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 !!








 

my rigid attention....

I've realised I have an intense attention division disorder.

I can do only one thing at a time.

Now,this ''at a time'' refers to each particular phases of  my mood.So it can be hours,days,weeks or just minutes.

If I'm reading,I just keep on readin and reading,till I complete the book[or whatever it is am reading] I'm on.But while at it I don't do anythin else.I honestly don't get the time 'cause am so occupied.Its like my mind just works one way.I don't watch t.v,I dont use the internet,I try and avoid as much of the goin'-on-forever phone chats with my friends.I behave pretty possesed-y.

And its the same way with everything else that i like doing.When am doin' one,the other doesn't exist till i get over what am doin'.

My point precisely is that I cannot balance.Its either this OR that.

Like right now I'm blogging and this serial I really like,two and a half men,is on.Now since I had already started writing this before the show started,I just cannot stop writing midway,put down my laptop and watch the serial and then get back to it.If this is where my attention is,I'm incapable of dividing it with the t.v show.

Now,this thing has to go.Apart from when am reading,in every other case, its really annoying to be not be able to balance my attention.

See with my reading habits I'm very partial.That's the only idiosyncracy I have,which I have no intention of dealin' with.The rest,I like to think, really ain't a big deal.I'll overcome sooner or later!

Or atleast I can be in a little more in peace with my mind if I keep tellin' myself that.

to begin with

me::welcome myself :)
hope u have a amazing blog life!!
myself::hey thanks ! I hope so too :)
me::so how and when did u decide that u want to blog,given the technologically challenged person you are??
myself::well...it happened last night actually..i could'nt sleep and when i can't sleep its mostly because my mind's working overtime..amidst a blur of thoughts,that i won't bore u with right now 'cause u'll have a lot of them in the coming days,i decided i should blog.....well atleast try..its pretty easy to get started i discovered..so here i am..tantarrrann :]
me::ahh that's interesting ! so now that u're here,how do u propose to overcome ur unfriendly terms with technology in general..???
myself::listen don't keep saying that.we are not at all on unfriendly terms.i just like to think that my survival does not depend on the internet and its kith and kins..
me::[smirkin'] whatever way u wanna put it hon!
myself::[intensely irritated with me's attitude] are we done here ??
me::nooo dear..u just got started remember..?? temme more..did u tell your family and friends about it..what do they think??
myself::i will i will..just told mummy though..she thinks its great but is more occupied with the idea that i will use it as another excuse to not sleep at night[yeah i do that pretty often..till now my "substantial reasons" were the totally unputdownable book or the great movie i just could'nt not watch right now]
me::and ur dad??
myself::baba's sleepin'..and neway with him i'll first have to start explaining with what a "blog" is..
me::[smirkin' annoyingly yet again]ahh..like father like daughter one would say..
myself::so lets wrap it at that then..i need to go around this place and understand few other stuff..till i see you again good luck with your unnecessary inquisitiveness and... have fun[i added this 'cause am i genuinely nice person u see] !
me::sure babe ! love our little chats you know !
myself:: yeeahp........
me:: :)[its one of those trying to be nice but really, tryin' to impose a superior aura kind of smiles.]