Watching life go by...

The forties is a dangerous age. An age, where you are forced to take your place in the audience knowing that you would never join the ones on the stage under the limelight, though everything in your being cries to be there, shining away. Yet, one's fate under the stars is to reconcile oneself to being just the audience, to comprehend one's place in the grand drama, to stifle childhood dreams, watching others shine on, watch and admire peers who made it, and your children who will. One struggles, never relating to being just the audience, relegated to the role of the spectator and sits there desperately trying to kill the creator within. And, there are others content to finally be in the audience, the pressure to be on the stage as participants finally lifted so that they can sink back into anonymity, the attention on them switched off so they can enjoy the sheer content of just being a keen commentator of those who shine. And so we age, and so we age...

Srividya Srinivasan 13/01/2016

Little bits of Floating thoughts ...as I catch them

Sometimes, you have to wander very far, fully lose your sense of bearings to long to go back home' - SS [9/1/2016]


There is nothing sadder than realising that home is a person and that the door is permanently shut for you. - SS [ 9/1/2016]

In a relationship, it is not what you ask and receive that delights. It is receiving what you wanted but never asked.- SS [ 9/1/2016]

I realise that every time i talk about a goal, a milestone, security i am forgetting my own mortality and impermanence. I wonder sometimes how i even have the courage or stupidity to dream of the morrow without knowing if i will live to see the end of it. Fragile, pathetic, foolish creatures. Us, humans. - SS [ 7/1/2016]

There is no way you can go back in time and protect your earlier selves. -SS-[ 4/1/2016]

Be a passive observer of your active participation of life. - SS [ 30/12/2015]

It does not matter the number of lives you have led, if deep within, you still feel that you are waiting for your actual life to begin.- SS - [ 26/12/2015]

Our parents are not our anchor,
Our siblings are not our support,
Our best friends are not our siblings,
Our colleagues are not our family,
Our lovers are not our soulmates,
Our children are not our dreams,
Our partners are not our lifeline.
What then, are we finally to ourselves?
What then are we to the world ?

- SS [ 24/12/2015]

All the games our minds play? That's not us. Not really. - SS [ 15/12/2015]

I realise now that you were a detour. A cruel revelation of how the journey could have been, the brilliant difference the right company can make to the journey and discovering what a lovely companion I can be. I still have to come back to the main road, to forget the detour and pretend the rest of the journey excites me, while making do with the company i get.- SS [ 15/12/2015]



 

Restlessness

Sometimes, a deep restlessness overtakes me. I am assaulted by a quickening of my senses, a rush of energy, an intense desire for laughter, madness, adventure, passion, life and completion. My feet long to dance, my mind longs to spar with a witty companion, my body longs for completion, and my self misses coming home to the best of me in another. The restlessness becomes so acute that I am reduced to nothing but an impatient longing and yearning to seek release for the many versions of myself that i hold in check. The moment, the day and life is dancing with million delicious possibilities and the sense of aliveness is too overpowering. I sit down quietly by myself with a cup of coffee in silence, and wait till the trembling stops, and all that longing and energy of what seems like the entire universe is slowly reduced to an acceptable, toned down version that keeps life stable, safe and predictable and where roles can be played to perfection. These attacks of intense aliveness and longing have to stop.

- Srividya Srinivasan 9/1/2016

Do not demand an complete acceptance of who you are, when you do not feel complete yourself

- Srividya Srinivsan  5/10/2015

The tragedy of love

It is only when we are truly happy being ourselves, when we truly love being ourselves and would not trade places with anyone else that we reach a point where we can actually share of ourselves with another. Often, we expect love from others when we ourselves find it difficult, impossible to love our own selves. We ask for complete acceptance in the hope that such acceptance would fill the gaps that we lack the mental courage within to address. We demand from others that they fill our emptiness so that we can become full. But, strangely it is only when we are full, that we reach a place of grace to share. There is an abundance from within, which shares easily. We share truly because it is the most natural thing to do. When we keep taking from emptiness, love and giving becomes stretched and more demanding. Where would you go for love? We find it difficult to appreciate another, because we ourselves are starved of appreciation, and feeling a sense of emptiness. When two people are overflowing with a sense of fullness, there is a real give and take. There is an openness to life, abundance and also the willingness to take. This then, becomes a never ending flow. And, it starts with us. Loving ourselves, honouring ourselves, understanding ourselves. Becoming comfortable in our own skins without a sense of apology. We can make no demands on another until know our own demands better, and what we are capable of giving another. Asking and demanding love, respect and acceptance from another that we can scarce give to our own self is not just unfair but the saddest love story. It is a brutal murder of the very concept of love.

Srividya Srinivasan 05/10/2015

The anchor in the madness

Instead of thinking 'I wonder how my day would turn out ?', It makes an amazing difference to ask oneself, ' Now, what of myself can I put out for the day ? '. Circumstances and events external to us will continue to play. They would happen irrespective of what we say or do. The events happen as an effect of our earlier causes. But, we are who we decide to be. How much awareness of self we keep through the day, and the energies we choose to put out decides where the control of the day lies. Whether with the events themselves, or whether with us. Our energies truly are us. If we choose our energies, the right energies choose us. Every moment then is a matter of choice. This, and only this is our free will, our destiny.

