Alone in a dark room

I've not written for about a year now. And I find that I am most reflective when I am sad. Well, not sad per se. I would call it a state of silence. Where you feel like you are in a dark room. Alone.

I will not say that my life is empty. I am in fact, making an attempt to make it, the opposite of that. But it is very important to put oneself in that "alone in a dark room" state every once in a while to really connect with ourselves.

Mistakes. We all make them, don't we? But sometimes our mistakes get pushed so far away that we lose out on things. Important things. Important people. Important relationships. And in dearth of these relationships, you realize that there is a portion of you that just doesn't exist anymore. And if you really look hard in the mirror, you've turned into this person whom you don't recognize much. Neither recognize nor like.

To what extent should you permit a person to influence your thoughts? At the end of the day, there is that person inside of you begging to differ, forcing you not to change your way of thinking. When you hear such a voice, it really makes sense to shut off every other influence and listen to that inner voice. Who knows you better than that "little-person" inside of you? Why do you have to listen or get influenced by someone judging you or your actions?

When you let yourself be brainwashed enough to stop listening to that "little-person" and start believing this "influence", what do you have to justify to the people who believed in you being a good person, just the way you were? People who loved you regardless of your flaws? How does one pick up the shreds that are left of those relationships and move on?

Peace - will thy be mine?

Why is it that life at times flies at 100 miles an hour and crawls at 10mm an hour in some others? Is it so much the company of people you are in or is it simply a state of mind? Or do we bow down to Mr. Einstein on the theory of relativity? Whichever way you go, its true. One second you feel like you are cruising through life and the next, you are down in the dumps. So further down that you feel like there is, to quote Jennifer Aniston from F.R.I.E.N.D.S, "Yesterday I felt like I had hit rock bottom. Today I feel like there's rock bottom, 6ft of garbage under it and then me".

To pump some sense into life, I think - isn't it so that when you control your mind, nothing else can really bother you much? But there too, the mind and heart are always at this eternal battle against each other. The mind - So pompous and loud. It feels like its all powerful without realizing that it is such a terrible loser compared to the heart. The heart sits by itself, not making these outlandish claims and simply wins out - always! The sad thing sometimes though is, the heart wins out without a sigh but the mind plays spoil sport just because it lost. Telling us things we SHOULD be doing. Things we SHOULD be feeling.

And while for each one of us, the result of the mind-heart battle may be different, and some of us are satisfied with the result, for a person like me, I cannot help but wonder, do I ever really win? The heart has its way most times and it makes me happy. But in those times when the heart wins but the mind spoils the party, how can I ever tell myself to be happy? Even if I tell myself this thing over and over, how do I convince myself so much so that I get back to being..well me?

Wake up sunshine

Wake up sunshine..may everything glow in the warmth of your presence..may every being be humbled by you..may smiles never cease..may there be eternal happines..let everything fun be a part of your life, let everything good happen to you. May success never elude you. Contentment be your chum forever. Peace be with you always!

Any hurt that you may ever feel be mine. All your pain mine. May all my happiness and peace be yours. You are what beauty is. You are the ideal definition of perfection. Mistakes..what do you know how to make them? Hurt..can you ever inflict that on anyone? Failure..do you even know what it means? Impossible..have you ever said that word? Nada..these words suggest negativity..and could you ever symbolize that?

You breathe life and energy, your smile lights up a crowd, your company..pure bliss..What more can I wish for you..what more can I bless you with..what more do I offer to you..but my meager share of fortunes. What more do I grant you..than all that could ever be mine.

Wake up sunshine..open your eyes and make everything beatiuful!

Ain't no mountain high enough

Defeat, failure..do these things just mean more to some people than others? Do they affect just some people adversely? I definitely think I am one of "those". Whether I blame (read thank) my mom for making me like this or my innate nature, I find that I suffer from this disease called "needing-to-be-on-the-top". I may sound pompous when I say this but it really is a disease. I have suffered from it since age 5. Nothing tastes/smells/feels better than success whether it's in career or in personal life. The ghosts of failed realtionhsips haunt me as badly as the ghosts of standing 3rd in class those 2 times in school. And I accept that being infected with this disease makes these things seem really big to me. I am never really at peace with either kind of failure even though I try to forget. Maybe it's because I never really forgive myself for those failures.

