Passion Fruit - an experience.

 

Strictly for someone who is already highly romantic, a little romantic, or at least someone willing to understand what it is like, to be romantic.

Having said that, I’d rate this as an erotic fruit, so much so that, I’d elevate it to the state of The Forbidden Fruit. Such is the beauty of this passion fruit. 

Eat it with a spoon, and the charm is lost. Eat it with your hand, slightly better. But when you suck it up slowly, as though you are gently in search of a pair of lips in front of you, you do justice to this passion fruit’s very existence. 

For there’s no better way of relishing, (not eating) this juicy, sweet and sour, slightly fleshy, like a thin layer of fruity derma. 

A nice looking small-sized red cricket-ball like structure on the outer. Within this house, lives this seedy passion. The inside of the fruit’s skin is softer, which makes it compatible to hold the fleshy fruity derma and its antioxidant-rich seeds. This is one of those few fruits, whose seeds double up as the fruit itself. 

You slide a knife through its centre to have two equal halves. What you behold is pure passion, that’s oozing out, waiting to be sucked up. Just as how you wait with passion when you meet your significant other after a brief separation. 

A passion fruit is not just eaten, it’s relished - by first taking in a deep breath of its fine natural fruity aroma. A touch is irresistible after all, when you have something that passionate in front of you, so you feel the fruity derma by running your index finger through it for a quick few and then without further ado, just slurrrrp!! You can’t but impulsively close your eyes while doing this. Can anyone kiss for long with their eyes open, after all? And without a doubt, the experience is surreal. You cannot stop until all of the seedy fruit derma is sucked up like a noodle. This is the very reason why eating it with a spoon kills the charm of eating this fruit. It’s a new, passionate, experience each time you lay your hand on this beauty.

Perhaps this is how and why it got its name - Passion Fruit.

What are you waiting for? Go find a passion fruit and relish it for yourself to experience a fruity romance. Even if you aren’t a romantic, I hope this post changes you from being a hopeless, to a hopeful romantic. ❤️😍

Signing off, after a passion fruit high. See you soon with a new post! Until then, I’ll have a fruitgasm with this nature’s bounty - Passion Fruit. 

What’s your address?

“Pottu vaitha oru vatta nila” rightly plays in the background as I put thoughts to pen on this one. The case of a forgotten pottu, kumkumam on the forehead and an address. You’ve known me for over 2 decades now and you still don’t have my address? Bang came a very valid question. Oops! That’s when you realise how enslaved you are, to the cell phone. The consolation that it’s all there online…and poof! You just don’t know where exactly!

Because you think it’s safely residing in the cloud, you’re tempted to not go back and check if it’s still there, was it deleted, or if anything has changed! You just tend to take it for granted and when the opportune moment arrives, you don’t get to the cloud, you get to the person instead and ask for the info first hand, as though you were getting introduced to them for the first time! 

Now this may be a teeny-weeny act of remembering things, but it would go a long darn way in determining the value and respect you have for your people, at least your “most immediate” near and dear ones. 

Then comes the sticker pottu, which keeps slipping away from the forehead, just when you are supposed to have it intact. An excellent excuse for not wearing it at all, you know :) ! It starts with not replacing it when it slips off, to not wearing it while at home to not wearing it at all, all because it’s gonna fall off anyway! And not to forget, the evolution of pottu with every fashion you slip into. No pottu with a pair of jeans and tee, no pottu with casual wear… How easy to have ifs and buts for the wonderful pottu. But wait, they always embellish corners of a bathroom mirror, also the center of the mirror too. Somehow, the adhesive seems to work well when it’s stuck on the mirror. 

And now for the kumkumam. There’s a romantic and prosperous charm to the kumkumam, for it adds glow to your face, as though you were wearing the miner’s helmet with an attached light. Such is the positive radiation of this beautiful kumkumam, shining all the way from the forehead, to your eyes, nose, and cheeks. This speaks volumes - of romance, of happiness, of grace, of togetherness with your husband and of culture too. When worn, your face looks adorably adorned as though with a piece of jewellery. Excuses for not wearing it are galore… with fashion being directly linked to it. But, Excuse Me, it’s not a fashion statement, first of all!

