Looking back...

I am a month away from getting an year older. For the last few days I have been thinking a lot about a lot of things. Where I am, where I am going, where I want to go, and mostly about the choices and decisions that has brought me here.

I have made all sorts of choices. Brilliant to brilliantly stupid. And sometimes I have struggled to take ownership of them. And other times as much as I pretended I didn't regret them, I have. Most of the questionable decisions in my life has been born of thoughts like "there's only one life", "what's there to lose", "you'll never know if you never try", "this will make a hell of a story someday", "maybe this will finally work", I don't think I would die of it", etc.

But ironically most of these questionable choices have led me to some of my best memories, best achievements, best people and best stories (I wasn't wrong there^ you know).

But unqualified glorification doesn't do these choices justice. Many of them have also made me fall flat on my face, left scars(not the glorifiable kind), caused me immense pain, agony, failure and truckloads of issues.

This morning while scrolling through my gallery I came across this picture from last year which I hadn't posted earlier because of how uncannily enormous my neck looks (just look at it!).

But today when I saw it, I was suddenly washed over by a sense of peace.

THAT is what I want to look at when I look back at my life. ( No not the NYC skyline literally, although that would be pretty dope too)

I want to look at a sea of glitter amidst darkness. 

Because try as I might, I can't avoid the dark, the mistakes, the failures, the regrets or the depression.

But look at that view, isn't it breathtaking? Wouldn't the glitter be lost without the darkness? 

Whether I look back or I look around today, I see the glitter all around me. I see some beautiful faces that love me, some stories worth of bucket lists, some successes that fill me with pride and so much laughter! Oh god, I have laughed, and loved and have been loved, so much!

I am not even half way to becoming the woman I want to be at my death bed. She is gonna be epic, believe me you!

But one thing I know, to become that woman, I will not be able to make conventional choices always. And that as cool it may sound isn't always a very cool thing. It brings with it a sea of darkness too. But today I realized I am okay with that. I am okay with taking absolute ownership of all that my choices entail. It has been and will be extremely hard. There are and will be days when I question my commitment to the glitter. But what will keep me going, I promised myself today, is this view, whenever I decide to pause and look back and also at the end, when I am an epic old lady bidding my farewell, I hope this view is what everyone else sees too! And I hope they know I worked very hard to create it and live it and I have loved every bit of it, even the bits I really hated.

The Lost Ring and A Best Friend

I lost my favorite ring a few days back.

I had looked for it everywhere but couldn't find it.

Today I found it lying in a corner of the room

I wasn't looking for it or thinking about it.

When I had given up on the ring, the universe brought it back to me.

It made me think of you. 

I gave up on you some days back.

And I have promised myself I won't go looking for you.

I don't want to find you again, 

In my recent messages, in my recent call list or in my life

Between the knotted stomach and the blurry vision, as I lie awake every night, 

Telling myself that I'm okay with giving up on you,

I was thinking tonight,

What if like the lost ring, I find you too again,

Some day, in some corner of the world, 

When I am not looking for you, not thinking of you, not hoping to find you?

Would it make me as happy as the ring made me today 

Or would it make me sad ?

That I should not have given up on you

But what could have I done 

I had to 

I had to give up on you 

It was between me and you

Like  it has been all those times in the past

And I had chosen you over myself every time

But for this once I could not

I chose me

I'm sorry

But I hope someday I can tell you how it broke me 

To choose myself

Someday I can tell you that although I could give up on you I could never stop loving you

I hope you're happy always forever everywhere every time all the time

I hope you forget me 

Because I wouldn't dare hope that for myself 

How can I, how can I ever forget you how does one forget their own heart.

October 27, 2017

Calcutta,India.

Survivor? Victor.