- Srividya Srinivasan 5/10/2015

Test of love

The only true test of love is the test of your patience when you have grown apart. When you feel you have journeyed ahead of the other and the other seems remote, almost like a stranger. When the pace of your individual journeys do not seem to match. When your impatience for the other to catch up and, your sense of pride in having journeyed faster becomes your downfall.  When you want to slow down and journey at your pace, but the other is racing ahead. When, your sense of hope of even journeying together looks both remote and pointless.

That's when the actual test begins.

The exact point where your patience and faith in your love will be questioned. Fraying your combined spirit, a thread at a time. Cutting away at what you think you have built together. When shared memories go for a toss. When a dear one seems a stranger, when you are confused between journeying on or slowing down for the other to catch up so you can journey together.  Is it about the journey, is it about the companion? Is it about the combined journey? Is it your own self you love or did you ever truly love the other?  Was there ever a We?  And, you will know whether you are strong in your love, whether you can weather the storm of self-doubt and have the courage to answer to the bravest question of them all - how much of you did you truly give to Love ?


- Srividya Srinivasan 16/09/2015

Bonds

You know the people we used to be?
The seamless thread that connects
who we used to be,
to who we are now?
It seems to have snapped.

Will you check ?
If it was at your end?
Or, was it at mine?

No wonder it seemed difficult to connect,
we should have known it had snapped.
Guess it was fraying, ever so slowly
as the people we have become
kept pulling at it,
forgetting the people we used to be
who held it in bind.

I turn back,
anxious to reconnect,
worried that we never may
How easily you lose hope,
you say smiling,
as you meet me mid-way.

All it needs is a catch-up,
for the threads to bind.
For time to disappear
and old bonds to re-appear.

And suddenly, the people we are
and the people we were...
Oh ! Never mind.
- Srividya Srinivasan 11/09/2015

They teach you nothing

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to value yourself.
how to love yourself.
how to fight.
how to make up.
how to love.
how much to cry.
when to laugh.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
the value of your desires,
the extent of your denial.
to know how much to hurt
before walking away.
How much to fight,
to turn things around.
And, when to give it all up.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to long within,
to put up with abuse,
to taste the salt of tears
and, the pain of bruises
to just make things work.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to know war,
to know death and loss.
Pain and tears.
To obey the call of religion
and the notion of a nation
when your mind and heart rebel.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how a child can lose its innocence
and how dirty hands can touch
its body and soul
and scar an adult for life.
And, what to do after that.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to deal with falsehood
and what to do with truth.
How to taste success
and how to deal with defeat.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
to love your body
and its secrets,
to be a lover
to know love
to exult in aliveness.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to be lonely,
when your bed is empty
and you are jobless
and your self-worth is low
when friends have disappeared
and you feel all alone
and your life is on the rocks.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to raise a child alone.
how to live in a soulless marriage
how to stifle your desires.
and to kill the conversation within.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
About loneliness.
How to wear a mask
and how to take it off.
About pain that cuts the soul.
About empty rooms and money in the bank
And, no one to talk to.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
in the darkest, loneliest hours
what to do with yourself,
how to dig deep within 
to seek the well of wonder and joy
And, to come alive once more.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you how to trust
when trust is lost
when you down on your knees,
when there is nothing left in you
to reclaim yourself from the living dead.
And, to walk alone.

They ought to.
They ought to teach you
how to ride the wave of success.
how to raise a child in gentleness.
how to bask in the sunshine
without guilt or denial.
how to feel good about yourself
And, to offer your hand to another
and to believe in togetherness.

And, yet they teach you nothing.
For, they do not know.

- Srividya Srinivasan 11/08/2015

Waiting

I waited.
You did not come.
I waited,
alive in my awareness,
passionate in my impatience,
with a secret smile on my lips
that spoke of my longing.

I traced the impossible,
my hands running over
my body and soul,
that I wanted you to enter
at will,
I waited for you to come home to us.

The future that seems so beautiful
would never be.
The sunlight as it catches your eyes,
or the laughter that easily escapes my lips,
or the lightness of our feet as we dance along,
Are they, just hidden longings for a life
that was never meant to be ?

Our future is in the now,
in the promise in our eyes,
the restless beating of our hearts
as time teases us with her games.
The walls of our little world
that we have created in our minds,
fashioned in imagination,
rooted in fantasy,
a place, where time stands still.

As destiny joins Time in her teasing,
and I wait for you alone,
May be,
somewhere,in another world,
you are waiting for me.
impatiently, eagerly,
creating a little world in your mind
for me to come home to.

I come alive in the waiting.
I die in the waiting.
May be, the soulless stranger
that I brushed past by yesterday
was you,
cold and listless,
and indifferent to the outside world,
and worn out from waiting for me.

- Srividya Srinivasan 23/07/2015



Back to childhood

Let's go back to where we started.
Let's go back to start the game once again.
Let's go back in time
when there were no losers and no winners.
When we could fight with each other
and make up in a minute,
Where friends were for keeps,
and the days stretched endlessly
all under a golden sunny sky.

Let's go back to old times,
where we all knew each other.
Let's go back to old times,
where we just let someone in
to join the game.

Let's go back to a time of innocence,
Let's form a circle like old times,
where we could all see each other.
Let's start the game once again.

Let us go around until we are breathless,
and our heads spin with the whirling world
And, O let us whirl some more!
Let us run again till our legs ache,
run until our chests seem to burst...
And, then let us run some more!
Let us laugh till we ache,
and till the noisy sound of our laughter
is hushed by a stern adult,
and then, let us laugh at that too.
Let us giggle until we cannot stop,
only to giggle some more!