So the address, if it had to be remembered in the time of need, would be hand-written in a pocket notebook and carried along, just like your cell phone. The pottu, even if it slips away, could find its way into a sticker pad and act as a backup, just in case. And hey, it can be slipped into your purse very easily. As for the kumkumam, there’s a paste available, which holds the kumkumam all day long. You’d first wear the paste and the kumkumam, right on top of it, so its remnants don’t fall off on your chest, through the surface of the nose! It leaves a mark though, marks its presence, everywhere… in the center of the pillow cover, with you rolling over in oblivion during sleep, on the padding, which is on the  inside of your helmet, each time it is taken off and worn back, on the inside of your dress, each time you pass it through your head. These go to show marks of existence, of a significant other, in every walk of life.

That the pottu and the kumkumam have a spiritual significance, is a different discussion altogether. But think about it, it’s all about the effort you put in to retain things. It’s just that! If you wanted, you could.

Relationship goals:

 We set measurements, targets, milestones, or may be even KPIs in relationships to showcase how we’re faring or may be for others to judge how we are doing. 

An expensive gift, a dine-out, or a holiday getaway and boom! It’s already gaining points in the index of the relationship. Go one step further, you have a highly empathetic partner who is flawlessly good with financial independence and super duper supportive with your work schedule and acknowledging your creative skills. Definitely appealing and no way questionable. 

However, is that really all? It’s not so much about being greedy of what you want in life, rather wanting it all in life. Yes, if the positives outweigh the negatives, heck yes, you’d want to shut up and be happy with what you have. However, is that “little want,” hidden in the aisles of your  heart, wilfully ready to understand this logic that your brain is making?

Aren’t we really compromising one wish for another, if you look at it closely? 

For example, how can good listening be equivalent to a costly gift? How can a beautifully mindful sexual experience with your partner be equivalent to a dine-out with them? How many times are we able to let our guards off with partners and have an open conversation about our deepest fear, our biggest worry, our constant prayer, the worst dream or may be a pressing issue that’s been interrupting the day? Everything is not always hunky-dory. You have to be able to talk about fear and confidence in the same vein - Cry, laugh, cringe, feel the emotions in every sense. 

Are you able to openly ask that you want to make out, and if so, do you get it back? How many times have you been on the initiating end to begin lovemaking? Forget lovemaking, how about a quick exchange of a hug or a kiss during the course of the day?

What’s the attempt that you are making, to get a step closer to your significant other? Or does it even matter?

We’re constantly caught in the whirlwind of getting one wish solved for another, thereby forgetting the open points we have had long pending. There’s a constant confusion in the scope of a relationship. For example, as a woman, being able to wear what you want, being able to have a career without problems, without being judged, is considered as being “allowed” to do something, rather than it being viewed as a basic need and individual preference. The scale is always measured on man vs. woman, still, thanks to fellow womenfolk who continue to contribute towards glorifying this aspect.

Plants require watering plus a little bit of a caressing and pep talk for them to feel nourished and then bloom. This isn’t an overnight process. It requires daily nurturing, for that matter, anything you’d expect to grow, requires nurturing.

Many seemingly good relationships still crash like a pack of cards one fine day, making it look there’s no rhyme or reason to do so. Everything would look picture perfect on the periphery, with fissures and cracks in the inner.

So if you are living with a fellow human partner, you are obligated, and have responsibility towards daily nurturing vs. a checklist you’re ticking off, saying it’s done. 

Are you silently silencing or being silenced about your relationship wishes? Have a hearty conversation instead. Everything has to begin with communication, as a first step. If you really care, start with that. 🤍❤️

Perspectives

 

It’s all about perspectives.You keep getting the same view when you refuse to train your mind to think differently. The same thing when viewed from a different angle will throw open a world of possibilities, quite possibly!

Variety isn’t hard to infuse in daily life. By variety, it doesn’t mean having something totally new each day. It starts with something as simple as doing things differently each day. Boredom and saturation in life, is for people who are jailed in their own mental imagery.

Just as how a little camera light trick would do wonders to a portrait, applying the same principle in daily life will directly increase the zest for life.

Most of all, it’s about enjoying and appreciating each moment. Living in the now, enjoying the now would make days seem longer, fuller and more satisfying. When you forget the ‘now’ and postpone it to a future, you’re spoiling both the ‘now’ and the ‘future.’ What if the future doesn’t turn out to be with the same effects of the ‘now?’

You don’t need to really go on a vacation to enjoy a good cup of coffee or simply unwind. Your own terrace could be a very spot for you to make your mundane morning coffee routine into an invigorating experience!

Most of all slow down, to enjoy more variety. The myth about getting more done and keeping busy all the time is just an excuse to not do things in an enjoyable manner. We just want to be always tied to the same pattern of doing our chores without an iota of variety. So the next time you drink your cup of coffee, or eat a meal, feel the smell and touch of that meal or cup of coffee in front of you. You will find yourself savouring it in a manner that you look forward to it each time.