Of words spoken too soon,

Of words never said at all,

Of doing too much,
Of not doing enough,
Of being too cautious,
Of being too spontaneous,
Of waiting too long,

Of not waiting long enough, 

Of swallowing the feeling,

Of being swallowed by the feeling,

Of smells you can't forget,

Of smells you don’t remember,

Of the panic when you hear a certain word,

Of the pain when you don’t, 

Of daydreams that make you dizzy,

Of dreams that became nightmares,

Of the frozen feet at a certain sight,

Of the midnight run to numb the flashbacks,

Of the lump in your chest,

Of the cold fingertips in a fist,

Of the breathlessness from sitting still,

Of suffocating from too much wind,

You are, all of it.

Of everything you have ever and never felt,

You are.

Yet here you still are.

Here you still are.

Cowardice

"You misunderstood me", she whispered to the receding shadow, of you walking away.

What was for you an excuse, granting you the freedom you didn't have the courage to ask for, was her reason to live shackled with guilt for years to come.

Unrequited, alternately

He did

She couldn't 

He did
She shouldn't
He stopped
She did
He couldn't.

Adulthood

Freshly off the rocky boat that brought you across the sea they call Teenage
The jacket of invincibility fits a size too small suddenly
This new island they call Adulthood is your home now
The rules of land are different from the sea they warn upon arrival
But no one tells you what the new rules are
The first steps on the shore are hard after spending years at sea
You falter, stumble, fall and scratch your skin
The jacket tears apart, ripping at the helms
While you struggle to find foothold on the soft sand
Passersby whisper about how you walk weird
But no one gives you a hand
You see some struggling too, but some others seem so sure
"Experience!", a fellow struggler tells you following your eyes
Eventually the walk gets easier, but just when you find your foothold,
The landscape changes, and they tell you, you gotta keep walking
It's a marshland now, and again the faltering ensues
But it has been a few years on this island already
And you know that there's no escaping it
So you learn to make peace with the idea of this new home
You still are not sure when the landscape will change again
But you know as long as you own your fragility you will be fine
As long as you accept that you're breakable, you will be able to fix yourself
The knowledge is empowering, yet some nights
When it gets a bit too cold here on this island
You miss that jacket, the jacket of invincibility that fell apart at the shore
The waves have probably taken it back and fixed it, you think
And it is keeping some other kid at the sea warm now
And you hope they take care of it
You hope they know its not theirs to keep forever.

Why I didn't laugh...

I don’t blame you

I really don’t

I am not angry at you

I am really not

You didn’t hurt me

You really didn’t

But when you made that joke

That joke that you had made

A hundred times before

And I had laughed

A hundred times before

Because I thought it was funny

I really did

Only this time I didn’t laugh

And it wasn’t your fault

Just that your joke

Sounded eerily similar

To the voices in my head

That I had silenced

A hundred times before

At 3 AMs, 2 PMs

At 7 PMs, 10 AMs

The voices that I had

Refused victory to 

A hundred times before

Lately they were getting louder

And when you made that joke

The voices laughed in my stead

And I couldn’t silence 

The deafening sound

And I couldn’t laugh over them

Even though I tried

I really couldn’t.

The fraud

She looked his way and with a brisk wave and stifled smile, muttered goodnight and turned towards the door. She left the party and walked a few steps when the familiar voice spoke from behind her. 

“I though we’d never meet again” 

She paused on her way.

“So did I”

He moved a step closer toward her.

“What happened to all your laughter? I used to tell people about it”

She turned to face him.

“Your memories have been kind to me.”

“You seem different. Cold. Whatever happened to the girl everyone fell in love with?”

She looked him straight in the eyes, indignantly.

“She was an imposter. Her fate was the same as that of any other fraud. She got found out and was forced to drop her act.”

He looked back at those eyes and before he could form his thoughts into a sentence, she promptly turned around and walked away as fast as she could, without running. She was glad she didn’t bring her car today and the subway was a long walk away. She’d need the walk.

He wanted to follow her. He wanted to ask her more questions. He was angry. How could she call the only girl he has ever loved an imposter? How could she lose her so easily? 

Yet he couldn’t move. Or speak. He kept standing there for a while after she left. The chilly wind was somehow comforting.

“Honey, here, you forgot your coat inside! Why did you come out in such a hurry?”

He turned around to face the voice. His wife.

“Oh! I am sorry! I just had a call I had to take. Let’s go inside now.”