Let us dance until we cannot stop.
And, O let us dance some more!
Let us stomp with our feet
and drum with our fingers,
Let us sing loudly and noisily,
let the air ring with our off-key notes.

Let us go back in time,
let us climb a tree,
and dress up in pretend clothes.
Let us talk into a mirror again
and pretend we are kings and queens.
Let us pretend we are pirates and warriors,
Let us just clown around.
Let us scribble on the walls,
and paint the ceiling,
Let us turn cartwheels,
let us walk backwords and
talk utter nonsense...
Let us build castles in the air
and in the sand,
Let us jump into a puddle
and blow some bubbles.

Let us eat and drink and be merry,
Let us run and hide where they cannot find us,
Let us hop and skip and jump and jig,
O Let us just go back in time !

Let's go back in time
to a time where time stood still,
where the night was young
when the stars came out,
and we were all still out at play.

Let's go back in time
where the grime from the day's play
was wiped at the back of our sleeve away.
When our noses were buried in a book
and our heads in a cloud,
where our tears dried up quickly
and a bruise magically went away.

Let us go back to a time
when we went to sleep
with a smile on our lips
and a head full of dreams.

- Srividya Srinivasan  20/07/2015

Scars of happiness ?

She had no scars to show for her happiness except her laughter lines

 - Srividya Srinivasan - 9/7/2015

Coming home

She made a home in her head and did as she pleased. And, whenever she was lost she would simply come home

- Srividya Srinivasan 9/07/2015

Life Beckons...

What makes you come alive? What keeps you going ? Is there hope in your heart still or has the weariness of the world attached itself to you like a limpet leaving you afraid and passionless? Do you wake up with a smile and stars in your eyes after restless, feverish soul-searching in the night? Do you dream, dream beyond what is possible and beyond the narrow confines of your jaded existence? How old do you feel? How much in love can you fall? How much step is there in your dance, o how many notes left in your song ? Have you decided to sit by and watch others dance or weep at the dying notes of your own swan song?

Shake your lethargy. Come alive to innocence once more. Believe past your own jaded cynicism. Pretend you are young once more. Jump up with a spring in your feet, fall breathlessly in love again. Let the colors of the world wash over your walls, brushing the greys away. Let the sunlight of hope flood through your doubting self, o let the music play.

Dance till you ache and drop, laugh till you cry. Sing till your lungs burst, and journey till the very road ends and dream by the moonless starless nights. Sleep with a secret smile on your lips, your body flush with the imprints of lips. Come alive, my dearest ...reclaim yourself from the living dead.

Life beckons.

- Srividya Srinivasan [ Morning Hope] 10/07/2015

The ache for a companion

'I wake up in the morning. A small heaviness in my heart that soon snowballs into a deep welling pain, that almost threatens to choke me. I mentally shift my consciousness to a happier frame of mind. I need to. The duties of the day await. As the coffee pot bubbles, my spirits lift and sink like the boiling milk on the stove. My most precious part of the day and I feel incredibly lonely. I am happy to be by myself, to be myself. Joyous about the million things being me implies. It is when my pot of happiness and sorrow bubble over that I long for a shoulder, an answering look in a companion's eyes, the squeeze of a hand, the occasional brush of teasing lips on mine, the promise of laughter, life and hope. None which I was blessed with. In my moment of triumph or in my moments of pain, I long for my feelings to matter to someone.

 I want to matter to someone. I want hugs. I want kisses. I want to belong in someone's arms.  To ramble every day nonsense. To talk  profound sense. To be held tight like i matter. I want to feel like a woman. I want someone to embrace the warmth and sunshine that is in me. Instead, i have this cold feel of automation that is a dead marriage. I know what awaits. The grandfatherly brush of lips against me, or the giggly schoolboy and the abusive, indifferent sadist. My heart aches so much that i fear it would burst.

The birds chirp in the morning hour and in that silent heralding of the dawn my loneliness is overwhelming as the swirl of coffee fills the air. Most mornings i love my aloneness, but i hate the mornings of loneliness when they come. They are overwhelming. everything seeming grey, meaningless. I see couples going for their morning walk, a simple act of togetherness and i long to be one of them. I know i would never have that simple pleasure. I can only watch on with that ache, an outsider to that blessing called companionship. I feel like a widow with a mentally dead partner who is physically alive, like a woman divorced while still married. I feel old and beaten. The sun is not yet risen and tears sting my eyes.

My phone rings and i pick it up. There is very little to interest or excite in the conversation. I know what we will speak. How it will be. An automated conversation. Played out every morning. I dare not say anything or ask anything or even be impatient in my desires. I have to be careful with the other who is like a child, an abusive child who can hurt me due his insecurities. If I am bubbly, excited, alive or eager, i share that mood. The days i wake up feeling this deadness, i try to fake it. To summon a feeling of normalcy. It is important. For his sanity. For my child's sake. For my safety and sanity. For the drama that we need to play for the world's sake. For the failure that we cannot show to the world, yet again. For the kindness i need to summon from deep within against an abuser because i am mentally stronger than him and kinder. And, because I can. And he cannot.

