Three To Tango!

Three amazing accolades have been showered on my blog in the past few days. Today's post is dedicated to not people around me, but to Nascent Emissions itself- for being my one constant companion, my voice, my outlet, my part-identity, my memory bank, and much else! Here are three reasons for me and my blog to party!

#1 Blog Showcase at Indian Top Blogs

Indian Top Blogs, an Indian Blog Directory, recently reviewed and showcased Nascent Emissions among their chosen and recommended blogs. Needless to explain the reason behind my happiness!

#2 Second Versatile Blogger Award

D. Nambiar, a not-so-docile female, who claims her purrs change into roars the moment she is taken lightly, conferred on me the much prided upon Versatile Blogger Award. This is my second such award, and as special as the first one. Since I have done a similar tag earlier, I will not get into following the procedure, except for Rule #1, which mandates that I thank the blogger who sent this award my way. So, dear D. Nambiar, heartfelt gratitude to you for considering me worthy enough. You are a fine blogger yourself, and so I attach much value to the feedback you leave for me. Hope I live up to the expectations this tag brings with itself. Love!

#3 The Liebster Blog Award

And this, most recent one comes my way from a blogger who identifies himself as Destiny's Child. I am more of a writer, and I kind of suck when it comes to following other blogs religiously, but his' is one blog I try and catch up on whenever I get time. As is customary, I would first like to thank Mr. Destiny's Child for bestowing on me such an honor. If I have been able to find out correctly, 'Liebster' is a German word which translates as 'beloved' or 'sweetheart'. Given that meaning, I feel this tag is extremely special. For those who still have not, I will recommend you visit Destiny's Child for some very nice reads.

I am not going to nominate five blogs publicly, because the blogs I hold very dear are all published by veteran bloggers I draw inspiration from and look up to. These are few writers who review my writings regularly, again, not publicly, and help me evolve and improve as I move ahead. I am silently going to dedicate this tag to all of them. When they read it, they will know its them.

I'm very happy for being able to reach out to you all. A writer, I reiterate, is nothing sans his readers. I hope you all will keep dropping by to find something here which clicks, which touches you. Happy Reading!

Trek Up To The 100th!

Yes. Through this post, I am out here celebrating the century of nascent words which have escaped my heart over last 3 years. It feels incredible. When I go through the neatly drafted older articles, I often sense pride and warmth serenading my being. The words were always reflective of my thoughts. Honest thoughts. Not one word here has an element of fabrication. Each single post of mine is written with personal care, tenderness, love and thoughtfulness. Emotions have been my guides. People my inspirations.

What I would want to dedicate my 100th post to is my inspirations. The three people who have been a distinct part of me and who have inspired me not from around me, but from within me. Their faces lurk behind most of my writings. What I share with them prompts me on. Whether the happy moments or the sad, they either cause them or help me live through them. Invariably, they metamorphose into some exquisite thoughts which my quill itches to paint into some precious words.

Here they are. Here is who they are. Here is what they mean.

The Love

He is the Guardian Angel of my solitary heart. I read about love. He taught me about love. The feeling that filled me with his arrival in my life was so overwhelming that it needed to flow out. It had to flow out. He made me feel so much of love that I could finally begin to understand it. Once I understood it, I felt a need to write about it, share about it. Love has been an experience of learning and unlearning. Nothing stands absolute in its path except for the fact that it exists as an Absolute need for all of our survival. I did mention about having understood it. But love is a spectacular panorama. Not one to be understood easily. He says, "So what? Live it, feel it, flow with it." And the words flow along too. Gracefully. Dancing under his magic.

The Care

He is solace of my heart. My reason for feeling good. My reason for looking forward to a new day. In his face, I've seen a frown which I sensed a need to smoothen. In his eyes, I've seen some pain which I always yearned to help flow out. In his heart, I've seen a coldness which I felt I could help thaw. He is the majesty which stands tall to the respect of the world. He is the softness which has always been cared for by me. In caring for him, I have felt infinite warmth being reflected back towards my heart. Each time I watched over him, I sensed some faith building up in me. Can there be a more potent inspiration that faith itself? The care, taking care, being cared for, lent me that faith, and the consequent inspiration. Its friendship at its best. The fights inspire me more than the good times. My writings carry lessons and emotions I gained via the periods of distress, the periods of taking care. Its is not the cherry on top of the cake I am claiming, it is the whole cake of memories I am sharing.

