Disguise Me Forever

A New Horizon!

June 2, 2017 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Hope, Jouney, Life, Melbourne, Poetry, Soliloquy

Sometimes when I walk on the road, I suddenly look back, as if some known one is looking at me. But then I find no one. Sometimes someone crosses me in the crowd and I sense a known smell, but then I can’t find anyone. I question myself, what am I looking for? Whom am I looking for? But I don’t get an answer.

One day, while I was in a deep colloquy with myself, I realised that I must be waiting for someone, someone from the past. While I should enjoy my present, am still living in the past. I tell myself that while I walk on the road, instead of looking back, what if I bump onto someone interesting at the next turn! That person might be a new friend and much more interesting than the unknown person am waiting for! This thought makes me feel happy for the moment.

Life is like an ice cream, the more you have, the more you crave for. We don’t acknowledge the things we have, we don’t treasure the people we have, instead we all are running for the mysterious happiness hidden in some horizon. There is no end and we always shape up a new horizon. Why does some things and some people leave such an unfathomable mark? Sometimes a good memory and sometimes a bad one but then the word memory itself is a past tense! What we have now is a moment, a precious moment. The search of happiness in the past or in that unknown horizon is much more painful than even the worst present day.

Have you had a meal? Do you have a family? Do you have shelter? Are you grateful for you are living the day? I keep asking all these questions. The answer comes, “Yes”. Then what am I looking for if I have everything. Why can’t I be happy? Maybe I am looking for happiness in wrong places, in wrong people, in mistaken memories. Happiness is when I wake up every morning and realise that all the people I love are with me and are healthy and alive. Happiness is believing that I can spend the rest of my life with myself.

I need to stop waiting, stop looking back at that stranger who doesn’t exist and realise that more than one person can smell the same! I need to look forward, make new friends, talk to strangers who smile back at me, search for happiness inside my soul than in someone else’s life. That horizon, that known smell, that someone looking at me…does not exist. We all wait for that sunrise when the sky would look the best, but we forget that even in the cloudy days, the sun rises as usual but is just shadowed by the clouds. The sun doesn’t leave us, just hide sometimes and shines bright again. Is it that challenging to acknowledge the moment and live a content life? I don’t have the answer, but I would continue to walk till I bump onto the more interesting ‘someone’! 🙂 Keep walking and soon the sun will shine brighter! 🙂

The Colours of Life!

March 17, 2017March 17, 2017 by disguisemeforever, posted in Jouney, Life, love, Poetry, Travel

Few days ago, India celebrated the ‘festival of colours’ called ‘Holi’. When I was a kid, all year through I would wait for this day when we would play with colours. All the kids were just exhilarated with the impression of throwing colours at each other and getting a colourful face themselves. We would blend the colours in water and splash each other with the coloured water. Life felt good after playing with colours while the parents didn’t discipline us!

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I grew up, the colours of Holi turned into colours of life. Bright colours for bright days and grey for the shaded ones. The sky has always been my companion and I felt that the sky also transformed colours and guided our moods. A blue sky for a beautiful sunny day and grey sky for cloudy and gloomy days. The kid who only knew colours are fun, now had a significance of the colours associating to time.

I grew up more, now I could relate the colours to my life, to the people and to my surroundings. I kept thinking, how as a kid, I never realised that colours of life meant so much. People can add colours to your life and in the same way people can make your life colourless and ‘grey’. Some people make every day colourful and they keep you happy, we should treasure them. The ones who add the grey shades, teach us how beautiful the other colours are, like the night makes us appreciate the day or the hard time makes us appreciate the good times. Everyone comes to our life for a reason, either they make life beautiful or teach us a lesson!

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As I grew, my mind found resemblance of colours to our surrounding. A beautiful red rose or a bright blue sky or a lovely green field! Colours, they are everywhere! Red symbolise love and it also symbolises danger, Blue symbolise the colour of sky and sea and is associated with depth and stability, similarly Green is the colour of nature and White is for peace.

The colours of my life have always changed with time and age. While childhood days were the most colourful, as we grew up there were frequent shades of grey. Pain, sadness, misery and again a splash of joy, that’s life. I have some amazing people in my life who adds colour to my sky, they make life worth living. Occasionally I also bump onto some darker shades but it’s the darker shades who makes me realise how beautiful the brighter shades are! Add colour to your life and add colours to other’s life. If as a kid, we could easily splash others with colours then why not as adults. No one minds when you make their day brighter! If as a kid, we played with colours with other kids, then why be self-centred as adults. Go out, and you will see an arena waiting for you, where you can play with everyone with the colours of life. While be cautious to select the right colours, the wrong colours can also be blended to make them right! As a famous poet says, “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and right-doing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there!” Stay colourful, stay blessed.

