Oh I get by with a little help from my friends, Mmm,I get high with a little help from my friends, Mmm, I'm gonna try with a little help from my friends.

It never ceases to amaze me how lucky I am to have friends who have made my life so comfortable and beautiful.  Their love and affection never fails to overwhelm me. A simple “aap theek ho?”, a sarcastic “I called you cause you seemed to be going psycho”, a purposely cheesy “you don’t owe me more than what I owe you” or random howling noises over an International call just to cheer me up are just a few examples of daily reminders that I get to tell me I am not alone and I never will be. Friends who still talk with a fond exasperation about all my obnoxious habits and in some perverse way even miss them when I am not around (I know you do.. so quit pretending you don’t  :P ) and are stubbornly always by my side are some things I will never get used to and I don’t want to either, lest I start taking any of it for granted.

 I don’t know what I ever did to deserve all this but I am definitely not complaining. Though I often  have doubts if I give back as much as I get, I try not to dwell on it for I don’t want guilt to mar my affections and decide how much of myself I give to others. It wouldn’t be fair to my friends who are what they are and love the way they do because they are just plain and simple beautiful.

I used to say we get to places only if we have people who out of the goodness of their hearts help us along the way. There have been many concepts of God and the Universe that I believed in at some point only to discard later and like all my other fellow beings, I am still at loss. But one thing I feel with my whole heart, mind, consciousness or whatever, is that it is these acts of love that feel like IT. “Anbe Sivam” is what Kamal Hassan says and who am I to say otherwise.

“In those times of trouble, when you are most alone,

The memories of love will bring you home.”

-John Denver

One of my friends had something else to say about this “meeting people”. She believes that people are put in your life for a certain reason. I will not pretend I understand wholly what she was saying, if she meant that there is a higher force at work or karma that pulls people towards you because I haven’t had the chance to ask her to elaborate. But I can say one thing that if there is a higher force at work, and if IT has even the slightest influence on the decisions about who I meet in life and when, then I should probably quit complaining because GOD is doing a damn good job of taking care of me by putting these people in my life. And if there is even a tiny chance that it is karma at work then I love u guys for always reminding me that I am not too far gone and keeping me away from my personal hell.

“But somewhere in my wicked, miserable past
there must have been a moment of truth.
For here you are, standing there, loving me
Whether or not you should.”

-Sound of Music

Another upheaval of beliefs and perceptions has the wheel in motion again. I don't know what I believe in at the moment but I know this phase will pass as my mind will invariably try to connect the dots and introduce patterns to keep functioning. This place where I am right now, is actually quite nice but a little overwhelming. This place of semi-blissful blankness where I am hanging upside down in space and the sound of blood rushing to my head and the rhythmic thump of my pulse accentuates the roaring silence and numbs all my senses. But there is the tiny ever present itch in an undefined place that I cannot reach and scratch. So I just concentrate on breathing in and out and just being.
It is a nice place to be when I am in it and I might never want to wake up if it weren’t for the phantom itch. But at other times I am probably like a child who just wants to run around and play and scream and rebel against nap time till my body gives up and I doze off from sheer exhaustion. Like the child, I want to continue with the role playing and don't want the curtains to come down.
 We hold our emotions, opinions, beliefs and relationships close for we define ourselves through them and in sleep we are a part of the undefined. I could look at the undefined as something that is always there but my mind only comes up with images of fading colors and it scares me. The thought of immortality scares me.  To live for all eternity through the changing world and truly experiencing the transient nature of all things, to be the dispassionate, detached and vague echo of life when you fall into the dreamless sleep with eyes wide open seems more like a curse. I don’t even know if I am talking about eternal life or eternal sleep anymore. To me they sound the same.
The concept of many lives and reincarnation feels like comfort food in comparison. Forgetting a lifetime and starting all over on a new adventure or replaying an old one without memories of having done it before but with just enough déjà vu to maintain the mystery of something more to be realized once again, to be caught up in the dragon’s unflagging appetite for its own self seems so much more alive and exhilarating. The angst pulls at my insides and takes me to the edge but I resist the leap because the view from up here is infinitely better. Why does the gaping void seem so peaceful yet so repulsive? And even in this state of suspension where I like the numbness, I still push myself to define my doubts and questions because the itch won’t vanish and allow me to sleep.

for you akash ... sorry we never finished this in time...

Faith is dreaming children clapping in their sleep. I haven't been a child for a very long time and I wake up without memories of a dream. So I don't remember if I have faith and I don't remember whose voice I heard or what I clapped for. So even if i did clap my hands I don't quite know what I believe in.

Doubts permeate every pore
Like noxious gas from beneath closed doors
Shadows cloaked in colors of Faith
Keep me down in a stranglehold
And on the road I ride a mere wraith
Breath frosting in the air so cold.