**. Atleast i am happy that there are still some “secrets” buried deep inside me and i haven’t disclosed them and never will. I can’t be so.. so..umm.. so.. someone to break somebody’s trust.

Anyways, it is never to late. A small pinch and i am awake now. Thank you my brain, my senses, my mind for waking me up, showing me where i am going and what i was doing. I promise, i will take care.

Having said that, just realized, this is my first english post on THIS blog. Why in english??.. well why not? There should not be any barriers to express what one feels.

What readers will think?? That is exactly the reason, i go away from marathiblogs forum. I want my blog independent of anything. I had this feeling that i am writing for others and not for myself and being a ‘Leo’, it hate it. I always want to be in control of, i don’t like being driven away by someone.

This does not mean, henceforth the blog will be in english, i think it will be in both. More in marathi, though it still will have some essence of english as well. A plot of a criminal story is lingering inside.. hope to put it in a framework and a next criminal story should be out soon