Step Up!

Life is so ephemeral. Yet we waste hours of the day planning, scheming, holding back and shying away. We put things off for some other day. We postpone calling the long lost friend. We ignore the small voice that asks us to say sorry to the people we've wronged. We cross people around us only to regret it when it's too late - too late to mend things, only to live with the guilt forever. We don't go that extra mile to tell our family how much we love them and care for them only to end up alone one day.

We take up the important business opportunity and leave our parents only to come back only when they're not in good shape. We laze around in calling people up, in mailing them a simple "Hi! How are you?". We don't mind losing touch with people who don't matter anymore but will, some day. We leave loose threads while we spin the webs of our lives and we end up with broken stories.

So finish your stories today. Make that call. Write to your friend. Say sorry. Go the extra mile. Go home and spend time with family. Coz Time doesn't wait for you to finish your stories. Make sure that if you don't have to loom around thanks to some unfinished business.

"Ever Thine, Ever Mine, Ever Ours..."

Beethoven wrote this for his love in a letter some centuries ago. The word 'ever' is used so liberally and confidently by these people. A 'Happily ever after' and 'forever and ever' are words we seldom use. Or at least quite scared of. We are more of the ephemeral sorts. We like to keep things for now. For today. We don't plan ahead. Our minds are fickle. We don't know what we'd want two years from now and hence, we expect the same from others around us. Since we are so unsure of ourselves, we tend to be unsure of others. Words like 'till death do us apart' are now nice in chick flicks where the girl always gets her dream guy and her perfect dream wedding in her perfect wedding dress. The end of the movie makes you believe that she's gonna have the perfect marriage and the perfect kids with the perfect life. Just because she looked gorgeous on her wedding day. But the cynic in me now knows that a 'happily ever after' isn't for everyone. I mean, I don't want to negate any possibility. Some part of me still wants that fairy tale to realize. But just so if it doesn't, I want to take the safe shelter of being a 'grown up' and never having to be ashamed of living in my dreams.

The ads, sitcoms, videos and movies propagate the concept of 'there's no tomorrow'. Whether it's Barney in HIMYIM or the people on Emotional Atyachaar or even the protagonists of a Fast Track ad, everyone believes in instant gratification. And then I saw Veer Zaara yet again - a movie oozing with selfless love - overflowing with romance in every scene, that left me bewildered and conflicted in more ways than one.

So where are we headed? Can true love exist in the age of instant coffee and instant protection? Or is it just something we like to read about and watch? Does a couple always have to break up the moment one moves out of town? Or can love transcend boundaries, communities and more? Can love stand up for itself or do we ignore it just because it's too cumbersome? In all these questions we all want to ask ourselves - are we strong enough to love, and be loved? Not the convenient kind, but the one that demands more - much more.

In the meanwhile we can enjoy Barney's escapades, Samantha's whims and be smug in the misery (or is it?) of people who put their loved ones to the loyalty test because they don't trust them and then wail and whine the moment the 'suspect' gets cozy with a complete stranger in this sex,attention and drama starved nation.