I need to strengthen myself from the pain of abuse and i need to continue to make him feel good about himself, boost his self-image because it is so fragile. So i shrink myself a little more, and clip my wings a little. I need to. If this has to work, i cannot fly the skies with a companion. He would not only doubt if he can fly, he would make me doubt if i can fly, and if i had ever flown, and all the while  i would remember the innumerable heights i have soared and the blueness aof the skies i have known. I need to clip my wings so that we are both broken without wings and we could forever beat our broken bodies in the ground. That is the only companionship that is possible, that is the promise of the tomorrow.

Around me laughter spills. There are couples dancing, their eyes flirt, and their hands own their patrner's bodies in familiar, unfamiliar ways. I sit amidst the whirling couples, a lonely married spinster. I would have given anything to have a man, hold me with pride and joy as we twirled away. I think of all the ones who would have loved to have me in their arms. But i ache alone. I turn to look at what should be the joy of my life, he is fast asleep amidst the crowd. I can only politely refuse the offers of other gentlemen and ache alone for arms that i would never know or have.

These are dark secrets i can speak to no one. No one cares. And, they will not understand. They have not lived the million lives i have. They do not know the hundreds of times i have fallen and risen. I wake. I exist now. I come alive in occasional moments sparkling with my old vivaciousness, my mind and spirit free and soaring. Then, the raised eyebrows of society reminds me of what i should be. They look at my bare arms, they look at the fact that rules do not apply to me and why they should. And, the old familiar icy coldness descends in to me. I remember that i am a married woman, a woman in a dead marriage that i can scarce talk about.

I weep no longer. Tears are still a sign of hope. My tears have dried up. I wonder how long this can go on ? And, then you came in to my life. Reminding me of all what I was. Bringing a promise. And, I ache for you now. I ache for the life I know we cannot have.'

Mitra stopped reading. She had forgotten the presence of others in the room. The child snuggled up to her for warmth, not understanding the words but sensing some deep emotion. Dia and Margaret had not spoken a word. Dia got up slowly, and went out. She came back with a glass of water which she silenty handed over to Mitra.

It was then that Mitra cried. Like she could never stop. - From 'Six Tits' - my upcoming novel

Waking up from the dream

I know that this is a dream.
All around me things are swirling.
People rushing by.
Intent and purposeful,
living their lives.
All around me people are feeling.
Thinking. Acting.
Laughing. Crying. Dancing. Wanting.
In a trance I watch.
Just observing the drama.
I speak and yet my words seem faraway.
My thoughts float.
They come and go.
Whimsically, I act on them
or just let them go.
I know that this is all a dream.
I am just a character.
Just like all the others.
The events, they come and go.
The perceived emotions,
they give them color.
A meaning. A value.
The events they come and go.
They touch me not.
I am but a dream.
And, in that awareness,
the question emerges,
Who is this Me that is aware of the dream?

-          Srividya Srinivasan 3/6/2015 

Dance of my life

I am laughing,
the moment holds me in thrall.
Alive, beautiful, full of promise.
So achingly beautiful,
that words fail.
My eyes crinkle.
my smile widens
as my spirit dances...


Past the yet-to-settle smile,
a rush of pain sneaks in,
needing but a split second,
Loneliness follows behind,
casting a vulnerability so fragile
that I can scarce breathe,
A million memories flood in,
a million aches...
I freeze.


Dancing in the moment,
I ache.
Dancing in joy
aching within.

A million aches
familiar and new.
A million joys
holding me in thrall
as I ache.

- Srividya Srinivasan 31/3/2105

Flirting with Time

I rushed about madly,
scared that time was running out.
Time stood still watching me,
waiting for me to come
to a standstill.
I do not perceive its pace,
amidst my frenetic one.

Everything is a blur,
my heightened awareness
screaming its aliveness,
into my being.

I stand in the middle of it all,
calm and still.
All about me is the whirling madness
as Time rushes by.
I wait for Time
to come to a standstill.

Everything is clear,
my heightened awareness,
whispering my awareness
into my being.

We are even.
We are one.
In the stillness.
Time and I.

- Srividya Srinivasan 14/03/2015

Calm

A great calm has descended over me,
casting its spell amidst the madness.
I no longer rush in to add my bit,
have lost the eagerness to explain,
to be understood.

I am an observer now of my own
small dramas and the world's dramas,
a part of it all, and yet not quite.

My grouses first went to a corner
and hopefully,
have slunk away forever.
My victimhood has been abandoned,
the cross slowly disintegrating
out of misuse.

I have lost the need to compete or compare
my former selves to this new self,
except, in recognition of this dawning calm.

I embrace my older, volatile self with love,
and ask her to find a place beside this new me.
Her motives are genuine, even if she does
wear her emotions on her sleeve.

And, we sit in companionable silence,
my older selves and this newer me.
content to just be.
Watching. Observing.
Drinking it all in.

Others.
Myself.
Me in others.
Others in me.


- Srividya Srinivasan 14/03/2015

The Single Mother

The single mother sings a lullaby for two;
the strong one the child turns to,
the man of the house she has to be,
the gentle one the child turns to,
the woman of the house she has to be.

Her fears are not to be her child’s,
Her tears are to be her own,
shed in the dead of the night,
all alone.
She dare not long for herself,
nor dream anymore.
Oh, what can the future possibly hold?

Giant shadows of fear
chase her through the night,
as the world asks, is that right?
Oh, how could you be so bold?

