I'm back

It's been almost three years, so what brings me here today?

Rain, confused panic and Kafka.


When the questions inside me well up and overflow, I decide to wear socks, have a hot beverage and read in a place with comfortable seating, where there's no-one I must say hello to. Today I decided to read Franz Kafka's love letters to Felice Bauer while sipping on the cheapest cup of tea on the menu at a Cafe Coffee Day. It was a pleasant change from my house, with no electricity and the remnants of some painful memories too fresh, still oozing.

I can't say the chai and samosa didn't have a role to play, but in some way, reading Kafka's innermost feelings put to paper, his fears and eccentricities, they calmed my panicked state of mind. I felt less alone. His 1912 correspondence almost resembles modern day long distance relationships. The painfully honest accounts of anxiety, the bold and yet tactical offers to carry the relationship above the realm of friendship- they all seem a bit familiar.

But anyway, this blog is not about Kafka (I can hardly be qualified enough to write that just as yet, I haven't even gotten to The Trial).

This blog is about me.
And on this particular day, the rain and confused panic had thrown me onto the streets, unsure of where to go. It's a relatively new city, and armed with a book, bottle of water and a yellow raincoat, I walked with purpose hoping to find my cozy coffee spot. I had a lingering suspicion that the Cafe Coffee Day only existed in the lost ghost files of Google Maps, but I was pleasantly surprised. Reading and writing are some of the ways I make sense when I feel like there is chaos running through my mind. Thoughts, most negative, just floating around, kicking my tear ducts, hindering my lungs. I decided to read first because there was no electricity where I stay and my mind had decided the best way to deal would be to numbly shut off until I have some tea in my system.
It was a smart move.

I sat, I read, I ate, I drank. Every ten minutes that passed, my throat started to close up a little less. The thoughts, the constant stream of anxious questions were dammed to a trickle. They were questions about me, the why how and what of every little thing I did, would do or have done. Fear and impatience do not go well together, and if the number of times I checked my phone is any indication, I think I was at the rock bottom.

All

The force of life hits me with full force, like a splash of pipe water while playing in a garden! 

I've been caught by this almost epileptic surge for artistic expression. The kind that makes you want to dance and get lost in the music, paint a canvas or just get lost in a museum. Made me pick up my phone and experience yet another first,which is to write an article from a smartphone.

Yeah, yeah, makes me feel a bit pathetic, but its all about creativity. It's about throwing all preconceived knowledge and cynicism in the trash and enthusiastically type on this tiny beautiful touch screen!

I want to lift the garbs and veils of pseudo-artsy-intellectual off of me, they get too heavy for my heart!

That constant chatter of the cynical brain, telling me my last sentence sounded like it's out of a perennial pop song. 

But I'm going to drown out this chatter with Taylor Swift and Nicki Minaj and Ellie Goulding until it stops making me unhappy. (Read, until I have memorised the words to shake it off better than my ATM pin ;P ) (yes that was a smiley)

Yes, I fall for the sad music in movies they play specifically to make the audience feel bad and cry. Yes I boo boo talk with my boyfriend. And yeah! I also enjoy reading about politics and mystery novels and serious writing. 

But being someone who's taken seriously has made me taunt myself for every goofy thing I like! 

I can hear myself cringe at every exclamation mark. But I'm going to stop and enjoy and accept that there is nothing wrong with having so many aspects to ones personality. And as for the cringes, 

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

(Take that! Cynical voice of my brain)

But all of this isn't just bubble wrap and writing like Meg Cabot. No, I strongly feel it is moments like these, where one learns not to judge and hate, where creativity really comes to life.

I feel like dancing so soulfully, singing with a beautiful orchestra and choir, writing a novel, spattering drops of paint all over everywhere. 

And for all of this, I have only love to thank for. Sometimes we forget to love ourselves. We become nagging and negative. Hide our real self away, keeping it safe where noone can see it.

