Feeling Lonely or Alone

Image courtesy of jesadaphorn / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

I was all happy and glee after i got married and settled with my hubby separately and away from my mum’s home that always bustled with the energy of my niece and nephew, And where work began before morning and i could never exactly figure out when will i end up in bed maybe past midnight or even more.

So suddenly i was all the more happy thinking now there’s no work and i can sleep, eat and freak at my own will but then came the loneliness, i could feel it even more because i have never been accustomed to living alone , i was always surrounded by people since school, college, work , home and i never felt like living without people was so difficult.

Because when i was living with them, all my life i felt like breaking away from them and taking sanyas and spending few years of my life alone before i get married and maybe not. I thought this many a times in my life because living in a family is not only the place where your parents, siblings and juniors influence you but also your immediate neighbors, relatives and even colleagues interfere a lot with your daily work and bread.

And so i waited and waited for my marriage to happen, the day ill be free to go on a living spree !

At first it looked nice and fresh since the honeymoon period was going on and all you think about is love and making love to my hubby. Then as the days go by i could feel an urge to go out and find work since i had left my job after marriage and moved to another city with him.

I kept exploring all possible options since working in a new place isn’t easy and there were language and cultural barriers, so i gave up looking for job and instead focused on myself thinking after all i had worked so much i must relax and enjoy doing nothing.

Days became months and months became a year, and this feeling of being alone even when we are both present hasn’t changed a bit, i wonder how do the other couples manage to live alone.I often convey my hubby about the random thoughts that cross my minds to alleviate these feelings of loneliness in me, like we must get his parents here to live with us, or that i will have at least 4 kids so that my home is always filled with noise and i keep watching little people crawling around .

He looks so much amused hearing all this but never denies me for doing anything even bringing my stupidest thoughts to reality and conforming them that they will be done.

All this and more hasn’t helped me a lot, this inner craving for people around has made me cry a lot and feel sad every time my parents, brother’s family and in laws visit me and come here to live with us for few days.

Their short duration visit’s make me even more vulnerable, i feel depressed and just cannot live alone and it get’s worse when my hubby has a tour which is for 2 or 5 days, i panic out and buy tickets immediately for home since i just cannot live by myself.

I don’t know why it happens but this need for attachment makes me weak and vulnerable, I am aware of my abilities and think am too strong to live alone and even handle everything in life ever since childhood since i have been brought up like that only, but what has happened now, something has changed in me and i cannot figure out what it is.

There’s nothing wrong externally, but everything that is wrong is internal, i have realized that soon after am left alone, when hubby goes to office or some tour my mind jumps around over the thoughts wagon and it turns on the sad mode where i think that now am alone, what next, what next, it goes around exploring bringing files and folders from past, when i was home around with everyone and how many times in my present home i felt elated to see my little nephew crawling around and how we all slept on the floor together over the mattresses in one room chatting all night.

It doesn’t stop anywhere it goes on and on, oscillating from one memory to another, all related to my being surrounded by people and constantly poking my conscious about the happiness factor that only happens when am with those people.

Now this has to stop, i cannot stop my thoughts though i can control them to some limits where i can consciously and deliberately attempt not to think about that at all and focus on the present moment like i now practice looking at the trees from my balcony ,read a book, focus on some TV serials, prioritize my thoughts and randomly select the ones that suits my present moment and upon the availability of the factors that will contribute and enhance them .

In totality the onus of changing thoughts is upon us, I am now aware that if you let these thoughts acquire you even starting from a single one, it will start a chain reaction and then you will be completely submerged into the sea of thoughts where it will become more difficult and harder to get out dry and alive. The thing is not to let even the slightest single thought affect or get onto you.

This way a lot of everyday problems can be handled, the feeling of loneliness or being alone is just one of them . Every problem is internally located somewhere in our mind, we have to deliberately find and fix the thoughts first its like debugging, to find and delete all the bad files first that corrupt the hardware that is our mind.