The Smile

She came into my life with the glow of sunshine. Funny I call her that despite heliophobia being one of her prominent attributes. Her innocence, silliness and childish purity has been comfort of my heart in the darkest of hours. Happiness deep down within has been ascertained by me to be a prerequisite to aid clear flow of thoughts out into comprehensible words. She channelized the best of positive energies towards me with that one bright smile she flashed at me on the first day I noticed her, and continued to flash the same at me each day we met and began getting closer. Her brightness, her contagious positivity, her infinitely pretty face, and the stupendous happiness she is always sprinkling around- all these factors have been the greatest motivations whenever I have sought to make anyone happy through the words I share on my blog. If she did not lent me all that bliss, I could not possibly have passed it on.

And We Turn 100

 I am not thanking them. They're all mine. My own. And they've stuck by in my good and bad times. I've fought each one of them with bitternes. I've loved each one of them with passion and tenderness. I was in three different worlds while I wrote the above three, but that in now way means they are distinct or isolated sections of my existence. They inspire and encourage me together.
In his love lies tender care and plentiful smiles.
In his care I find smiles and the warmth of love.
In her smiles hides a reason to love and to take care.
They all hurt. They all are close. They all are behind my expressions.

For having come a long way. from writing my post #1 to now writing post #100, I am ecstatic. Each one of you reading it has been a part of my journey. Thank you so much! I know you are happy for me and are sharing that ridiculously beautiful smile with me. Thanks again. Hope to keep seeing you around.

Love, Life & All That Jazz by Ahmed Faiyaz - A Review

"How I wish you could see the potential, the potential of you and me. It's like a book elegantly bound, but in a language you can't read just yet." Lyrics from 'I will possess your heart', Death Cab for Cutie.

For the above quote, and many more, I am thankful to Ahmed Faiyaz, the writer of the book I am attempting to review presently. A book I was contemplating leaving unread after completing some fifteen pages made it's way quite unassumingly to my heart. So much, that my heart felt heavy when it ended. I wished it lasted longer, just to grant me some more of those amazingly real and relatable moments. But even as it ended, it made me believe in the concept of a silver lining, for a moment motivating me to find my own.

Love, Life & All That Jazz (LL&ATJ) is a contemporary tale of love, of dreams, of coming of age. It rotates around six central characters, aided finely by a few more who help shape and pace the story as it moves ahead.

• Though some readers might differ, but for me, the main story in the narrative of LL&ATZ was that of Sameer and Tania- the couple with whom the story begins and ends. They are in love, but want different things from life- a fact that complicates their co-existence. While Sameer to make it big in life by pursuing and MBA and career in the UK, Tania is a focused interior designer with her own ambitions and plans to put to reality. Their story is about their long distance relationship, the yearning and the frustrations, and about growing up.

•  Vicky and Naina, a rich and affluent charmer and his sultry, ambitious model girlfriend are the second couple in this book. They make for that killer couple on the page 3 circuit, a culture towards which Naina gravitates because of the demands of her career and Vicky avoids because of the fatigue emanating from constant attention of nosy shutterbugs. The possessiveness and ambitions, the love and temper- all accessorize their exclusive story woven into that of their other four friends.

•  Tanveer and Tanaz, the third couple, are adorable and my favorite. Tanveer is the typical small town lad lost in a big city, with pressures and demands of his financially unstable family always looming large on his mindscape. He is bright, diligent, but insecure- and what comes as the proverbial ray of hope in his life is a vivacious Tanaz, the daughter of his Parsi landlady. But religious differences and responsibilities on Tanveer as the sole bread winner of his family bring in more than just complications in the beautiful life they both look forward to sharing.