News Of Death

A word in a shriek. Many more words.

She looked up.

Words and more words and more.…

Wait, she can't hear them anymore. Everything is moving. Lips, people, things. Yet she can't hear any of it.

Everything is moving. She is not. She is trying. She can’t.

Her limbs. They feel different. Light? Cold? Warm? Loose? Absent.

She sees everything yet her brain refuses to process her vision.

There's no air. She can't breathe.

Vacuum.

A moment. The longest moment her memory permits.

Years later, she will live this moment again. It wasn’t a shriek this time. It was three telephone rings.

And a few more years later, yet again. It wasn't a shriek or a ring. This time it was her name, in an unfamiliar tone, that led the words.

These vacuums never came alone.

There was always a predecessor moment when everything was unassumingly normal, that she would remember with uncanny precision every time her memory took her back to them.

And the succeeding moment when she was thrust into all the chaotic movement and sound around her, with her loose limbs and her sleeping voice gathering sudden voluntary momentum, without her conscious permission.

She never knew what to make of the vacuum.

Was it a monster holding her back too tight, suffocating her and forcefully shutting her ears rendering her mute, inanimate and deaf for the longest minute?

Or was it an angel of kindness, permitting her a moment of transit, devoid of every thing, every feeling, before her life changes forever?

Taking away a piece of her, leaving her broken forever, but gifting her a moment of numbness before she feels it?

A kind monster?

Li'l Girl

Who hurt you li’l girl?
I did.
Who broke you?
I did.
But you’re bleeding!
Who gave you these wounds li’l girl?
I did.
Surely not!
Did he? Or him ? Or her? Or she?
No, No.
It’s just me, just me.
Won’t you cry li’l girl?
I did.
Won’t you call for help?
I did.
But no one’s stopping!
Who’ll fix you li’l girl?
I will.
Surely not!
Won’t he? Or him ? Or her? Or she?
No, No.
It’s just me, just me.

Hope ?

                "Hope in reality is the worst of all evils because it prolongs the torments of man"

                                                                                                                -Friedrich Nietzsche

It is the hope of an oasis perhaps, that keeps a thirsty man lost in a dessert going. Why else would he take another step? 

Hope, one would say, is a necessary delusion to survive in a world which is out to get you. 

On a subconscious level, hope gives us the power to take control in our disappointment. It allows us to choose how and when the disappointment reaches us. When the world lets us down, hope allows us to reject the world's dictum and take the reigns of power in our hands by choosing to believe in a probable version of the story that may become our reality at a future time. It makes us feel empowered. We feel we are in control of choosing the hope of happiness over the reality of  our disappointment. Indeed an intoxicating promise for a broken heart.
We need hope, we do.
Yet sometimes, this empowerment is really just an illusion. A rather tormenting one. We hold on to a version of the truth that doesn't presently exist in reality and might not even in the future. But somewhere in us a faint whisper tells us that, if we hold on to it a little longer, if we keep faith, if we give it more time, if we wait for the right moment to come, if we are a little more patient.........if, if only!
It is a shackle. It binds us to something we need to give up on.
But how do we know? How do we know when the empowerment becomes imprisonment? How do we know when to give up hope on hope?
It could be a casual question thrown in a joke, an empty laughter, an unspoken word, a broken smile, a silent stare, it maybe subtle or  it may be really loud, but when it happens, somewhere, somehow a switch flicks. We lose hope. It is perhaps the most liberating experience. To be free finally from the burden to believe in an illusion. Liberated from the obligation of holding on.
Hope doesn't necessarily bring us happiness, but rather encourages us to hold on to a version of the story that doesn't really exist. Never did. Probably never will.
And what if it does exist? Well trust the future to bring it to you, if it so pleases. But don't expect it, don't hope for it. Don't let your present be limited by the hope of your future. Don't let an illusion limit your reality. At least the present and it's reality is yours. Why jeopardise what's yours for what might never be?
I would rather accept the truth and be heartbroken than fool my heart with promises of happiness I will never be able to deliver on.
Knowing it will never happen is so much more liberating than hoping it does. There's an odd sense of peace in the knowledge.
So, Give Up.
Lose Hope.
Move On.
Be Free.