And as I write this blog, I am reminded of the words of a pal who is as dear to me as I am to me. He always wonders..why is it that I manage to pin point and pick myself on the things that I am worst at? Why can't I look at the sunny bright side and bask in glory of happy times? Why doesn't my unforgiving conscience smile at me ever and make me feel good about myself?

It isn't as bad as it sounds, I am a happy person. I just manage to shoot for stars so high up that it often makes me feel inadequate given that I don't enjoy the journey as much. But thankfully for me, success in my personal life far outweighs the failures and I am happy that I made some judgement calls. Call it destiny or karma but I am content. I am at peace. As far as career judgement calls go, I am just getting started. The stars are way higher than usual, the stakes are further high but I trust my gut that I'll get there. The only hope is when I do get there, I am content with the journey as much as I am with my personal life today. That, my friends will be the icing on the cake!

Turn back time

Desi is me. My ideas of fun, of amusement, of work, of moving ahead in life and career, of thought itself! They are so typically Indian. They say you can take the desi out of India but can you take India out of the desi? I scream from the top of my lungs..NO!! Coz no matter how much we try, we are so in love with everything that is Indian that we really don't like the idea of separating ourselves from "desi-ness" if I may. And I find that I appreciate, love and respect my homeland much more now that I have managed to put 10,000 miles between us. Strange isn't it? Everything good in life is like health..you never know it's value till you lose it.

And I beg to differ from people who manage to put the same kind of distance and "comment" on the sad state of India. I absolutely despise the "liberated-souls" who says things like.."Things like blah blah will never change in India". I have just one thing to say to them..."Good you are here..India can use some crap-elimination".

In my mind, I have such a sweet picture of home! And call me an ignorant fool and a dreamer but home..sigh, is filled with irreplacable memories..the pakoras and samosas with chai on a rainy afternoon, the power cuts leaving all of us singing at the top of our voices on the terrace, the bike rides, barrista coffee, star gazing on the porch, bollywood, the soaps where the bahus never stop crying and the saas' never stop torturing, mom's repeated calls for dinner in a desparate attempt to get the family together only to lose out badly on majority vote to watch TV while eating, ohh those were the days!

One of the biggest wars used to begin when there would be a cricket match and a filmfare award show airing together!! My dad would turn into a kid fighting for the remote. But dad that he was..he always won and we would drag our grumpy faces into our rooms..hmmmphh..dictatorship..but as we grew older, the tables turned..!!

And how I crave for one miracle to get back that time. The innocence in the pleas for that new dress, the joy on the arrival of that first barbie, the excitement to bits that birthdays were arriving, the goosebumps while hiding in a oh-so-visible spot while playing hide-n-seek, the naive hatred towards why-the-holy-smokies-did -my-parents-pick-this-name-for-me then growing to love it..Oh the nostalgia..Oh the desparate wish to get things back the way they were and enjoy them just once again..Oh the wonderful things that my country has given me, Oh my sweet home..Oh my sweet paradise.

Run Boy Run...

Speed..a rush to get someplace..an urgency to reach that milestone..devours me. Kills the joy of the journey, and the process itself. Someone very dear once told me, "The destination is really not worth it, if you don't enjoy the journey." I try to live by this train of thought. And when I say I try, I mean REALLY try because no matter how much I attempt, my mind gets distracted by speed, by the urge to get things done. Seldom do I stop to savor the fun involved on the way. So as I begin another rushed journey desperate to plant milestones after milestones, I am stopping myself to look at the time past my previous milestone and smile.

Smile...one thing (yet another thing) I hate about growing up is that we don't really smile so much anymore. We are so involved with our TODOs, have become so overworked that we don't push those facial muscles far enough. I so rarely have those crazy moments where I am laughing my guts out just for the heck of it. And isn't growing up the strangest thing? When I was young(er) :D, I was such a rebel. I always wished I was left to manage my life and make my own decisions. All my teenage life, I wanted just that extra pinch of freedom!! Self-sustained and independent, I called it. Today, I complain I have too many responsibilities. Too many things to take care of. Maybe we should all be given a sneek peek of our adult life when we were growing up. Another one in my list of things I'd want God to consider when He thinks about "upgrading" human race.