This is broadly the set up of the story. Author Ahmed Faiyaz has done a wonderful job of finely interweaving each individual story into the over all narrative, with a pace that does not allow you to lose focus or interest. I'll be honest. I did not so much like the book after reading the initial twenty pages. It seemed one of those many books written by amateur, wannabe writers, which litter the book stalls with their jazzy covers and cheesy titles. (Oh! And this is not disdain. I am guilty of having read and thoroughly enjoyed many such books. But I kind of had had enough) So while I was contemplating leaving it and moving onto a historical treatise which lay unread beside my pillow, something in the narrative struck a nerve and I carried on. I am so glad I did.

The story begins with about five characters, and to confess, it is initially a little difficult to shift focus between all of them as they develop their distinct identities in the narrative simultaneously. However, as the story progresses, the author does a brilliant job of giving definition,background and a distinct flavor to each character, so much so that recalling any single name to mind after you're done with the book will make you picture clearly his/her character in  your head. What also helps is that all the characters and situations in the book are extremely relatable. With simplicity in his language, the author has managed to churn out some priceless dialogues and heart warming scenes. This is not one of the grandest of books you will read, but with literary opulence staring down and intimidating modest readers like me from all angles, the humble, breezy and comforting narrative of this book is what you might fall in love with.

Even though  I have labelled it a review, I don't think it is one. I will not rate this book. I cannot critique it. The hopeless romantic that I tag myself as forced me to find way too many familiarities (actual and imagined) with this book, and the consequent predilection just asks me to recommend this book to readers like myself. Heartaches, dreams, pressing family situations, uncertain careers- we are actually coming of age. Want to see a mirror, the kind which promises a silver lining at the end? Do grab this book.

Ahmed Faiyaz has decorated his book with exquisite quotations, one at the beginning of each chapter to give you an abstract peek into what lies ahead in the story. I end this post borrowing one from Chapter 10 of Love, Life & All That Jazz...

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." -  Thoman Merton

Leonid Afremov again. Can I ever thank him enough for adding all these colors to my life?

At The Edge Of Sunshine

I mugged up this line when I was 11. Partly because my favorite teacher reiterated it time and time again, and partly because I found it fancy and inviting at my age. "Life is like a bus. People come and people go, but the bus does not stop. It keeps going on and on and on." Seems like a simple thought at present. Simple enough to not even have any significance.

Why am I thinking about it then? Perhaps because something happened recently, a chance meeting, which influenced me so much, that it is not leaving my mindscape. Even after 4 days. Each day we go out, we meet people. Few we do not as much as notice. Few we click with, or feel happy in the company of. Few we look forward to meeting again. Few, we know, stand apart from the crowd. They constitute a category of people who are mighty charming, who impress with the first word they utter, the way they move, the sort of respect they command from others, but who are also beyond your reach, despite being extremely humble in their disposition.

It is precisely this last category of people I look forward to stumbling upon during my social interactions. My good fortune, I usually do. The charm, and aura which they create is something I feel drawn towards. A new person, a good person, an interesting person always leaves your heart a little more elated than before meeting him. And December gives me the best of such meetings to cherish. However, my last such meeting was a little different. I was happy, but with tears in my eyes. Not the cliched khushi ke aansu. They were what they were supposed to be, tears because something pinched hard, very hard.

You don't give yourself a lot of chances, do you?
I had had breakfast at the All American Diner in the morning with my sunshine friend, and so, I was ebullient. Happy, and smiling to myself. I was happy also for a completely unplanned rendezvous with this person (the subject of this post), still an alien to my world, to whom I had been introduced via lengthy eulogical testimonials from some common friends. Two cups of Barista Cappuccino to start the conversation, what more could I ask for?  Then came this one question, rhetorical-I reckon, which completely caught me unaware. Who was this person asking me this question anyway? It was just a polite coffee I had looked forward to sharing with him, with loads of thought-provoking exchange of ideas embellishing our meeting, just like it happened the last time. This one line, not only provoked my thoughts, but kind of intruded in my personal space. Am I that easy to read? Was he even right?