 

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In order to fee…

In order to feel perfect Absence, one should measure the Distance first

I realize the power of missing someone, how does the absence of my hubby creates certain feelings, it never happened before where he had to go for 3 – 4 days office tour, and only now am able to feel and realize the depths of emotions where i long for him so much and never ever realized that he is absent everyday for 8 to 9 hours and comes back home only after office hours. Though he being there in office all day and very much near to me, i can still  have this presence of him, thinking that he is just a few miles away and that’s all that puts to rest my clumsy feelings.

And but now i feel that absence doesn’t matter much what matters is the distance that separates the two of us, the feeling that am i be able to reach him or not, and that there are thousands of miles between us..and oh ! he is so far away, creates more emotions and more feelings inside me. 

Emotional Deprivation

After so much of planning, packing , travelling, searching and relocating , i have finally been able to connect with you all after such a long gap. Its been physically draining and exhausting journey that is yet to be completed.

My dearest Hubby has found this amazing new job that suits everything from his skills to bills, so that makes it more obvious that we have shifted from east to west of India, and all the household goods are still to come which makes everything appear to me as if we are living in a hostel sleeping on the floors with a thin mattress under a bed sheet and eating meals every day from outside. 

Wow ! But its fun that am off cooking for some days resting but still doing the chores like dusting and cleaning 🙂

In between all this hurry up , quick, no time, planning, writing, and travelling , i couldn’t find time to emotionally connect with my inner thoughts about leaving a place and leaving my mother and father in law back. It was all done up in 15 or 20 days time that hardly left any thoughts in me rather than a physically exhausted body that longed for rest.

Today i feel deprived of emotions that had to happen during a particular time and day but it couldn’t but yes i had tears in my eyes at the platform bidding adieu to my mother and father in law as they were the ones who will be most affected during our absence and same for me as i had one more mom with whom i shared my heart. I will miss her a lot .

And leaving kolkata, my favorite destination for the worlds best phuchka’s ( pani puri) around 20 to 25 in one go used to have them daily . oh they were so mwahhhhhhhh. will miss them too.

Its only now that am writing and remembering, what all i have left and will miss, my friend pooja and i missed meeting her son debu, he was sleeping i did not disturb and just met pooja and came back home . Ohh i should have hugged debu .

This will continue and will go on but life still moves on without pauses or full stops, having the time to acknowledge these things are more than enough but to get them right on time is a thing to be mastered and i need to practice it, to find time for emotions and letting them out even if am short of time.

 

There’s a Mind Behind The Mind

These days am being regularly advised by my dearest hubby to practice doing nothing , he thinks am a restless soul and that i cannot stop doing things , even if am lying down on bed he says am in continuous movement where i keep talking about daily tasks or things i have to do or remember for the other day or even future .

And i really agree with him, i find myself restless very often when i think i must relax and need time to unwind a bit, and the more i try to relax and do nothing, i introspect that my mind never ceases to think , it thinks , and thinks even during the night like am in a whirlpool of thoughts.

He is right i must practice the art of doing nothing like he does when he sits quietly for some time in a very peaceful and relaxing composure and literally does nothing, i don’t see his eyes blinking when they are close, nor their is any hand or leg movement or anything i see that disturbs him from him. But this doesn’t happens with me and am aware of my eyes that in are in movement when they are closed to relax which i think should not happen when you are doing nothing.

The movement reflects thoughts and the continuous nature of doing , doing as in thinking, remembering like all the cognitive activities of the mind and like my hubby says “there’s a mind behind the mind” that will make you do everything and even let you do nothing , we must learn to know about the mind that works behind this mind that we are conscious about.

 

I believe its really hard to do nothing because the mind has its own powerful mechanism that would never stop doing, because we have these senses that are in continuous work mode and we keep tracking sound, smell, taste, touch and vision, so i always protest about this doing nothing activity and i think i really cannot help them close and so i have to intake all the information that comes to me and analyse them as this is my basic instinct of doing .

