My Brother from Another Mother

 A picture from 8 years ago suddenly changed everything. No, no - nothing actually changed to be honest. It just shone the light of clarity over the present. It provided me with a truth that was beckoning to be discovered. To be understood.

I know now, that the amazing human being whom I call my best friend is not just another guy I am connected to. There is no genetic proof of this, but in my heart I know: this man is my brother.

A Lost Kitten

 What biological function does crying serve?

Asked Arthur C. Clarke, in his book, "Songs from distant Earth". I pondered over that question. Yes, what biological function did crying really serve?

Fortunately, more than a decade later, to me this is a no-brainer question. Tears are intentionally salty because it helps remove physical and energetic impurities.

I had not cried in years and years, until a few days ago. It was like a river, gushing amidst the emotional residues.

One wrench thrown into my plans and the whole machinery came to a grinding halt. I did cry a second time on that day, but I somehow picked myself up.

I was crying for someone I never met. I know: big surprise, heh! But it is true.

I just wanted to post an update, since I haven't done so in a while now. Once I fully recover, I promise I will write and post pictures. This is a rather abrupt end to my post and I am sorry about that.

Guru ji 🙏

How could you do anything other than love your Guru?

Certainly, I love and appreciate all aspects of Guru ji.

And those feelings have long escaped the bounds of physicality.

Thus I am no longer moved by the calm yet melodious sound of her voice.

And I am able to fully reflect upon the topic at hand.

I never thought this love could be expanded by branching,

And yet, here I am, pondering over why Guru-ji's son is the way he is.

A young boy, unadulterated by conflicting concepts.

Blissfully unaware of reality as we see it through the lenses of grown ups.

I certainly love you Guru ji, and I am blessed to have been put in the path of your son, Anandrai.

I can't be an uncle to this lovely boy Guru ji, but his elder brother 😹

Sat Sri Akal Guru Ji 🙏❤️

9c3ce5341c659b4694e658b07180e439 (MD5)

 I had long stopped my fantasies about a meeting with you, at random, that would (naturally) culminate into a passionate embrace and you finally realising that we were supposed to be together.

I did not gracefully glide through life - quite the opposite, but this post has nothing to do with the current state of my life - because my heart can now experience relative peace.

Yet, from the depths of my conscious mind, I detected waves of sadness, coloured with the bittersweet after-effects of true love that was grossly trampled upon by the deafening silence of indifference.

I certainly never hated you, I still cannot. But this existence, lived without you, extinguished a love that should have been uniquely yours. It was complete and absolute faithfulness and maniacal devotion that I could not myself comprehend - and that until now eludes me.

It started when I was 15. Remember, 9c3ce5341c659b4694e658b07180e439 (MD5)?

Why was I born with such a firmware imprinted into my heart's circuit board? Was I karmically destined to suffer this way?

I fantasize about a random meeting with you, 9c3ce5341c659b4694e658b07180e439 (MD5), and I would, through a hug, transmit this love turned sour that I once had for you. Or at least, I wish.

Writing you this is by no means, cathartic. This message is just here to express the greatest pain that the unfortunate lover that I was experienced.

I don't care if you are happy or broken. You have chosen the life that you are living, and the further we disconnect from each other, the less likely it will be that we will ever meet.

But I did respect your last wish though. I never contacted you again. Through random events, I came to know that you adopted Buddhism and that's lovely, since I too adopted Buddhism and turned vegan.

I wish you nothing, 9c3ce5341c659b4694e658b07180e439 (MD5), other than to experience the same heartbreaks I felt.

I did, at some point, stop feeling anything at all for you, dear stranger.

Update from 2022!

 Okay. 

Time for a massive update. And enhanced expressiveness through emojis. Like my favourite one: the facepalm. 

I'm dying to augment this text right here and right now with this glorious non-textual and illegitimate literary tool - but I guess I should save it for later. 

And God knows I am going to need this. 

Where do I begin? Relationships? 😂 My life is punctuated through relationships. Or failed attempts at initiating a relationship. 

That happened to me very recently, by the way. I was virtually in the company of a lady 11 years younger than I (meaning: we physically interacted and all but mostly exchanged messages online). I had been dropping hints of my interest that had mutated my once platonic friendship into a hot steamy pile of awkwardness - but I got my answer in a very clear and heart sinking way. 

What possibly save the little dignity I had left was our friendship and her good and playful nature. She's such an awesome gal and I am lucky to have her as a friend. 

(That, right there, is life's equivalent of a participation medal that I just awarded myself. You go, Rowan!) 

The actual news that my blog post should focus on is quite stark and heavy in comparison to the previous paragraphs I authored. 

In February 2020, I had a stroke that wiped out a significant portion of my intellectual abilities and rendered half of my body useless. My brain was so messed up that I could not remember my name. 

My own name! I could not, no matter how much I tried, remember my own name! 

🤦🏽‍♂️ 

The very next day, my mum had contacted the Pranic Healing association of Malaysia - place where I had discovered this wonderful and life-saving art. 

Within a day of me receiving help from my healer mates, I remembered my name. 

However, I was still intellectually and physically disabled. 

I think the one who took it the hardest was my mum. 

My mum has been my support throughout this ordeal and my crying cycles might have been so much more intense had she not been with me. She is probably the worst cook, the worst at getting me dressed, and constantly making false statements ("Oh, your laptop? You were screaming and told me to throw it away. Oh your tennis shoes? You were screaming and told me to throw it away.) 

But she's made sure I was kept alive and relatively well fed and medicated - and for that, kudos mum. 

Life in the meanwhile has inevitably moved on. One of my closest cousins, Yog, is getting married. 

I have to be honest here: I do feel like I missed my train stop. I do feel some sort of panic, deep within me - that I missed my train altogether. I have come to various falsely reassuring conclusions on this topic, but none would last for long and I would inevitably start feeling the pulsating panic slowly creeping in. 

I know that I should instead focus on my getting better. I know that. 

I don't think that I'll be providing regular updates. I can't promise that. But I will do my best to. I do intend to pick up blogging - activity that I have grossly neglected over the years. 

Before penning off, I would like to share something. For some reason, I received a friend request from a total stranger today - a total female stranger, looking to be Mauritian by all means and flaunting generous assets. 

But she had a photo of herself chugging beer and a rather devilish looking tattoo. 

I chuckled as I denied the request. People change. 

And with this, allow me to pen off here and give you all my warmest and most loving blessings: 🙏 

For once, for this once, to mark my re-entrance to the blogging world, allow me to pen off and take the name of the Deity I am most closely and lovingly connected to: 🕉 Lord Shiva 🙏