As the darkness falls,
and the walls close in,
The single mother
sings a lullaby for two,
She who sleeps with
her eyes wide open,
beside a trusting child.
She, sings a lullaby bold.

- Srividya Srinivasan, March 2, 2015

Living through the scars

We shall forever be battling our scars, healing ourselves from the deep scars of childhood, to the awkward scars of adolescence, the hard scars of adulthood and scars of frail old age. In the answering spark in another's eyes, the cosy laughter of friends, and the circle of family, we rush to heal, heal our scars. In the eyes of a complete stranger, we finally find our balm until they are a stranger no more, and then we scar again, only to bleed again. - SS

The words of silence

When we speak to a person who does not love us, our words seem to fall in mid air. The room resonates with our words like they have not hit the target. You reach a stage where you wonder if you even spoke anything. - Srividya Srinivasan 

Surreal realities

I wonder what an event is when there is no perspective or emotion for the observer. Does the event exist in one's memory ?

- Srividya Srinivasan

The spark in the eye

I saw the old wary look in a young child's eyes and a sparkle and a twinkle in an old woman's eyes. There was a lump in my throat that I could scarce control for both. The human experience is precious indeed. - Srividya Srinivasan

May be we are all only thoughts...

Maybe we are all only thoughts and thoughts are the only things that exist. Floating around, seamless, ageless, moorless, stretching unto eternity. Maybe I am a thought projected as a person. A thought that was a person long ago. A thought that is me now. A thought that would arise as me in many lives to come. Maybe I am a thought conjured up long long ago by someone. And, the thoughts that running through me now will be a person someday ? Maybe we are all nothing but thoughts

- Srividya Srinivasan

Child She He

The child had to be admitted to school. The school that everyone went to. Home schooling was definitely an option. But, they had decided to give it one try before considering schooling the child themselves. So, it was settled between them all to brave the outside world. Finally, it was time to widen the circle. To see, if they could let the others in. 

They had fallen in love with each other, intensely, passionately, their souls instantly fusing to shut out the world. None existed around them. He changed his name to Mr.She and she became Mrs.He. Their identities merged. The world laughed at him, for has any man given up his identity for a woman or borne her name and survived?  He shrugged and grinned. He had no loss of identity by becoming Mr.She. He was proud to bear the tag as her partner, as the lover of her body and free spirit. To take on her identity was an honour. She wore the tag of Mrs.He with equal pride, flaunting it with a brazenness that was terrifying intense to others who wore theirs as matter of social security. 

And, yet they were not married. Technically, at least by the world’s standards. He saw the fire in her eyes, and she saw the answering spark in his and there it was, a marriage by fire. Sacred was their union and unwavering was their love. Their identities had fused to the point that they needed no social sanction. To the world they were sinners, but they cared not for the world nor its values. They only knew this. The world was an outsider to their sacred union. Letting in the world and its opinions, morals and its structures was a sin, like their intimacy was put out on trial for the titillation of the public. The only religion they practised was love. In all forms, physical, mental and spiritual. They flowed into their silences as they flowed into their conversations, picking up silences that they left off midway or conversations they closed years later. The presence of the others into something as sacred as intimacy was almost blasphemous to them. The only third that they welcomed was the child, born out of their beautiful union and passion. A sacred reminder of their fusion. They gave it a name Child She He.  

The child grew in love, fostered in silence and harmonious conversations, in wonder and awe of love and all things natural and profound. They studied nature together and their spirits often spoke in harmony and yet not a word was spoken in the teaching. 

The boy stepped into the class. His carriage was proud. He looked different from the others. Talked and walked differently. He spoke words in the language they all understood and yet he spoke them differently. Slowly, deeply. As if, he meant every word. They seemed to come from some source deep within him. He spelt his name clearly. Child She He. They all tittered. Who is She that you bear her name? All our names just have Name He. The one from whose womb I came, he said proudly. I am product of the love of two people She and He. I shall bear her name first before his with pride, as she bore me with pride, he said. They fell silent, confused and unable to answer him. 

He looked around. The girl across the room caught his eye. His eyes sparked. He smiled. There was an answering spark in her eyes. It was like there were no one else in the class room. 

- Srividya Srinivasan

Desire

'The body and skin respond to the human touch in ways that the mind can scarce discern. But the mind is very involved, an eager participant and creator of desire. The body responds of its own accord pulsing, throbbing, craving fulfilment indifferent to the label one would fix to a partner, while the mind rejoices in feeding it with secret pictures. Be not fooled that the rock bed of a steady marriage lies in the fatherly touch from an elderly husband or the icy indifference or passive submissiveness of an indifferent wife and that fidelity lies in the mindless repetitions of a cold act of the parting of legs, or the panting of breaths. You need to be comfortable in your skin to be a lover. You cannot create desire. You feel desire. It needs a special eye and touch to be a lover, to be lovers, a certain coming together of mind and body where the repetition is desired. A familiar coming home to, where the uncertainty of the exact moment of outpouring lends it spontaneity. Familiar lovers lead exciting lives because they come together in desire irrespective of who has initiated it and when. The unexpected is often the magic.'  - An excerpt from '6 Tits; by Srividya Srinivasan

Two Selves have I

I am alone.
Alive in my aloneness.
Dead to the world. 
Genderless.
Stripped of my femininity
for eternity.

My desires stifled.
My realness guarded,
sacred to my aloneness.

