Bla(n)ck Hearts

The New cOlOr of heart is Black

With the new upgraded version of android, the androiders can now send a heart smiley (<3) in text messages and also can jump & show off about it. I just received one! And this little Black-heart icon takes me to yet another connect of the technology with relationships. Technology with relationships-what shit she is talking about? But yes,  I am talking about relationships with technology- how technology effects, influences and evolves any relationship.

Black & Blank Hearts http://bit.ly/QRtbhz

Communication is the mother to any damn relationship on this earth. As a famous tag line says -“Baat hogi tabhi to baat banegi” (when talking will happen then only something beyond might happen). In simple flowchart language- we talk>>know each other>>like/dislike>>result: Relationship (no matter what kind of). With all the state-of-the-art techniques and facilities of communication available, we often start taking people and their availability for granted assuming they are just a call away but in the process we tend to pile up  a huge heap of such taken-for-granted-pending calls that ‘they’ don’t remain anymore just a call away. They just drift Far Away!

We tech-savvy and so called new age people wonder how would it have been in black & white times , writing letters and then waiting for not less than 15 days for its reply; these days when I receive even a mail, I first go to ‘sent items’ to understand the context of the reply received. In even blacker and whiter times (ancient for that matter), the kings stayed away from home for decades in order to fight for his region and still returned back to find his wife waiting for him with all the love in her eyes; these days people go through a literal brain-wash if they are away even for a month and break up is the understood following route.

Our lives these days are very restless, changing places, positions and people frequently! We say “BYE(s)” very often now and add a “Stay Connected” to it as an understated suffix. But we don’t realize, when those byes convert into Goodbyes, forget connect we even loose contacts, and then when no one is left, we read/write such articles!

The original color of heart is supposedly Red which means a symbol of love, affection and warmth. In Black & white times, it must be actually red, when people really remain connected not by texts or calls or comments or likes but by hearts and thoughts! Now that everything else has become so colorful, the heart has taken a back seat! People love (or at least pretend to) till they see each other; brain works as the second heart and insensitiveness is named being practical.

Now I understand why android developers have kept the color of their Heart smiley- Black!

Off (the) Fence: Offence

Fences are installed to make sure nobody else intrudes in your territory, whether its land or relationships-enclosures are everywhere! The only way they differ is their appearance. The way they are imposed may only vary and what can remain constant is their presence.

Take any example of life and you will find the Fences there! A child is born and there are fences telling him what is right what is wrong, whom to play with whom not to play with; a girl goes out on a scholarship, there are fences prescribing whom to talk with, whom not to interact with; a new life when you start your career, fences of what to hide, what not to act!

All the relationships have fences too! There are standard benchmarks as per which the commitment towards a relationship is judged. Protectiveness and possessiveness are important ingredients of a bond but distrust is a separate phenomenon. Where acceptance and communication should stand first on approach, instead there are Fences-of delusion and disgust, and the moment you cross them it becomes the Offence!

Fences are no ‘new-world’ occurrence, they were always there! The great epic Ramayana could take birth only because of a fence that was crossed out of innocence and a decision taken by heart. So what if even after Agni Pariksha, the savior was rejected by the lady, the epic was written and the Fence is still debated upon!

Fences are meant to protect, not to uproot things with their sharp edges. Fences should define but not re-define the shapes! Fences can describe my territory to others but shouldn’t tell me what my territory is! It’s sad to say that fences don’t define my area of freedom; they cut into the margins of others and suddenly uproot me of my ownership! Here I cross the fence and it becomes Offence! Rhyming but bitter truth.

So if at all you were to define the boundaries, try to control the fences first. Implant them only when you are sure you are not intruding in other’s space. And even if you find them a little twisted, little distorted, don’t leave the land, and shift the fence a little! May be there is no need of going OFF the fence then and within the fence, there would be no offence!! 

Crossing Roads

Crossing roads has always been a Big deal! The traffic on both the sides, the thousand permutations and combinations to be applied in mind at once, taking the decision to actually walk the grey ramp with all the iron men coming from everywhere to raid you!

Friends were the people who had always made it easy for me. Holding (even grabbing at times) my hands, pushing me gently (at times almost dragging in speed) and taking me to that other end, the safer one! In fact whoever seemed concerned about me crossing the road was instantly added to the Friend list and the nostalgias further.

The Road Ahead 

Then, everything changed; friends flew away-work, jobs, families, lives. But the roads didn’t! They stayed where they were, dusty in sun, glossy in rains but still swarming with iron men, making sure I never dare to walk on them alone.

Now as a universally realized fact, there are many last-option-moments in life! I had to cross those roads, walking back from work, going to shopping, anytime and every time.

Commutation never stops neither in daily life nor in relationships. It ‘has’ to go on! But there is at least one option always hidden under the last option.

To my rescue there were Zebra lines on roads which legally meant that people crossing roads by zebra walkway will be less prone to accidental deaths. There was a faint one, the white almost married to grey of road but I could still find the patches of its bachelorhood and therefore relied on it for crossing the road with safety at least psychologically.

One day, rains happen! The road otherwise looks lustrous, the grey concrete shines today and the smell of soil makes everything hypnotic. I hastily keep walking in the wrong side and come to the Zebra spot and to my worst imagination, its nowhere! The marriage had succumbed the white line and all of it becomes grey, a dark blackish-grey! My last option also dissolves along with the dissolution of the white line! And I have No hope now, not even any hidden one in the last option!!

So, I look at my left, then to my right, mentally analyzing all the practical implications and the consequences that would follow. I again look at left, confirming & reassuring myself at the mental preparation, take  my right step out, out in the surface where it has always been more about hands than mind, and I ,Run..............!!!

A 'moment' Changes Everything

A decade long bond, which went through many roads, passed through many facades and escapades, fakings and confessions and still stands upright, structured  and re structured again and again. A relationship which passes the tests of time-trust-quarrels-admittance becomes the way the two of them are, towards each other, towards themselves.

There are long pages of a few important people in your life diary and you know this notepad is not spiral bound. Pages are not meant to be torn and flushed away, you like it or not, they will still be there, always and forever. They might fade a little but then comes a moment, when you go past ‘that’ page, revisit it and ‘that’ one moment changes everything. Everything here implies anything. Either you still have vision ahead for that page in your life or you just flip it over it, but if at all you do stop over that page for more than 2 minutes, be sure you have something still left to be read out loud from it.

These pages are the people rather the person(s), the souls that have mattered for so long in your lives, that seemed to be on top of all the priorities at one point of time in your life, so what if you don’t really text them every now and then today, you still have that feeling of ‘i-want-to-know’ how they are wherever they are. And these souls are not just the special some ones but also the Friends-the besties who always fought but still remained together; the people who could never fit into either of the categories –friends or specials but found a mid way for their own self, these guys are like the bookmarks in the life diary, so that to remind yourself on which page you were, they are the first thing you see.

Grammy-nominated artist David Gray’s “A moment changes everything” celebrates how a single moment between two people has the power to change everything about their relationship—a moment that takes their relationship to an elevated level.

So coming back to the moment when you somehow land on that page of your life, I say. Stick to it. That will be the moment that can decide what you will do ahead. I could have been fighting with my bestie all my life, getting irritated at small silly stuff but it might happen , that one blue day, when I am totally out of my nerves and would like to take a walk on a beach, the only person I could think of would be her .This one moment has changed  everything about her for me!

We just need to have ‘that one moment’ in our relationships-friendships and fights, to change it forever and for good. And when it comes, you just need to sense –this is it-the moment!