Whoever runs in the mud should always be ready to skid, a bargain we all made when we ran into the world of hearts and petal roses, or is it? In this world, we came to realize that roses are as prominent as are thorns. In this world of hearts, pink on the outside but black with ire on the inside, magic finds its true meaning, both negative and positive. What we thought was selflessness turns into an epidemic bout of selfishness, and what was a haven of peace and comfort morphs into a warzone. Appreciation for each other’s goals turns into a cultivated field of jealousy and unhealthy competition, a marathon where one’s fall spurs the other to go faster, one man less increases the chances of the runner winning the race. So it a relationship built out of love, convenience or societal pressure?

The best photographs are those taken when people are still, all the more reason why memories have shadows in them. When a person falls into the world of fluffy pillows with stones underneath, there creeps in a malady so wrong and misplaced, a disease called judgment and comparison. We transfer all our emotional baggage to our partners. They bear the brunt of our polarized personalities just the same way they receive a little bit of our best times. Tensions run high when they shouldn’t and little thorns are turned to thistles and creepers. They learn a little bit too late that what they left was better than what they found, that sometimes the right things can be found in the wrong places.

Some though have learnt that perfection is not to be sought in a fellow human being because it will never be found. Time has gone by and the days of futile youthful pursuits are blurred and obsolete. The flames of passion still strive to flicker despite strong winds and hurricanes. They know they have to be each other’s firewood in the winter and bonnets in the summer. They know it is a bargain they struck when they chose the path of pink that now looks sweaty and damp. They have been shaped by the desires of their lives, the wars they’ve fought and lost and the little victories they won because they knew that giving up on each other would never guarantee a better weather outside, maybe worse of an angel compared to the devil they are familiar with. Time changes things but to them, tide was not enough to effect that. The best people to settle with are boys and girls, because boys and girls grow, men and women don’t.