I think there’s an answer to this problem where senses cannot be closed nor shut down but they can be controlled which is why there is a mind behind the mind as my hubby says.

It has a very deep meaning and am still trying to know every bit of it from him, but unfortunately am not a very good listener as when he explains and talks spiritual, i could barely give him 5 minutes and keep saying I know this , I already know this. Its not a good thing and i acknowledge my weakness of not listening to him when he talks of spirituality and life and even guilty of not reading many of his spiritual accounts in his diary or blog.

The mind behind the mind is often dormant i believe because we are aware and conscious of only one mind that stores , restores remembers and does all the cognitive and psychological activities, but it lacks the potential to be controlled or to be used wisely, hence we become slave to our own conscious mind that never stops doing , it only takes and takes more within and we cannot do anything but to keep doing.

Well i don’t have any recipe as of yet for practicing this simple yet supreme art , but If at all You and I become aware of the mind behind the mind we could practice the art of doing nothing. but am afraid it will take some while for me to learn this art from my hubby because he does it with utmost ease and am still years away from learning the practice of doing nothing , where i have to first manage the art of being a good listener .

 

 

The Saree Season

I never thought that a long piece of really smooth fabric could change my look and all these days i was so afraid to wear it , because i

Me In Saree

thought i should wear the saree but without wearing that look of looking like a behenji or like old aunts.

I prefer looking more like a girl somewhat girlish look in a saree because am conscious of my FAT that may get disposed off here and there as i love the low rise showing the beautiful waist which i think i don’t have but still i long for that perfect figure.

Anyhow i have been wearing saree’s ever since my school farewell and i was literally crying seeing my friends carrying it so well and showing their lovely figures all over and around whereas i wore the saree not to expose but literally covered myself in the 6 yard saree, to add more to my woes the farewell pictures were absolute disaster for me.  Then came the college where i learnt to carry the saree quite well but not the matching blouse accessory stuff again a disaster that made me turn out looking dressed up for a marriage and not a college farewell.

Then came the teacher training where it was mandatory to wear the saree for teaching practice there i learnt to carry , match and mix all the ingredients quite well to look fabulous as much i could but again a disaster as i never did make up or apply even a little kohl in my eyes so it was simply simple not much surprising for me. After that i got in to teaching job where i wore the saree plus the makeup and accessory, here it was nice as i could carry off my saree quite well but lacked appreciation or enjoyment of wearing it or feeling that i was looking great today or yesterday in that pink or red saree.

But today is the saree day and i beg to differ from all the opinion s above that i got it all right this time ,the makeup ,accessory , mood , figure, face and the best part ,compliments from my hubby ,in laws and eyes of the strangers on the road , in the mall, and else every where. wow i feel so great that finally am able to mix them all right and make the perfect dish from me for me.

A Snap of my perfect recipe that ive been longing to make since ages and finally ive done it is on the right.

Lost ‘My’ Material Identity

So i was more or less devastated, tensed, felt raw and lost some few hours back ..

Last Thursday me along with my hubby and in laws went to puri in orissa for Jagannath darshan ( Lord Krishna). Since I believed that after marriage and before honeymoon i should go and seek blessings of Maa Vaishno devi at jammu but since my hubby wasn’t able to get enough leave from his office, then everyone decided to go Jagannath as it was not too far and its an overnight journey by train from kolkata.

So we went ahead knowing that it was the time of Rath Yatra and lord Jagannath visits his maternal aunt for few days in a chariot and comes back into the temple where till that time his replica is placed.

Puri Beach :awesome weather and water

So Puri this time is a hot spot for tourists ( mostly Hindus from other states) who flock there to see lord Jagannath and enjoy the Puri Beach, which is an epic beautiful place with all the sea water gushing to and fro and sea waves making sounds.