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Hey its another new year!

January 10, 2017January 10, 2017 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Jouney, Kolkata, Life, love, Melbourne, Travel

I am late and no excuses but I wish everyone a very happy and prosperous New Year 2017. This New Year started on a very good note, bit of family time and of course travel. When I try to recall how my last year went and what I want to do this year, everything sort of comes down to one word, ‘people’.

Everyday there are so many people we interact with; some we know and some are strangers. Our life is all about the people we pick. It’s a choice, a known decision of who we want to be with. Then I think deeper and find that ‘choice’, ‘decision’ these words are plural and not singular, it’s a mutual thing else its unrequited. Sometimes I have realised that it’s much easier for me to communicate with a stranger than a person I have known for years. The good thing is, the stranger does not know you and hence won’t judge you. You can speak your heart out and feel lighter. Hence this year, I would like to focus more on strangers I come across and make new friends, however the ones I already have in life remain precious.

My last year was a big one from every perspective, be it relationship, love, family or friends. I learned a lot last year from every sphere of life. The main thing I learnt is to depend on myself than relying on others. I am all I have. Every person is a package in themselves, they just need to self-explore. But then, it’s much easier to preach than to follow but worth a try. So, this year, the person to focus is Me 🙂 ! You must have heard in flights, that ‘when there is an emergency, please place oxygen masks on your face and place masks on yourself first before helping others.’ When I was flying to India early this year and heard this announcement in the flight, I was smiling. Well, being said that I also mean that the respect for individuals remain a priority, everyone has their own fights, so be kind and respect others.

Last New Year I had wanted everyone to be crazy, this year I think I am a bit calm. This year I might try being softer and a good listener than try to voice my thoughts. My thoughts are always a bit unruly and rebellious, so this year am going to home them. I have also realised over time that when you are quiet, you can hear your inner voice. That voice sometimes guides you and sometimes confuses you but at least it talks to you without you speaking a word. This inner voice or conscience will also be my focus this year. It feels that with every passing year, you grow wiser or at least realise that you are not wise enough 🙂 ! This year let’s do a bit of soul rifling.

I have always felt that it’s the people in your life that defines who you are and not the place or country. The people in your life are also the ones to make your life the way it is, so select the people wisely and don’t be scared to take chances. Trust is also another important one to focus, trust others and in turn earn their trust. Live a good life but don’t be scared to make mistakes. I make many mistakes every day, I have also hurt people but at the end I try to make up to them. The realisation that you are wrong, is always right :)! So, this year I will make more mistakes and learn from them. Be human, be calm and listen to self. Stay happy, stay blessed. Happy New Year to All 🙂 .

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My Fitness Mantra

September 2, 2016September 2, 2016 by disguisemeforever, posted in Anecdote, Gratitude, Jouney, Life, Poetry, Song, Travel

I am quite a lazy person when it comes to regular exercise or workouts. However, one fine afternoon I decide to go for a walk and make my life a little better or at least get over the guilt of being lazy.

I put my headphones on and play my favourite playlist, get into my walking shoes after dusting them a bit and just go out along the walking tracks near my place. Initially I come across quite a busy area with some nice shops around and I feel this urge of going for shopping instead and get a coffee, but I voice myself to focus and keep walking. The beats of my music is slowing giving me a rhythm and I am feeling better already. I cross the hustle of the city and slowly get into a more residential area.

This area is leafy and full of trees which have lost their leaves in Winter. I come across many oldies who smile warmly at me and some moms who are busy attending their kids while they walk holding hands. Reminded me of my mom and how I used to go for walks with her as a kid. I keep walking. I see an old lady trying to cross the road but is scared. I stop by and hold her hand and help her cross the road, she smiles and says “God bless ya child”. I smile back and feel at peace, I keep walking. I can smell the air around, the strange smell of the bark of the leafless trees, the smell of grass, or some seasonal flowers and the smell of winter in this part of the world. I can see a church a bit further up, I am quite exhausted for my low stamina but my lure towards old churches kept me going.

The Sun is about to set, the last rays of the Sun is falling on the Church and making it look so beautiful. There is no one around, but I decide to go inside the Church. I slowly push the Church door and it opens with a squeak. I am scared if am barging in. I see no one inside the Church, no wait, there is someone, an old lady. I walk towards her and then take a seat in one of the front rows and smile at her. I have to appreciate the old piece of architecture and how well it has been maintained over the years. I pray for a while closing my eyes and open my eyes to find that the old lady is decorating the church with some beautiful white lilies. She was picking every flower as if it was her child and then very carefully placing them on the wall.

