Nancy got up with a sad feeling deep in her heart. How she regretted having to live through this day every year. Every year she would go down the memory lane and visit the same old shack by the sea where she had gone off all on her own for a vacation a few years ago and had met a man who, Nancy was sure since the moment she set her eyes on him, was going to be very important to her and was going to change her life forever. If only she had not spotted that figure on the beach. If only she had not offered the man a glass of wine. If only he had not accepted. If only they had not fallen in love.
But she had spotted that lonely figure on the beach.
She had offered the cold man a glass of wine.
He had accepted.
And they had fallen in love.
It was not something she regretted. Once in your life comes along the kind of love that we are all made to grow up believing in, but that we all learn in our own ways exists only in fairy-tales and dreams and good romantic books and cheesy romantic movies.
But she did regret not asking him to stay when she knew she could have and when she knew he would not have refused.
She regretted having heeded to the higher calling. She had put that man and his life and his path towards a better self, top-most on her list of priorities; and herself and her feelings and her happiness below it – just like she had been brought up to be; just like she had lived all her life.
Her children before her.
Her husband before her.
Her marriage before her.
Her parents, her job, the people around – the world before herself.
And that made her the good mother, the good wife, the good daughter, employee and person that everybody talked about and that everybody wanted everybody else to be – but also that that she did not like, forty years of life, fifteen years of marriage and two children later.
What good is life when you spend it living for others? Every waking moment, every breath, every thought spent on others. Every good deed always done for the betterment of others. Every sacrifice always made for the happiness of others.
And it was a weekend spent not with her husband but with a stranger in a shack many many miles away from her house that had made her think – what had she done in life for herself?
When was the last time she lived, laughed, loved for herself?
That one weekend with the man in the shack by the sea had given Nancy a taste of what life could have been – a man who loved every inch of her body, a man who loved her heart and soul and who wasn’t afraid to show it; a life with a companion who was very different from her, but who complemented her and understood her nonetheless.
And yes, he was a married man, much older to her, with a son only fifteen years younger to Nancy. He was a man with faults, much like her husband; and yet he was so different from her husband.
Nancy regretted not having asked the man to stay when it was time for him to leave. She knew she had had the power to make him wait; she knew he had longed for her to ask him to wait. He had left the decision in Nancy’s hand. And Nancy had again chosen to be the good mother and wife and had let him go, only to come back to an unfaithful husband and a broken marriage that she thought was her responsibility to try and save.
But no relationship works with the efforts of only one individual. It is a give and take.
However, that one weekend spent with that man in the shack by the sea many many miles away from her house had changed Nancy. She had returned to an unfaithful husband and a broken marriage, but without guilt or a false sense of morality. She had returned a changed woman, and she had taken charge of things and had changed her life – which included moving out of the house and life of her husband but along with her son and daughter, shifting base to a new city, making new friends and finding a new job and doing what she had always dreamt of doing; starting a plant nursery. Her daughter understood her; but Nancy would not have minded even if she hadn’t – she would when she grew up a little more. Her son still loved his mother, though he missed his father.
But Nancy was still haunted by the memories of the man she met on this day few years ago.
She was glad he had saved her.
She was glad he had shown her what her life could be, what it ought to be.
She was glad he had happened to her.
But she still regretted not having asked him to wait when she could have.
But she now understood the lines she had read many many years ago…
Love is always new. Regardless of whether we love once, twice or a dozen times in our life, we always face a brand new situation. Love can consign us to hell or to paradise, but it always takes us somewhere. We simply have to accept it because it is what nourishes our existence. If we reject it, we die of hunger, because we lack the courage to stretch out a hand and pluck the fruit from the branches of the tree of life. We have to take love where we find, even if that means hours, days, weeks of disappointment and sadness.
The moment we begin to seek love, love begins to seek us.
And to save us.
Wednesday, August 25, 2010
inspired from "By The River Piedra I Sat Down And Wept" - THE OLD LADY
Some people always have to be doing battle with someone, sometimes with themselves, battling with their own lives. So they begin to create a kind of play in their head, and they write the script based on their frustration.
Tilo heard the old lady say these lines and realised how much they were true – every word of it was painfully true and relevant to her life. Right from the moment she had been born, all she had been doing was fighting; first as her Mother tried to kill her while she was still in her womb, and then as the people around tried to kill her soul. All she had been doing was fighting – battling to guard her existence; battling to guard her virginity, battling to guard her innocence, battling to exist in a world that was crueller than could be imagined. Every moment a struggle. Every moment a war waged against her one self that wanted to believe in the good in people and her other self that had nothing but eyes that could see the world around her with all its bad and bad.
But when night fell and her Mother had cursed and cursed her and gone off to sleep, Tilo would dare to dream – of a caring Mother, of a clean house, of school; of a normal life and a better world. And it is these few moments every night and the hope they brought that helped Tilo pull through every day.
Until the day she heard the old lady speak – the old lady that she was scared of, but that she loved to hear when she began to speak. The old lady who Tilo saw always in the same clothes and who never smiled. There was something mysterious about the lady. She was not a beggar, and yet people passing her seemed to drop money for her and touch her feet. The lady never touched the money, and never seemed hungry or thirsty. She looked almost ethereal. At some point in the day the lady would start talking – and the stresaaset would go silent; but not because everyone would be listening, but because everyone would just clear the street. They would all disappear, take their children in and go inside their little huts and shut the doors and stay in till dusk. One evening Tilo had wandered off ad returned after the street had cleared and had heard the old lady speak. She had been scared at first and had tried to make her Mother open the door so she could come into the house.
‘Pay for your little excursion! Thousand times I tell you not to wander too far away, but you just don’t listen. The Devil, that’s what you are!’
Tilo had been very scared and had cried and cried till her throat went dry and her eyes and head started to ache. Finally when exhaustion took over and she couldn’t care less if she died or lived, she walked towards the lady and went and sat down in front of her.
The old lady’s eyes were closed, and she appeared as if to be chanting something. She broke out into prose once in a while, and went back to the chanting soon again. But her eyes always remained closed, like she was reciting something from memory. Her slow steady voice almost managed to put Tilo off to sleep when the lady opened her eyes and looked at Tilo. Tilo’s fears returned, but she sat rooted to the pace, stupefied. The old lady kept on looking at her – a constant unblinking stare, and Tilo couldn’t help but stare back into those eyes. How long they sat like that, no one knows. But after quite some time had passed, Tilo felt a hand lift her to her feet rather roughly.
‘Do you want to invoke the wrath of the Devil on the entire village?’
Tilo looked at her Mother, and turned back to look at the old lady. But she was gone.
– x – x –
‘You must take her to him! He is the only one who can save your daughter!’
‘Yes! No one who has ever seen that lady or spoken to her has ever lived to tell about it. But she has. There is something that’s definitely wrong.’
‘Take her to him. He knows just what to do.’
‘He will cure her.’
‘He will save her.’
– x – x –
Several days passed. People continued to drop money at the place where Tilo had seen the old lady sitting, and continued to touch the ground even. But Tilo was confused.
‘Mother, who do they offer the money to, if the old lady is not there anymore?’
But this innocent little question only brought upon another thrashing on Tilo, and she learnt never to ask her Mother about it again.
Several days passed by again. And then several weeks. One day Tilo met the old lady while she had wandered a little too far and away from her house. This time Tilo was not scared of the lady. But the lady, instead of maintaining her distance as always, addressed Tilo directly by her secret name –
‘Janhavi!’
