Thursday, December 9, 2010

Experiment 1: On Changing Your Story

This is not an experiment, well sorta. This is optimism put to test. This is every part of me swearing that I'll try and every part of me wishing it works.

Sometimes love rips you apart. Sometimes love is the only thing hurting. Sometimes you want love so bad, you scare away love. Sometimes love changes you. Sometimes love makes you want more. It makes you cruel. It makes you nauseatingly faithful. Sometimes its more bitter than sweet, but always what you really want.

Sometimes your whole being becomes a paradox. Sometimes you want things, you don't realize you already have. You have the smartest lines and you know you're being foolish. You can own him and then end up doing miserably pathetic things to have him touch your hand when you reach out.

Real love never feels it's going to break, and for that reason, real love will go to any means to make each other suffer. Real love is bad for you. Its so sinful and so self absorbing, you become a void in yourself. Real love defines who you are then, and then on the afternoons your real love hurts, you don't know who you are and what you are around people without it.

Real passionate love is very overconfident. It will play your mind and your heart. Love is like the ghastly drill machine which goes straight to your core and messes you up. Its like a slap across your face and shows you what an extreme person you can become, you self praising kind soul you. Real love terrorizes your mind. When you love so bad, your mind refuses to believe it can end and thats why you're never really scared. You'd be frustrated, you'd be so mad you'll start attacking walls with your fists, but you'll never be scared.

And thats why real love never compromises. Two people in mad passionate love never really make up. You be an ass to him and he'd be just as big an ass to you. That's what happens when you've made up your mind on 'this is the guy I want to annoy the fuck out for the rest of my life'. It's ongoing and its tiring but its never done.

Real love is an entity in itself. Two people in love are like mutually dependent parasites who feed off of each others happiness, energy, aura and sadly, sadness. Real love is a helpless spiral. Upwards and downwards.

Love is funny and love is unreasonable. You have lived twenty five years of your life, not knowing that this one person exists. And then one fine day, from nowhere, one crazy dreamer walks into your life, no different than any other crazy dreamer you've met before. And something about them messes you up. You enter a no exit trance of a one point agenda - of having this person. This one person, who you know in your heart had a one in billion chance of ever meeting you in this life, that one person will start owning you. And you're helpless. You can think you're in control, but you're not, at least not in your own. Not his either, just some strange vision you weave together.

Love hurts. Oh my god, love hurts. Its not a hurt of toppling from the stairs which hurts only physically, scabs and vanishes, leaving behind a funny bar story. Love hurts from inside, its a soul hurt. It aches and its the suffering of not having your senses to work. It makes you mad.

Love also distorts your understanding of language and generally accepted semantics. Few words which are just like any other million words in the world that you've read and spoken and even joked about in the past, those same words turn into monstrous glass splinters who crawl up your eyes and refuse to be ignored. They're the sly vision itching insects which remind you of their presence at all hours. Words hurt. I wish words were more tangible and physical in their appearance. Like a glass vase, on which if I was mad and couldn't stop thinking about, I could break it, throw it out of my house and have my satisfaction of destroying the evidence of its existence. But not words, nope.

Love is not a choice. Love is over powering, over whelming and once you've loved, you wont rest until it feels the exact way it felt that one beautiful taxi ride.

So here I am. Having my love own me and trying to own my love. It needs work and it needs nourishment and its needs a lot of love. And if anything I know about myself, I know I'm full of love. I love love.

I have always believed that only a truly happy person can make another person happy. And "I'm not happy" uh, that's my story. And that is right. It's a story. It's just a story. I've made myself believe it and act it and live it. I reckon, I can make another story preferably more fun, more happy, more beautiful and make myself believe that, live that and act that.

It's really simple actually and I can explain how I got to this. A while back when I used to meditate regularly I used to read a lot (double past tense). Meditation is a lot about breathing and how it dominates your being, right in the centre of your body with just a coming and going of a whiff of a air. Breath overpowers how you feel. And whenever you feel something emotionally or physically, your breath is the first thing to get affected. For example when you're cold, you breath becomes short and narrow and you take lesser air in, and your body wants to occupy as less a space as possible. The theory goes, it can be reversed. When you're in a really cold environment, you must stop yourself, and breathe as calmly as possible, long breaths with enough pauses and your body starts relaxing by yourself. That is how the old Sadhus in the Himalayas can be covered in snow and be as calm as the southern lakes.