The point is to actually slow down so that you can get more done in the day. As oxymoronic as it may sound, it doesn't hit you until you care to practice it consciously. If anything, there will be a better and fresh outlook to the day and make it satisfying. Life is too short to postpone the nicer moments. 

For example, doing a task with some music on, would add a totally different perspective to the otherwise very mundane-feeling routine. There is renewed energy that builds up unknowingly, making you possibly finish the work more efficiently and effortlessly.

Spending time with your partner and having a private moment with them adds a zing to your daily life. And if we’re fearing that the charm will be lost by having a daily physical affinity, it’s just sheer foolishness. In fact, we would automatically find newer and fresher ways to keep the spark alive! It’s not all that complicated.

Or even gifting a little something to each other from time to time, without really waiting for a birthday or an anniversary would add a great deal of zeal and surprise to a relationship. It would simply go to show how much we remember our significant other in our day to day routine.

We’ll just need to pause and have the brain and guts to do things with more fun-infused. The power of variety is undermined because we’re so consumed by the sameness yielding the same results. People don’t even care to stop and understand if that’s what’s desired out of the routine though. It’s high time we broke open from the typecast saying of “what will people think,” syndrome. There could be a hundred things running in a family’s day to day world. It’s not really our job to go around getting the acceptance of our neighbourhood and relatives in everything we do. While consultation is good, the final decision should certainly be ours to take.

Isn’t variety the spice of life after all?

 

 

Online

 

If it’s online, it’s valid. All else, is seemingly losing its existence, sooner than ever. Welcome to the online bubble which we constantly reside in. So consumed we are, in the world wide web of plurality, that we don’t realize that there’s reality around the daily life we lead.

What we see virtually is more appealing than the real thing itself. Take the case of when someone sends you a pic of theirs vs. that person being physically present, right beside you. The existence then is reduced to nothing or complete non-existence, perhaps. Even worst, there is no acknowledgement of the physical person who is around you. There’s a constant urge to keep clicking pics and instantaneously sharing them. What then happens to the real-time conversation you could possibly have struck with each other? The entire meeting is reduced to a mere show-off.

The tone of a conversation seems to be far more understood in chat language vs. real-time interactions. With too much social networking, have people forgotten how to socialize for real?

Well, the sad answer is a vehement YES. If only we transcended out of our screen-lives and struck real conversations, we would understand that people are real.

 Virtual hugs and kisses seem to take precedence over doing a simple hug when your loved one is right next to you. If oxytocin and dopamine levels can increase with a meagre virtual chat, then imagine the power of a warm and tight hug, when done face to face?

Where does one really draw the line and decide saying okay, so the person is going to be around me for sure, and hence I can get back to them any time? Though this may seemingly be insignificant, it’s a sure route to failure, in many relationships. Do we even know what our partners feel? Are human connections, humane enough?

Sadly enough, the presence of your loved ones is taken for granted, which is by and large the root cause for all problems. We don’t want to play out the scene of the partner or loved one not being around, simply because they’re just there. We're just so used to viewing with the lens of 'last-seens,' 'blue-ticks,' 'online' and 'offline' statuses of people that we don't even realise when people go off-radar for real. Do we know how present we are, when we are present with our loved ones?

Relationships die a silent death with partners losing interest, over a period of time. If only we paused, and paid attention to the little details, issues could be discovered sooner than later. By this, I don’t mean that we have to keep stock of every tiny detail and keep doling trivia out to the family members – that would turn out to be mere annoyance – there would be zero space in such a relationship, leaving the partners choked, or rather asphyxiated.

It’s all about walking on the rope of balance, so that we feel heard, seen and understood. It’s after all, acknowledgement of the individual’s presence which is the first step to the making of a stronger relationship. Indulge in frequent ‘me-times,’ as well as dates with partners, or in the case of elderly members, some outings with them as well, so that you have a mix of both worlds. This way, we are also, being inclusive.

The value of physical touch is often underestimated as well. The physical touch heals more sicknesses, both mental and physical, than any drug in the whole world. If anything, the pandemic has taught us this lesson. There are more people who fall even sicker due to isolation than the corona virus itself.

Daily hugs and some nice indulgence with the partners, adds value and more meaning to relationships. What are we running behind, after all? What are we doing with all the saved time? Is it being ploughed back for something productive? This is a question which we have to ask ourselves, for there’s no one straight answer.