The mask fits better.
The mask i put on.
The mask the world wants.
The mask of adaptability. 

The surreal day beckons.
The dawn of automation.
Of roles to be played.
Things to be done.
People to be met.
Battles to be fought.
Issues to be handled.
Anger to be faked.
Passion to be feigned.

Two selves have I.
One for the world,
One for my aloneness.
Earlier I had just one.
Soon, I will have none.
As the mask fuses
into my defeated self
until the real and the
fake are one.

- Srividya Srinivasan - 25/10/2014 

"Our very thoughts are our prayers at the altar of our own selves, Our unmasked naked, uncensored love for life - our divine offerings to our own highest selves, and the deep rush of thankfulness in being the exact person we are lucky to be - the blessing that we crave to receive." - Srividya Srinivasan

The delicate art of loving ..

You cannot create love out of nowhere nor can you work at it. Love is a spontaneous recognition of oneself in another, and celebrating what one aspires to be in another. Love is an act of loving the best part of what one is and what one wants to be. It is a joyous abandonment of boundaries, an acknowledgment of one's strengths and weaknesses and an utter relaxing in one's skin.

People talk about compromise and adjustments in love and working at love. Real love being spontaneous and true would automatically bend to the truth in the other. Real love operates with grace, humility and an easy passage for what is right and what elevates the common created oneship. It is actually between people where there is no love, no possibility for a spark and the only link being a everyday wading through existential transactions that demands compromise and adjustments. One needs a daily reminder and affirmation of the link because what holds the two people is a functional practicality or fear of social ostracization. It is not strength that holds such people together but their vulnerabilities.

But nurturing, strangely is a part of real love too. Reminders play a different role here. The reminder and the nurturing is not to keep the pale shell of the initial spark or intimacy alive through empty acts of gifts and anniversaries but to actually become the person who initially enjoyed that spontaneous recognition in the other. When two people recognise what they initially liked in each other, they keep coming back to that point of joyous reunion. Countless times will they lose their way but countless times will they joyously come back to a reunion. Countless times will their love be born and in each birth they recognise the strength of the togetherness and through this parting and meeting, will they realise that their beauty is best expressed in the union. Loving and nurturing the union becomes the most precious act of acknowledging life and love. So they will live, and so they will love...

- An excerpt from 'the book THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATING ' - By Srividya Srinivasan

The Story of happily every after ...

Today's question: What is it to relate emotionally ? If there is no emotion attached are we still
feeling ? If we do not feel then does the aspect exist or does it cease to ? Is death a lack of feeling ? What do we mean when we say relate? What triggers relating ? What causes it to disappear ?

The Story of happily every after ...

When we relate to someone, we relate to an interesting, real and aspirational us that we become with relation to them. When we feel good with someone, it is not only because we like what they are when we are with them, we like what we become in their presence. It is the latter that motivates us to meet them, talk to them, desire to spend time with them and stay in love with them. A drop in their excitement, enthusiasm in being with us is handled by us either as a personal failure of our own attractiveness or as a drop in theirs. We desire people who make us continue to feel desirable.

When the perceived importance of the feeling within one that made one relate to something or someone reduces or disappears then the relating reduces or disappears. If what you felt or perceived as a new exciting you when you encountered a new idea or person is not lasting and your regular old personality comes back, you lose faith in the excitement or the fresh feeling and revert to the old you. After a while, even the memory of the excitement seems fainter and fainter until you are not sure it even existed.

When we fight with someone especially in a relationship, it is either a fight about recapturing that emotion or a denial that the emotion even existed in the first place. Most women since they have long term memories believe and can remember the emotion and excitement and hence put their faith and hope on recapturing it with the man. For the man, the memory is so faint that he does not recollect it or does not believe that it can happen again. The man fights to establish the fact that excitement and euphoria is short lived. He either continuously seeks it again and again through various means or various people. The woman tries to recapture it with the same person again and again. And, that is why when she takes a step forward or tries to remind him of who he was when they met or who they were at the start the man seriously does not relate to the person he was then nor the emotion that held him in thrall. The woman wants a replay of what was strong and beautiful and binding between them a million times over. When a woman asks a man if he still loves her, she means do you still love me the way i thought you did when we first met. Do you mean it with the same intensity and am i still the most important thing to you still in the same way?

The man is forced to go through the motions pretending the memory and emotion or he rejects it outright. He has no recollection of having been captivated by this woman and instead grows stubborn in his refusal of the memory. He grows colder and colder while she tries to come closer and closer. He cannot for the life of him figure out why he was chasing her in the first place or what he found attractive. She was attractive when they met because she was not committed to him in particular and was hence a conquest to be won. He becomes interesting to his own mind as a conqueror and a talker and is a new person within himself and unfamiliar at that and hence a man in love becomes confident, vulnerable, real and exciting in his own eyes. The woman enjoys becoming a target of this excitement and in turn becomes sexy, desired, pampered, adored and interesting.

Post the chase, the man loses memory of the game and gets busy with practical aspects and the woman is left with an empty promise of a lifetime game of adoration and excitement that she fails to get. The more it is denied to her, the more empty she gets and more clingy and emotional. The more emotional, clingy and demanding she gets the more he grows distant and impatient and uncaring. She wants to get to a point where they were wonderful together. She is keen to start from there again. During an argument she would keep coming back to that. The man is rooted in the present. He sees a clingy, emotional, crying woman and he for the life of him cannot relate to her. All he wants is to run. The man gets impatient, angry and pinned down when accused of having changed in his affection or expression. He will fight tooth and nail to deny it but the excitement she craves and the importance in his eyes that she desires will be denied to her. And, this is the eternal battle of the sexes. Beneath this battles lies all the innumerable accusations that each gender throws at the other. 