Tilo was so astonished that the old lady knew her secret name that she forgot all her fear and the promise she had made to herself – to treat the old lady as indifferently as she treated her – and curiosity took over and Tilo ended up talking to her. She spent the whole evening talking to the old lady, and the night and it was almost dawn by the time she realised that an entire night had passed by. Tilo felt excited. This was her first night away from her home, and she was still safe and sound.
She had witnessed the good side of the world.
Tilo started meeting the old lady regularly. Her Mother kept on beating her up when she returned home just before sunrise every day.
‘Who is she sending you to?’
‘Who is sending me anywhere Mother?’
Slap.
‘Come on you little witch! Speak up! Where are you hiding all the money?’
‘What money Mother, I don’t understand.’
‘Oh you scoundrel! Just you wait till I get my hands on the money. How long are you going to hide it from me anyway.’
Tilo discussed this with the old lady one evening.
‘Mother keeps asking me funny questions. She keeps demanding money from me. I don’t understand.’
But the old lady just smiled.
One evening Mother caught hold of Tilo just as she was about to slip off to meet the old lady.
‘Not so easy darling. Today you shall go to who I tell you to go to.’
Mother gave Tilo a clean set of clothes to wear. She combed her hair and braided them. Tilo got confused, but was still happy. Her Mother today seemed like the one from the story they told at the school that Tilo liked to listen to secretly. Before mother and daughter stepped out of the house, Tilo hugged her Mother.
‘I love you Mother!’
Little did she know what lay in front of her, what her Mother had planned for her. But in spite of all that she had to go through each day, Tilo’s heart was pure, and it knew only to love.
They reached in front of a big house after some walking. Mother picked Tilo up in her arms and knocked on the front door. A big man answered the door.
‘At last.’
Mother gave Tilo into the arms of the man. The man reached inside his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of money and handed it to Tilo’s mother.
Tilo looked upon the transaction and turned to her mother –
‘So he had the money! But who is this man? Is it Father?’
Mother looked for a moment at Tilo’s face. She realised she was going to burst out crying. She quickly turned on her heel and began to walk away as fast as she could.
Tilo called out to her Mother to wait. Tilo felt really sad – how unfortunate that on the very day that she had seen a side of Mother she didn’t knew existed, Mother had also abandoned her and left her to the mercy of a strange big and scary man. Tilo looked at the man.
‘I am hungry Father.’
The man slapped Tilo across her face. Tilo’s eyes instantly sprouted tears. The man’s hands stung worse than her mother’s ever had.
Tilo kicked and punched and pushed and tried to break free from the man’s hand as he dragged her towards a room in the inside of the house…
– x – x –
‘Mother!’
Tilo called out to her Mother who was sitting by the pot of water that was kept in one corner of their house. Mother turned to look at her daughter.
‘That man was not at all nice Mother. Who was he? Why did you leave me with him Mother?’
Tilo’s mother kept staring at Tilo. Suddenly she came up to her and fell at Tilo’s feet. Tilo got confused.
‘Mother! Why are you touching my feet!’
But just as Tilo touched her mother’s arms in order to lift her up, her mother’s body broke out into a crackling fire. Tilo quickly stepped aside from her Mother, shocked at what she had witnessed. Tilo quickly went to the water-pot and tried to lift it. But she lost balance and the water spilled onto the floor.
The fire died out as mysteriously as it had erupted. Tilo looked around the house, but there was nothing there. No ashes, no sign that only moments ago there had been another individual in the room, as alive and breathing as Tilo. Tilo felt the old lady’s presence and turned around to look at her.
‘What happened? Why didn’t you save Mother like you saved me!’
But the old lady just smiled.
‘I wanted to tell her how you saved me from that man! I wanted to tell her you are not a bad woman!’
‘She wouldn’t believe you Janhavi.’
‘But she would! She was my Mother!’
‘Would you have believed her, if she told you the same?’
Tilo stood still.
‘Everyone has to find me and come to me on their own. No one can be pushed in my direction to seek me. When their hearts seek me out, I shall heed. Till then, I shall wait.’
Tilo did not completely understand what the old lady had said, but she felt a lot calmer anyway.
‘Come.’
Tilo looked at the old lady’s hand, and wondered if she should take it. But somewhere she knew even before she took the hand that the choice had already been made.
Her life had already been changed.
Her path and her destiny were never going to be the same again.
And she was tied to this woman for eternity.
Tilo took the old lady’s hand and they walked out of the house.
Tilo heard the old lady say these lines and realised how much they were true – every word of it was painfully true and relevant to her life. Right from the moment she had been born, all she had been doing was fighting; first as her Mother tried to kill her while she was still in her womb, and then as the people around tried to kill her soul. All she had been doing was fighting – battling to guard her existence; battling to guard her virginity, battling to guard her innocence, battling to exist in a world that was crueller than could be imagined. Every moment a struggle. Every moment a war waged against her one self that wanted to believe in the good in people and her other self that had nothing but eyes that could see the world around her with all its bad and bad.
But when night fell and her Mother had cursed and cursed her and gone off to sleep, Tilo would dare to dream – of a caring Mother, of a clean house, of school; of a normal life and a better world. And it is these few moments every night and the hope they brought that helped Tilo pull through every day.
Until the day she heard the old lady speak – the old lady that she was scared of, but that she loved to hear when she began to speak. The old lady who Tilo saw always in the same clothes and who never smiled. There was something mysterious about the lady. She was not a beggar, and yet people passing her seemed to drop money for her and touch her feet. The lady never touched the money, and never seemed hungry or thirsty. She looked almost ethereal. At some point in the day the lady would start talking – and the stresaaset would go silent; but not because everyone would be listening, but because everyone would just clear the street. They would all disappear, take their children in and go inside their little huts and shut the doors and stay in till dusk. One evening Tilo had wandered off ad returned after the street had cleared and had heard the old lady speak. She had been scared at first and had tried to make her Mother open the door so she could come into the house.
‘Pay for your little excursion! Thousand times I tell you not to wander too far away, but you just don’t listen. The Devil, that’s what you are!’
Tilo had been very scared and had cried and cried till her throat went dry and her eyes and head started to ache. Finally when exhaustion took over and she couldn’t care less if she died or lived, she walked towards the lady and went and sat down in front of her.
The old lady’s eyes were closed, and she appeared as if to be chanting something. She broke out into prose once in a while, and went back to the chanting soon again. But her eyes always remained closed, like she was reciting something from memory. Her slow steady voice almost managed to put Tilo off to sleep when the lady opened her eyes and looked at Tilo. Tilo’s fears returned, but she sat rooted to the pace, stupefied. The old lady kept on looking at her – a constant unblinking stare, and Tilo couldn’t help but stare back into those eyes. How long they sat like that, no one knows. But after quite some time had passed, Tilo felt a hand lift her to her feet rather roughly.
‘Do you want to invoke the wrath of the Devil on the entire village?’
Tilo looked at her Mother, and turned back to look at the old lady. But she was gone.
– x – x –
‘You must take her to him! He is the only one who can save your daughter!’
‘Yes! No one who has ever seen that lady or spoken to her has ever lived to tell about it. But she has. There is something that’s definitely wrong.’
‘Take her to him. He knows just what to do.’
‘He will cure her.’
‘He will save her.’
– x – x –
Several days passed. People continued to drop money at the place where Tilo had seen the old lady sitting, and continued to touch the ground even. But Tilo was confused.
‘Mother, who do they offer the money to, if the old lady is not there anymore?’
But this innocent little question only brought upon another thrashing on Tilo, and she learnt never to ask her Mother about it again.
Several days passed by again. And then several weeks. One day Tilo met the old lady while she had wandered a little too far and away from her house. This time Tilo was not scared of the lady. But the lady, instead of maintaining her distance as always, addressed Tilo directly by her secret name –
‘Janhavi!’