"....and she was loved."

I don’t know about you, but no matter how much I kid the world, I crave perfect stories. You know the kind that fairytales are made of and every time you retell it people go “aww, that is perfect!”?! 

I have gone around often, declaring how I love our messed up world and it’s imperfections and how only imperfections are perfect, but all the while I have secretly hoped and prayed for perfect moments in every story I have ever lived. 

Am I a hypocrite, then ? Well, maybe! But I am not the only one, am I?

Don’t we all try to validate our stories with meaning and sense and some sort of a ‘coming to a full circle’ ending ? Yes, we know better, we know that the best stories are tragic, the best loves unrequited, but is knowing that enough to satiate our need for ‘perfect’ and ‘forever’ and ‘happily ever after’?

Believe me you, I am true in my appreciation for the universe’s sense of irony and the poetic justice that often flatters our sombre tales.

But, inspite of that,  every time I walk into a new chapter in my life, I can’t help but secretly and a bit perversely perhaps, hope for a perfect set of firsts that all link together to make absolute sense.

But it doesn’t. 

That’s not ‘eureka' material though, we already know that. But somehow I never admit that, at least not to myself.

I have always told myself that we live in our own 21st century version of fairytales and it does have a perfect happy ending, after all. 

Lie.

Wait, I am not saying life isn’t a fairytale. I am saying perhaps it is not the fairytale we think it is.

Okay go back to all the fairytales that you have ever read, heard, overheard or maybe wrote.

If we cut out the prince and the princess and the ‘once upon a time’ and the ‘happily ever after’ the perfect kiss and the prince rescuing the princess…yeah so basically almost all of it, what are we left with ? 

Love.

In some or any or every form. Love.

Parental, Romantic, Friendly, Humanitarian……Love.

So what I am saying is that maybe, love and love only, is our fairytale. 

That this monumental emotion, incapable of definition, is perhaps all the salvation we need.

Whether it is your family, your friends, a legitimate love interest, or just your pet, you have been, are and will be loved, by at least one living being. 

And that there, is your perfect story. That is all you need to tell, all anyone needs to know.

In the mean time I will continue to go about my life faltering, breaking, falling, collapsing, hurting, crying, howling, smiling, kidding, laughing….living.

But when they write my story, if they say “…and she was loved”, hope you’ll know that I have lived a fairytale.

Lest you forgot to....

Did you smell the grass today ?
No, really. Did you find time to walk by a park a take a long deep breath inhaling the smell of grass and earth ? And smile because you had forgotten that smell !?

Did you drop an old friend you were once inseparable with, separated by time, work, commitments or maybe even countries a text today ? Just a simple "Hi, how are you ?".
And no, creep texting or stalking your ex doesn't count !

Did you do something stupid today?
Not "haha I'm so silly" stupid but embarrassingly "kill me now" stupid ?

Did you laugh at something so hard you almost felt your stomach in your throat ?

Did you forgive someone ?

Did you try to make someone else's day better, with no matter how small a gesture?

Did someone smile because of you?

Did you greet a stranger?

Did you make a loved one happy?

If it's raining, did you try catching rain drops ? If it's sunny, did you try staring at the sun from in between your fingers and look away just before it blinds you ?

Did you tell your parents that you love them?

Did you order something new instead of just the regular at your favourite restaurant today ?

Did you make funny faces at a baby till he burst into a toothless giggle?

Did you pray for someone else today? Or if you're an atheist, did you genuinely wish someone well today ?

Did you make yourself happy today?
Not the doing-something-good-for-someone-else happy but the selfish, unapologetic doing-something-for-yourself-to-make-you-happy, happy ? Perhaps go shopping without a reason and splurge on that top you don't need-need but want-need or find time to start re-reading your favourite book or write a little or just take a break and relax with a cup of tea in your favourite mug or something, anything else that makes you intensely happy even if for a moment !?