And so that is my plan. I'm going to make Happiness come to me. When I'm happy, I eat a lot, I smile a lot, I love interesting facts on TV, I make fun of things and not judge them, I keep in touch with my family, I talk to my friends a lot, I meet my girls, I gossip, I write, I read, I crave tandoori chicken, I dance and sing at the top of my voice, regardless of which house it is and whose party it is, I listen to my music, I watch my movies and I love my theater, I laugh louder and with shameless lustful spite at times, I think less, I'm more easy going, I dress better, I complain lesser, I feel warmer, I'm bitchier (yes, I like it that way) and again, I eat all three meals, sometimes even four.

So now we're working backwards people. I will do everything I do when I am happy and it will come to me. Of course. Cause you know what? There is nothing to be so sad about. Shed. Shed. Shed. Shed. Surrender.

And since none of my best friends live in this city.. are you listening chinky, priya, nidhi, ishaan, shivangi? Damn you all! I'm going to be my own best friend and give one tight slap to myself, and be the sexy bitch that I am and shed this righteous, sacrificing, cutesy girl get up, who likes things clean. I don't give a shit about cleanliness dude.

So back to be the default me, this typified custom model is just not working dude. Not working. Love can be maddening, crazy, tiring, come one, come all, I can take this. Cool as cucumber. Calm. And patient. And happy.

Donning my hippy socks and tune out the world earphones now. Hare Krishna everyone.

17 comments:

Ishaan Ratnam said...

Good to have u back!!!

Divi said...

Nainy Sahani Zindabad!
:)

Namz said...

very interesting! thanks!

Namz said...

Very interesting! good to see u writing once again!

kamaltriloksingh said...

I know you like Kundera, so I will give you something from Slowness by him....

"Metaphors are dangerous. Love begins with a metaphor. Which is to say, love begins at the point when a woman enters her first word into our poetic memory...."

On the record.... Its great to see you out of the being blue zone.... Welcome Back !!!!

Unknown said...

To quote Lynn Hall - "We did not change as we grew older; we just became more clearly ourselves. "

Congratulations on the new 'discovery' of the 'happiness'which was always inside you.

God bless you Ms Sahani.

sunshine said...

Happiness shall come to you when you stop unsolicited 'giving'. Get your due madam n that shall be it.
Remember Karla in Shantaram, who said that love is like a boat in water..you keep throwing off stuff out of the boat just to keep it afloat, n in the end you are left with nothing. Don't let that happen to you n u shall be fine
muah!

Nidhi said...

Love is not a choice......u rock girl...nice piece..brilliant.

Unknown said...

I 'love' it. the best part was about the words and how if they were actual physical things we could break them into pieces and feel better. But unfortunately you cant do anything about them. they just keep playing on your mind like a stupid song heard in the morning.

Hussain Haidry said...

Waah yaar! In the words of Wasim Barelvi: 'Kya kahu, aur kahne ko kya rah gaya' :)

zubin said...

Among other things, Love is overrated.
Awesome post though, loved the last paragraph :).

Sonia said...

Nice post Nainy! I can relate to a lot of things you wrote about, and never thought these weird experiences could be portrayed with such wit and sweetness by a writer some day. Glad to know you've made a decision to stay happy - I definitely believe in the law of attraction. We feel what we attract.

Unknown said...

Ms Nainy Sahani, the only clue I have to who you are. There is a very honest emotion in your piece - Emotional turbulence.
Those were the exact emotions I had few years back. Love is cruel on the edge. It is so because love sometimes takes away one thing from you - Individuality. Love makes you dependent. when it's gone, you have no clue; no way.
My experiment, however, is never to reach that edge.

You write good. I'll wait for your next one.
Cheers!

Unknown said...

@ All

Thank you so much. All heart, no words. Glad you all liked. More smiles. Happiness.

Roy said...

can't remember, last time when I read such a long blog post in one sitting.

thought provoking n' well written!

the entire post becomes just like a quotable quote :-)

will come for more ...

Unknown said...

Thanks Roy! :) Please do.

Namrata Makhija said...

Keep up the good work. I like the way you write. Crystal Clear.