Posts

Showing posts from 2015

A Prayer of the Flying Fox

Image
Dear You, I bet the cemeteries heard more honest confessions than any court, Airports have seen more love than any wedding and Hospitals have heard most sincere prayers than any place of worship. Because regret is stronger than gratefulness, so loss is felt stronger than gains.  Be it a friend who left us for an absurd reason, Love that is faded over time or a loved one who departed too soon. We hold on to them like a tight rope that’s going to stop us from falling free. “ Ok now you move forward and slide down whenever ready ” my instructor told me for the third time. I was sitting on edge of a platform of (what I suppose) 200 meter tall tower. I had my safety jacket on, and it’s attached to the pulley of an overhead cable that was connected from the tower to a lower point. This is what I signed up for, in my recent trip to Bintan in Indonesia.  The idea is to freefall from the platform and slide to the lower point which is popularly known as “Flying fox”. The instructor aga

Why cut roses still blooms

Image
One of the earliest memories I had of my dad is sleeping next to him on the terrace during summer nights. We slept in the open air with just a mat and mom’s old sari was our bed sheet. My brother and I had our own spots in the nooks of his shoulder which we never traded, mine was always on his right. Mostly he wrapped his arms around us and tapped gently on the shoulder. If the story gets interesting he made hand gestures in the air, drawing pictures with vast dark sky as background.  We would watch his dancing hands that moved in rhythm bringing each words to life. Sometimes it appeared as if he was strong enough to gather a handful of twinkling stars and release them back into the sky. This golden period with my dad ended sooner than I wanted it to be. As I grew up, we grew apart. He hardly took part in family responsibilities. It was always my mom who deliberated from the little things to major decisions in our lives.  She soon became my model, the wonder women who carried the

Happy Meals & Flowers from Tembusu tree

Image
In the city where meals are happier than people who have it, no one has time to live in the moment. We even press ‘close’ button in the lift several times hoping it would close faster. We hold our breath in weekdays and breathe out during weekends. We constantly long for long weekends. While we like living in this city, we love escaping it during long weekends.  Perhaps we believe our work is our purpose, and holiday is a form of reward. But if you were to take two week holiday with no new city to visit or agenda to attend to, you would go crazy. That was exactly my mindset when I had a surgery recently. My gallbladder was removed and I had to rest for couple of weeks. My activity for the day were eat, sleep, pee and a short walk around the block.  First few days flew as I concentrated on finding the best position to sleep, and enjoying the attention from others.  And then there was my mom. After the operation I couldn't take the pain and I wept on her shoulder, and