Tilo was so astonished that the old lady knew her secret name that she forgot all her fear and the promise she had made to herself – to treat the old lady as indifferently as she treated her – and curiosity took over and Tilo ended up talking to her. She spent the whole evening talking to the old lady, and the night and it was almost dawn by the time she realised that an entire night had passed by. Tilo felt excited. This was her first night away from her home, and she was still safe and sound.
She had witnessed the good side of the world.
Tilo started meeting the old lady regularly. Her Mother kept on beating her up when she returned home just before sunrise every day.
‘Who is she sending you to?’
‘Who is sending me anywhere Mother?’
Slap.
‘Come on you little witch! Speak up! Where are you hiding all the money?’
‘What money Mother, I don’t understand.’
‘Oh you scoundrel! Just you wait till I get my hands on the money. How long are you going to hide it from me anyway.’
Tilo discussed this with the old lady one evening.
‘Mother keeps asking me funny questions. She keeps demanding money from me. I don’t understand.’
But the old lady just smiled.
One evening Mother caught hold of Tilo just as she was about to slip off to meet the old lady.
‘Not so easy darling. Today you shall go to who I tell you to go to.’
Mother gave Tilo a clean set of clothes to wear. She combed her hair and braided them. Tilo got confused, but was still happy. Her Mother today seemed like the one from the story they told at the school that Tilo liked to listen to secretly. Before mother and daughter stepped out of the house, Tilo hugged her Mother.
‘I love you Mother!’
Little did she know what lay in front of her, what her Mother had planned for her. But in spite of all that she had to go through each day, Tilo’s heart was pure, and it knew only to love.
They reached in front of a big house after some walking. Mother picked Tilo up in her arms and knocked on the front door. A big man answered the door.
‘At last.’
Mother gave Tilo into the arms of the man. The man reached inside his pocket and pulled out a thick wad of money and handed it to Tilo’s mother.
Tilo looked upon the transaction and turned to her mother –
‘So he had the money! But who is this man? Is it Father?’
Mother looked for a moment at Tilo’s face. She realised she was going to burst out crying. She quickly turned on her heel and began to walk away as fast as she could.
Tilo called out to her Mother to wait. Tilo felt really sad – how unfortunate that on the very day that she had seen a side of Mother she didn’t knew existed, Mother had also abandoned her and left her to the mercy of a strange big and scary man. Tilo looked at the man.
‘I am hungry Father.’
The man slapped Tilo across her face. Tilo’s eyes instantly sprouted tears. The man’s hands stung worse than her mother’s ever had.
Tilo kicked and punched and pushed and tried to break free from the man’s hand as he dragged her towards a room in the inside of the house…
– x – x –
‘Mother!’
Tilo called out to her Mother who was sitting by the pot of water that was kept in one corner of their house. Mother turned to look at her daughter.
‘That man was not at all nice Mother. Who was he? Why did you leave me with him Mother?’
Tilo’s mother kept staring at Tilo. Suddenly she came up to her and fell at Tilo’s feet. Tilo got confused.
‘Mother! Why are you touching my feet!’
But just as Tilo touched her mother’s arms in order to lift her up, her mother’s body broke out into a crackling fire. Tilo quickly stepped aside from her Mother, shocked at what she had witnessed. Tilo quickly went to the water-pot and tried to lift it. But she lost balance and the water spilled onto the floor.
The fire died out as mysteriously as it had erupted. Tilo looked around the house, but there was nothing there. No ashes, no sign that only moments ago there had been another individual in the room, as alive and breathing as Tilo. Tilo felt the old lady’s presence and turned around to look at her.
‘What happened? Why didn’t you save Mother like you saved me!’
But the old lady just smiled.
‘I wanted to tell her how you saved me from that man! I wanted to tell her you are not a bad woman!’
‘She wouldn’t believe you Janhavi.’
‘But she would! She was my Mother!’
‘Would you have believed her, if she told you the same?’
Tilo stood still.
‘Everyone has to find me and come to me on their own. No one can be pushed in my direction to seek me. When their hearts seek me out, I shall heed. Till then, I shall wait.’
Tilo did not completely understand what the old lady had said, but she felt a lot calmer anyway.
‘Come.’
Tilo looked at the old lady’s hand, and wondered if she should take it. But somewhere she knew even before she took the hand that the choice had already been made.
Her life had already been changed.
Her path and her destiny were never going to be the same again.
And she was tied to this woman for eternity.
Tilo took the old lady’s hand and they walked out of the house.
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
GIRLS, GOSSIP AND GET-TOGETHERS
Is it really that easy to spot a person struck by the Cupid’s arrow?
I find it rather amusing how you can just tell when someone around you falls for someone. Even the most composed and expressionless of persons are not able to conceal it.
I happened to meet one of my friends – rather two of them – after more than a month recently. We’d been planning and failing to meet since very many days. And then a chance call right after Trupti had got back from the graha-pravesh of her brother’s new flat, had me and my Tejashree driving to her place.
It was a nice fun-filled evening as we all talked almost simultaneously on three very different topics, gobbling idli-chutney side by side, and yet in perfect co-ordination, and also without losing track of what each one of us was talking about. We poured our hearts out, amidst the sound of spoons and plastic bags as we dug into a packet of fresh Chitale bakhar-vadi and a box of kalakand; we talked about who had been up to what recently, and who was bugging who in class, and how we missed sitting next to each other in lectures. We wished we were all doing the same thing in the same college, somewhere far away from home; or that we were roomies in a hostel just so that we could go to different colleges and do different courses and still not lose contact.
Suddenly someone came up with the idea of clicking pictures.
‘But who will click all three of us together?’
‘Arre timer hai na!’ I said, flaunting my new phone which doubled-up as a camera.
‘4 megapixels?’ Trupti inquired.
‘8!’ I exclaimed.
‘Cool!’
We ran around the flat looking for ideal supports to hold my cell in place so that we could all fit into the frame of the picture – problem being the fact that Tejashree and Trupti are both almost the same height, while I am much taller than both of them. Finally after hunting for almost half an hour we had assembled a tall stool, the box of modem, and a mixer-grinder.
‘Mrunal be careful yaar. Your phone is going to topple and fall,’ Tejashree warned me.
‘Jalla tujha tond!’ I remarked and we broke out into peals of laughter. Meanwhile Trupti was humming a song from a latest Salman Khan flick.
‘Oh my God Trupti! That is such an outrageous song!’ I remarked. ‘You’ve heard it?’ I asked, turning to Tejashree.
‘Ya!’ she replied. Then there was silence for a few moments, and Trupti again began singing the same song all over again –
‘Munni badnam hui, darling tere liye…’
Me – ‘Abe oye jhandu balm! Chup kar na yaar…’
Trupti – ‘Aga mi kay karu? Mala pin lagliye tya ganyachi!’
Tejashree – ‘Nahi nahi asa nahi. Kuna sathi jhandu balm jhaliyes te sang adhi!’
Trupti – ‘Arre no one yaar! There is no one in our class worth becoming jhandu balm for…’
Incidentally they then both turned to look at me.
‘Tu kyu itni hans rahi hai?’
I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was in fact blank. But their remark planted a smile on my face anyway.
‘Mi kuthe hastiye,’ I said grinning ear to ear.
Trupti – ‘Meko lagta hai teko koi mil gaya…’ she then went on to do a step from the song. She spread her hands out like Preity Zinta and Hrithik and started singing ‘Koi mil gayaaaaaa!’
I turned to Teju for refuge – ‘Ae ae! Tuppi cha patent! “Meko teko”! Remember?’
