WHEN CUPID STRIKES

Every day at least two person are reported by dailies to have  taken their life out,due to love failure, And thousands live a life with out life,having lost the person they love.Even thou an average person knows that love can only bring more pain and trouble than the contrary component,The world does not stop loving and love goes on to be eternal
Love continues to be the most interesting phase and integral part of our living, love has remained the reason for us to live,love has always remained a subject of contradiction,love has been the backdrop of many plots,love has been the prime reason for many battles ,love has been the reason behind many monuments,love is the backbone of our existence,love has made many people rich, by depicting their version of love in the form of lyrics,poems,drama and cinema,love has driven many people towards innovation(i think the famous innovation of the telephone was again the urge of Graham bell to talk to his distant lover)love has created great scholars and also many mad fellows.
Love is purely a perception ,perceived by different people differently,and yet to be definite in nature, only thing that has remained constant is that no love story has been complete without a villain, the villain cropping in the form of Parents,community,social inequality,caste,religion,friends and so on and so forth,and The main entertainment part of lovers is to plan different strategy to cajole,compromise or fight   for establishing their love.and to share their living space with the person they love after which they undergoing thousands of insults,humiliation,tussles and treachery.

A recall on some of the eternal love stories which has been read, heard and narrated,which has made us to form an impression that love is something very special, which cannot be expressed by words, love always happens between incomparable matches, love brings more pain than pleasure and if at all lovers  have been recognised , spoken or remembered,  its not because they lived  happily together .its because they died for each others company,this gets established from the Dramatic representations of  Romeo and juliet, Anthony and cleopatra, Laila and Majnu Anarkali and Saleem, Ambigapati and Amaravathi, and not to miss the tamil melodrama of Devadoss, who is synonymous with a love struck,hapless person with sunken eyes bearded face wrinkled clothes.

It still remains a mystery why love should always happen only with irrational matchings such as, A mighty king to fall in love with a courtesan . people of different races fall for each other,why should a poor girl or boy invariably get attracted to a rich boy or girl,when they very well know that such mismatches  would impose difficulties for them to live together without any hassles.
well this establishes that there can be no reasoning and logic once you fall in love ,because lovers have very little option on that,It's   the handiwork of cupid the Mythological roman  GOD of love who is responsible for this catastrophe,Cupid is replicated in other regions in their own naive names as Eros In greek mythology,Manmathan in tamil mythology.... and many more
It is believed that cupid showers arrows at people  randomly and the moment the arrow strikes at a person they fall in love with a similarly placed person first to be seen, Just like the person falling in love with a donkey in Shakespeare's Midsummer night Dream . But why can't cupid do some rational strikes, and make love more efficient with hassle free connections ,well its believed that Cupid the son of the most beautiful Venus the love god, is blind folded while he makes these showers of arrow attacks and that is why "LOVE IS BLIND". 
The God of love Cupid  was  also a victim of love ,due to a back fired arrow from him and shared the Agony of others lovers struggle  to unite with his lady love Psyche. The villain in Cupid's Love story was none other than his mother Venus as in all other love stories. And as in reality even today, Venus was envious of  Psyche for  being more beautiful than her and wanted Cupid to avenge her.But in turn, cupid fell for Psyche, which was not liked by Venus,who started throwing lots of obstacles to keep cupid and psyche away  the story goes on,,,,, and finally they unite due to divine interventions.
  In Our country love and marriages are interwined, its love only till such time that parents oppose the pairing, Because if they agree for the match then its not love but Marriage..and its presumed that love has won once marriage happens
Love which remained more a act of personal  likes and desires and opposed only by families, has started taking  ugly twists and turns,growing exponentially with the tags that are attached with each love ,for some families love is linked beyond personal liking and used as a tool  grow their business interest for  some its upgrading their living status, for some its enhancing their political strength and for some its enlarging their demographic dominance.And on late lovers are thrown open to defend themselves not from hostile families, but from hostile environments,which becomes more difficult and hence the stories of the weak giving up their lives and the strong continuing to leave,with out any guilt has become the order of the day  and love which was once claimed to be divine has degraded to a nasty adolescent life cycle.  At last if  peace is to be  bought it is at the cost of life.Lovers die not for love,but due to desperation of having landed up with such stressful life.

