!!! Courage: Gist of Life !!!

Principle of Selfless living is awarding me pain,
This righteous virtue is turning me insane,
Every honest deed of giving is going in vain,
With so little left & nothing to gain.

Emotional backstabbing has left my soul wounded,
My heart broken & feelings grounded,
Gentility & Honesty were the attributes accepted,
But people of this city has different values propounded.

Vulgarity and Cheating are the order of the day,
My principles are receiving deathblows everyday,
So, much of swindle always at play,
Sometimes I feel its better to keep at bay.

Why cant I amalgam with modern contours?
Why cant I be coloured in the colour of these rules?
My soul replies No!
Show some wisdom in the city of fools!

Winds of truth should always be blowing,
River of relief must always be flowing,
Self - esteem ought to be growing,
No matter how much it pains just keep growing

Impart to the world a valued direction,
Simply execute total dedication,
When you embark for a new destination.

Ritz.. : Wish I knew the Source ...!

!!! Closure !!!

Just recently I watched an amazingly outstanding piece of art – Dhobi Ghat. Though there will be many who will happily stand to contradict my statement questioning my sanity. Nevertheless, it wouldn't change my opinion of this movie.

I would say after watching all the 2010 disasters except for Udaan, Dhobi Ghat was a welcome change. I bow to the ability of Kiran Rao, who embraced her character’s not with the virtual reel drama but the simplicity of Reality.

Though I was quite let down by the negative reviews of many about this flick. Because I watched it a wee bit late I had to say I succumbed to their opinions which I almost never do, but although it did became one reason for me to keep delaying, watching it. And now I completely fail to understand why it was so hard for the audiences to accept the ending as it was, which was again a very creatively unique approach towards the story and again so real.

It got me thinking how as a part of a population with unusually high EQ, we tend to look out for closures in almost all aspects of life, for our own emotional stability. From the childhood we follow a trend “what has started should end”. But realms of reality is not so as it turns out while we start embracing the harsh truths of life. This film, like life, didn't provided any closure to the characters, which I thought was extremely beautiful.
There are plenty of things that occurs in our life that do not give us closure in a way we want, like when things suddenly slips out of our hands, like a messed up relationship, like an incomplete desire or a sudden broken dream. Harsh but very simple truth.

As an audience of our Indian Cinema we keep bickering about “how it needs to grow” “how it needs to offer something more real than just all reel” and on the other hand  if the cinema do happen to offer something different it is immediately analysed on irrational norms, just because it was more nearer to reality. Reality as it was shown in this movies as dreams, desire, passion, love, obsession & most of all LIFE, Yes, that’s how I see life, unexpected, unpredictable, and with rarity of any possible or desirable end.

- Written By – Ritika Patel

!!! Making Love Work !!!

"There is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.”

                                                                    - William Shakespeare

Love is action  - action, born from the feeling. It is the actions we take that in response generate particular feelings in the ones we love.
To be loving is to love the person the way “they” want to be loved, not the way we want to love them and not the way “we” think they should be loved. – That is the essence of unconditional love.

When you love somebody it is so natural to want to give them, isn't it? But just any kind of giving isn’t necessarily going to make them feel loved by you. Only if in your giving you have made them feel you truly honour their needs and taken time to pay attention, only then they will began to feel safe in your presence. and once they do it will be a lot easier for them to truly open themselves in front of you and they will experience intimacy in their in relationship.

Love & Intimacy – feeling tender, close, vulnerable, trusting, it scares most of the people (specially people like myself) more than love does.
If we do not care to take the time to understand what it is that makes the one we love happy, what it is that make them feel loved, then no matter how hard we try, we will end up frustrated, feeling misunderstood and unappreciated because we will be going about it the wrong way.

And it is absolutely atrocious to force the one you love to behave in the way you want them to behave. To keep venting out the complains and disappointment you have towards them, or to keep making them aware of the things you do for them, keep stating things or consideration you give to the relationship, because this will sow the seed the of undying hatred which will keep taking its form subconsciously in both the partners. Please remember when you do things in love – your only motive is to show the person that how much you love and that gesture of yours should really make them happy. Whatever you do you do it in the end for yourself and not to create debt on your partner.

“Love is patience. Love is paying attention to detail. Love is – taking the time patiently to see who your partner really is and not who you want him/her to be."

  - Written By: Ritika Patel
“From her own experience and extract from a book written by" “Auriela Mc Carthy”

“A big thanks to the one who has helped me to understand all of the above with utmost simplicity, like always”

!!! Honesty is What Makes The "YOU" !!!