Teju mock laughed and then made a grave face – ‘Vishay badalu nako.’
‘Abe yaar kay tumhi doghi…’ I said, now even blushing a little. ‘Koi nahi hai baba!’
‘Arre I’m not saying you are going around with someone! But someone sure has caught your attention recently, hai na? In fact “hai na” kya, I know it for a fact – its written all over your face!’ Teju said.
‘And since when can you read faces?’ I countered her.
‘Vishay badalu nako!’ Tuppu repeated.
I looked at their anticipating faces. Damn. They were my best friends after all; they deserved to know – even though there wasn’t much to tell. And so I went on and told them about the guy who I had noticed recently.
‘See! I knew it! Right when you walked in through the front door I knew you had news!’
‘Eeks Tuppu! “You had news” kay are…’ I said. ‘It’s hardly anything! For all I know he could not even be interested in me.’
‘Ya. Or for all she knows, he could be gay!’ Teju added.
We all burst out laughing.
‘Ae nahi yaar, aise mat bol,’ I said.
‘Haan yaar Teju, aise mat bol – warna uska dil toot jaega!’ Tuppu added.
I made a serious face.
‘Trupti Naik, are you actually sassing your best friend? Don’t you dare sass me!’
‘Hauuuu! Ghabarle mi! Sorry sorry sorry,’ Tuppu mocked me a little more. ‘But I am honestly glad you are over that looser.’
Aha. The ‘ex’ creeps up.
‘Tuppu, he wasn’t a – ’ I said, defending him as was my habit. Tuppu cut me halfway through.
‘Don’t you dare defend him Mrunal. A guy like that can only be a looser, with all his intellectuality or whatever.’
‘Intellectual looser,’ Teju chirped in.
‘Hey! New term!’ Tuppu said.
‘Yes, we have a new term added to our dictionary now! Intellectual looser – a guy – ’
‘Common Teju, be technical. You are writing a definition.’
‘Oh yes! So; intellectual looser – a male Homo sapiens with above average IQ – ’
‘ – but below average EQ.’ I added. Tejashree and Trupti both turned to look at me. And then both suddenly dived towards me and put their arms around my neck. I smiled, hugging them back.
‘That’s the spirit girl. You’ve been wearing black for far too long now; it’s time to shed it.’
And right after that we clicked many pictures. All on timer. (Apparently the stool plus modem box plus mixer assembly worked just perfectly fine and gave us some really good pictures; or shall I say good memories?) We finished all the idlis and the bakhar-vadis and the kalakand. We stayed at Tuppu’s place till almost quarter to nine. And we had a blast. We all logged into our respective facebook accounts and uploaded the pictures pronto. By the time we reached home there were some comments on them too!
‘I am riding with you after so many days!’ Teju said, as we were driving back home on my Activa. She put her arms around me and hugged me – ‘I miss you yaar!’ she said. I put my hand on hers and replied – ‘I miss you too honey’; and it was not far from the truth. I did miss these two stupid idiotic but absolutely loveable girls from my Bachelors, though I had made new friends in my Masters. I thanked God in my mind – of all the things that had changed in my life over the past year, this had not; and it meant a lot to me.
I am happy.
I find it rather amusing how you can just tell when someone around you falls for someone. Even the most composed and expressionless of persons are not able to conceal it.
I happened to meet one of my friends – rather two of them – after more than a month recently. We’d been planning and failing to meet since very many days. And then a chance call right after Trupti had got back from the graha-pravesh of her brother’s new flat, had me and my Tejashree driving to her place.
It was a nice fun-filled evening as we all talked almost simultaneously on three very different topics, gobbling idli-chutney side by side, and yet in perfect co-ordination, and also without losing track of what each one of us was talking about. We poured our hearts out, amidst the sound of spoons and plastic bags as we dug into a packet of fresh Chitale bakhar-vadi and a box of kalakand; we talked about who had been up to what recently, and who was bugging who in class, and how we missed sitting next to each other in lectures. We wished we were all doing the same thing in the same college, somewhere far away from home; or that we were roomies in a hostel just so that we could go to different colleges and do different courses and still not lose contact.
Suddenly someone came up with the idea of clicking pictures.
‘But who will click all three of us together?’
‘Arre timer hai na!’ I said, flaunting my new phone which doubled-up as a camera.
‘4 megapixels?’ Trupti inquired.
‘8!’ I exclaimed.
‘Cool!’
We ran around the flat looking for ideal supports to hold my cell in place so that we could all fit into the frame of the picture – problem being the fact that Tejashree and Trupti are both almost the same height, while I am much taller than both of them. Finally after hunting for almost half an hour we had assembled a tall stool, the box of modem, and a mixer-grinder.
‘Mrunal be careful yaar. Your phone is going to topple and fall,’ Tejashree warned me.
‘Jalla tujha tond!’ I remarked and we broke out into peals of laughter. Meanwhile Trupti was humming a song from a latest Salman Khan flick.
‘Oh my God Trupti! That is such an outrageous song!’ I remarked. ‘You’ve heard it?’ I asked, turning to Tejashree.
‘Ya!’ she replied. Then there was silence for a few moments, and Trupti again began singing the same song all over again –
‘Munni badnam hui, darling tere liye…’
Me – ‘Abe oye jhandu balm! Chup kar na yaar…’
Trupti – ‘Aga mi kay karu? Mala pin lagliye tya ganyachi!’
Tejashree – ‘Nahi nahi asa nahi. Kuna sathi jhandu balm jhaliyes te sang adhi!’
Trupti – ‘Arre no one yaar! There is no one in our class worth becoming jhandu balm for…’
Incidentally they then both turned to look at me.
‘Tu kyu itni hans rahi hai?’
I looked at myself in the mirror. My face was in fact blank. But their remark planted a smile on my face anyway.
‘Mi kuthe hastiye,’ I said grinning ear to ear.
Trupti – ‘Meko lagta hai teko koi mil gaya…’ she then went on to do a step from the song. She spread her hands out like Preity Zinta and Hrithik and started singing ‘Koi mil gayaaaaaa!’
I turned to Teju for refuge – ‘Ae ae! Tuppi cha patent! “Meko teko”! Remember?’
Teju mock laughed and then made a grave face – ‘Vishay badalu nako.’
‘Abe yaar kay tumhi doghi…’ I said, now even blushing a little. ‘Koi nahi hai baba!’
‘Arre I’m not saying you are going around with someone! But someone sure has caught your attention recently, hai na? In fact “hai na” kya, I know it for a fact – its written all over your face!’ Teju said.
‘And since when can you read faces?’ I countered her.
‘Vishay badalu nako!’ Tuppu repeated.
I looked at their anticipating faces. Damn. They were my best friends after all; they deserved to know – even though there wasn’t much to tell. And so I went on and told them about the guy who I had noticed recently.
‘See! I knew it! Right when you walked in through the front door I knew you had news!’
‘Eeks Tuppu! “You had news” kay are…’ I said. ‘It’s hardly anything! For all I know he could not even be interested in me.’
‘Ya. Or for all she knows, he could be gay!’ Teju added.
We all burst out laughing.
‘Ae nahi yaar, aise mat bol,’ I said.
‘Haan yaar Teju, aise mat bol – warna uska dil toot jaega!’ Tuppu added.
I made a serious face.
‘Trupti Naik, are you actually sassing your best friend? Don’t you dare sass me!’
‘Hauuuu! Ghabarle mi! Sorry sorry sorry,’ Tuppu mocked me a little more. ‘But I am honestly glad you are over that looser.’
Aha. The ‘ex’ creeps up.