So, how does that explain the happy, devoted couples that seem so much in love for long ? If you look around the percentage of genuinely happy couples are relatively lesser. They are the ones who connected through a real not necessarily ideal connect - the image that the man put out was closer to his real nature and the connect he felt with the woman was closer to the real woman. Also, subconsciously they get into the rhythm of feeding each other the image that initially excited them. It is a life long feeding of the same and becomes a habit and a way of life and at some point their joint personality. It is nurturing of a  self image and nurturing of a reflection of the self with relation to the other. Additionally, society views them as an ideal couple and this positive image feeds them into greater success as a couple So, they tend to grow together as a couple. 

So can any man and woman become a couple ? Yes. And, it lies with the man.If he could relate to the fact that for her the relating means starting from the point when they met and nurturing that connect. When we mean starting, we mean an emotional starting. And, it lies with the woman, in trying to work out newer connects and points to relate from so the man is not left challenged with trying to continuously live up to the initial promise . As a couple, both have to create fresh situations of I love you. It should not be a case of when we met and then ever after...

- An excerpt from 'the book  THE SPECIAL THEORY OF RELATING ' - By Srividya Srinivasan

100 years from now ...

100 years from now, we would be a memory. A face in some forgotten lost picture. A scribble in some notebook somewhere. Some megabytes of data and some pixels in some obsolete digital memory. Who would know how you loved ? That you danced or you cried ? That you ran a start up or ran a marathon ? Who would know if you enjoyed your coffee or drank wine under the stars? Who would care if you made love or died a virgin? Whether you spoke Chinese or English, Hindi or Persian ? Ten years ago who were you ? Who were the people in your life ? Who is beside you now? Who will be with you ten years from now ? Will you even be or would you have become fresh memory? Yes, pack that ego carefully. It is fragile. It may not need to last 100 years but it needs to survive with you today.~ Srividya Srinivasan

Elusive Darkness ...

Death and Darkness are just hiding, pretending that they do not exist. Hiding just behind the bright lights, the facebook friends and the birthday wishes. As soon as the laughter is stifled and the candles snuffed out, they will come out and seize and snuffle the brightness of life and claim their victory. It is just a switch and we do not have the control.

- Srividya Srinivasan

Is Shakti Shiva or is Shiva Shakti ?

May every man find the softest and most fragile expression of his personality with the right woman who would treasure and honour the beauty of his femininity and not misuse it and may all women find empowering and supportive men who would exult in her self expression and success without fear of being overshadowed by the power of her masculinity and in that beautiful new world, shall we enter as partners, equal and empowering, supporting and caring, vulnerable and strong. Happy Valentine's day !

 - Srividya Srinivasan

Nirbhaya

She smiled at him
as she put her thumb up.
The bus stopped.
Laughing they got on.
Their smiles froze
as the curtains closed.
She is ripe
Let's have some fun,
The 6 pairs of eyes said.
12 hands reached out
to grope her.
To feel her.
To touch her.
To rape her.
6 monsters laughed
as the man tried,
cried to stop.
Hit him with a rod
they did,
as each took turns
with her instead.
Stop she cried
as they laughed
until they cried
and groped some more.
Laughing and joking
they put the rod in
deep, deep within her.
Bleeding and crying
they pleaded,
as six mouths
laughed their gut out
to see her gut spilling out.
Naked and bleeding
they threw them out.
Laughing and grinning
they moved on.
Naked and bleeding they lay there
as hundreds of eyes dodged them,
until pleading and bleeding
they were saved
to be probed and to be groped
again.
Describe to me what happened
they asked.
Your body is the site of crime
and i need to check they said.
You should have begged and pleaded they said
You should not have gone out they said
You should not worn this dress they said
You should not have studied they said
You should not have crossed the line they said
Why do you need to live they said.
Live I will she said .
Dream I will she said .
Fight I will she said.
Until I am dead, she said.
Go not unto the night they said
or you will end up like her they said.
Dead they said.
The city is aflame they said.
And the country stands by her instead.
As fools rant, and the monsters laugh
the torch is lit they said.
The fear is fading they said.
Your death shall not be in vain they said.

She smiled at him as she put her thumb up.
The bus stopped.
Laughing they got on.
Fear not
Six pairs of eyes said.
Safe, you are they said.
Thank you they said
when they got off the bus.
She smiled at them
as she put her thumb up.

- Srividya Srinivasan

An identity crisis.

In isolation, the single drop of water should comprehend its identity before it can merge itself into the wave and the vast ocean.

Srividya Srinivasan

Suck it up ...

You can't become a martyr by bearing the cross of your own choices in life.

               - Srividya Srinivasan

If the present is a blank ...

If the past has lost its hold..
And you have a blank present...
does it mean there is no future ?
Or does it mean you
can create any future you want ?

            ~ Srividya Srinivasan

It takes two to break a pattern or does it ?

