Diary page of a book therapist

Gloomy days come without notices. Raindrops trespass the hospitality of your veranda without invitation. Lying on the bed with a book in hand is the second best thing to walking out and getting wet in the shower. The words that greet you would be as magical as the drizzle that kisses your hair and face. The characters you find among the pages will be as fascinating as the melody of the patter. The choice whether to let yourself dance in the rain or let the characters dance in your head, entirely lies in your hands!
Hellen Keller is the best rainy-day companion if you are craving for a dose of optimism in your life. Her biography, ‘The Story of my life,’ not only makes her the most optimistic human being to have ever walked on earth, but also makes you realize that the world you constantly call ‘bad’ is not that bad after all!
If you think your life is a misery-welcome to Charles Dickens’ London. Take his hand and walk down the dirty London streets. Be inspired to make things better for those who are not as privileged as you.  If you feel handling the pile of documents on your desk is a fatal torture, it’s your time to read Nelson Mandela’s ‘Long Walk to Freedom.’
If you wish to dig  deeper and get strangled in subtle realities of relationship and complex individualities, nothing would do better than Paulo Coelho’s magical realism and popular spiritual fiction. ‘The Alchemist’ may be the best piece that came out of his pen which addresses to anyone irrespective of his/her believes, caste and creed. But ‘By the River Peidra I sat down and wept’ and ‘Zahir’ beat ‘the boy’ in many ways.
Even if you read Archie comics or Stephanie Meyer, nothing would stop you from going back to classics. They will be best sellers until you keep falling in love with Mr. Rochester and Mr. Darcy. They will be immortal until you keep treading down the halls of Pemberley and Thorn field hall. And in your hearts of hearts you know, you don’t have to wait for a rainy day hug your dog-eared Jane Eyre for the four-hundredth time.
If you need a new definition for determination and courage, meet Madame Curie in Eve Curie’s biography on her mother. Not only you’ll feel the energy that ran through the body of the small made woman, but also the immovable courage and over-brimming love of a mother. If you complain about 9-5 office work and two kids-madame Curie had three kids-her two daughters and radium.
If you think Princess Diaries are better than all the regency books put together, it is your time to meet Georgette Heyer. If you need good stir in the mind, Oscar wilde should be your first choice, his ‘Picture of the Dorian Grey’ must have got him into trouble, but his ‘Happy Prince’ can make you cry for its simplicity and portraying of universal human suffering.
If you want to pick up something closer to home, Shehan karunatilake is the best person to satisfy your hunger for cricket-reads; that is only if you can handle his razor-blade sarcasm. Nihal de Silva would be your pick if you get used to his settings. Only, don’t fall in love with Captain Wasantha- he is mine!

Before the bubble bursts…

Living a normal life is always a boring reality that is devoid of fairytale charms and magic portions. These enchantments seem to bedazzle the lives of those who come in these stories. But in real life, your fairytale moments are what you make out of your life and certainly magic is synonymous with successes you achieve.
Be it a girl or boy, man or woman, it is always easy for anyone to be the prince/ princess or king/queen in his or her world. These imaginary kingdoms have imaginary territories. They have their royal courts filled with the favourites, and sometimes enemies who are beyond the kingdom’s boundaries.  Living in a fairytale always means being ignorant about what is happening around you. The tower you live in is so high that kitchen is not within your vicinity. You don’t know how the food comes to your plate or whether they are vegetables or meat. You can’t differentiate between a cukoo bird and a hen and you wouldn’t know whether your royal garden has jasmine creepers. Anyone who laughs at your lame jokes and nods in agreement with every illogical thing you utter is an ardent royalty-lover, anyone opposes your statements inevitably become a traitor. You think it’s your birthright to discuss the weaknesses of anyone in the public the way you want, and if someone else does it in front of you, you think he should be sent to gallows for doing so. Double standards is another name for royal standards. You think it’s a royal privilege to pass judgment on things even when it is unasked for. You think you are mature enough to rule the world when the people around you keep thanking god for not bestowing a real kingdom upon you!
Living in this bubble is so easy until the day riots start and you find the lords around you have got sick of your demanding nature and your condescending air. Then in no time, without any prior notices, your bubble bursts and your hypothetical kingdom gets flooded with realities. This makes you think where you went wrong. And you start by saying sorry to owners of the hearts you broke and the friends you took for granted- you realize it was a word long missing from your vocabulary. When you make peace with yourself, you will start building your kingdom again. In the process of rebuilding you will realize chivalry and respect are things  you have to win and not demand and falling in love is not as easy as wearing a glass slipper. And this time you know, you will be a commoner like the rest of the world and the farthest you can climb is to become a king or a queen in people’s hearts.