‘Tuppu, he wasn’t a – ’ I said, defending him as was my habit. Tuppu cut me halfway through.
‘Don’t you dare defend him Mrunal. A guy like that can only be a looser, with all his intellectuality or whatever.’
‘Intellectual looser,’ Teju chirped in.
‘Hey! New term!’ Tuppu said.
‘Yes, we have a new term added to our dictionary now! Intellectual looser – a guy – ’
‘Common Teju, be technical. You are writing a definition.’
‘Oh yes! So; intellectual looser – a male Homo sapiens with above average IQ – ’
‘ – but below average EQ.’ I added. Tejashree and Trupti both turned to look at me. And then both suddenly dived towards me and put their arms around my neck. I smiled, hugging them back.
‘That’s the spirit girl. You’ve been wearing black for far too long now; it’s time to shed it.’
And right after that we clicked many pictures. All on timer. (Apparently the stool plus modem box plus mixer assembly worked just perfectly fine and gave us some really good pictures; or shall I say good memories?) We finished all the idlis and the bakhar-vadis and the kalakand. We stayed at Tuppu’s place till almost quarter to nine. And we had a blast. We all logged into our respective facebook accounts and uploaded the pictures pronto. By the time we reached home there were some comments on them too!
‘I am riding with you after so many days!’ Teju said, as we were driving back home on my Activa. She put her arms around me and hugged me – ‘I miss you yaar!’ she said. I put my hand on hers and replied – ‘I miss you too honey’; and it was not far from the truth. I did miss these two stupid idiotic but absolutely loveable girls from my Bachelors, though I had made new friends in my Masters. I thanked God in my mind – of all the things that had changed in my life over the past year, this had not; and it meant a lot to me.
I am happy.
A DIFFERENT LIFE
I waited as my cousin Sonali fished for the keys to her flat in her purse. I was just dying to drop my bags and enter the shower – the Mumbai climate was already taking its toll on me and my senses; I was going mad! Our college had organised an industrial visit which had brought us to Mumbai. I decided to stay back and spend a day with my cousin while my friends went back with the class. I had been wanting to see my cousin’s place since a long time – since she got married to an IIT Professor in fact. They obviously lived on campus, and from her descriptions, her place sounded like a small bit of heaven on Earth.
She opened the door and we stepped into the place – and I immediately fell in love with it. It was a nice cosy little house that had a very welcoming feel to it. And just as she had mentioned time and again in our chats – it was windy. Very windy.
‘Wow!’ I said, as I heard all the earthen wind chimes around the place resonating in the wind. I remembered her picking them up from Pune before she shifted to Powai. ‘The chimes sound so lovely!’
‘Don’t they?’ Sonali said. I smiled.
‘Okay, I’m making a straight dash for your bathroom now! Where can I dump my stuff?’ I asked.
Sonali showed me to a little bedroom – this one had the wind chime that was shaped like the sun – and helped me with my bags.
‘I’ll make us cold coffee till you have a shower. Thike?’
I gave her the thumbs-up.
About half an hour later we were sitting in her balcony, enjoying cold coffee and chocolate sponge cake and Chitale bakhar-vadi that she loved and that I had got for her from Pune. It was a very different experience. I had never even dreamt I would ever be at Sonali-tai’s place, gobbling, gossiping and doing all girly stuff – we were both not like that. But then, here I was – and I was enjoying it.
‘So how was your visit?’ she asked.
‘Boh-ring!’ I said, munching on the cake. Boy was I hungry!
‘I toh just can’t figure out how you can study so much! That itself is so boh-ring! And hell, you stand first in class and college and all… really, you are disrespecting us all!’ se mocked. Apparently I was the youngest and most studious of all us cousins.
I laughed as I heard Sonali-tai bash me up a little more; though of course in a very sisterly and ‘I’m-proud-of-you-but-this-is-still-too-much’ kind of way. Just then the doorbell rang.
‘Hey! What happened?’ Sonali-tai said as she opened the door for my Sanjay-jiju.
‘Forgot some of my stuff,’ he said.
‘Hi jiju!’ I called out.
‘Oh hi! When did you get here?’
‘Just a while ago. How are you doing?’
‘Running late for a lecture as of now! We’ll catch up over beer and eats in the evening, ok?’ he said, as he headed for the door carrying a file in his hand.
‘Sure!’
He kissed Sonali on her cheek and looked at her, into her eyes. He whispered something softly that made her laugh and hit him playfully. I looked away, just out of respect.
Sonali shut the door and came back where I was sitting. I smiled at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘It’s so nice to see you and jiju like this,’ I said.
‘Oh Sanjay is very cool,’ Sonali added.
‘Waise, if I may ask, what happened with that other guy you were dating when you were working for that call centre in Pune?’
‘Oh him – well, it just didn’t work out.’
‘But I thought you were doing really well together…’
‘Yes; but things changed after I started going for the night shifts.’
I kept staring at her, a little at loss.
‘I don’t understand…’
She sighed. ‘It’s very difficult to maintain a relationship when you can’t even see each other. And then night shifts hardly leave you any time to do anything else.’ She paused. ‘It’s like; you just don’t have a social life anymore. No festivals, no get-togethers. You come home and sleep while your world is awake and going about their usual day to day life, and you wake up and go to work when everybody else is sleeping. It’s very frustrating.’
I waited for her to go on.
‘After a while you even stop being used to having people around you. You have issues having a normal conversation with your friends, your parents even sometimes. You become a recluse.’
I tried to imagine a life like that – it was a scary thought. I looked at Sonali-tai and I could see it was difficult for her to share all this. But she still kept going on.
‘I was very depressed for a long time. It’s too much of pressure. People only see the money; and I admit that is what even I looked at for a long time. I wanted to quit well before I actually did, but I kept working looking at the money that I needed to earn at that time. Easy money they say? It’s not easy at all. And then I couldn’t give him enough time either. So he called it quits. Rather we called it quits. He was not willing to wait, and I needed that job at that time.’
I looked at my cousin. She seemed such a different person as she was talking to me.
‘There are certain things that you just have to do in life,’ she went on. ‘Doing a job you don’t like, leaving a guy you don’t want to… No one makes or forces you to do them, but you know you have to do them for your growth, for your development. You need that experience at that point of time and it teaches you a lot of things that you may not learn otherwise. I am glad I kept the job rather than the relationship. Today when I look back, I am happy with the decision I made, cos now I am a little stronger than I was before; I can handle being alone a lot better, it’s helping me work out my relationship with Sanjay too. I am also a lot less judgemental about people who work in call centres. So all in all, I am glad it happened to me.’
She opened the door and we stepped into the place – and I immediately fell in love with it. It was a nice cosy little house that had a very welcoming feel to it. And just as she had mentioned time and again in our chats – it was windy. Very windy.
‘Wow!’ I said, as I heard all the earthen wind chimes around the place resonating in the wind. I remembered her picking them up from Pune before she shifted to Powai. ‘The chimes sound so lovely!’
‘Don’t they?’ Sonali said. I smiled.
‘Okay, I’m making a straight dash for your bathroom now! Where can I dump my stuff?’ I asked.
Sonali showed me to a little bedroom – this one had the wind chime that was shaped like the sun – and helped me with my bags.
‘I’ll make us cold coffee till you have a shower. Thike?’
I gave her the thumbs-up.
About half an hour later we were sitting in her balcony, enjoying cold coffee and chocolate sponge cake and Chitale bakhar-vadi that she loved and that I had got for her from Pune. It was a very different experience. I had never even dreamt I would ever be at Sonali-tai’s place, gobbling, gossiping and doing all girly stuff – we were both not like that. But then, here I was – and I was enjoying it.
