Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Soulmate! Have you found yours?


You are what I never knew I always wanted

WHAT’S the first rule of bargaining?

Don’t even think of dishing out acronyms like VFM, or Collaborative Window or Game Theory!

Go back to scratch (heyyy, stop itching. I didn’t mean that!).
Ok, I will help you. (scratching your brains i.e.:)
The first thing that your mother’s stern eye taught you at that bicycle store when the nine-year old version of yours was somersaulting in joy at ‘this is my bike!’ sight.
Before you could nosedive right onto its seat, the aphorism was planted with a strangulating grip and a sharp pinch – “Never show the seller that you have fallen for the product. Behave as if you are obliging him by buying the fare, rather than the other way round.”
Remember!


Yes, Momma dear, I still remember those ground rules of shopping (thanks to your pinch, that still hurts, ah). But am sorry, this time, I couldn’t restrain myself.
I had to shriek out of joy, get numb with ecstasy and dart right across to that masterpiece.
There was no time for abstinence when I saw it.
Just the same shade of purple. The exact fabric. Perfect print lineaments. And oh so absolutely symbion!
I don’t know whether I had really gone dizzy, or was it that rare moment of epiphany, but the whole enchilada suddenly transported my mind to few lines that some crackerjack had scribbled on an online profile.

Here’s what was quoted by the sibyl, from Richard Bach:
“Some one who has locks that fit our keys and keys to fit our locks.
When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are, we can be loved for who we are and not for who we are pretending to be. Each unveils the best part of the other. No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one ‘someone’ we are safe in our own paradise. Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction. Our soul mate is the one who makes LIFE COME TO LIFE.”

And that’s exactly what that top did to me.
It was the key to a lock that I had treasured in my wardrobe since my first Holiday to Goa. On a lark, (like most stuff women shop I know), I had got this weird printed skirt of a curious purple tinge. I just liked it. I knew I had nothing to go with it. Still I bought it (may be because the guy really had a cute smile and he said it will look good on me. Blush Blush).
But yes, I knew I probably would never take it out of my closet (like the proverbial skeletons…huahaaaaaaa. Scared you!). Ok, so there was this skirt, lying unattended, single, unattached, non-committed in neat pleats and forgotten long ago.

Until, that enchanted day when my eyes spotted its better-half - just the perfect top to top it, yeah.
As scatterbrained as I was at that bewitching moment, I squandered not a minute more. I summoned the shop-keeper, paid the first amount he breathed out, and took (snatched, to be precise) the parcel back home.

Moments like these stir up your sleepy spirits and make you utter Hallelujah!
When I placed the top next to the skirt, I started believing in God all over again.
It was the perfect fit. The top and the skirt were the epitome of MFEO (Made For Each Other). It was like they were cut out of the same cloth and sculpted by the same tailor, only to be stripped apart and made to wait for each other.
Opera music started wafting in my ears and the lines billowed down once again.
“Some one who has locks that fit our keys and keys to fit our locks…… Each unveils the best part of the other.”

Yes I had found SOULMATES.

Something half of Venus believes in and spends their life in looking for (may be a slice of Mars too, may be).
Soul mate.
A word that lifts us above our mortal existence. A hope that powers many matrimony sites and recharges some dating engines too. A musical mystery that keeps the cash registers ringing at most Coffee Cafes.
Weird as it may be, the law actually operates.

And you tend to believe in it all over again. Even after the fantasies you grew up with and nurtured as a teen (thanks to the chiffon world of Yash Chopra movies), get cruelly blue-penciled in the real world. Yes, even after that!
The law presents itself in other, strange forms and stamps QED to the lovely but hard-to-believe hypothesis around MFEO.

For instance, how do you explain goose bumps on your skin when you hear a song for the first time ever, and you just can’t stop playing it on and on in a loop. It’s like you have found something so-definitely-missing-so-far, or vice versa, and you feel complete in a strange way.

When you see a cloud, a sunset, a mountain, a tree, a scarf, a watch, a dress, a hat, a car; and you stand speechless, watching in slow motion, while the whole world around is whizzing by.
When you know, there’s some special, hard-to-explain pull in that thing.
A magnet that hooks you and makes you feel at home (even if you are standing in the far-off corners of some village near Beijing).

As rightly said, the purpose of Life is a life of purpose. And for a smart soul the purpose is to find the soul mate.

But life’s true joy and fulfillment is finding all the soul mates that are strewn across the world and around the years that make a lifetime.

The best beer-partner, the perfect listener, the immaculate shopping companion, the stranger in the lift, the perfect friend, the perfect mentor, the perfect coffee-mug, the perfect moment or the perfect arm chair.

For me, it’s also Tea, my perfect dress, my favourite serial, my adorable film star, my perfect restaurant, my perfect colour, my perfect flower and my perfect song. And yes, I still have to find many more. Like my perfect car (remember, Our soul mate is someone who shares our deepest longings, our sense of direction;)

In fact, to this list, I can also add ‘my perfect interview’ (As goes by the lines- “When we feel safe enough to open the locks, our truest selves step out and we can be completely and honestly who we are). Or for that matter, ‘My perfect shower gel’ (No matter what else goes wrong around us, with that one ‘someone’ we are safe in our own paradise. This would apply here for sure.)

For you, it can be the perfect hobby, the perfect job, the perfect book, the perfect bag, the perfect pajamas or the perfect paneer recipe.
The truth and the trick is, it can be anything.

Absolutely anything.

Anything that completes you.
Anything that makes you alive.
Anything that touches you at places you had no clue you had. (Ah, that reminds me, I have to discover the perfect perfume..read scent..yet)

It’s all about keeping your antennae open and alert.

Some people are lucky enough to find and unite wardrobe soul mates, like I did.
Some people are already lucky and successful in finding the perfect mug-song-sight-scarf all rolled into one, in their life partners.
That’s when a companion joins you forever.
Who’s more of a ‘sole mate’ than a ‘soul mate’. Some one who fits your shoes and will accompany you anywhere in the long lovely journey of life.
But till then, in fact, even after that, don’t miss out on the other hundred soul mates waiting to be found.

Or shall I say be also open to be found.
Didn’t get it? Hmm.

I didn’t know what to make of the sea-shell beads handed over as souvenirs by the staff of Goa Marriott during my stay a few days back.
It was nice (just like the beach-hemmed Hotel Uff), but there was no function to it, no purpose, no context.
Except of course, pulling all the shells out and challenging myself to sew them together again. (Which by the by, I was getting all the more inclined to).
But before the goofy urchin inside me took over, I wanted the neat, nice child to have a chance too. When I hit back home, I tried looking for another lazy corner to dump it in (after of course I failed matching it to anything in my wardrobe).
And Lo! Right through the vying sights of many other contenders, a small picture frame caught my eye. It was a moment captured in the water-world of Singapore, in some other forgotten trip.
But when I placed the sea-shell string around it, both of them came to life.
I couldn’t help but smile with them. The child joined and beamed with springs in her eyes (the urchin didn’t of course).


And it’s then when I wondered.
Sometimes, forgotten things have a destiny too.
Sometimes, all it takes is another incomplete part, to make life come to life.
Life is all about finding and being found.

I am sure Einstein meant it well when he said, “Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in Love.” Quod Erat Demonstrandum

Well, what else can I say?
Keep looking out.

P.S: And forget those shopping rules once in a while. It’s ok to jump and holler. Believe me. And don’t tell this to Mom (yours, mine, anyone’s). They can still spank.