Something told me he was. Why would that ebullience otherwise plummet so low that I would start averting my eyes from him, and in stead, focus all my attention on two Barista paper napkins hitherto inconspicuously lying on the table? Why otherwise did I catch myself tearing a sugar sachet when for years consistently I have liked my coffee bitter? My mind was bugged by this person's piercing gaze, which I knew was resting on me, waiting patiently for me to assimilate myself and come up with an answer. I could come up with none. In stead, I came up with a question.


What does not giving yourself enough chances mean?
With eyes gleaming of confidence in his own thought, and a mute kindness in his tone, he explained to me the meaning I sought. And that sounded completely like something delineating me- the part of me I try and keep concealed. It sounded painfully like me. By now, that points comes in your meetings with new people, where you realize if the two of you share a kindred connection, or if the initial charm you felt for someone a consequence of a misplaced adrenaline surge, which now has dissipated for the best. As for me in that weird situation, neither of the two happened. I was sitting with someone clearly smarter than myself, but not to intimidating limits. He had lofty ideals in his head, but his head firmly atop his shoulders. His thoughts were a treasure to observe, but suffocating when I tried stepping into the world they created. This was a person I knew I wanted to hear and learn from, but he was definitely a person whom I would not like to have another prompt tryst with.

Of the many arcane things he uttered, one was that he liked making people uncomfortable. Now that was not the most chivalrous of things to say, and hence my response was an obvious grimace. But of all the things I will remember his for, just in case I do never meet him again, this will stay with me. When discomfort settles in, ousting a crippling complacency,  you feel a need to come out, feel alive, make mistakes, learn from them, make mistakes again, and keep learning from a stimulated, active existence. These might not have been his thoughts, but they are my sentiments for sure.

For two days, I was brooding. I had been shaken out of my comfort zone, and pretty badly at that. I am not saying it was a life changing meeting. In fact, it wasn't. But it was one worth remembering, for my own good. His distinct sentences have now condensed in my mind as an elegy to the lost promises of youth, to the unabated acceptance of things as they have come my way. When I think of it now, the gaze- his gaze, coupled with that curl of lips which unnerved me no end as I sat in front of him, seems sort of beautiful in retrospect. I am definitely not meeting up this person again, for being unnerved in an alien company is not an experience I would rush myself towards. For that, I might hate him, but for the warmth which spreads through me as I write, I will definitely admire him.

Most of the worthy, beautiful things in life lie but a step away from us. May be they lie even farther away, but its that first step which we often deliberate too much over taking. By then, the proverbial butterfly has flown away, to a new abode. And we, we lurk right there, right at the edge, still hesitating to take that one step. Insecurities, fears, irrationalities- they exist in each heart, but whether we submit, or make them submit is what differentiates the ordinary from the outstanding. It is not a very well developed thought, but I want to leave it at that. I have found myself lurking at the edge of sunshine many a times in life. Now, with this little, abstract realization, I think I want to step into that sunshine, and open my arms, and feel the rays make my heart their home. Can't help getting poetic, foolishly may be, but it conveys the thought, right?

To end, I again found a painting by my favorite, Leonid Afremov. This one is called

Sun of January

 

Winter Reminiscences- Expectations of Love!

Have you ever gotten a taste of your own medicine, as they proverbially say? I mean, have you ever landed in a situation which is like this giant mirror of your life, just that you see your own role being performed by someone else? And all this in a pleasant and amusing way, not with any masochistic or depressive undertones.

It happened with me, at the beginning of the 'month of musings', as I call it. December, as insinuated by me in Flakes Of Love, is that month where besides indulging in hopeless romanticism, I also take a stock of the big and small details of the year gone by. Right from the best books I read, to the people who mattered to me- I like revisiting things that made my year special. Introspection, on the problems faced, moments lived and lessons learnt is perhaps the most important aspect of this yearly catharsis of mine, and this post is precisely about that.