‘So how was your visit?’ she asked.
‘Boh-ring!’ I said, munching on the cake. Boy was I hungry!
‘I toh just can’t figure out how you can study so much! That itself is so boh-ring! And hell, you stand first in class and college and all… really, you are disrespecting us all!’ se mocked. Apparently I was the youngest and most studious of all us cousins.
I laughed as I heard Sonali-tai bash me up a little more; though of course in a very sisterly and ‘I’m-proud-of-you-but-this-is-still-too-much’ kind of way. Just then the doorbell rang.
‘Hey! What happened?’ Sonali-tai said as she opened the door for my Sanjay-jiju.
‘Forgot some of my stuff,’ he said.
‘Hi jiju!’ I called out.
‘Oh hi! When did you get here?’
‘Just a while ago. How are you doing?’
‘Running late for a lecture as of now! We’ll catch up over beer and eats in the evening, ok?’ he said, as he headed for the door carrying a file in his hand.
‘Sure!’
He kissed Sonali on her cheek and looked at her, into her eyes. He whispered something softly that made her laugh and hit him playfully. I looked away, just out of respect.
Sonali shut the door and came back where I was sitting. I smiled at her.
‘What?’ she asked.
‘It’s so nice to see you and jiju like this,’ I said.
‘Oh Sanjay is very cool,’ Sonali added.
‘Waise, if I may ask, what happened with that other guy you were dating when you were working for that call centre in Pune?’
‘Oh him – well, it just didn’t work out.’
‘But I thought you were doing really well together…’
‘Yes; but things changed after I started going for the night shifts.’
I kept staring at her, a little at loss.
‘I don’t understand…’
She sighed. ‘It’s very difficult to maintain a relationship when you can’t even see each other. And then night shifts hardly leave you any time to do anything else.’ She paused. ‘It’s like; you just don’t have a social life anymore. No festivals, no get-togethers. You come home and sleep while your world is awake and going about their usual day to day life, and you wake up and go to work when everybody else is sleeping. It’s very frustrating.’
I waited for her to go on.
‘After a while you even stop being used to having people around you. You have issues having a normal conversation with your friends, your parents even sometimes. You become a recluse.’
I tried to imagine a life like that – it was a scary thought. I looked at Sonali-tai and I could see it was difficult for her to share all this. But she still kept going on.
‘I was very depressed for a long time. It’s too much of pressure. People only see the money; and I admit that is what even I looked at for a long time. I wanted to quit well before I actually did, but I kept working looking at the money that I needed to earn at that time. Easy money they say? It’s not easy at all. And then I couldn’t give him enough time either. So he called it quits. Rather we called it quits. He was not willing to wait, and I needed that job at that time.’
I looked at my cousin. She seemed such a different person as she was talking to me.
‘There are certain things that you just have to do in life,’ she went on. ‘Doing a job you don’t like, leaving a guy you don’t want to… No one makes or forces you to do them, but you know you have to do them for your growth, for your development. You need that experience at that point of time and it teaches you a lot of things that you may not learn otherwise. I am glad I kept the job rather than the relationship. Today when I look back, I am happy with the decision I made, cos now I am a little stronger than I was before; I can handle being alone a lot better, it’s helping me work out my relationship with Sanjay too. I am also a lot less judgemental about people who work in call centres. So all in all, I am glad it happened to me.’
Monday, August 9, 2010
EMOTIONAL BAGGAGE
If there is any stalker out there on Facebook, or if any of my friends has been keen enough to observe, s/he would notice the number of people in my network has suddenly gone up. And quite drastically up too.
I was myself quite surprised to learn I now have over a hundred and seventy people in my network. But what was more surprising was many of them were from school.
It is no secret even from my schoolmates I suppose, that for a very long time I had this huge massive grudge against just about every soul from school. People who had made fun of me, people who had betrayed me, who had back-stabbed me, and people who I just plain simple didn’t like. Except for the last category, almost all others were at one point of time my close friends in school. And then things turned sour, and I stopped talking to these people and mixing up with them.
At the time it felt very nice. It felt like I was doing the right thing by not being with people who were intentionally mean, sometimes even arrogant, maybe even selfish. It felt good walking in the opposite direction as the crowd, or rather choosing to do so. It felt amazing to be the rebel.
I don’t remember who it was from my school that I first added on Facebook. But about a few weeks ago I added this girl who was always very nice to me, and who I used to – and still do – genuinely like. The entire school was friends with her, and still is, from what I gather from her Facebook album. Her wrists used to be full on Friendship’s Day every year, and almost everybody in school used to have a band from her tied on their wrists.
I added this girl, and we got talking. And she filled me in on everyone from our batch – who was doing what, where, who was flying off to where, who was switching career lines, and who still asked about me to her, even though only in passing, once in a blue moon. It felt nice to know how much kids from our batch had diversified. She sounded happy to have gotten back in touch with me. And I was happy too.
On a particularly uneventful lazy evening, I was browsing through her photographs – looking at all those familiar faces – and almost immediately all the familiar feelings arose all over again.
Hurt.
Anger.
Bitterness.
Anguish.
I felt raw.
And soon the wave of those feelings got washed over by this immense feeling of tire.
I felt weary. Exhausted.
I recollected how many people it was that I had told this tale to – of being teased in school, of having no or very few friends in school.
And a peculiar realisation hit me out of the blue – the realisation of how long I had carried this baggage with me, and how much it had kept me from enjoying my life.
It’s over six years that I have passed out of school; and six years is a long long time.
For six years I have been constantly hating these people; constantly thinking about how right I was and am and how wrong they were. I have been holding a grudge for so long in my life, and the ones I have the grudge against are not even aware of the fact. They have had their fun, they have had their time treating me the way they wanted, and they have moved on. And even after all these years I am still holding onto things that my peers did at an age when we were all probably not even aware of what is good, what is bad, and what does getting hurt by people mean.
Yes they teased me. But don’t kids do that all the time?
Yes they isolated me and didn’t really let me mix up and play with them. But isn’t that all a part of being kids in a school, a part of growing up?
They have done what they had to, and they have moved on in life.
But I am still there… I am still on that farm-house where everybody was teasing me and I was alone, I am still on that swing where I was crying while everybody else was laughing, I am still there on the first bench at school, having my tiffin alone, I am still at the dining table at someone’s house ignoring the grumbling in my stomach and pretending I am full when I am not just so that my friends don’t tease me, I am still on the sofa in my house watching Dil Chahta Hai and wondering what everybody is doing at the party and if my Mother has been able to lie properly about me not being well. A part of me is still back there, in a place and time and situation that existed ten years ago, and I am keeping memories of that moment fresh within me.
All this pain, this hurt – who for? What for?
Sometimes you need to forgive people not because they deserve a second chance, but more because YOU deserve a second chance; because you deserve to be happy and not be haunted by your past; because you have to grow and move on in life. And that is what I have decided to do.
I still cannot and never will be able to identify with that kind of fun that kids have in that particular age – where you all gang up and corner the not so bright or not so beautiful girl, or the nerdy guy, or the one who is afraid of spiders, or even the one who is very quiet and then tease him/her to your heart’s content and harass the poor child. I seriously cannot understand what kind of pleasure one can derive out of such kind of mockery.
