Dear Zindagi, I love you!

Dear Zindagi,

First of all, I want to give you a big hug because no matter how much I have complained and whined, you have always embraced me with all my flaws. I love you!

Everyday, you give me reasons to be happy, make me feel myriad emotions and teach me something new. Yes, there are nights when I suffer so much that I start hating you and think that you are ugly, but you don’t give up on me. You again paint my face with a smile the next morning, bless me with love, plant hope in my heart and sprinkle dreams in my eyes.  

You have shown me that there can be beauty in ugliness, peace in cauldron and hope in despair, only if we have the eyes to see it. You have taught me that one can never run short of reasons to be happy. Living every moment to the fullest and making beautiful memories is the ticket to perennial happiness. 

You are the wisest teacher ever. I learnt from you that sadness is not my enemy. It is also a friend, just like happiness. Without sadness, happiness will lose all its meaning. You are really complicated and perhaps that’s why it took me more than two decades to understand you properly. 

That day, I was looking at a beautiful rainbow from the hills when it struck me that you are just like that. You are composed of several colors which make you look so beautiful. Happiness, sadness, love, fear, peace, anger and compassion are some of your colors that together make you so beautiful.

When my mother passed away, I thought you didn’t love me. When my grandmother got cancer, I thought you didn’t love me. When I was a lonely introvert in my high school days with not a single person willing to talk to me, I thought you didn’t love me. When I got betrayed, I thought you didn’t love me. When my heart got broken again and again into a million pieces, I thought you never loved me. 

Oh dear! I was so wrong. You brought wrong people in my life so that I understand who the right people are. You gave me superficial friends so that I recognize who my best friend is. You showed me how painful loneliness is so that I don’t give loneliness to anyone in return. You gave me the best father in the world who never made me feel my mother's absence. I can always find my mother in him. You gave me such a lovely grandmother who fought and survived the battle with cancer so that she can raise me up.  

Every scar that you have given me, I found a note of wisdom in it years later. Your way of loving is really unique. I have slowly started understanding your love. And yes, how can I forget the surprise gifts that you gave me in the form of miracles, be it soul companions or my calling? You have given me people with whom I could feel a direct soul connection and realize that magic exists.

Discovering that writing is my calling has brought me closer to myself. I have found a best friend in me. Writing has helped me unwrap the gift of solitude. I don't fear loneliness anymore. Now, I can clothe my emotions in beautiful words and put them on paper.

Loving deeply without fear, crying my heart out without any inhibition, pouring kindness in every act, smiling from the bottom of my heart are some of the most valuable things that I have learnt from you. But my favorite lesson is that I should always be true to myself and never lie to myself. I know I took a long time to learn this simple lesson. Do you think I am a bad student? Well, you see I am trying to improve every day.

I can feel your warm hug when the wind pampers my hair and the waves tickle my feet. I can also feel your hug in the smell of roses, the melody of songs, the aroma of home-cooked food and the magic of words.

Thank you so much for all the lessons. Thank you for being so patient with this student of yours. Thank you for all the hugs.

And also thank you for the wounds where you left behind your note of wisdom. 

#DearZindagi, I am so much in love with you!

Here’s a poem that I have written on you long back. Hope you like it.

People often yell and wail

‘Life! Why do you give pain?

They forget the euphoric moments

They lament, shout and complain.

Life never complains

It embraces both the tears and the smiles

That people throw in its bosom

It endures, teaches, enlightens.

Life is wiser than people

It tries to speak in innumerable ways;

The ones who listen to its tales

Savor every slice of it till death.

Love and Hugs, 

~Purba Chakraborty

I am writing a letter to life for the #DearZindagi activity at BlogAdda