In my view, the benefits of the sneek peek are two-fold :D - 1. It helps us love and enjoy that "growing-up" phase much better. 2. It warns us before-hand not to run through life so fast. To smell the roses, to relish the summer morning, to know the joy in seeing a baby smile. I begin every single day, asking myself not to run..and yet I run, join the almost purposeless race towards yet another deadline, yet another "victory".

Erase n Rewind

Relating to moments, thoughts and experiences of the past is something each one of us does to some extent atleast. I do it to such a major extent that you could, if you spent a lot of time with me, see me smiling to myself without reason or upset with no realistic explanation to give. I found myself 200% more erratic this morning and it’s been this way since then. I tried listening to music and you know what? It made my nostalgia worse!! That's what I have decided to call what I am feeling right now.

I spoke to a long lost friend yesterday. She just had a baby girl and seemed so tired! But I was glad to hear happiness in her voice inspite of the sleeplessness. And I want to blame that conversation with her to this weird feeling in my tummy today. I hate nostalgia to the core sometimes. It just is something you cannot get rid of, its this nagging leech on your head. I wouldn't mind thoughts of the good times per se, but its the good times that are no longer there that is something that tugs onto my emotions.

So I started listening to my fav playlist. And every song that I heard reminded me of the time I used to hear to that song the most!! Memories came knocking from Class 9 of my life, and it was fun for sometime, thinking of the thoughts that I used to think at that age. Coming 1st in class was undoubtedly the number 1 priority. Having friends who would cherish me as much as I cherished them was another. But I never found that in school which still happens to be part of my nightmares. Then came along a song that I used to love in my 11 & 12. And it was interesting that it didn’t remind me of the torment that we went through in preparation to be "Engineers". It reminded me of the crush that I still had on my high school sweetheart even after leaving school. That was nice :). The best songs were yet to come!! Songs that brought back the college fests, the dances on stage (how did I ever do that??), the crazy whacko-like dances in the scorching sun at universities that were miles away, the broken voice at the end of the fest season..that was the best time of my life!!

Life they say comes one full circle at some point in time. And it indeed did with me today. As I went past each song, I re-lived and cherished each stage of my life, each relationship, the good times and the bad. Now that I say it I realize that nothing is really "bad". Bad is really our way of looking at some things that we didnt follow, some things we didnt keep up to our expectations. Past is neither good nor bad. Its just something that is gone. Lost because we can never go back and re-live those times or re-bask in the happiness they gave. We don't have "past" anymore. But what we do have, are songs and memories. Memories that live in our head. We just need to brush the dust off them, re-wind and play (use some VCR head cleaner for best results on old videptapes :))

Life n Karaoke

And while I sipped my tea today, it suddenly struck me! A parallel for life. Well..I must say, yet another parallel for life. Quoting Shakespeare.. "All world's a stage.." but it could as well be altered to apply to a single lifetime. The people entering your life being actors in the drama, you.. but a mere observer with little control if any, with God (for the believers) as the director. Hmm..that was an interesting thought in itself..but I'm digressing..Maybe another time on this issue.

What the magic of caffeine brought to my mind was..Life really..is very much like Karaoke! You have your lines written down for you, the songs fixed, and only when you sing along with the tune with the right words, does it sound melodious. So now you know what I am going to say next..Aaah...the parallel between who writes the lines, who fits in the tune, is not of interest to me today. The bottomline is..Here we are, stuck with this song...and with these words, and all we can do is to sing!! And when we have the right words, for the right song..there! That makes a pleasant song..a satisfied life. Coz, we really have no other choice but to sing to those tunes that destiny has etched out for us. And maybe the grass always seems to be greener on the other side because each one of us is given this primitive Karaoke machine with a mutually exclusive set of melodies. Thus, making each existence unique. Beautiful in its own way. Some of us are made to win Nobel prizes, some end up never ever applying what they gained either through education or experience and others hang somewhere in between, catching up with life. I agree I'm being very cynical classifying lives in this manner, but being ordinary has its own charm in my view. A more balanced splurge on the being.