Place in the past

 You walk down the same lane canopied with giant trees.  The bird-songs and the sun rays that had greeted you, still look the same. The same soothing breeze blows across, playing with your hair. Your hand goes up to defend the work of comb strokes from the wind, but to no avail. You greet that sameness with a smile and for a moment think you are the twelve-year-old girl who used to walk this way.
You enter the school gates despite the questioning glances of the security personnel. You give them some excuse or the other, and hurry your feet to venture inside. You catch a glimpse of the playground, glorying in the evergreen coat of grass-you suppress the urge to roll down on the inviting greenness like you had done countless times.
You walk down the familiar lab corridor and hear a bunch of girls giggling behind the Bunsen burners. You peep into the Bio lab and see the familiar bottles filled with medicated carcasses of snakes and different stages of fetus. You stop for a moment when the teacher who is conducting a lesson turns from the green board to look at you. You remember her very well because she marked you down in one assignment. With an acknowledging smile you realize the anger you felt at that moment hasdied down and there’s something else in its place, something closer to respect and love.
You pass the Sports Room and see your grade 7 class room. You see a huge cupboard moved into the place where your desk used to be; the broken grills being replaced by modern looking windows. You peep further to catch a glimpse of your class teacher, but end up smiling at a stranger who looks at you with her eyes full of same kindness. With a nod, you walk towards the cafeteria, where hundreds of yummy smells waiting to greet you. You find the place being renovated and the choices of delicacies have grown with time. You run to the counter, with hope of buying a packet of spicy ‘murrukku’ which was once upon a time, your breakfast, only to find, ‘murukku’ was banned along with other junk food.
Disheartened, you find your way to the office, passing the western music room. You almost feel the old grant piano calling your name, and the saplings you grew around the green room singing at your touch.
Finally you climb the old colonial staircase, coming to terms with the change the school has undergone after you left it. The old trees that have gone to the axe and the little saplings grown into youthful trees, familiar buildings painted in unfamiliar colours and the new teachers who mark their way to the staff rooms-everything tells you that you have missed so much.

Behind the majestic doors the sturdy figure of your Principal greets you with her careless tone- “My daughter, you are 30 seconds behind the schedule.” With tears in your eyes, you smile at the feeling of smallness you feel in front of her and wonder how some things never change.

Love a guy…

Love a guy who lets you enjoy the experience of being a girlfriend. Love him for the space he gives you to be yourself and the trust he places in you.
Love a guy who knows the limits of being limitless in a relationship. Love him for not offering you a shared guardianship over his ragged bike, rusty wardrobe and two doggies. Love him for not being your self-proclaimed ‘dress-decider’ or hair stylist.
Love a guy who lets you eat anything at anytime without becoming your calorie calculator.  Love him when he throws your extra large bag of fries without uttering a single word of fury. Love him when he plays the mother over you when your mother takes you to an adult and lets you have your way.
Love a guy who asks how you are doing for the hundredth time of the day. Love him for thinking about you constantly amidst his busy schedules. Love him for cancelling important client meetings just to be with you.
Love a guy who selflessly cares about you. Love him for holding the umbrella for you, while getting himself half soaked in the rain. Love him when he wipes the raindrops off your hair without caring much about the state of his wet hair.
Love a guy who thinks you are at your best when you are without make up. Love him for being able to see through layers of foundation and eye shadow, to get a glimpse of real you. Love him for venerating your modesty.
Love a guy who strips his layers of defences in front of you. Love him for showing you his gullible side.  Love him for admitting his weaknesses without much ado. Love him for risking his chances of getting hurt by you.
Love a guy who thinks Heathcliffe and Rochester are not fools. Love him for his poor efforts to contribute to your book-talks. Love him for the efforts he is taking to get to the end of your Pride and Prejudice for the last couple of years.
Love a guy who can make sweet-nothing conversations when your head is full of political and crime stories. Love him for being your therapist even before you realize that you very much needed one.
Love a guy who stays up till you study. Love him for reminding you of your timetables even though he forgets his own in the process. Love him for calling you smart without making it sound like a daylight flattery. Love him for asking you brain-wrecking questions that shape the theses you write for the 'following day’s assignments.
Love him for being himself and spicing up your life. Love him for making you dance in the rain and write poetry in the odd hours at night. Love him for giving you a shoulder to lean on and sleep after heavy day’s work.
Simply love him because he is there, for without him you know you’ll be nowhere!

pushed against a cookie cutter

You want a pillar to lean on when your feet are trembling. You hug your humungous teddy bear when everyone else around you fails to give you the much-needed bear hug. You want music to keep your company when you travel alone. And at the end of the day, you want someone to hear your stories, remedy your worries and be your diary.
Friends walk in and out of our lives and only some of them are honoured to be your confession-hearer, your conscience keeper  or the diary. And all the while, you keep leaning on the person hoping that  that he or she will be by your side forever.
Sometimes, these pillars can collapse and your confessions can go unheard. Worse still, the diary will be closed against your face when you are about to pour your heart into it. Movements such as these, as unexpected as they may be, make you feel guilty even when you are not the culprit.
Be it a steady friendship or an ordinary one, it is not the relationships that change, but the people who are in them. Whether it is a love affair or a friendship, its base gets shattered the moment your ego wins over the love for your friend.
Friendship will never be the same again the moment you start accusing your friend for the things he/she hasn’t done. it is not an act of a friend to push you against a cookie-cutter  and order  you to get the shape he/she wants to see you in.
Letting people into your life is like letting people into your house. Some people come to your doorstep. Some are allowed in. your parents, siblings and a few friends are allowed to walk into your messy little bedroom.  But you wouldn’t let anyone cross your bathroom territories. Likewise, defining territories of trust and love is a way of saving yourself from the pain of being let down by your so-called friends.
Those who cut you down without a rational reason are the ones who have got tired of showing you a fake-friendly face, when all this while they had been judging your action and trying to rewrite your life according to their scripts. when the change hits you hard, you wonder how much of the fun you had together was actually true, and how many of those compliments were mere flattery.
Not everyone can be conscience keepers. A conscience-keeper never glories in the emotional supremacy he or she holds over the other; nor does he holds it above a bottomless pit threateningly, until you do to his behest.
This is where the quasi-conscience keepers go wrong. Unlike true friends, they cannot bear it when you become more self-sufficient and emotionally least dependent on them. This strike a huge blow on their ego, as a result of which they drop you like a hot potato.
Before there is a next time, define your dependency territories. Never let anyone come beyond that to toy with your hyper-sensitive emotions. After all, high- security zones are still very much the fashion in the country!