Unlike the previous years, this year's cathartic recollections began on an extremely amusing note. I am known to be this extremely insecure person, who craves undue levels of attention from people she loves. When that is not becoming, situations have been known to get ugly. At times, certain unfortunate friends of mine have been caught in pugnacious encounters with me without any apparent fault of theirs, specifically when even a tiny figment of my brain assumed that they've been sharing with a third person some part of their life which I rightfully think to be my own. Though I am learning to grow up, envy and a certain degree of possessiveness towards people I love have always characterized me. The closest to me suffer the most. Anger and tears follow. Acrimony, thankfully, is kept at bay.

So what was so amusing? The fact that I got a taste of my own bitter medicine. In one of the most harrowing situations in my life, I entered into a confrontation over issues of attention and insecurity where I was on the receiving end! It would've seemed implausible at one time, but it did happen. And the person wroth with me, wroth because of hurt feelings of extreme love, was my mentor. She was the first person ever in life I looked upto, and I know I fell in love with her even before my brain acquired sanity. She is much elder to me, and as much as I wanted to see my future in the strength of her character, she liked seeing her own past in my childhood achievements.

Maturity is often confused with passivity of emotions. May be that's why I was dumb initially when I saw that unmistakable hurt in her eyes caused by my callousness in loving her enough. I was in disbelief and denial. Here is how I defended myself in my thoughts- How could she feel hurt? How could she doubt me? She should know that even though I don't lurk around, I always hold her dear, shouldn't she?

Well, no! She is not obligated to assume that I love her, if I do not care to show her enough the love and concern I hold in my heart. Her getting hurt is not her fault, it is mine. The disbelief and surprise was soon replaced by delight, translating into a smile on my lips. I felt really good in my heart. Firstly, because of the realization that I mattered so much to someone, and secondly because I kind of felt at home. When I threw similar tantrums in front of others, I was assumed to be immature. So, I vowed to 'grow up', implying that I vowed to close myself to such extremities of emotions. No more! I smiled because her one outburst assured me that I wasn't some abnormal being always sulking for attention. Her words were my words, used many a times before. My problem is that I verbalize my thoughts too easily and too often, and ride an emotional high throughout my existence. It is the reaction I get which makes me doubt the very person I am.

I narrated this incident to a friend late at night, with palpable alacrity in my heart. It was a weird state state of excitement. I ended my narrative with these words- "and there I stood, smiling, but with absolutely no idea what to do now!". His query- "So, what will you do now? In fact, is there anything at all that you can do?". Poor chap, his query was obvious. He has been the victim of my outbursts way too often, and this is what I had to say to him- "I will now do everything for her, which I expected others to do when I put them in the same spot. No matter how hard I try, I cannot erase the bad memory, the hurt-that is how it works with hyper emotional beings like myself. But what I can do is to lurk around, and create enough happy memories to make that bad one inconsequential. She matters to me enough to put in that effort, and it is just that I need to let her know."


Lost somewhere within the pages of my journal was a five point mantra I devised for myself long back- more like compiled from various sources. This incident, fortunately, compelled me to find it once again. These five points were put together by me in not some gloomy-reflective condition, but in a state of perfect bliss, when I wanted to pamper my self, and feel proud of the person I am, but with responsibility. Time is good to share it on my blog. This constitutes my treasured lesson from the year 2011. They are not some divine secrets which promise a glorious existence- but five simple lines which if understood simply do have the potential of helping screwed up situations get a little better.

1. Stop lying to yourself. Harms no one but you.
2. Ask for help. Give your near ones the right to interfere while they still can.
3. Do not rationalize, i.e., do not make excuses for yourself. There cannot be a good enough reason for failing to do what you did not.
4. Count your blessings. List your motivations and rewards. Naive, but  has the awesome potential to make you feel great.

5. No matter how hard you try, you cannot change the person you are. When it comes to that, let go; with an understanding that holding on and letting go are divided by a invisibly thin line based on personal discernment

I think the best note to end this post on would be a painting by my favorite, Leonid Afremov, titled

Expectations of Love!