Going back to the world wide web of plurality, this very topic, these few paragraphs, when vocalized, would not find a pair of ears paying rapt attention. However, if the same content is published, it would seem to have more validation. An Instagram story or a WhatsApp status carries more weightage than what someone is truly going through. Online behaviour seems to dictate character more than real social interactions. The human mind is exposed to internet diarrhoea that it doesn’t know where to press the pause button.

If only we step out and made eye contact in our human interactions, the social distancing would shrink. With everything being more virtual than ever, the onus is on us to make relationships meaningful, while our loved ones are still physically present around us. Above all else, we just need do better at communication, which is the key to every single interaction.

 

 

 

 

Conscious Gratitude

 

Complimenting is an art. When something is nice or when someone does something nice, say it. How easily, things are taken for granted, as though they were set to auto-pilot mode to function, regardless of any changes or challenges along the way!

The most precious thing that someone can gift you ever, is their time. So when efforts are put in to do something for you, be thankful, have gratitude. The value of something won’t be known unless it doesn’t become available to you anymore.

So what if you have to be thankful for the littlest of things? It’s after all these little things that constitute life. There’s nothing to lose in the process of gratitude, in fact, it makes you a better human. By enjoying every bit of life, you end up living in the here and now.

There’s room for love only when there’s gratitude. It’s after all, only when your cup is full that you’d be able to pour out of it. If you aren’t happy and content yourself, never are you going to be able to make someone else feel good, no matter how hard you try. Or at least you may think that you’re keeping the other person happy, when in reality, you’re nowhere close to even understanding what their thoughts are, let alone making them feel good.

The process of gratitude is underestimated, especially in our Indian society, although originally India has been known for its culturally rich behavioural heritage. The word ‘formality’ gets wrongly associated with the emotion of gratitude, thereby demeaning the importance of thank-worthy deeds. Being grateful is viewed as though something is ripped apart, if and when expressed. It’s more of a gender-driven status symbol – that remembering little details of your significant other or your family members is all meant for the women. Emotions are for everyone – you can’t have one person giving generously each time and the other, being the taker. Isn’t it supposed to be mutual?

By expressing, it doesn’t mean you’re being overtly expressive and showering praises and love 24X7. A small mention somewhere during the middle of the day or even at the end of the day would go a long way in preventing mid-life crisis that many go through. In fact, many a reason for separation is for what’s viewed as trivial and insignificant – when in reality, when all these reasons put together make up a bad relationship. It could be because of anything – Just because of a delayed expression of a feeling, just because you took all the time in the world to say something appreciative, just because you kept assuming, just because you never had a heartfelt conversation, just because you didn’t stop amidst your busy schedule and care to exchange a loving glance at each other, just because you didn’t value the presence of another human who co-exists with you in the household – after all, we’re all human and have to be respectful of each one’s time. Never be the reason why someone would want to give up and walk out of something or go dormant about their emotions – That's even harder to heal and would lead to unwarranted health complications.  

Why would you want to wait for something major to happen for you to begin feeling thankful? After all, what’s the guarantee of someone to always be with you? The misunderstanding is that; we think we have time for those big things. The more grateful we are, the more content we become – there’d be even more things to be happy about.

Being grateful doesn’t necessarily mean saying a thank you, as though in a ritualistic manner. It’s what you feel, and put out there, from deep within. This may sound like a complicated procedure, but when you practise conscious gratefulness, it becomes a natural habit and turns out to be a truly rewarding experience.

So what are you thankful for, today? I am thankful about the fact that my mother-in-law enjoyed my pineapple rasam and mentioned it post lunch that she enjoyed her food :)

Try being grateful by actually expressing it to your near and dear ones, and notice how you’d bring a curve on their lips and fill up their entire day!

 

Melomania

A cosy corner to run up to

A warm hug 

A cup of hot coffee

A splash of raindrops from the first rain

A breeze that brushes your face and hair gently…

A best friend to whom you can spit anything out

To whom you can cry your heart out

A mirror in front of which you can emote anything 

The warmth of your mom’s smiling face after a long day at work

The innocence of a child’s smile

The romance you have with your partner

The joy of completing a creative piece of writing 

Feelings like these and much more,

Wrapped into one state called ‘melomania:’

A state of inebriation which only another music addict will even have the ‘ability’ to make sense of.

The songs…the playlist…the radio.

That go-to music, go-to genre, 

Because music wouldn’t let you down:

A safe haven where you never get judged.

Something you can tune into, for instant relief.

Something that plays at a distance, quite serendipitously

For a melomaniac, it’s the music that renders life to each passing day…

And why not? For music, is therapeutic…!