And its those around us that fill in the gaps by loving us so much that we never feel unloved, we just close our eyes and unclench our muscles. Pure love flowing through veins, flowing out of our palms, of our dancing feet, through our lips and hair ends and body and spirit to those who love us. 

And as for the connundrum of self and other. Whether we are really capable of love,

Or if it is just the chemical cocktail swirling high into our consciousness.

 

My answer?

Love has no boundaries and no self, it finds a way to creep into logic and as far as my experience goes, I couldn't put it in better words than Bob Dylan did, You can't be wise and in love at the same time.

I can drown in the deep blue sea with my laughter echoing in the skies holding his hand! (Almost have! Might I add)

I can stay up a million nights just to watch him sleep. And there is nothing I won't do, to protect him. 

And no matter how many bickers and snarky conversations, the scene of swimming Bangalore nightlights over his shoulder while we waltzed, ever so slow will always be printed on the back of my eyelids. 

I am thankful to God and every superpower that there may be out there in the universe for blessing me with all kinds of love. With a sister so loving, that every time I think of her I can suddenly smell rainwater on the dry road and dogs and aaloo tamatar. With a father who has managed to create an entire ecosystem with his gardening, single handedly feeding bees, birds, squirrels and dogs alike. And a mother who has accomplished the largest fan base this world has seen since Harry Potter. Every word out of her mouth could be in a gray covered quote book, every quip forever etched in my memory. All this love lets us be, even if there's cynicism and strife. It lets us cut loose threads of preconception and prejudice off our brilliant blue coat of gentle flowing love.

 

Possibly radioactive.

Shades.


Hue, value and chroma. Cameramen and home decor experts aren't the only ones who have managed to derive benefit from Munsell's system.


No, I think that our insides are coloured. Blue, yellow and browns. We meet people, shake hands, laugh at their jokes, they see through our barriers to our colour, we see theirs. We sing along while letting our windshield down, eat ice cream and french fries, hot chocolate and buttered toast. Work and complain, take care of them when they fall sick, go between various spectrums. Switch off the light when they want to sleep, squinting at the keyboard, content in the other's comfort. Cry when we're overwhelmed, giggle when we're comforted. Tuck ourselves in, letting the hue become constant.


Years may pass you by, at any time if you feel something is, due to lack of any better word, un-matched, you look around confused for a second. But then you remember how cozy you felt and it disappears as so many things do, when you think of them as "Just in my head". I tend to lose my point while writing, but I'll stagger right back to it after a few more paragraphs. Anyhow it goes on, you feel a subsurface wave of disconnectedness every now and then. Life's tensions pile up, and you go through each of them hoping to emerge through somehow, but keeping your chin up everyday takes its toll. As you crumble, the shoulder beneath your head shape shifts. you watch it fly and morph into a finger asking you to quiet down and move on. You find it a comforting and gentle reminder you needed, to get up. So you do, wash your face and hold the finger that was once a shoulder. Is this starting to get all sci fi mutant yet? Well, blame my eccentric imagination. This is why Bloomsbury would never publish me.


As much as you appreciated the prod to get up, to improve- you miss the cuddly shoulder. So you set on and decide to rebuild it. Cups of tea, music, a feel good book, some more music, dancing by yourself for hours, oh how it rejuvenates you! You're convinced you've found the answer, it all seems to work out so well. Life's bad times finally pass, you're looking forward, ready to go home to the those you love.


Eagerly waiting to meet them, you subconsciously travel back in time. The ice creams, giggles, tears and hugs race through your mind, you return to your constant. Your hue.


As you radiate your colour brighter and brighter, you realize the un-matchedness gain a momentum so loud, its almost as if someone is telling you "Are you always that one hue?"

Oh wait, they are.

Waiting for an answer to pop into your head, you panic and peep inside, still seeing the offending hue shining through your skin in horror and you ask for some time to mix it up and see what other hues you can find in you. After all, we're infinite. Aren't we?


And so you try pink and yellow and green and mauve. A shoe size too big may describe how you feel, but you must try. Try all that the palate has to offer.