Flakes of Love

With a light jacket hung loosely onto my shoulders, I stepped out of my house, like I do daily at ten thirty at night. It is my time for an after-dinner stroll. A step up the stairway, and I found myself smiling, as if something good was going to come my way today. I had not even reached the terrace door when a pleasantly chilly gust of air greeted my face. My loose hair were blown back, and I felt my smile intensifying. The winters I was missing so bad had finally knocked at my door.

Winter, indisputably, is the most romantic of all seasons. Delhi winters especially so. Early morning fog with its musty smell, afternoon rays cascading down to mark their feeble presence, or the extremely chilly nights yearning for the warmth of a lover- winter with all its solemn hues entices hopeless romantics like me. Numerous scenes are automatically added to the fabric of a love story I'm trying to weave. Yes, I am trying to put together a love story. At times for real. At times in just the landscape of my imagination.

Ambling on the terrace was more pleasant than usual today. I was walking through the chill. My hands stretched the jacket to tightly wrap it around my body, but my nose was more than glad to be exposed and breathing in the smell of winters. My mind felt calm, and felt rich. Rich with memories of love. Memories for real, and memories conjured.

In bits, I felt lonely. I have always pictured myself in the warm, cozy embrace of someone special as I open my eyes to a lazy, reluctant morning. In the very next breath, I see myself adamantly returning to slumber, sinking deeper into the same embrace. Sharing coffees by the window, and sharing clasps on a long, aimless walk down the road- these common visions seem to acquire new definition when a fog-rich background is added to them. Lazy smiles. Ceaseless hugs. And beautiful nights. Sigh. I did feel lonely. Acutely.

However, I was not open to any gloom today. Winters, eluding the Delhi air for so long, were finally making their presence felt. Under that fast enveloping feeling of loneliness borne out of an acute urge to share my winter mirth with someone, I desperately sought some pleasant distraction for myself. Finding none, I thought it best to plan for an ideal, still 'single' winter. What would be the best options for living a memorable winter, for a romantic who finds herself still single in the city?

Books-romantic fiction strictly.
Coffee by the balcony-a single mug, of course.
Stroll in Central Park- early morning, to miss the sight of all those lucky couples.
Piping hot tomato soup- at D'pauls, warmth and pocket comfort simultaneously.
Journal entries- amid outdoor beauty, Lodhi Gardens or Agrasen ki Baoli.
Clothes- greys or whites, dark or subtle, intense or calm.
Quilt comforts- with a remote and nice love story on tv.

And if all this love is not potent enough to suffocate me, may be I would spend some time reflecting on yet another closing year. The bests of it, the worsts of it. The achievements, the lessons. The friends, the best friends. December is like a mischievous damsel- it gives me the most beautiful painting of nature to gaze at, it gives me the most salubrious weather to feel rejuvenated in, but it also lends me a powerful craving to have someone near by, and even before I know it, it fills me with the gloom of having to watch another year go by.

I have not even finished writing this post, and I'm already receding into imagining yet another scene which will hopefully fit into the love story I'm writing, for real or not. You, my dear readers, I would be indebted to, if you could suggest something new for me to do these winters, given that I am not occupied anywhere else. If for you winters are not just another passing month, if you romanticize them as much as I do, what would you do to make them absolutely special ?

Valentine Art Affection

For the past twenty years of my life, which is the whole of my life actually, I had made myself believe that I loathe colors. I still do, yes, especially the bright, opulent shades, specifically in the segment of clothing. I am definitely not a member of the gawsy brigade, those people who try to project offending cheerfulness through the clothes they wear. I like to live life in more sombre shades. I prefer to dress up in grays and dull blues. I even like my pictures in black and white, or at max, sepia.

So, when I put up this picture as the my blog's header sometime back, doubling up as my blogs identity, I was initially skeptical of my own decision. But then, the colors in this painting wielded their magic. I was literally stupefied, and left to gape at it in mute admiration. So, there it remained, adorning my blog, making it look pretty.

I often develop a child-like fondness for things. From a child's perspective, everything appears big, appears magnified. So is the case with me. The moment I become fond of something, I attach to it many superlatives which totally justify my predilection towards it. When this painting started hypnotysing me and its colors began coruscating in my dreams, I, besides extolling its beauty in, again, superlative terms, was living under the illusion that this is one-of-its-kind painting, and that I may never come across another like it. However, my myth was soon dispelled by the contemporary divine entity- Google- which has answers to all questions we ask, sometimes even those questions which we don't ask.