Having said that, people like me really wish the Karaoke machine got a little more sophisticated with just more choice!! Yes, its the same frustration I felt when my hub decided to buy me a Karaoke system on the 100th day of our wedding and all I found were these ancient boxes that could only play a given set of songs. But as all other things which I fail to find, I decided.."Maybe I should shop around a little more!" And that is exactly what each one of us does in the process of finding the perfect life..search and dream for tunes that would bring in more spice, more zeal and charm to this merry-go-round, praying for a little more control on our actions, and hoping that one day it will all get better than it is right now!

Permanence

I was speaking with an old friend of mine when I realised how far away we had drifted. We have different lives now, different aspirations, different views. Our priorities had changed, we didnt sync in the way we did once, and all there was, was this conversation. We didn't have those "exactly my thought!!" kinda moments, all we were doing was listening to each other and nodding, sympathizing with each other..then having that uncomfortable silence where someone says.."so what else is going on?" which exactly goes to show how much apart we had become. We then hung up saying we will keep in touch and keep each other posted. A promise that we both knew would never be kept.

That's when I got to thinking...what is permanence really? What in our life is ever-lasting? Our friends, people who we spend a wonderful part of our life with, people who share our deepest pain, people with whom we want to share any good news first..move away, become different people and the only time we feel the faint sense of rememberance is when we speak of our days together. Days when life was simpler. More beautiful and more complete.

So if everything in life is meant to be perishable, has a "sell-by" date attached to it, then why do we even bother investing in these relationships? Why don't we say.."Aaah, I know I won't even bother taking his/her calls at a later point of time.." and forget it? Maybe because when we start out on any relationship, we believe that we are going to give our 100%. Why do we make this silent promise to ourselves? Many reasons - to make up for a past broken relaitonship, to feel good about ourselves, or simply because we feel a conneciton with the person.

So when at a later point in time, we find ourselves "catching" up with this friend's life, we think of the good times, the times where being with that person made us happy and going down that memory lane does nothing but leave a desperate craving to live that exact moment, feel that very emotion yet once again..knowing fully well that that's not gonna happen..we do not get second chances on the tick-tock of life..and then we let out that infamous "sigh"..a realization that no matter what we do, all that is left of this relationship is a broken thread..that it is never going to look the same again smooth and flowing as it used to be...but bumpy and artificially fixed like knots on the thread.

Karma

Blessings...we all have our share of them in different forms - people, good fortune, health, happiness, contentment. All we need is to open our eyes wide enough to recognize blessings in our lives. And there lies the problem. The inablitiy in most of us to really see their presence. We are so blinded by our quest towards life itself that we forget to stop for one second and thank our blessings or even acknowledge them in whatever form they exist in our lives. Isn't that where we get "karma" into existence? We fail to even be grateful for the good things and blame "karma" on the bad things. But isn't failing to acknowledge blessings bad karma itself?

Why is it that we are so attracted towards the bad happening in our lives that we literally don't want to see the good? And if these bad things/events are so bad, isn't it the best to just let go and take a moment and look at the silver lining? Something good always comes out of hurt. If not anything else, a lesson. A lesson that teaches you so many things to tread safe the next time. Isn't that a blessing in itself? And if doing good and reaping good is all a matter of "karma" then isn't the opposite true too? And if each one of us is aware of this, wouldn't it be so much more easy to go about life - Truth, loyalty, promises, beliefs all upheld!

To being in school - for love of education

When I was studying, all I ever wanted to do was get out of school, get away from exams, home work..and I always wondered why I was so bothered by school stuff. But thankfully for me, my mother subtly instilled stuff into me that put a Master's degree as a minimum requirement before I really thought about work. So though I cribbed and cried, I knew I had to have atleast a Master's in hand. Now having said that, it was during my Master's..somewhere during this period that I really started enjoying the process of learning. But I guess I was so used to being pissed with studies that I never really realised that I had started to enjoy educating myself. Now I am at a point where my teacher writes an occasional mail to me, on every important step of my life..asking me how I am, and how she really thinks that I am a gifted student. And I can't help but wonder if I made a hasty choice rushing out of school..Something about me that my teacher can see and I cannot. Something about school that workplace can never have. Something about education that is absent in the process of money making. Some cleanliness about learning that is messed up in the world of application of that knowledge. Some joy in sowing that is missing in reaping.