Here i Must confess that am not a whole hearted bhakt of Lord Krishna , though my hubby loves reading his geeta and currently he is reading Osho’s Geeta Darshan and from his readings he speaks to me of his many teachings and life skills which are very enlightening and realistic. I love listening the bhagwat katha of Krishna and his various Lila’s (maya) but unable to replace the love i have for shiva to him. So still not seriously like i would do when i am to see shiva i went jagannath puri , thinking of shiva as the jagannath unknowingly.

During the  morning we were not able to see  lord Jagannath, there being a huge crowd of  people jostling , fighting and pushing others just to climb on the chariot of lord jagannath, and even the other two chariots of subhadra ( Krishna’s sister ) and Balaram ( Krishna ‘s elder brother) that had equal share of people fighting to reach atop.  As if this ordeal was less in grace there were many pandits who snatched away the hands of the people who thought could shell out loads of cash to see the lord , they clutch the hand so tightly swearing by god that they will make you see and do the puja of lord jagnannth even in this endless sea of people standing and pushing in the invisible ques where the pandits were not spared the policemen s lathi ( wooden stick ).

All this time i was being pushed and twitched in the crowd but thanks to my hubby he never left my ‘body’ alone And between all this time i kept comforting my mother in law, as she was unable to bear the heat, sun and reckless people who shoved her and pulled her spectacles out of her sight, i kept soothing her saying its just for once and if not possible we will go back to the hotel. Finally we were not able to make it and upon a pandits advice we decided to come back in afternoon as he said that is the time when there are less people and we can do the puja and darshan.

So before the afternoon we bathed in the rain and sea water on the beach and went back for darshan, it seemed the crowd was less but then all of a sudden the people in the que grew more and more there were not one or two or three lines rather no lines at all it was again a crowd  that grew more and more around us and we began to feel the heat. Again the same pushing , pulling begun and this time it was more humiliating since the the police personnel’s who were trying to control the crowds actually hit the people anywhere they felt right in a fit of rage, actually they were also helpless controlling so many people was a tough task. so we still managed and struggled for about 2 hours or more just to see lord jagannath once ,but to no avail we went back to the tea stalls nearby for some water and refreshments.

View of Lord jagannath from a stall taken just before the loss.

As soon i opened my handbag for keeping my mobile phone after taking pictures of lord jagannath, i was shocked to see my handbag  ripped open , cut from behind and my brown wallet was gone, it had all the identity proofs like voter Id card , driving license, pan card, debit card with good cash amount , my gold chain and engagement ring and even my hubby’s engagement ring, that i had kept safely in it before going to the beach as i feared losing them while bathing because water softens the hand and rings may lose their grip.

I was stupefied and helpless for some time maybe an hour or so, but inside i was thinking that i had this intuition before, that i was about to lose my brown wallet in this the trip and as if i was wanting it to go. I don’t know why but i never put my little earrings in that wallet i put them into the small chains of my handbag, and it was that day i did not do so.

To narrate what i felt at that moment is something very bold and complicated because there was sense of loss but there was actually not that much of pain , i had to forgo almost things worth 2 lac and more and its a huge amount for me really huge, but why i did not feel so so sad as to have almost a week full of guilt, pain anger, cursing the thief , or just going berserk.

To this day even, I haven’t spoken of any ill for the thief though i just imagine the look on his face when he would see how fool i was to keep all that for him and how he would dance with joy and happiness on getting such a good deal, even though its not as if his whole life would change, but its more than enough to keep him high on spirits. anyhow we registered the FIR and had to devalue the value of the gold and cash that was stolen since we had to immediately procure the receipt of those ornaments in order to get the FIR lodged, but who had all that ,at that point of time, so we just thought of getting the FIR so as to apply for identity cards as soon as possible and more because we were not in our home town and for me i was even more far from my mother’s home.

Ever since this incident I haven’t told my mom about it, and thank god she is not aware of my blog nor the Internet. She took so much pains to make that gold ring for my hubby by giving her own gold ornaments of her marriage for making that ring. I feel doomed at some point of time for being so careless and guilty for losing her hard earned money which she gave for us to keep as we still need a lot of  financial support from both the families and along with this my savings had gone too that i had been doing for so long time .