A few days back, I stumbled upon this picture. Purely by chance.

The style of painting seemed similar to the one on my blog. Even though I am no connoisseur of art forms of any kind, the ease with which the artist had played with colors seemed very familiar, identical even to the painting that had so far been ruling my mind. After probing a little more, with a few random keywords, on, of course, the monolith of all information, Google, I was able to trace the painter who painted both the above beauties. And, many more.

Leonid Afremov- A search by his name on Google images opened a whole world of unbelievable splashes of color in front of my eyes. For more than an hour, I just kept on staring at his different creations. Just looking at his painting made me happy. Many of them were similar. I guess this Belarusian painter has a penchant for painting boulevards, with couples walking down the road. His paintings have immense depth. I could imagine myself walking down the same boulevard with my love. Two of my most favorite paintings of this category (besides the one on my blog's header) are these.

As I look at these paintings, I can't help but once again marvel at the blend of colors in them. In the both these, what I especially like is the way the lamp light is softly illuminating the scene.

Besides painting long roads and multi hued trees lining them, Leonid Afremov also has a clear proclivity towards paintings couples. Couples, presumably in love, appear on most of his canvases. I should not use the word 'presumably' here. His couples are visibly in love, often, passionately in love. And this, is conveyed very elegantly in his paintings. Check out these two for example.

So this Valentines, because I have nothing better to do, I will allow this brilliant artist's grand creations to haunt me. Event though I adore the above two paintings, these are not exactly the ones I would like to see in my dreams. The ones, which actually transport me into a dream land are the ones which depict couples with more subtler shades of passion engulfing them. In fact, in those paintings, what is depicted in place of passion is togetherness- long enduring togetherness, the kind of companionship I could kill for.

The first painting is may be the kind of Valentine's date I would want for myself- a private time together, in each other's casual embrace, discussing a million things which make us perfect for each other, confessing and reconfessing our love and completely losing ourself to the beauty of the moment.

The second painting is titled "The Last Date", and hence, for comprehensible reasons, makes me feel sad. Love forms an indispensable part of my existence, and whenever love is wounded, I can't help but feel sad.

Anyway. Hats off to Leonid Afremov. I hope that someday I am able to buy at least one of his creations, because I have turned into a big, incorrigible admirer of his. For all the right reasons for sure.
(Thanks for making me fall in love with colors again)

A Table For Two...

He said:

And the thought crosses my mind
If I never wake up in the morning
Would she ever doubt the way I feel
About her in my heart
If tomorrow never comes
Will she know how much I loved her
Did I try in every way
To show her every day
That she's my only one
And if my time on earth were through
And she must face this world without me
Is the love I gave her in the past
Gonna be enough to last
If tomorrow never comes...

She replied:

Yes. You made me cry
Through what you said
My lips are dry
My heart unwell.


A dream of glory
Wishing to hope
Nervous to hope
Nonetheless, I hope.
We'll wade through, we'll cope.


A tomorrow will dawn
So what if we stand apart.
He'll watch over, he'll guard.
He'll see us from the same rampart.


One Sun- We'll bathe in its rays bright
One Moon- Will dispel pain, the dark fright
One Sky- Where desires'll seek flight
One Heart- Binding us in divine light
One Soul- Our stanchion of immense might


We'll loosen the ropes of worldly control
We'll persevere, we'll not lose hope


If not in this world
then in the Parallel Universe
We'll experience Grace
Be absolved of the curse.


Providence shall murmur
not cruel, but words sweet
"The ordeal is over, go fulfil
Your need to be complete."

Amen.

Quote from Acts of Faith, Erich Segal
"Deborah, do you want to know my definition of an adult? It's someone who wakes us one morning, and says to himself, 'I no longer care what my parents think'. To me that's the real, psychological bar mitzvah."
(Dr. Barnea to Deborah)