I look back at those times in my life and I look at how I have emerged out of it. And I see what I failed to all these years – so much of who I am now, what I believe in, what I condemn, and who I hang out with has its roots back in what I went through in my childhood and adolescent years. It’s like, it has become difficult for me to imagine what kind of a person would I be now had I not developed or inculcated certain things in me post that trauma; for yes, at that age, it was a trauma in my life. And it really saddens me to see how certain things I inculcated in me back then are affecting my relationships with people now – how I find it so difficult to forgive people; how I always am sorting people’s acts as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, constantly that sorter is turned on and fully active; how because of this some of my friends are afraid to confide in me when they are in doubt; how I find it absolutely impossible to change myself even for the people I really love, people who I would really want to change for.
Yes they were not nice to me, but that doesn’t mean I must carry that baggage with me all through my life, or point at it whenever people don’t like things about me – this is what happened to me, so I am what I am now. We must from time to time try and learn to dispense unnecessary thoughts and memories – and by unnecessary I mean those that are going to do nothing but take away from your peace of mind; for that is what is most important at the end of the day. Just because you forgive someone for having wronged you doesn’t mean that you are agreeing with what the person did; it only means that you are exercising your power to choose just what you are going to let stay with you, and what you are going to let shape you and the person you are. Forgiving does not mean to accept the wrong people did – it only means to choose to overlook it, because you know it is not important, because after all they are only people too, because you know it is never a good idea to live in denial, self-pity or with a grudge, because you need to grow as a person, and because you know you deserve to be happy.
I was myself quite surprised to learn I now have over a hundred and seventy people in my network. But what was more surprising was many of them were from school.
It is no secret even from my schoolmates I suppose, that for a very long time I had this huge massive grudge against just about every soul from school. People who had made fun of me, people who had betrayed me, who had back-stabbed me, and people who I just plain simple didn’t like. Except for the last category, almost all others were at one point of time my close friends in school. And then things turned sour, and I stopped talking to these people and mixing up with them.
At the time it felt very nice. It felt like I was doing the right thing by not being with people who were intentionally mean, sometimes even arrogant, maybe even selfish. It felt good walking in the opposite direction as the crowd, or rather choosing to do so. It felt amazing to be the rebel.
I don’t remember who it was from my school that I first added on Facebook. But about a few weeks ago I added this girl who was always very nice to me, and who I used to – and still do – genuinely like. The entire school was friends with her, and still is, from what I gather from her Facebook album. Her wrists used to be full on Friendship’s Day every year, and almost everybody in school used to have a band from her tied on their wrists.
I added this girl, and we got talking. And she filled me in on everyone from our batch – who was doing what, where, who was flying off to where, who was switching career lines, and who still asked about me to her, even though only in passing, once in a blue moon. It felt nice to know how much kids from our batch had diversified. She sounded happy to have gotten back in touch with me. And I was happy too.
On a particularly uneventful lazy evening, I was browsing through her photographs – looking at all those familiar faces – and almost immediately all the familiar feelings arose all over again.
Hurt.
Anger.
Bitterness.
Anguish.
I felt raw.
And soon the wave of those feelings got washed over by this immense feeling of tire.
I felt weary. Exhausted.
I recollected how many people it was that I had told this tale to – of being teased in school, of having no or very few friends in school.
And a peculiar realisation hit me out of the blue – the realisation of how long I had carried this baggage with me, and how much it had kept me from enjoying my life.
It’s over six years that I have passed out of school; and six years is a long long time.
For six years I have been constantly hating these people; constantly thinking about how right I was and am and how wrong they were. I have been holding a grudge for so long in my life, and the ones I have the grudge against are not even aware of the fact. They have had their fun, they have had their time treating me the way they wanted, and they have moved on. And even after all these years I am still holding onto things that my peers did at an age when we were all probably not even aware of what is good, what is bad, and what does getting hurt by people mean.
Yes they teased me. But don’t kids do that all the time?
Yes they isolated me and didn’t really let me mix up and play with them. But isn’t that all a part of being kids in a school, a part of growing up?
They have done what they had to, and they have moved on in life.
But I am still there… I am still on that farm-house where everybody was teasing me and I was alone, I am still on that swing where I was crying while everybody else was laughing, I am still there on the first bench at school, having my tiffin alone, I am still at the dining table at someone’s house ignoring the grumbling in my stomach and pretending I am full when I am not just so that my friends don’t tease me, I am still on the sofa in my house watching Dil Chahta Hai and wondering what everybody is doing at the party and if my Mother has been able to lie properly about me not being well. A part of me is still back there, in a place and time and situation that existed ten years ago, and I am keeping memories of that moment fresh within me.
All this pain, this hurt – who for? What for?
Sometimes you need to forgive people not because they deserve a second chance, but more because YOU deserve a second chance; because you deserve to be happy and not be haunted by your past; because you have to grow and move on in life. And that is what I have decided to do.
I still cannot and never will be able to identify with that kind of fun that kids have in that particular age – where you all gang up and corner the not so bright or not so beautiful girl, or the nerdy guy, or the one who is afraid of spiders, or even the one who is very quiet and then tease him/her to your heart’s content and harass the poor child. I seriously cannot understand what kind of pleasure one can derive out of such kind of mockery.
I look back at those times in my life and I look at how I have emerged out of it. And I see what I failed to all these years – so much of who I am now, what I believe in, what I condemn, and who I hang out with has its roots back in what I went through in my childhood and adolescent years. It’s like, it has become difficult for me to imagine what kind of a person would I be now had I not developed or inculcated certain things in me post that trauma; for yes, at that age, it was a trauma in my life. And it really saddens me to see how certain things I inculcated in me back then are affecting my relationships with people now – how I find it so difficult to forgive people; how I always am sorting people’s acts as ‘good’ and ‘bad’, constantly that sorter is turned on and fully active; how because of this some of my friends are afraid to confide in me when they are in doubt; how I find it absolutely impossible to change myself even for the people I really love, people who I would really want to change for.
Yes they were not nice to me, but that doesn’t mean I must carry that baggage with me all through my life, or point at it whenever people don’t like things about me – this is what happened to me, so I am what I am now. We must from time to time try and learn to dispense unnecessary thoughts and memories – and by unnecessary I mean those that are going to do nothing but take away from your peace of mind; for that is what is most important at the end of the day. Just because you forgive someone for having wronged you doesn’t mean that you are agreeing with what the person did; it only means that you are exercising your power to choose just what you are going to let stay with you, and what you are going to let shape you and the person you are. Forgiving does not mean to accept the wrong people did – it only means to choose to overlook it, because you know it is not important, because after all they are only people too, because you know it is never a good idea to live in denial, self-pity or with a grudge, because you need to grow as a person, and because you know you deserve to be happy.
Saturday, August 7, 2010
TILL KINGDOM COMES
It is only recently that I have come to fully realise how important it is to do in life just and only that that you truly wish to do; forget the money, forget the job security, forget what is right, what is more logical, forget what everybody is doing, and what your parents wish you do or even what you “think” is right for you. Your inner gut feeling, your instinct will never fail you, and it is it that you must follow, all through your life. If it fails you – think again. try and remember – it must not have been your very first instinct.
I grew up listening to two kinds of people in my home. Mom always tried to bring me up in a balance – yes it is good to do what you want to, but you must also sometimes find a way to do that which is necessary, even if it is not something you particularly enjoy. Dad on the other hand preached about doing what the heart desires. And all my childhood I grew up believing in both the views. It is only now that I realise how far apart the two things are – and which one is it that’s going to be my life-mantra.
Few are the people who get to make a living out of what they most love to do. There are countless things that go into the decision – and enough has already been said about it by everyone around me and around you too, I’m guessing. But what I really want to say is – if you have a choice, make a right one. Make one that’s right for you, not one that’s been “held” right by generations and societies. Society is never there to pull you out of your abyss when you get depressed or suicidal. It is not a wrong thing either I guess. The world was here before me – it doesn’t owe me anything. It has always given me, from my first waking moment. But what’s to be remembered is – just as it doesn’t owe you anything, nothing that came after you in the world is its to take away from you; at least nothing that you are a part in the making or creation of. And you mustn’t let the world take it away from you.