And then one day, you want your hue back. And the cuddly shoulder too. And so you do everything in your capacity, even if it makes you a gluey addition to someone's life, to get everything back. But of course you can't. And no longer do the cups of tea and music wafting through your ears make a difference. Nothing does. You've lost the capability to be your own cuddly shoulder. And the one that you thought you'll always have to lean on, its got to be on its own for a while or maybe you cant force your head onto someone's shoulder because there's always this tensed bicep thats waiting to get out the moment you fall asleep.


Maybe you can change your hue, maybe you can't. It might feel like its the wrong one. Yet its yours. And as much as you'd like to make it better, sometimes you like your hue, whatever it may signify. So what do you do?
Do you make it better, or do you keep your hue?

It doesn't matter. Because love is all encompassing. And it doesn't care about hues and value and chroma and formulas. So forget the shoulder and get out of the house, grab your love by the arm and dance to John Legend. Forget the end and the beginning. Let whatever wants to come out of you radiate through with no barriers. And the finger shoulder mutant will lead you on, into the light.

Ripping tides of self. This thixotropic mind, with its own Mandark of a master.

In it lies a laboratory of thought, of what could be, what couldn't and whatnot.

How should we go on, when there is so much to fix? How must we carry on, knowing full well there are things behind that aren't taken care of. That will never be taken care of.

Partial control is lethal. All or none is how I want it. Doubt is the universal truth, the home of logic and science.

Sometimes I revere it, but other times, I wish it were either one way or another. Gullible thought, that one. Doesn't mean it doesn't occur every now and then.

So much easier to not think. If only i could. Just for a while. Brain burst. Sometimes I think my brain might burst.
Red goo splayed across the walls and floor and door.
"Hey what happened here?"
"Oh, I think her brain burst"
......


"Oh well. Look it's lunch time."


I, just I.

Alone.


Standing far away. Away. So far away. To breathe, to not call, to not know, to not smile. To forget, to erase.

Standing far away. It may accomplish all my goals for me.

At least it gives me a chance at it. A chance at not getting glued to a mesh and maze, waiting for the mouse trap to close. And then it never does.
I might be sad if it does close on me. Initially. But I'll adapt.
I'd rather they get me than live under the fear that they might, any time at all. Or I would rather escape completely.


It won't let me do either. It'll come, ticking it's fancy watch, life will. Like a one sided affair, constantly following footstep after footstep of mine.
At least until I learn to fly.

Musings of a teenage soul

Nothing compares to the long standing body ache, pine for books yet an inexplicable repulsion that send your mind and body looping like a boomerang back and forth, when finals are due. I get up, brush my teeth and make some coffee.

The recurring tring of the neighbour’s alarm, sets the silent morning atmosphere into a constant reminder of having to read. Reading, writing, somehow trying to put it all together. What really makes you a person? The thought rushed through my mind, if but for a second. I give myself an inward glare. I had a motto to follow
“Roll with it, don’t think about it too much”.
And I have a goal in life. One I’ve had all my life, actually. And finally, I’m getting on track to outrun myself and catch hold of that sweet success.

So what is my goal?
My goal is to be a person who isn’t afraid.
So who isn’t afraid? What accolades do we need to finally be able to say/do what we should say/do anyway but can’t because we’re insecure of our imperfections? What does it take to change the world?

Does it take that burning urge to correct all that’s wrong with yourself first and then gearing into position to change the surrounding atmosphere? Does it take a Harvard degree to prove your potential?  Could it be as simple as a completely clean room? Maybe a few musical talents? A-line grades? Reducing weight?

There are things we always want to do, yet do not end up doing simply because we gel into ruts of daily life and society where courage is not an everyday requirement.
We, whether fortunately or unfortunately let fortune alone decide, live our lives without everyday struggle. Therefore, we lose track of what is important to us and what is not. We sway and amalgamate with the minds and thoughts of all those around us and soon we start to live together in an interconnected mindblur that is termed today as society.
A mindblur it is. And it will cloud all your originality away. Slowly, you forget about the things you wanted to do and become complacent. At one point, the gandhian philosophy of your inner mind would keep at the back an image of the starving masses, as you ate your every meal. But as you enter the mindblur, all fades away. You stuff yourself left right and centre, just because everyone else is.
Oh, the infection.

