“Ooooh my God! That’s so cool Monsoon! I mean… that is PSYCHO! But it’s so cool! I just can’t get over it! Not that I’m in lack of compassion for you right now, but just how did you do it man? It’s like one of those challenging scenes for the actresses. Laughing laughing laughing… and then, suddenly break into crying! WOW! Tell me how DID you do it… I’m fascinated!”
And I was back to laughing :-)
“I love you”
“I love you too”
“And I want us to be committed now”
“So do I”
“Only, I have a few conditions”
“I have a condition too”
“Only one?”
“Only one”
“What is it?”
“That we will not lay down any conditions on our love”
~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~0~
“I love you”
“I love you too”
“And I want us to be committed now”
“I do too. But… don’t you have any conditions?”
“I love you unconditionally”
“But I have a condition”
“You do?”
“I do”
“What is it?”
“That you will never say that you love me UNCONDITIONALLY. Just say that you love me”
~ when the guy you shared the hostel room with (for 2 years) – the guy who also happens to be your best friend – finds it necessary to tell you, “You can’t go out wearing THAT! The neck is too damn low!”
~ when the random guy in the bus who, one year ago, would have trod upon you to find his way in the crazy chaos, bows most courteously; and just when you’re wondering if he’s upto ‘something’, you realize that he’s only lifting your bag to place it on the bag carrier.
~ to see that exceptional look of disbelief on the visage of a man who is known to have seen the world, been-there-done-that; and just as you notice him stealing a furtive glance at you, to realize that he hadn’t after all, seen it all… that you’re a new Wonder to him!
~ to get to know that your friend’s girlfriend who had been so fond of you, now gets worked up whenever he talks to her about you.
~ when your mother asks you to not show up in the drawing room, in front of the guests who’re in
~ when an old flame, which is still dying hard, tells you that he has checked your latest orkut pictures a zillion times… because well… “you look pretty”! [Ha ha ha]
~ when a girl you’ve been introduced to, just an hour ago, drives you to the restroom desperately and asks you to check for her if ‘it is all fine’, and you’re trying hard to NOT make a mistake in checking.
~ when a forgotten acquaintance turns up from nowhere, straining hard as he looks at you, and when out of a desire to make him comfortable, you smile a recognition, he exclaims, “Are you not Summer? But then… Summer was not a girl!”
~ that the interiors of your house are just as they always were, that the locality hasn’t changed either, yet the new paint outside has brought out a new shade in every other house in the locality.
He must be half my height!
Alright, exaggeration!
Correction: He must be a little more than half my height.
Age: No more than 23 years would be my guess.
A calm in his eyes turns his otherwise seemingly ordinary face into a captivating sight.
His bright orange shirt tends to make him look darker than he actually is.
And something about the whole air around him tends to make him (much) taller than he actually is.
As I sat alone at McDonald’s today, waiting for my friend R and his friend D, I thought there were a couple of pairs of eyes which kept screening me from time to time (for whatever reasons). That got confirmed when R & D entered, and I waved at R. The curious couples of pairs of eyes turned most apparently in their direction to know who the awaited was. And no sooner had they seen the 2 guys that their faces registered a most obvious expression of amusement.
I happen to be taller than R and D. They’re the kind of guys who have a boy-like quality about them as against man-like (this quality also includes as one of its facets, what they must be doing as they read this – Hating it!). And I’m the kind of girl who has a woman-like quality about her however much she might try to be girl-like. [Quick EFT: Even though I seem like a mature woman, I choose to feel like a young girl ;-)]
McDonald’s was apparently not the best of places for the kind of conversation I’d have liked to have with D. R, showing as much brightness as D’s orange shirt, pointed this out and consequently, drove us to a more peaceful and spacious place, albeit a bit far.
And so, in between crunchy bites of Aloo Tikki Chat and fishing for the Chilli Cauliflower in the pool of onion and tomato dressing, I got to catch small pieces from D’s rather unusual trip on his life journey. His story could actually be straight out of a movie, just that nobody would make that movie in India, for it would challenge every milligram of ‘our culture and sensibility’ right from ‘masses’ to ‘classes’.
The boyish D is a married man. His sweetheart of eight years is now his lawfully wedded wife. And their love seems nowhere near the fizzle-out phase. Their cell phones are their lifelines. And they, clearly, are each other’s lives.
The twist, however, is that D and his wife, even though they’re in the same city, don’t live together. Her family is not aware that she is married. His family is, but they couldn’t care less about anything to do with him anymore. He doesn’t live with them either.
Her family, when they had discovered about their relationship a few years ago, had been scandalized, and she had been barred from keeping in touch with him. They still live under a happy misconception that she has no contact with him whatsoever – he, who is actually now her husband.
6 days from now… they’re going to celebrate their first anniversary. D has been thinking the time to be ripe for the indispensable revelation to her family. I don’t notice a frown on his face as he says or thinks about it. However, I can feel deep burrows on my own forehead.
Aren’t you scared? – I ask him. There are countless instances of couples being made to go through hell for going against their family’s wishes. Sometimes even killed. (Touch wood). D’s is anyway such an unusual affair. Why can’t I see fear on his face? He brushes away the question as he bites into a cauliflower – “Whatever has to happen will happen. What’s the point in being scared? We’ll see what happens”.