Nothing that a relationship offer could be bigger than honesty. It will sound almost unprecedented but getting love, care, understanding and friendship from the person you love is way too easy. What is to be sustained in relationship, which also exists in utmost rarity "is the faith you have in each other" &"the honesty with which you dedicate yourself in a relationship".

I have all my life have been blessed with some gem of friends and most wonderful understanding parents (touchwood). And I hold this as a reason behind my "sort after" approach towards life, as my all the time "Calm & Composed" nature and my "crystal clear "understanding of the most "complicated" of relations, as many have told me over and over again. When you are emotionally secured from the childhood by your parents, and emotionally matured by gaining wonderful friends later in your life, than you are never looking for someone to fill those holes and void in your life which doesn't exists. More often than not it is only one of these traits that is dominant in the individual and the other is frequently left underdeveloped. It is this self realisation that you need which will make you realise what kind of partner you need and will be happy with.

So, probably not being in the race of finding some one to complete you, will actually lead you to the most compatible match for your personality and for the person you are. Which is where i got blessed with thankfully. And which has given my relations a clarity of expectations which is to be shared with each other keeping in mind to treat them as "necessary expectations" and not "irrational expectations".

And that is why what I nurture in my relation is having and giving lot of space and a faithful & honest association with my loved one. And this clarity makes you understand how very important it is to be honest with your love and give in your faith completely to one relation which means life to you.

I preach people, When in a relation never ever compromise on honesty and faith because if these have been wavered once in your relationship, you could for surely expect another blow like it in the near or the long future.... As I said it is easy to find, love, care, friendship and understanding, in its extreme way, in a relationship but it is with utmost rarity that you find some one who is with all his heart and soul honest to you and your relation and more than that honest to his own soul for that matter.

Love can be nurtured, if lessened,

Care to be found again, if lost,

Friendship comes voluntarily,

Understanding is relationships Virtue...

But honesty is its back bone, Unconditional,

And if Damaged, Unrepairable & Irrevocable.

Written By: Ritika Patel

"For those who in the haste of finding love, loses themselves"

!!! I Dare To Ask Why !!!

“When I look at you, I see forgiveness,

I see the truth.

You love me for who I am, Like the stars hold the moon,

Right there where they belong.

and I know I am not alone.”

“When my world is falling apart,

When there's no light to break up the dark,

That's when I look at you.

When the waves are flooding the shore,

and I can't find my way home anymore,

                                                         That's when I look at you.”

You, Who has stood by during all the thick n thin of my life even when sometimes in my sheer stubbornness I mess over your well laid plans for me, and still his love has sustained and increased with everyday. God is one Whom I put in my faith. God is one with whom I live with utmost ease.

But he makes me wonder, when he again brings back those things, that once took every ounce of my soul, to cut them out of my life. Its times like this that my faith wavers and I question whether I am putting my trust at the right place. And if I am doing what is “right” than why do you bring me to those forgotten lanes. Why when I ask for direction and peace from you. You hold my hand and drag me back to those dark alleys and make me lose not just my faith in you but my soul too.

Every now and then we cross our paths with the most painful past of our life “because the “Time”  that we have spend in our past, present or future, “Can Not” get completely erased from our life or from the lives of the ones who was/is/will be the part of it”. So coming across them is inevitable.”

He puts me in a difficult phase when he saves me from people's hatred, cruelty and betrayal that surrounds me. But he again brings them back in my life when they are the ones who needs protection from the same. Than I turn around and ask why? Why I had you and none when I was being pushed into the darkness and you serve them with helping hands when they need it. I ask you then Why you test my strenghts only after pushing me into loneliness while you keep providing them support to pass your own worst laid plans...

I have been clobbered more than once and more than I deserved. I ask you now for the first time to not show me directions if that is the only place where you have to lead me every time. Because the people who you put in front of me now & again are the ones who feeds on the courage, wisdom, strength, love and confidence of people like me.

So I ask you now, to not treat me as your child if you are treating them as your child too…

Written By – Who Else…

!!! Words That Cover Me !!!

Long Long Ago, I had my own script
I had words for my motivation
I had words for my inspiration
I had words to write my own destiny

Before they started hovering upon them
Questioning their intelligence, was their virtue
I was confused, whether to abide by myself or their ritual
But being my only defender, I gave in to their recital

I started believing their words
I trusted their blessings and their curse
Words once filled with wisdom, I thought
Words that destroyed me and made me worse

Words can bring the best in you,
Words can create the worst of you
They Chose to peruse the latter with me
And I nodded my head foolishly and almost willingly

It took me a while to understand their intention
I learned to my cost, it wasn't my redemption
Though fully aware of their meaningless structure
I know they meant nothing but destruction

I made my soul soundproof against their definition
Though broken by them cruelly, I still hear the distant echo
And I still feel my heart wriggle in that direction

Those were the words that once created and then destroyed me
May be that’s why I am scared to be a part of your story
You keep the book open for me to write my heart’s glory
But Whenever I try to, I hear those echo luring me insanely

Written By : Ritika Patel
“I know you deserve Peace & Answers, With this I hope you get them”

!!! Convenience of Escapism !!!