Now i wish i had bought that Suit or that watch for my hubby and spent the

money at least from my savings , Anyhow if it had to go it had to go no matter what it was, the time that took it away and of course lord jagannath ( Krishna) he is complete mystique a psychologist and the most cleverest and intelligent of all the gods we have, whatever he does is for the good as i know of him.

And now its over i have to pursue for getting all this material identity again which will keep me busy for days to come and its test of my belief and spiritual consciousness and i cannot give all credits to Kanha ( krishna the jagannath)  for enlightening me on this i would give it more to Shiva the Supreme , peaceful, simple and an ascetic with ashes who let’s me be nor happy nor sad in every state. Even after losing all the materialistic things and material identity, i still believe in Shiva, and today its my first Sawan Somvaar Fast as the Fasting Sawan begins today on Poornima, from this day to next 4 Mondays will be somvaar sawan vrat.

And with this firm belief in my lord shiva i know ill be able to break this time as well into pieces and move out of the clutches of loss, which is actually a material loss that was never mine as it would have never gone along with me when i will die. It would only how something i gathered helped the other and thank the lord for he has given me enough potential to gather and give always.

Food Food Food

Of lately I ve been experimenting with food and new recipes that i have cooked in the past and some that i haven’t cooked but tried them here in my hubby’s home and in my own personal kitchen.

The recipes i cook boost my confidence and cooking skills so much that i even post the pics of the meals i make on Facebook which is appreciated by my friends and relatives and on the advice of My dearest Friend Pooja and My beautiful dee Rachna, I have added the Food category to my word press blog that describes the recipes of the Food i cook along with the pictures of the cooked dish.

Since there’s no dearth of good recipes i may just limit to posting pictures and share recipes of some of the dishes that may taste unique or somewhat different. Of course that would be me or my hubby to taste but food is not all about tasting its about the look and feel of it , the colors it has and the aroma it gives.

So much to be explored, hope this food journey may lead to unique experiences and some more observations about spirituality and senses. 

Shred Bread Poha.

Imagination is No Cure

Every second and every moment of that second am not feeling good , I live in a state of loss , blank, depressed , sad , weak, unable to talk , eat or sleep.

I am not able to comprehend the fact that am so unable to enjoy the happiness of being married and the new life that succeeds, there’s absolutely no problem , people around me are putting good efforts to let me in and give space enough to adjust and live thoroughly.

But I feel like a culprit unable to control my emotions , tears immediately crawl down my face and spread the sadness in me and around me , where my hubby continuously tries to make me calm down even though he is tired and affected by office work , he still loves me and cares for me very much.

I feel guilty for not being able to adapt and accept my present, for am clinging to much to my family at home in Delhi and the longing continuous to grow inside me with every passing day, its just the feeling of being so far away from them that makes me burst into tears, the thought that am no longer with them makes me feel lonely and depressed.

Having been with them for the past 26 years ive never been to hostel, tuitions or any other place away from them not even the relatives or friends night out’s etc . so it makes things more difficult, located into such a different state not being able to meet or see them often makes me choke inside. Had I been located there, then at least i could have had some satisfaction that I can go or they can come to see me and life could have been all pleasant.

But what’s at hand needs to be tackled and imagination is no longer a cure for me now , as I go on thinking like there’s a park near our society I imagine my niece playing on its swings , then I imagine my mother sleeping beside me on my bed , it really makes things even more worse, the fact that am not accepting the reality is breaking me down and even not making things any good for my married life.

Am not interested in anything , I just go about the daily rituals , the daily life chores etc and not even talk or discuss anything with my hubby , it pains me and deeply saddens me when he leaves home for work in the morning , I feel guilty for he remains tensed to see me in such a state day in and day out, so my mental state is making my married life not any good.

Am unable to figure out what will I do to overcome all this mental sadness and longingness. All my wishes , desires, confidence, interests and tastes are becoming numb day after day. I don’t know where to look for help now .