When I told her that the flowers are beautiful, she said there is a funeral later for which she is setting them up. Does white symbolise death, it certainly symbolises peace, so maybe its for the peace of the departed soul. I was suddenly feeling very small compared to everything around. Death, that’s such a nonpareil truth. All we congregate in this world, all the wealth, possessions, relationships everything is perishable…someday. What will remain in this world will be the bonds we make and the memories in the heart of the near ones. I felt an unanticipated tear in my eye. While immersed in such deep thoughts, I didn’t realise I was being observed by the old lady.

She looked at me and asked my name. She said she has been coming to this Church since years and to her, birth and death are like best friends who are inseparable. They go hand in hand and make a complete life cycle. How easily she explained it. She walked towards me and gave me a hug and said was great meeting me and that her name was Bevillé. I wanted to say the same but my voice was chocked. I ran on the way back, happy, fit and realising that the true fitness mantra is to be nice to others, smile and just live a healthy life.

Fitness is not only to have a healthy body but also to have a healthy soul. Mental health is as important as physical health. Everyone has their own battles, help others in need and smile when you see a sad face on the street, maybe all they need from you is a Smile 🙂

My friend at the Cafe!

August 4, 2016 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Journey, Letter, love, Melbourne

I have a friend at the coffee shop. I don’t know her name but she knows mine. She also knows what coffee I usually order. Every morning, one of the motivations I have, to come to office, is my coffee and a small chat with my friend. We talk about everything, about the weather, the food, my evenings, her evenings, about flowers and life in general.

She is a beautiful young lady with a warm smile. She talks to everyone very nicely; everyone likes her I believe. She has very beautiful eyes. Just the other day, my hands were very cold and I was freezing in the Melbourne winter. When she met me for taking my order, she was feeling bad for me and said I should buy gloves. Later, when I was going out for lunch, she offered me to wear her gloves, in case I am too cold. I felt really gratified with her gesture.

We don’t know each other well, neither we spend so much time together, but the small gestures of love make my day warm. Such are the effects of ‘being human’.

Today when I went to grab my afternoon coffee, the café was quite empty. My friend came over and offered me a cookie from her own share. I gladly accepted. Then she said today is her last day in this café! I felt a gush of sadness crept inside me. I didn’t know what to say! I looked at her and she smiled and said, “You’ll make new friends”. She said she is travelling to Northern Australia and after she comes back, she would join some other café, somewhere else. She also shared her gratitude towards me and said how nice its been talking to me all these last five months in this café.

I finished my coffee and walked up to her to say the final good bye. She gave me a hug and said, take care. I started walking back to my work and didn’t turn back.

They say, “Goodbyes are never forever”. I wonder why I felt bad when she said she is leaving, why I never asked her, her name. This is life! We make friends and then bid them farewell and then make new friends again in the journey of life. Sometimes you suddenly don’t see that same face you see everyday and search for it, faces change, everyday. Sometimes you can’t even say good bye to everyone you love. That’s the truth.

Just be nice to everyone you meet, say hi and ask how are they doing. Life is too short to have grudges. I will miss my friend at the coffee shop tomorrow, but who knows, maybe I will see another warm face saying, “What coffee would you like”? 🙂

What’s your song?

July 6, 2016 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Jouney, Life, love, Poetry, Song, Travel, Uncategorized

They say, “Everyone has their own song”. A song that connects them to eternity, to love, to life and to themselves. Similarly, every relationship has its own song. A song that is reminiscent of time immemorial or of something exceptional. A song is your own because it relates to some specific personal event, it is own because our life finds its rhythm and music in that song. Whenever we hear that song, we remember the event or the person to which this song is allied and treasure our solace at heart.

Some songs remind us of a journey, some remind us of home, some of our parents or grand parents, some songs remind us of friendship and some of love. Sometimes the tune of an old song takes you back to the memory lane and you even land up making a call to an old friend or a lost love. Some songs make you cry while some make you smile but every song stirs a feeling inside your heart. The tears are the witness of some painful incident with which this song was concomitant. The smile on the other hand is the evidence that this song is part of some happy memory. A song reflects the state of your heart at that instance of time and that in turn makes a song your own. You hum the tune when ever you want to revisit that occurrence of time.

Humans are very possessive. They don’t want to let go of time. They want to cling on to time either in form of a photograph or a song or a video or something tangible that takes them back to the memory lane. A song is a way to capture a moment forever. Sometimes on a gloomy day, I remember the lullaby my mom used to sing for me when I was a child, it’s a vent to revisit my childhood days. When I miss my best friend, I remember the songs we sang together on our journeys and in many of our memorable trips. My favourite songs have changed over time. Some new ones have become my favourite now and some old ones are slowly fading away from my memory with time.

