Of ties that bind.......

When I am in one of my philosophical moods I wonder what is there to life? The same routine of waking up, breakfast, work, lunch, more work (at home or office or anywhere else) , tea & snacks (if one is lucky), more work , dinner (if one is very very lucky) and sleep (indeed if one is really lucky)...... Life is like a neverending saga of the daily routine unfolding with ruthless predictability and coldness. What makes it special ? worth living....? what is it that makes one want to work, to cook, to eat, to feed, to return to the same four walls, lay one's tired head on the same pillow and then start over, the same thing once again???

The heart smiles and tells me, living is indeed a labour of love, done unconditionally for those special ties that bind us to love, to life itself.....

You love your child, want to give her the best of whatever is within your power (perhaps strive for more !), so you pick yourself up every morning, and go to work. You are one of those lucky few who has a nice workplace with nicer people... but there are people who die a thosand deaths at their workplace but still keep at it for YOU-KNOW-WHAT!

You hate cooking yet everytime you like a dish or see something yummy you want to get the recipe so that you can cook it for your mom (who has till date fed you millions of plates of tasty wholesome food!) and for your dad too (who has visited the bazaar endless no. of times to provide the raw materials for those millions of plates!)

In your little ones face, you see a fleeting expression and glimpse of your sibling and stop short in your tracks, walking down memory lane with your heart in your mouth, hand in hand with your adolescent brother and your toddler sister (who are now all grown up and married and settled in their own lives and sometimes act so ummm practical and this-is-life-so why-dont you-grow-up-too-bit).

In your better half's smile, you see the tie which has held you through thick and thin, through all those bouts of you-dont-understand-and-I-dont-care-a-damn phases, and also those special moments when you would have turned down a shahrukh-khan-proposal for your practical, no frills, no nonsense kind of an ordinary (yet so so very special) man.

Aah, these invisible ties of love and nurturing, responsibility and care which bind us and make us do things which we would love not to do......... that bestows on LIFE its true charm and makes all us poor tied and bound creatures of GOD accept with gratitude the gift of life and give our utmost to all the-i-wouldnt-touch-it-with-a-barge-pole-kind of work.