Do you at least have one story to tell from today ? Like, give you're friend a call and start with " you won't believe what happened today...." or perhaps, " hey guess what I did today...." ?!

So, what I am asking you is, did you LIVE today ?

Or did work, family, meetings, appointments, picking up groceries, paying bills and other responsibilities bury you too much ?

If it did, apologise to yourself and start again tomorrow. Make yourself a promise. A promise to live, not just survive through the day. Only you have the right to decide how your day will be. So choose to live today, tomorrow, everyday.
Because one day there will be no tomorrow and today will be all you have. Live enough everyday to be able to look back on all your yesterdays on that day and smile, content and proud that you have used up all of your life and no one could have done it better.

For the love of.....

She had always loved the lingering,chilly, piercing wet wind that followed the rain, felt alive with the brazen cold winds engulfing her as her skin prickled.

Sunny was never her thing. Overrated, she thought to herself, smirking, every time someone gushed about all things bright and well, sunny !

Yet this morning was different. The sun was out in all it's enigmatic glory . And she loved, loved, LOVED it. 

She loved the warmth of the sun caressing her cheeks. Smiled as the rays, she once complained to be too harsh, kissed her eyelids. She glowed as the blush of happiness enveloped her.

Odd.

Was she having an affair with the Sun all of a sudden?

The Sun, whose power to cheer people, she had dismissed all her life?

Surely not!

What was it then ?

Undoubtedly it was love. 

No other emotion has you acting like a fool, loving all things you once claimed to hate with a vengeance ! 

Ofcourse it was love !

So, rather, who was it ?

She tiptoed back to her room, her feet springing in joy and dance.

At the door, she almost choked with happiness as she looked at her bed. It was basked in sunlight. 

She snuggled on her favourite corner and stared out of the window at the city lazily, gruntingly just waking up to a new day.....closing her eyes she took a deep breath, inhaling as much of the sun as possible !

Standing up, she walked to the mirror. Looked at her reflection.

And it was then that she knew. 

Yes she was in love. She was absolutely, completely, totally, fully, non-negotiably in love.

With herself.

All of her. Her flaws and scars and marks and all the brokenness inside that no one else knew about. All of it !

She was in love, no qualifications attached. 

She no longer hated her left eyebrow for never really arching as well as the right one. She no longer hated the small finger of her feet for being crooked. She no longer found the ring of her uncontrollable laughter embarrassing. The acne marks on her cheek didn't seem to annoy her anymore. Her protruding chin seemed kinda cute too !

It was the newest,oddest and yet most refreshing and freeing feeling she had ever experienced.

To be in love with yourself, your beauty and your flaws, is really the day you start living, yes, she had read about all that fancy stuff, never buying a word of it, never believing it to be at all possible.

But what between being pushed around and pushing back and finding a way, mending broken hearts and healing scars, waking up every day and not giving up, dreaming and struggling, losing and occasionally winning, being happy and trying to make a couple of others happy, existing and surviving, she had fallen in love. Without any warning or planning. Unapologetic love. The forever kind.

Today it wasn't the Sun. Or the weather. It was Her. 

She was the reason, the cause, the effect, the result. She was the story. No introduction, no conclusion. She was enough. Her story was enough. There is no going back now. 

The Villain could be your Hero, if only you let him !

                         "Every saint has a past and every sinner has a future”

                                                                                                     -Oscar Wilde

We might profess our love for the Hero, but it is the Villain we thrive on. We are, perhaps subconsciously, maybe even habitually, more attached to the idea of an absolute, non-negotiable evil than we would like to admit.

In our own little world, where a mirror is often our least favourite accessory, the existence of the quintessential Villain validates us, brings us closer to being the Hero.  In our hastiness of pigeonholing the world into good and evil, we forget to appreciate that all of it, mostly is just grey. A black and white world is an utopia, an elusive expectation. But, how else would we prove how white is our grey, unless we subscribe to the idea of the existence of a black, of the blackest kind!