I was watching the development of yet another love story of  Divya and Ilavarasan of Dharmapuri,Who were targeted by two different groups and felt happy for the courage they both exhibited , Finally the weak  had to die, So Ilavarasan died and has now been forgotten, there are  investigations going on about the cause of Ilavarasan death.,But to me he died the moment his wife and lover divya pronounced those  lifeless words into the microphone held by ten and twenty journalists ,viewed by hundreds in the court complex,that she had no love for him and she would not have a second thought of reunion with him Death was written on his face and his eyes conveyed his blindness of falling for the wrong person.

Such episodes of love in houses,villages and towns,  is a regular affair where the week would die and the strongest would live with not an iota of guilt. 

THE LAST(LOST)TOUCH

It is often said that the subconscious mind is active while we sleep, and also till we attain the age of 6 or 7.When our conscious mind takes over the sub conscious mind ,we slowly tend to forget  incidents what happened in only days of childhood.
However I do not think certain sensory  memories,would ever be forgotten. Such as our first touch, I think the first person blood related to us who would have had the pride of holding us in his arms and planting that gentle kiss on our cheeks, cupped our small soft hand in his hands,and passed over the happiness, love and warmth  and reassurance of safety on the day we were born and introduced to this world would have been none other than our FATHER/DAD/APPA/NAINA.
It is this special bonding and feeling, what gets registered in our subconscious mind that we carry forward throughout our life.To feel safe and secure in the presence of our dad.We always feel that he is the super hero in our life who can chase away thousands of Goliaths, fight against windmills, carry us across seven hills and mountains.And the only person who would stand by our side at all times and cry out aloud and say to this world without any fear or inhibition,you may say what ever you feel like but  " I know what my child is!"
Well, while I grew up, they had been thousands and millions of such incidents of receiving a hug a kiss from my dear dad.
When I was around 6 I used to walk with my dad side by side DAD used to slowdown to match my pace,to make sure i do not tumble with fast steps my left hand cupped in his right,tightly so that the option of freeing myself from his grip was absolutely zero.But his hold told I was his proud possession .the warmth of his palms transferred a feeling of security and instilled fearlessness.
When i was 10 years old I was walking with my dad,this time he was maintaining his pace I was lagging behind making fast strides to match his speed, I was still holding his hands,his right   little finger was left out for me to hold with my left hand,this time the option to stick on was with me to let him go, but this time Appa's touch and hold told me I was growing up that I was to match the expectation of a fast moving world,it said he was confident that he can let me lose my way and I would find back home.
I was 18 years  just blooming into a nice young girl,and walking along side appa, to seek admission into a college,maintaining a close distance between us,when ever he sighted some piercing eyes following me,he gently put his arms around my shoulder to secure me and also send a message,keep away "she is my daughter "  his touch this time conveyed his love and possesivness.
when I was 27 I was married,Appa was holding my hands to be given off to my husband, I could feel a slight shiver and tension in his touch a feeling of joy and sadness. Joy at the pretext of getting me married,sadness that I would not belong to him wholly.
Days passed by  years of aging started showing up more on Appa and less on me, his first illness came 14 years back in the form of a massive cardiac arrest, this time I was travelling with DAD , escorting him to the Hospital, the journey was long, I  was holding appa's hand with mine,with every bump his hold would tighten conveying that the pain was intolerable,but his tightening grip said he was in safe hands and he would live.

There had been incidences of appa falling sick frequently,every time appa was  into the hospital ,his children stood around him,each one showing their love and admiration  for him in their own way,  We sat by his side holding  his hands,he said our touch healed him and he drew his strength and desire to live with hands holding him reassuring that he would recover.

I  heard that dad was sick again, I reached home  with expectations to see him,touch him and hear his voice. DAD remained in a sleeping posture  on his cot an eternal peace had descended on his face and he looked serene and blissful, he  had already left us. Any amount of wailing from us did not  make him stir even once,we tried to embrace him and hug him. Appa was still warm which told us that it was not too long ago that he had started his new journey or he just wanted to save his last warmth to share it with his loving children.

Dad's time to start his last journey was drawing close,i was holding appas hands FOR THE LAST TIME, this time appa's hands was cold,and heavy,a reciprocation to meet our heavy grieving heart a sign of communicating his sadness for  leaving  us.


Now its almost five Months gone,without appas presence and his loving touch,i talk and communicate more with him ,there are so many things to tell him and share with him,which were missed when he was alive, i know that the air that i inhale has traces of appas breath,the sofa,chairs and bed would have retained a tinge of his fragrance,the roads and streets and soil around us would have been touched by him,Appa has become omnipresent,I can see him in every thing around me and of course saved his last touch for ever.