What i am within myself when i am with you and what you are when you are with me is what we bring out in each other. it is not the only persons we have within ourselves or the persons we can be but it is what we will be with regard to each other. No effort on either side can change that. It is a prototype that is set when we first meet each other and the pattern is repeated each time. Only a fresh perspective and time would make any difference. When in the future, we get an understanding of who we both were at that point in time, we perceive what other persons we could have been.

                 ~ Srividya Srinivasan

Square Pegs. Round Holes.

A square peg can fit
only so much
into a round hole.

Badly. Awkwardly
and with a lot of
effort.
And would still
not fit perfectly.

Square pegs are
rarer than round holes.
They stick out and
Spoil the harmony.

Getting angry with the
square peg for being so
and not fitting into
round holes is no use.
The square peg can only try.
It can even pretend to be a
round peg.
But at one glance you would
know it is not.

Yes. You could search for
square holes for the
square pegs.
That is going to take awhile
and maybe
you would find
one that fits
or maybe never.

Most square pegs are
chopped away and
chipped away to
make them as
round pegs.

And then the square peg
is square no more.

- Srividya Srinivasan

Someone ... Somewhere

Some one. Some where.
Is holding out for truth.
For love.
For beliefs.
Some one some where
 is doing that
while you have sold your soul
in your utter fatigue
from life's battering.

Some one. Some where.
On this tiny planet.

And you weep alone
because it is not you.
And you rejoice too
because some one
some where
is holding out to truth.
For love...

- Srividya Srinivasan

Marriaging the brand ...

All relationships in the world are transactional.

We trade financial, emotional, physical and psychological aspects with one another irrespective of the relationship we profess. Whenever we give, we expect back and not necessarily in the same format in return but mostly from the same person.

All intimate associations are about the power of co-branding to create a new power brand. You are a brand - whether you are a small one, powerful one,a  failed one, boring one or a fascinating one. And, we all seek or form associations or rather should seek partnerships where the power of our individual brand gains strength. The self image that we have of ourselves should be enhanced in the presence of the other.This is a large psychological impression of gain and worth that is impossible to articulate completely in tangible terms. It is not based on the wealth, position or power alone that the other might bring into the association but more often the feeling of enhanced power in one's own brand because of the entry and presence of the other that makes the difference. It is not so much about what the other does, or what one does but this feeling of increased self brand gain that marks a powerful and strong relationship. When two people meet on such terms, their individual feeling of self worth increases because of presence of the other. Both, thus operate with the best aspect of themselves with relationship to the other. That is how and why respect comes easily between them. When the best in one is brought out, and the highest reflection of one's self worth is in the presence of the other, one holds such a relationship dear. It is self preservation at its highest but using the other as a mirror for one's best. So in a way you love someone a lot because you love who you are when you are with that person. How you act, how you feel, how your self esteem is boosted in the presence of the other through the very act of association decides how a relationship would go and how long it would last. If secretly one hates the association, or is not finding a reflection of the highest in oneself reflected through association with the other, it leads to a deterioration of the relationship.

Pride of association brings on brand loyalty. A relationship that has no transactional value will also die fast as all brands will. Power brands are built when the individual brand value is highly enhanced with association to the other and collectively a new brand that has the combined power of both individual brands is formed. Such a  marriage is often a successful one.


- Srividya Srinivasan

Just a little prayer ...

O God !
Grant me a bigger ego.
One almost as big as you.

              - Srividya Srinivasan

I realise ...

How can I be angry with you for taking too much
   When I was the one to give it all
         without holding anything back ?

       - Srividya Srinivasan

Say it is not so ...

Do we live in a state of perpetual denial, unceasing self-induced good feeling and positivism even if the truth is all around us screaming itself hoarse ? Have we become a race where stating the obvious truth becomes a crime, and one is branded a pessimist or a kill joy or worse still a traitor for just for recognizing what is ?. Solutions will start only when we recognize and accept that there is a problem and celebrate the one who has the courage to state the truth instead of stilling the voice of truth. Instead, we would rather continue and live the fake that everything is fine until the stench of our cowardice assails our consciences to override our denial. We are a race of worshipers of superficiality, of what looks fine and seems like feel good. We are a race of empty beautiful plastic masks hanging by a thread. A hollow self worshiping race rotting in the stench of unceasing indulgence covering it up with perfumed aromas and glittering lies.

 - Srividya Srinivasan

Pain, Life and Death

Pain, is the impact each time natural chaos mockingly breaks through our feeble artificial attempts to discipline or control life and make it predictable to our terms. Every day. All through our lives. And yet, we shall try till we die our final deaths,even if  we die a million small deaths every day. Foolish people. Us. Through our awkward daily attempts at routine, discipline and order we will strive to gain the upper hand,  to claim that we have life licked. And laughingly, mockingly life will throw its head back at us as if to say " Fools, it is in unpredictability, through change, through de-automizing that you are alive. The minute it is anything else it is called Death" And so the game goes on, between pain, life and death.

~ Srividya Srinivasan

Arrogance ?

What you accuse as Arrogance, my dear,
      is nothing but my freedom and ability
               to have my own view
                      based on my own experience and
                               based on my own intuition
                                    without the weight of
                                             authority or
                                                 approval of
                                                    another's
                                                          experience
                                                               or stamp of
                                                                     credibility.
                                I am far more credible and honest
                                                 because I speak my own truth
                                                          however warped or confused it may be.
                                                                                                                       
                                                                      ~ Srividya Srinivasan