And hence, the anti-hero, you know, the one that gets it wrong most of the times, the flawed one, the one that messes up, the black sheep, if you will, needs to be an omnipresent frame of reference in our lives, to prove to the world and as irony would have it, mostly to ourselves, how less messed up,  less flawed we are, how many times we got it right to every time our black sheep faltered.

We like to cry foul to the mistakes of the black sheep so that we can fool ourselves into believing how much closer to perfection we are. Hanging on to the darkness in someone else’s character makes us seem fairer, validates us, and makes it easier to gain rite of passage into the world’s clichéd and I daresay, hypocritical mould of  'the good and the proper'. 

But really, could anyone be absolutely white, without the slightest remnant of darkness? Can you, or anyone you know, rightfully claim to have never done anything wrong?! Never hurt someone, knowingly or unknowingly, broken a heart, upset a loved one, made a mistake, missed a step and by the sheer instinct of survival grabbed someone else and took them down too….!?

We know the answer to that in all honesty, so tell me this, why is it so difficult to give someone the benefit of doubt when we ourselves are so tragically flawed? Why do we judge ourselves by our intentions and everyone else by their actions? Why can’t we accept the good with the bad in others as easily we do in ourselves? Why do we like to play victim of someone else’s mistakes when we ourselves don’t like to take stock of every time we hurt another person?

But ofcourse. No one takes note of the wrongdoings of the wronged and what could be better than the blissfull secrecy of the curtain of other people’s mistakes, to hide our own!

Bless Eve for eating the apple and thereby gifting us with a delicious world full of possibilities ! Everytime another one of us comes into this world, this beautifully broken world, we inherit an ocean of emotions and characteristics and without classifying them into virtues and vices let our conscience be our guiding light and  not hold against another their every wrong while we ourselves secretly expect forgiveness from our victims.

Let's give the Villain a chance. He just might surprise us!

People who depress me...

     1)      Those with no regrets.

I am not talking about the people who have made peace with their bad decisions and are centred and happy with where those decisions have finally taken them in life. They are a brilliant bunch. Not them. 

But the other kind, who really believe that they have no regrets.  Those who are earnestly confident that they got it right, every single time.

Isn’t it absolutely frightening? The idea of a life devoid of regrets?  No laments, whatsoever?

Not even in the flavour of ice-cream you chose that evening or the love of your life you’re afraid you let go off in a hasty decision that fateful night  or the career you chose for life or the haircut your stylist convinced you looks awesome on you while you secretly believe it makes you look older ? None?

To meet a person that self assured is depressing, not only because it makes you insecure about your own life  but I think it is also quite a pitiful existence to have gotten every decision, every choice at every crossroad right, every time.

What is life without a couple of blunders that changed it’s course, a bad relationship that had no future yet you just could’nt get out of, the dress on sale you had your heart set on and somebody picked up the last one, the argument you had with your mom even though you realized she was warning you for your best………..ahh there’s so so so many.  Everyday, every hour.

Life without regrets is a life with only peaks, no lows and you know what happens when the heart line on the monitor goes up and doesn’t come down, don’t you? It goes straight and makes the most deafening depressing sound that has ever broken a silence.

2)      Those who sit with their back towards the world, at alfresco cafes.

Have you seen them?  Sitting alone or in company ?

It’s like, not only are they closing the world on them, but they are consciously depriving themselves of the delight of being a spectator to the world passing by.

How does one do that ? Is that self assurance or just ignorance ? Either way it’s depressing because I liken it to someone who has been invited to a spectacular play with the best seats and yet although they reach in time and sit throughout, they are too self absorbed or just too blunt to catch anything that is going on in the stage. Such carelessness is saddening.

     

     3)      Those who don’t feel the need to travel.

I once knew someone, who told me this. He said he loves the comfort of his home, his loved ones, the comfort of knowing where to go for what. Why would he want to give all that up and go to a strange place ? There’s always television and magazines and the likes for that. Why abandon home, even if temporarily, for that ?

        Isn’t it somewhat terrifying?  

To never experience what lays beyond ? To never feel the want, the need, to never crave to know ?  