The deeper it sucks you, the harder it gets. You don’t have to be a gandhian, or a supporter of modern day society or anything else I’m giving examples of. You have to be, just, you. Because at the end of the day, it’s all that this world needs.

Lifting the curtains after falling through the whole drill can be daunting. If everyone’s ordering a pizza, why should I not do it? Not like there’s anything wrong with eating a pizza. And so comes out the wallet and the odd hundred rupee notes.
And there isn’t anything wrong with eating a pizza. Gone and digested, not once do we bother to think about why the child of a laborer must be made to sleep with the satisfaction of a few parle-gs.
Exactly where, in the whole mind-blur do we accommodate them?
Suddenly the entire meshwork formed by people affecting each other, take an ugly turn and swerves past certain groups of mesh, leaving them unwanted and uncared for. Striated society.

Some give themselves satisfaction in saying they work for what they get, thus giving rise to the notion, if you don’t work, you deserve what you get. If one implies that the amount of work is proportional to the amount is comfort you deserve then they would gladly support all the economic differences which exist today, making up strata of the mindblur. Rise of terms such as masses, minorities, majorities and groups.

Does anyone else see the gaping hole of humanity in the above paragraph? I don’t support socialism, communism or any form of politics, but I still believe in my gut feeling of equality. And I still believe that if there’s one platform, where we all should come together, apart from the pizza slumber parties, it is progress.

If today, eating a home-cooked/ mess-cooked simple meal is saving up enough money for you to plan your way of giving back to society, in a way more innovative than distributing parle-gs, then maybe that simple meal is worth giving up the cheesy goodness of a pizza for.
If learning a musical talent is what may set your mind right and maybe a few others’ too, and help make a better world for everyone to be a part of, then perhaps it’s the better option than spending days lazing around at the neighborhood café.
If getting A-grades helps form a core for better endeavors of achieving equality in the future, then pursue it!

And most significantly, if it takes the load off your conscience and eliminates your insecurities and fears, and makes you, YOU. Get to it.


Because right at the end of this tunnel of experiences and situations, you’ll want to look back and know that your inherent, inborn purpose here is fulfilled. So despite spending a considerable amount of time, writing this while I should be setting myself free from the burdens of the mindblur, I will get back and continue with it, because hindrances may waver me from my motto awhile, but I know deep within, that I just gotta roll with it. 

Simple Plan

" Procrastination, running circles in my head...while you sit there contemplating, you're wound up left for dead. Life is what happens while you're busy making your excuses. Another day, another casualty. "
- Simple Plan                       

People. Fate. Attitude.

Today, I quote a band rather unusual for my taste. And furthermore, I attempt to write about something I believe to never have understood! People.
I'm going to start with an important lesson my best friend taught me, back in school, i.e.  'No two people are the same'

Yes, we do segregate everyone, putting different tags on them, no matter how non-judgmental we may say we are, truth remains that humans being social animals, do build a society, in it creating various tiers. As we move along our own ways, we create shelves of files, cataloging each trait, each person, albeit unconsciously.

This way, societies create collective perceptions which are animatedly discussed and passed down generations. Certain general norms are set. Like 'to wear yellow pants is odd' among many others. These are important. They help one to face the diverse world, for it is easier to be able to think about it in a prescribed manner. The issue pops up, when a person forgets to be mad. Yes, mad refers to behavior not approved  by society. Not necessarily harmful. Because its important to know that life is not that easily understandable. No matter how many little post-its you stick on it or how much of it you can explain to yourself on basis of logic or pre-conceptions, its always going to leave you in a riddle. That's a statement I will stand by, through thick and thin.

