Bombay Bleeding.....

Wednesday night, 10.35 pm….I was watching some movie trailers on MTV… my daily “homework” you see… the phone rings and it’s Karen reporting in to me that the studio work for the day is over…and then … tells me that some blasts have happened in VT and that she’s rushing back home… I tell her to avoid the train and call me once she reaches… all the while just thinking that oh god another blast… but unfortunately feeling… ok..JUST another blast….it was only when I shifted the channel to the news did I realize that this time it wasn’t ..Just ..another blast…. For the 2nd time in my life span I was seeing a war on the streets… the 1st incidence was 1993, a time of total chaos..marked in my life by a call recd by my uncle on a brand new phone number stating …”you 2 brothers(referring to my dad) showed a lot of valor last night (we had a neighborhood watch schedule running at that time).. be careful.. you have families”… that was a Thursday night…and today after 15 years I’m feeling the same chill down my spine… only difference being that this time it’s not one another we are fighting but some inhuman irrational things who for reasons unknown believe that keeping phirangs hostage and killing 6 year olds will get them what they want…. What they don’t know is that this is BOMBAY… you can hurt us ..you can upset us…you can even kill us…. but you cannot shake us…. And more than even that …this is INDIA… we will strike back…and like a chain SMS I read today morning said… “forgiving a terrorist is left to god.. but fixing their appointment with god is our responsibility – INDIAN ARMY”

But that’s just the sense part of it…. But what about the emotionality part of it… admist all this action what gets lost is the true emotional damage that those assholes cause…and I’m not talking about the “sansaniiii” type of emotional damage… I’m talking about the the true stories of people who lost their lives in this ordeal…. The 5 chefs who were shot point blank… or the wife and kids of the GM of the TAJ who were burned… mostly alive…. And the jewish family including a 3 yr old child that who killed …just because… when will we realize that something like this can happen to anyone…..that we may as a city be full of spirit and unity… but whatever we do we will never truly understand what the families of those who are no more feel.. all we can do is pray and in our own small ways try to make our country safe…..

Fidelity...

Fidelity is a very funny concept. General use of the phrase refers to sexual loyalty between couples. But the question is does it end there? Is sexual loyalty the only thing that can grant you the virtue of being faithful?

There are many instances in our lives when we are actually torn between feelings, love, lust, guilt, conscious. Defining feelings is anyways a Herculean task let alone, justifying it, slotting it, understanding and accepting it. Amongst all this chaos and effort what happens to the pure romantic in us? I used to be a die-hard romantic… believing in “love of your life”, soulmates, “the one” and all that jazz, till I discovered the complications of adult relationships. Love used to be so simple at one point in time… you meet someone, get to know him better, fall in love, spend time together, laugh together, fight a little, then make up and make love and that’s it… but in today’s life, it doesn’t end there… there is the ghost of old fights, eeky habits, the eternal jadedness and ofcourse other people. Now by other people I don’t mean other lovers just people… friends, colleagues, gym buddies, dance class partners, the list is endless. What happens to your poor lil heart when it is now exposed to such galaxy of feelings. Someday there will be someone who will come along and tread very close to your definitions of soulmate. Someday you will find a friend who has more in common with you than you beau ever did. How do you keep your heart from moving towards that person. Sexual loyalty is the last step, but how do you ensure emotional loyalty. Isn’t having remotely romantic feelings for someone else equal to infidelity? If you don’t cross the line, is it ok to deep in your heart constantly wonder what if?

The other side to it is that if you have managed to slot your life well and accepted the fact that your feelings for all people involved are genuine.. then how does it matter if there is sexual loyalty or not. I’m not talking of the controversial “sleeping around” phenomenon. I’m talking about making love around?... if your feelings are aligned.. what’s the bloody difference? You will always choose one person to spend your life with and that decision will be a combination of feelings and rationale… but what about relationships that are based on only feelings… no rationle what so ever.. when you feel like at some very basic level you are deeply bonded with a person, when making love is actually an expression of that very bond… when you just want to consume that person in all his/her form irrespective of the definition the world would give to your relationship. What happens then… are you being unfaithful ?... if you say yes, then when did you become unfaithful… when you made love or when you fell in love or when for the first time you smiled at that person with a glint in your eye.. the biggest question is .. can we truly ever be monogamous… in the truest sense of the word can “fidelity” ever be achieved… Honestly, I don’t know anymore…