Yes, you can "youtube" Aurora Borealis, but to not want to lay beneath the sky and to stare at it, directly ? To not want to stand in front of the Niagara and let it seclude you, even in the chaos of all the tourists around you ? Or even let yourself be drunken with delight at all the man made spectacles, the eiffel, the taj….bridges, buildings, monuments, palaces, museums. Not to stand in the Louvre and stare at Monalisa, directly ?

Ahh !  This world, this magnanimous, spellbinding  world. Not to even want to see it, feel it, touch it, visit every corner of your country, the neighbouring country, every country, before your life gives up on you ? What a catastrophically depressing thought !

     4)      Those who claim they don’t judge people.

Perhaps there is a fundamental misunderstanding in this whole concept of being or not being judgmental.

It is not wrong to judge people, but it is wrong when you hold these opinions, these judgments against them. It is about whether you give them a fair chance to present their case.

Can you honestly say, given you have a standard, working human brain, that the moment a person walks into a room you don’t form opinions?  Whether they’re tall, short, skinny, plump, how their hair is, if the cut and the style suits them, what clothes they have on, whether those flatter their appearance or whether you love those shoes and the likes !

And then when you start interacting with them, how they are speaking, what they are speaking about, their expressions, their thoughts and with every detail of the conversation you don’t form fresh set of opinions and judgments about who they are ?

It is impossible to have a functioning brain and not take note of and form judgments about a person. But pigeonholing people based on your judgments is perhaps what one can complain about.

However, this need to deny a characteristic and basic human working of the brain and the secretly continuing to do so, is what depresses me.

Trying to conform with certain over-hyped and  overused words of the present self-proclaimed civilized society, without using your own sense of judgement about it, is really sad, wouldn't you agree?

Belonging To Memories !

A friend in a disarming moment of guileless banter says the words, "I remember the time you...."

And you wait for them to lend you, what's yours. Your moment, your story being narrated back to you. But it's not yours anymore really. Not completely. It's their memory now.

It's a tad unnerving, yet somewhat flattering, being a part of someone else's memory.

We all are perennially in search of the perfect us. We like to paint ourselves prettier than we are. Very few have a Frida Kahlo in them ! 

But a place in someone else's memory robs us of our right to tell the story to our liking. It's a place you have no control over. It's an autocratic land where your story has been modified according to the whims of it's possessor. You are not only sharing your moments with their memory but you're also giving them the right to own it, alter it, judge it, like it, dislike it and most importantly forget it !

And yet, to imagine that someone has made a memory out of a moment you have lived, that perhaps you are oblivious to, fascinates me.

Never mind that not everyone has a certain Wordsworth stealing a mundane moment from their everyday work and making it a treasured memory worth inspiring a timeless piece of poetry !

But to think that someone somewhere remembers,say, your laughter and thinks of you, probably involuntarily, when they hear another one similar to yours, is indeed flattering. They are carrying with them something, that innately belongs to you. It has left a mark in their memory and for a moment you're with them even when you're not. You steal a moment from their intensely occupied schedule. Subconsciously perhaps, but a piece of your story has helped someone else make a memory. The romantic finds joy in this existential validation of his story, or at least a part thereof.

So, smile at a stranger. You'll never know how long he remembered it, but the slim chance that you made a memory in a person you'll never see again, donated a tiny bit of your story to be carried far beyond you can imagine, is intriguingly compelling.

A stranger I remember. A moment of joy she let me keep !

An inexplicable smile...

She got down from the bus, hair disheveled, probably from the window seat or maybe from dozing off for a bit against the backrest.

She is careful not to put a false step between the road and the last step of the bus and is trying her best to avoid bumping into the hasty pedestrians who quite clearly do not appreciate this sudden pop-up person delimiting their pace.

A few more steps and once she comfortably settles in her pace with the world around her, she looks up.

Almost automatically her eyes crinkle against the rays of the sun and it is then that you see it. In a flash of a moment. In her eyes.

The dawning of awareness of the chaotic world around her, as if a bubble engulfing her has suddenly burst.