So, when you forget to be mad, you learn to judge yourself just the way you've been judging everyone around you. You measure yourself in that graduated beaker of societal perceptions and mark out your potential with a neat red line. You reduce yourself to what you understand. You tell yourself what you can do and what you can't. And the usage of the word 'reduce' is deliberate, because the moment you start to think that you've worked hard enough and have learnt enough to place yourself on a level, you stagnate. For want of a crude word, you rot. It is imperative to note that the above occurrences are followed by the formation of an ego. It is but natural. If you've given yourself the power of chalking out your possibilities for yourself, you might as well give yourself a crown saying 'King of the Universe'.

But this ego grows harsh and bitter, placing other people as superior and inferior, it turns hostile to our inherent happiness, which relies upon the noble notions of equality and harmony. The path from here on, is rather sketchy. For you chose to draw it yourself.


I'm not suggesting everybody leave everything to fate and stop judging and testing themselves and others. I don't wish for a Madman's World! No, if a life with fixed parameters is what we need for survival today, so be it. But just once in a while, put on those yellow pants and walk in the streets with an idiotic grin on your face. I tell you,its the only way to remain sane.

Of truth and lies and The Great Demise

Society. Co-existence. Community.

I'm not writing to trigger a massive 'change' that will set the world right back on its feet. Nor am I writing to vent off my frustrated teen peevishness on the evergreen woes of modern life, such as the words above may imply. No, I'm not quite sure why I wrote those particular words to be honest, but as I aimlessly wander into my first 'blog', I'm bereft of any rationality whatsoever.As some might say, perfect.

Trial period has expired for things other than just my 'Express-rip version1' tonight. A new beginning.
Maybe not for you. Or maybe you just haven't thought closely yet.

The week has been eventful, colorful. I have experienced hues ranging from a delicately soft purple to a strong violent red. As greeted worldwide with much anticipation and oohs and aahs, the wedding of Catherine and William was certainly the pastel tone of purple you caught me referring to. The elegance, the subtle romance, peppered with displays of grandeur and valour- an effort to create that fairytale fantasy associated with the royalty.
But trial period, has expired. The moment's over, here is your platter of responsibilities.

The Anna Hazare movement back in India, which garnered the massive support of the people, with several thousands willing to fast in a pledge to dissolve the sticky web of corruption, shook the government and saw the formation of the Lokpal Bill Committee. In the heat of the moment, one look upon the resolute face of the 73 year old social activist caused a stir within every individual, duty for the country made its presence felt, if only for that moment.
About a month later, we have the All India Engineering Entrance Exam paper being leaked out and sold. One could blame the exploding population making it harder and harder to clinch a seat, giving way to unfair means. Or one could say that the current value system is a fail. Either way, fellow citizens, trial period is over. Choose your path.

The people around me tell me my time to 'face the real world' has arrived.
Its time to get out of school and into college, grow up, fix a future, take on challenges, handle independence, stretch your boundaries, be on your tippytoes. Is it because my trial period just ended? or because there will be a massive change in my environment requiring me to adapt and gel in into yet another rut. Some lives seem to be like series of ruts, but none really are. Its because of the ever-changing nature of our surroundings that we create patterns, to bring in constancy. What we don't realize is, whenever change occurs, yeah, your trial period ran out. Be ready for something bigger.

And of course, I end with referring to another worldwide conjuncture. The death that brought smiles to many faces. The Alma mater of the 9/11 attacks, killed in Pakistan by a troop of valiant American soldiers after an intense 40 minute encounter. Yes, some people are still frowning at the second line of this paragraph. No, I am not trying to preach about life, death, happiness or ethics. Nor in any way trying to show those, for whom, this is justice meted out for the sufferings and losses they faced in the various attacks this man conducted, in a bad light. 


No, I am only placing an un-opinionated observation in front of the readers. Read and infer.


Because, much like the wedding excitement of William and Catherine, the blood-boiling rush of anti-corruption, the carefree life of a languid teenager and the fear of Osama that had gripped the world for a decade, Your trial period has terminated.