I guess life is also like a song. People come and go, some stay forever and some fade with time. Lucky are those who find their song and for the rest, have you tried finding your song yet? 🙂

Dear Diary…

March 3, 2016 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Jouney, Journey, Letter, Life

Dear Diary,

I am missing you a lot. When suddenly your pages were over, I was crammed with a sudden vacuum, despair, and fear. I shuffled through to the previous pages in the hope of coming across another blank page where I can write my thoughts down but there were none! You were suddenly over. I still started scribbling in the white spaces on the top of the margin area, or wherever I could find any half-filled pages. I just didn’t want to let go of you. I wanted to hold on to you till all the white spaces were filled with my thoughts, words, emotions, and feelings. I was possessive. Knowing the fact that I can always buy a new one, that there are millions of diaries being sold in this world everyday, I just couldn’t believe that my personal diary is not going to be with me anymore. It was a painful feeling.

I spent all night reading you from the scratch. Every page I read, my memories were reinvigorated. I could see things, feel them and sometimes even smell them. So many dates in a person’s life, so many wonderful experiences and some bitter ones. Some dates which are important and some events, which make the other dates important. All the events were very carefully articulated with my favourite fountain pen. I remember those moments when I wrote them and slowly we were Confidant. As days and dates turned through the pages, I started feeling better remembering the journey I had made in my life. ‘The only thing constant in life, was change!”

It was dawn when I read the last page and then slowly closed you and held you close to my heart. When I closed my eyes, a few drops of tears rolled down my cheeks. It was as if I voyaged several years over a single night. Can’t believe we spent so many years together and now suddenly you and I will not be together anymore. But that’s life isn’t it? But you will always be close to my heart and whenever we want, will spend time together revisiting the memory lane. You will always be a Confidant and will always be closest to my heart.

Lovingly yours…

Be crazy this New Year

January 2, 2016 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Jouney, Life, Uncategorized

Yesterday was the first day of 2016. I was cleaning my house and wiping an old painting in my living room. There was a black mark on the right hand corner of the painting, which I was trying hard to remove. After several attempts when I was loosing my patience, my mom, who must have been watching me for a while, said, “The black scar is inside the frame and not external. Even if you try, it will be there like it has been since years. It’s this scar which makes this painting special dear’. She smiled at me and then went back to the book she was reading.

Wao! That was so true. We all have our scars, our hitches, our weaknesses, and our inabilities but then it’s those scars, which make us special! They make us different and in fact they define who we are. Sometimes the scars are peripheral and sometimes inner but who cares. They are ours. They tell our story, they tell how we faced life and even after we got hurt, got scarred, we stood up, fought and survived! If someone tries to change us, or get rid of our scars, well then that person is definitely not the one to be! Sometimes even we ourselves think that we are not perfect, we have this black mark in whatever way. We are so wrong and condemnatory towards self.

We are what our life’s journey has made us. We are the experiences we had and the fights we fought. We are survivors! No one is perfect and sometimes imperfection is our beauty, our pride and our inner soul. This new year, let’s promise that we will be happy the way we are and not be ashamed of our scars, be it inner or outer. We will laugh loudly, act madly, speak truly, dance insanely, live freely and love genuinely.

Wishing everyone a crazy new year 😉

Companionship….

December 17, 2015 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, Life, love, Uncategorized

Humans have managed to define every relationship, be it mother, father, husband, partner or friend. Every relationship has their outlined protocols and precincts. We behave the way we are supposed to when we fall in one of those defined categories. But sometimes the heart subjugates the brain and the frontiers are traversed.

A companion is a person who’s just there with you, like a perpetual company. A companion can be your best friend or anyone who is with you in your journey of life without much of an expectation. Companionship is beyond just friendship even if they are sometimes synonymous. The feeling that someone is there for you whatever may happen in life is what companionship is all about.

There are days when you don’t want to talk to anyone, no one! When you just want to talk to that one person who you know will listen to you without being judgmental and just smile and say, “Everything is fine”! You might not meet your companion everyday or even every year but you know that they are there with you every single moment. This feeling is very serene and comforting. We all are so lonely in this modern world. Social media connects us but is only a reflection of our social existence, which we want to share. No one cares what’s deep inside the heart and the mind, which is personal and never social.

Companionship is a bond, which is build in a certain moment and nurtured over time by being sincere to the relationship. You will only ever be lucky to have a companion if you are true to yourself and your companion. You don’t need any commitment other than that strong feeling inside your heart to trust this one person when the world seems void. Just lend your hand and you will feel the other hand holding on to yours. Life’s good when you have a companion 🙂

The Indian Marketplace (Bajar)

November 3, 2015 by disguisemeforever, posted in Gratitude, India, Journey, Kolkata, Life

The marketplace in India tells you what the real India is about. People who have so much pain in their lives, yet they are not scared to smile, to laugh and even to make you laugh!

Incredible India!