Happy Birthday To Me!

Birthdays...milestones that life subtly slips in to reflect, to look back at how things went the past year, whether I am happier and more satisfied.., whether I did something worthwhile, met people who really made a difference, interacted with personalities that made me thank God I am not like them, or whether I am just another year older...I am happy I am at a point where birthdays still are exciting and dont make you feel like an old hag...I am excited life has so much to offer, so much to test from me, so much to desire..

24 is such a wonderful age..its like its better than 21 or 18..I mean its uncanny and strange but I just seem to love the number 24!! Its like I am at a stage where I am self sufficient at the same time petted like a kid, can manage things on my own at the same time, have people to spoil me..grown up yet a baby..! It is such a wonderful age...As I step into another year, that may have surprises and its own share of stumbles, I am thrilled to be stepping into a whole new world, a world that is perhaps going to make the most difference in my being..! Here's to being 24, to life, to togetherness, and to joy!! Happy Birthday to me!!

Do I like being me?

Self exploration...something that probably each one of us does, but do we really take what we find seriously? Or do we even explore into ourselves that cynically? Do we dare to look at our faults and correct them? What is the actual ultimate purpose of life? Is it the fact that I look into the mirror one day and smile seeing what I see? Am I a complete individual in that sense? Am I going towards being one? Do I actually like myself? What I have made of myself, my beliefs, my thought processes, my justification of right and wrong, my regrets, my choices. And at the end of the day, does it really matter if my neighbor thought I was a lovely person just becasue I walked his dog every day? Or the only thing that actually makes any sense is the inner sense of being, the fact that I believed in what I thought I wanted, stuck on to it till the end? Do our impressions and ideals ever change over time? Or do they just undergo transitions so gradual that they seem to be rock solid?

Anger

Anger..Such a powerful emotion. Anger due to things just not moving your way. Things standing still. Life just standing still. Rotting. Decaying. But does it really matter so much that things dont go your way? Or is it just a desparate need to always have life on its toes that we are suddenly threatened when it wants to sit down, take a break? We are so driven by the speed, that even a moment of silence is deafening. It is the kind of feeling that you get when you are in a dark room, by yourself. A feeling where there is no breath, no life, no energy. Just silence. And again, are we really given a choice to be joyous or to mourn life's surprises? Or are we just puppets prancing to this incredible force, with no control whatsoever in what we do or have?

Presences...

Among the people that walk in and out of your life, who are the ones that really stick? Who are the ones that make you want to remember..? The human mind is so sharp that it forgets what it chooses to, and picks up and holds on to stuff that it wants to. So among this huge conglomeration of people you actually meet, who are the ones that your mind picks? Are these the ones that influenced your heart the most, that said things you wanted to hear, that listened to you, or the ones that opposed you, no matter what? And does time have anything to do with it? Isnt it strange how some people, just by being what they are, doing what they do, manage to make a place for themselves in lives?

Life doesnt always bring the best surprises with it. It brings lessons. Lessons it makes us learn and understand irrespective of our choice. Presences that instill themselves in our mind and heart. And when you want to pick up your life and move on, do those presences really ever leave us? Or are they now a part of us for now and for good?

Completeness

Completeness...What is it really? What is it that we all want to achieve in life to feel complete? Love, education, success, fame, togetherness, contentment, money? And is it always in the same order? Is it the same list for everyone? Or it something much above these? Is it something we think we know and enjoy but isnt really? Is completeness so unrealistic that we all only feel the partial ecstasy everytime we think we are complete? Life is so short that we want to pack everything in it. In every single moment..In every passing second and is it only when we are full of life..overfed with what it has to offer that we realise..is this what I wanted...in other words..is this what I ordered..? Or are we ever full of life? Are we ever complete?