Have you ever had a magical moment when you felt two strongly opposite emotions? Love/Hate? Elation/Sadness? Anger/Sympathy? The desire to move forward yet run away at the same time? I am sure you have a story to tell too, share your thought as a comment here or on theClose - Up Facebook page. This post is participating in a contest, please vote for me onINDIBLOGGER by clicking on it and promote there, if you want me to win! Thanks!

Please visit Close Up's Facebook page and add your stories there and also as a comment in my blog!!

First time I saw you in the Gala

Dancing in the arms of my better half
The warmth of his body failed completely
to divert the heat of passion coming from your eyes
I lost myself in your sight, And followed you out of the dome
In that shimmery full moon night

They say your spouse is the part of your soul
I love him from the bottom of my heart but you …
You gave me those lost pieces and made me whole
With your every touch the guilt spread in my veins like fire
But your presence was like a drug, that nothing else mattered

I took care of him, and loved him and made him my life
And then I leave him, I lie to him, I betray him everyday
When I walk into your home, hands in hands
I cry a little everyday for killing him like this
And then I smile looking at your sms of our next meet
Hardly could I wait for that raging passion to began

He loves me, he takes care of me, I know I am his life
But Then he trusts me more than I deserve
He shuts his eyes and escapes reasonability
When I don't reply his calls and sms’s when I am with you
And he carefully forgets to ask questions When I come back
And he carefully denies that I am covered with you

I look at him and hate myself, I cry and I scream
I make myself a promise that I wont rip my self apart like this
Lying beside you I made a promise, this is it I wont do it again
Though I love you but I love him too
You don't belong to me, But I belong to him now and forever
And I left you fallen and broken and crying
And as I moved out I know I am walking over your heart & Mine

Whenever I get late he stays up for me
With my favourite Mocha kept carefully beside the table
I looked at him and his killer smile which lights up
Every time I walk towards him,
As usual he didn't ask and didn't probe
We chatted half way through the night
And then I fell asleep in his arms, happy about the end of my dual life

The morning was clearer than many in the past
It was new and it was better but I feel the void building inside
Which you filled up and now without you I feel lost again
No, I wont think about you
I will stick to what my destiny has chosen for me

As I reached my bedroom
cursing my weakness of giving into your thoughts
I saw that now, I know, for some time I suspected
But I see now,the red marks on his shirt lying on the wash
And another ,
An anklet hooked in a sheet, which I picked up 2 years back for our room

He was a lousy cleaner, May be that’s why
Everything seems to be too perfectly placed nowadays
Is this Why he never probed me,
Because he was busy keeping me from probing

I stood there for a long time
Holding the shirt in one hand and the sheet in the other
Numbness got redefined that day for me
I was angry for his betrayal
Sad to know that its not working for both of us
Broken to know that all we share with each other is just “guilt”
Confused thinking, what we will be like,
when we will stop feeling even guilty for each other

I stood there for a long - long time
Before I reached for my cell
Saw your numerous calls and messages
And replied in few but self assured words
“I will see you at the same place, same time”
Love.
I waited till the cell beeped with
“Message Delivered”

And then I started with my daily chores….
As I felt relief spreading through my last core…

Written By- Ritika Patel

Have you ever had a magical moment when you felt two strongly opposite emotions? Love/Hate? Elation/Sadness? Anger/Sympathy? The desire to move forward yet run away at the same time?I am sure you have a story to tell too, share your thought as a comment here or on theClose - Up Facebook page. This post is participating in a contest, please vote for me on INDIBLOGGER by clicking on it and promote there, if you want me to win! Thanks!


Please visit Close Up's Facebook page and add your stories there and also as a comment in my blog!!

!!! Shadows in Eyes !!!

I was never in love with you
No, It was your smile who screamed for my attention
All I could hear is the faint cries when you smile
I could hear the prayers of the desperation of being belonged to...

I was never in love with you
No, It was your eyes who spoke to me first
It was the whispers in them that I heard
It was the feelings in them that I captured
It was the invisible tears which shined at me

How can I hear your words when your eyes have a conversation of their own .....
Its the reflection of your heart in your eyes that I fell in love with .....
No, I don't know you ..... but shadow of your soul is what I am familiar with .... its your heart that I know ...

Written By - Ritika Patel