As if, she just stepped outside a momentary make-shift world where all that mattered was planting a steady foot on the ground and not stepping on anyone's toes. Nothing else existed. And suddenly that world's gone. But realization quickly settles in.

Her eyes are now un-crinkled. Any remnants of the vulnerability of being caught unawares has left them.

She scoops out her umbrella and takes a step forward.

My car swooshes past her, the signal's turned green.


Although rather an insignificant moment in the life of a daily commuter, this moment caught me, it hooked me. Gave me an inexplicable smile. Inspired me. I shall not reason it. In a world where sometimes you have to work really hard to get hold of happiness, inexplicable smiles are keepers.

So look around. Take it in. Spare an empty moment to be filled.
And when you find your "inexplicable smile" moment, whether amidst a crazy schedule or a busy day, keep it. Let it make you feel good. Just plain good. No reasons attached.

The Perfect Storm

As gushes of dust and warm wind engulfs the city in a storm that momentarily welcomes happy and worried faces alike,and a cloak of darkness wraps the sky and you sit snugly with a warm cup of coffee at a corner of your verandah, as an unattached spectator to Nature’s play and man’s myriad reactions to another of Her unexpected quirks, you realize, that the storm is just a reflection of life,  as we know it, and it’s perfect.

That child smiling goofily at his surroundings, that perplexed mother pulling him closer and trying to find a shade, both are you. You, at that moment  when you were happy for no reason. You at that moment when you were all worked up trying to protect a loved one.

That guy with the tie running with a briefcase over his head, is you too.You,  in a moment of  struggle, trying to make it to your destination, realize your aim.

The unexplainable satisfaction you got  in doing good unto another selflessly !? Yes, it can be seen in the eyes of that security guard who helped that old man,who got dust in his eyes and whose hands were filled with heavy bags of grocery shopping, come down the stairs of the supermarket.

You get my point.

We are all living in a sudden storm. And just like the perfect book or the perfect movie that makes you smile, cry, rejoice, feel depressed or find delight in it, this storm is perfect.

And it brings moments, scattered yet organised slides of emotions which piece by piece makes up your story.

The storm makes sure that your life is worth living.That you have stories to tell.

Paulo Coelho once said, something to the effect, that when everyday of your life seems the same, you have stopped living. 

Thus if not for the storm, your life  would have been a series of similar looking, mundane slides of the same emotions. Without any reason to wake up and live another day. With nothing new to experience or  feel. You would have stopped living.


So rejoice in the storm. Be assured, that as long as it’s all a whirlwind, you’re alive.

Love the dissapointments as much as the successes.

Because it is the imperfections that make this life perfect.
 

Embracing the yesterday that made way for today...

Life is moving.
For some forward and for some others backward, and for the yet remaining, in circles. But it's never still.
And along with itself, life drags us.
We are pushed into unknown terrains while all we want to do is stay put in the comfort of our cocoon.
And in all this dragging and pulling, we grow. We grow in all our relationships, in all our responsibilities, in all our expectations, our opinions and as well as in our dreams.
But once in a while, when we look back, in reflection or maybe just out of compulsion, at us, at the marks our treaded path has left behind, we feel surprised.
"I did that, really !?'' or  "I don't believe, I said that !" or as in my case, the question that planted the seed of this blog post, "I used to write like that !?".
But, the journals that i used to keep, the last pages of my every slam book that i used to fill, or the first blog that i ever wrote, are today, all reminders that I have grown.
And I am happy with this growth. Had I not been the person who wrote all that, I would never have been the person I am today, the person I quite like being.
No. We are never the person we want to be. But in the journey of becoming that person, every now then, we should check if we would have liked ourselves, if ever we were introduced to us; Whether you like being you.

So here's to all the silly words I spoke and the journals i wrote, all the times I texted in the incomprehensible text language, all the times I slipped and picked myself my up hoping no one had noticed, all the wrong friendships I made and all the stupid crushes I had !
Here's to being dragged and pushed by life ! Here's to growing up yet not forgetting who you were !

And finally, here's to starting to blog again after almost two years but not deleting the past blogs !!