Healthiest relationship.

The healthiest relationships and friendships are not necessarily the ones that look happy to the naked eye.

They aren't necessarily the ones where two people are always found holding hands, giggling, dancing and singing with the butterflies on Instagram, where nothing ever goes wrong and love is beautiful and blissful and perfect.

External 'perfection' can easily mask internal devastation, disconnection and that awful, unspoken desperation to be free.

The healthiest relationships are the honest ones and they might not look so 'happy' or 'carefree' from the outside. They might not fit the image of what a relationship 'should' or 'must' look or feel like.

Here, two people tell the honest, painful truth about today and continually let go off all their preconceived ideas about each other. The relationship is forever renewed in the furnace of authenticity. There may be ruptures, misunderstandings, even intense feelings of doubt and disconnection but there is a mutual willingness to face this seeming mess head-on! To look - with open eyes - at the present rupture and not turn away or cling to the past. To sit together in the midst of mutual shattered dreams and expectations and work to find a place of reconnection, here, now, today.

Here, relationship is seen as the ultimate yoga - an ongoing and ever-deepening adventure and rediscovery of each other, a constant letting go and a constant meeting! Love is not a future destination, conclusion, point of arrival or a convenient story to tell others. Love is alive.

As Eckhart Tolle says, relationships aren't here to make us happy - for true happiness lies within.  They are hereto make us profoundly conscious.

To break us, to humble us, to make us whole again.

Tailpiece.

Got up at 4, thanks to Lekha's cellphone alarm. Recited my prayers, the morning chores and was ready by a half past 6.

Vijayan, the caretaker, helped me load the car.

We set off by a quarter to 7, prayed at the Snake god temple at the Randalummodu junction. Topped up the Chevy, checked tyre pressure at our regular petrol pump at Kottarakkara. Breakfast of idlis and chutney at the Padma cafe at Adoor.

Set off from there, took the Kottayam-Moovattupuzha-Perumbavoor-Angamaly-Thrissur route. The Thrissur-Guruvayur route is pathetic. The Thrissur and Guruvayur municipalities don't want to spend money on road repairs and seem to be banking on Suresh Gopi to get the roads done through central government funds! 

Reached Guruvayoor by a half past 1. Lunch at the hotel opposite the KSRTC bus stand and returned to The Quarterdeck. Opened up the house and segregated the clothes for washing/dry cleaning etc followed by siesta.

And a quiet evening!