At that instant, I ask myself – Is this guy a fool? Or is he too carefree? Shouldn’t he at least be scared for the girl he loves? What if some trouble falls upon her? I can’t stop myself from asking him this last question. And his expression changes instantly.
“Of course I worry for her. But then, is there an alternative except facing it? And if we have to do that anyway, what’s the point in being worried endlessly about it now? We’ll die when it’s written for us to die. And there’ll be no changing that”.
It is now that I notice his eyes. Besides the peace that pervades his entire persona, there is an unmistakable reflection in them of something that can only be – Courage. His whole story is that of courage. He hasn’t had it easy in life. A number countable on fingers, in the name of ‘family’; and that too, just for the name’s sake. Decades of being trapped, of being hopeless. Mountainous days still lying ahead of him. And despite all that (or maybe because of it), he is the bravest person sitting on this table right now.
Not only because it must have taken him an immense amount of strength to live for years and years in a body that was not even his own.
Not only because he would have had to endure countless days of being taunted and laughed at for being a tomboy.
Not only because he chose his own body last year with nobody in the world except his now-wife waiting for the news from the operation theatre.
Not only because he has the courage to take head-on whatever comes his way on this path of love, even though he might not have the physical strength for it.
But most above all, because he has fought with and won over the demons that lived inside him… something that most ordinary inhabitants of this planet struggle to do until their last breath.
I salute you, D. And even though I haven’t met her, I salute your wife.
Late last night, as I sat doing the usual… G-talking with "My First Visitor", I blurted something that has been playing my irritant ever since. Something to the effect of –
When we finally meet, you’ll be glad we remained “just friends”.
I was immediately snubbed by this somebody who could only have been a true friend.
What if I said you’re better off without seeing me or meeting me? How would you feel?
And that was the second when it hit me like a bullet. I realized that I would have probably run away from such a person. Who wants to know somebody that has no sense of self-worth? And even if I had stuck around, it would perhaps be more out of pity than willingness.
As the dismay of cutting out such a sorry figure gave way to some deep thinking through yesterday night and today, I’m finding myself face to face with perhaps the biggest reality of my existence.
I’ve always always tried to make up for my internal demons with external laurels.
I’ve always tried to find happiness in the world outside me… thinking that if this or that were to happen to me, then I’d be happy for good. Clearly, it hasn’t worked. Because despite the most extraordinary changes in my external world, my insides are still waiting for their dawn. Only now, the hope of a ray has got tied around a new pillar of expectation from the universe… yet again.
Somewhere along the hours of self-analysis, I vaguely remembered a term that has now found its way to the title of this post. EFT. I didn’t know what it meant. I just had a hazy memory that during my visits to a psychologist 2 years ago (in pursuit of happiness!), I had been advised to start using EFT on myself. “It can work wonders”, she had said, “and I just know that you would not find any way until you work upon yourself with EFT”. For various reasons, I had discontinued those visits, the major one being a belief that once I had achieved this bodily change I had been pining for, all would be sorted – without AND within. EFT or no EFT.
So, 2 years from then, today, I typed into Google Search – E F T, and discovered that it expands to – Emotional Freedom Technique – a therapy that involves two important things. Specific Acupuncture points on one’s body which are to be tapped with one’s finger tips. And an Affirmation statement, which has to be spoken aloud as one does this tapping.
Honestly, it looks quite silly to start with. And I now remembered that I had written it off as silly even 2 years back. But today, somehow, I am ready to have faith… What got me hooked was the fact that EFT is supposed to be self-healing; and it’s about healing self.
The Acupuncture points are technicalities (that is not to say that they’re not significant). The Affirmation, on the other hand, involves the creative writing of a statement through which one acknowledges one’s flaws in the first phrase, and then, goes on to announce self-love despite all those flaws, in the concluding phrase. The ‘flaw’ doesn’t need to fall under any defined brackets. It could range from a physical ailment to a psychological stress to even issues of weight. The idea is to basically work on a person’s self-image and ingrain self-love in them.
An example would be: Even though I think I’m fat and ugly, I choose to deeply and completely love and accept myself (or… I choose to feel beautiful and loved).
The technique is supposed to aid in discovering and tackling the deep dark issues that lie buried in the roots of these superficial problems. It forms a way to unravel these layers one by one, and eventually helps one love and accept oneself despite every ‘shortcoming’.
No. I’m not an ambassador of EFT. At least not just yet. But in the coming few days, weeks, or maybe, months, I’ll keep updating this space with my experiences through this seemingly remarkable therapy.
EFT: Day 1
Yes, I gave it a try today. The first statement I felt I needed was this:
Even though I feel EFT will not be able to help me without a therapist, I choose to help EFT work on me.
Actually, I feared that all my attempts might be in vain without a professional EFT therapist around. And interestingly, this first round did help me allay those concerns to some extent. [I was quite loud and passionate as I spoke that sentence]
As I tried to form the next Affirmation in my mind, the words started to prick my eyes. I couldn’t believe that I was hurting already…
To acknowledge pain and the source of it is a huge step towards inner peace. EFT experts claim that the therapy is all about accepting yourself as a whole, the pain, the bruises all included.
I don’t know what the tears meant, and I won’t let my mind run to conclusions, lest I should end up speaking too soon.
But yeah, the name sounds just right to me – Emotional Freedom! I think that’s one wish we must all add to the list of wishes we send out on birthdays, anniversaries and all those happy day celebrations!
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