I grew up hearing Dad say things like – be yourself, march to the beat of your own drummer. And I used to smile, amused at his remark. At the time I used to think – how strange is that! Cos I thought how could I be anyone else but me? But now I know just what he meant.
Don’t feel like going to work today? Don’t go. What do you say when the Boss asks? Exactly that – I didn’t feel like coming; maybe fabricate your reply with “and I didn’t want to do a dishonest job”! But there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to, or not wanting to do a certain thing once in a while, even if it is something you love to do!
Nothing is more important than your peace of mind, your quiet, your health and your happiness.
And you must not be required to wait till kingdom comes for it.
I grew up listening to two kinds of people in my home. Mom always tried to bring me up in a balance – yes it is good to do what you want to, but you must also sometimes find a way to do that which is necessary, even if it is not something you particularly enjoy. Dad on the other hand preached about doing what the heart desires. And all my childhood I grew up believing in both the views. It is only now that I realise how far apart the two things are – and which one is it that’s going to be my life-mantra.
Few are the people who get to make a living out of what they most love to do. There are countless things that go into the decision – and enough has already been said about it by everyone around me and around you too, I’m guessing. But what I really want to say is – if you have a choice, make a right one. Make one that’s right for you, not one that’s been “held” right by generations and societies. Society is never there to pull you out of your abyss when you get depressed or suicidal. It is not a wrong thing either I guess. The world was here before me – it doesn’t owe me anything. It has always given me, from my first waking moment. But what’s to be remembered is – just as it doesn’t owe you anything, nothing that came after you in the world is its to take away from you; at least nothing that you are a part in the making or creation of. And you mustn’t let the world take it away from you.
I grew up hearing Dad say things like – be yourself, march to the beat of your own drummer. And I used to smile, amused at his remark. At the time I used to think – how strange is that! Cos I thought how could I be anyone else but me? But now I know just what he meant.
Don’t feel like going to work today? Don’t go. What do you say when the Boss asks? Exactly that – I didn’t feel like coming; maybe fabricate your reply with “and I didn’t want to do a dishonest job”! But there is absolutely nothing wrong in wanting to, or not wanting to do a certain thing once in a while, even if it is something you love to do!
Nothing is more important than your peace of mind, your quiet, your health and your happiness.
And you must not be required to wait till kingdom comes for it.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
THE POWER OF THE MIND
An idea once planted in the mind only knows to grow. I have said this in one of my earlier posts, and I am saying it again. Why? Cos that is exactly what has happened with this idea too.
A couple of movies seen in quick succession of each other is enough to make me go into the hyperactive overthinking mode. And that is exactly what has happened over the past couple of weeks.
I saw Inception. Then I saw Inception again. And then I saw Shutter Island. And I thought to myself – Man! I am going to write one good article on what these movies talk about. And I thought I will take some time, go on and do a little bit of homework and then come up with a fantastic article, like what my friend did a few days back. (Yeah Neha, I am talking of you.)
But hell. An idea once planted in the mind only knows to grow. So here I am; sitting in Barista, flaunting my new laptop, and typing away to glory, oblivious to the track playing in the background and the people staring at me and probably wondering why my eyes look so puffy, and why is my hair so messy. To complete the image is a half-eaten black forest pastry next to my laptop on the table. Now if only this headache will at least subside a little and let me think so I can pen down just what I am thinking…
*squeezes her temples hard*
Another reason for wanting to do my homework and then write this article – that is of course before the idea of writing this article grew too big to be ignored – is the fact that, this is a rather vast topic that I wish to write upon. And also the reason that more has already been written, by far more learned men than me on this topic, than can be understood in a lifetime. Men have wasted entire births, trying to grasp a fraction of what the human mind is, how it functions and what it is capable of; for there is infinitely more that it IS capable of doing, rather than NOT.
Is it really that hard to let go of an idea you possess? Or rather an idea that has possessed you?
While you are reading this that I have typed, you are thinking of something too, I guess. Every one of us is at almost every waking moment doing at least some amount of parallel thinking. As you are reading these words I have typed out, you are probably going back on a few incidents of your life, something you saw or read or experienced or felt. And if you aren’t, then me mentioning it must have triggered it. Isn’t it?
I will tell you what I am going through.
I am rethinking of an idea that has very deeply planted itself in my head. What it is, I am not going to tell you. At least I don’t plan to at this moment, maybe by the time I am done writing this article I will have let it slip anyway. But that idea is always in my head – not always conspicuous, but persistent. It is the background of my head, the thought on which other thoughts get piled over as the day proceeds, and the thought that remains when I go to bed at the end of the day; like a stage that may host many plays with different settings, but the basic skeleton remains after the play is over. Or like this headache I have right now that is refusing to go away, though it is not affecting my thought process.
Just think – how many times is a thought process ever involved in our beliefs? We hear something, and even before we are conscious of being in the process of making a decision whether to believe or not believe what we have just heard, we have already arrived at the answer. ‘I don’t believe you.’ Or ‘Yes of course! I believe in it/him/her.’ And then all our lives we just keep looking for things, people, places, friends, that reinforce our idea. ‘See, she believes in it too.’ ‘Ya he said the same.’ ‘Oh no, she is just so different, she doesn’t agree. I don’t like her.’
I saw Inception, and I couldn’t sleep after I got back home. An idea had been planted in my head. And I just kept going at it again and again and again.
Is it really possible to incept someone with a thought?
Is any thought ever entirely new to us?
People create worlds and realities that do not exist, based on their thoughts. A woman lives in a mental institution and thinks that all the doctors, the orderlies, other patients in the institution are all just milkmen, postmen, gardner… just imagine how deeply that idea has gripped her mind – so much so that she has created a world based on it, and that is the only truth in her life. Who are you to convince her otherwise?
Sometimes I say things like – ‘I just know it.’ And I have heard other people around me say similar stuff too. How do I know? How do they know? How do you just KNOW something? And is it really possible to just KNOW, without reason or logic?
We are only beginning to speculate certain things, ideas that our forefathers were not only sure of, but have written books about. The mind travelling outside the body; the secret that the herbs of the Himalayas hold; even biology, human anatomy; stars, planets, galaxies; we are only rediscovering knowledge. Stuff like life and death, rebirth.
I think our ancestors were more open and receptive to ideas. They gave every crazy thought or idea or imagination a chance – this could or could not be true. And I think they have gone far beyond what we, with our technology and with Science, can ever manage to even comprehend. They were the Originals; the only people to have ever been truly Incepted with anything at all – we are only trying to base everything on what we know.
They say we use only a fraction of the brain’s true potential or capacity when we are awake. And the rest, remains to be discovered. The subconscious, dreams, hallucinations, paranoia, extra-sensory perceptions, visions – there is so much more literature about the mind when we are not aware it is working than the waking mind. Even if they maybe only speculations – isn’t it fascinating that there are more of these than of things we are sure of? It’s like the selfish DNA – more of junk heterochromatin than can be understood to exist as compared to functional DNA. Is it all really junk? How do we classify useful and junk? The take of Indian philosophy on it is – it is DNA that we don’t put to use. We always hear of impossible feats that our forefathers and the generations of human beings before them could perform – tales that we call Legends. What happened to these abilities that our ancestors had? How did we lose them? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could travel outside our bodies in today’s world? Imagine – no air fare to visit our over-seas relatives! Did we get so absorbed in things we were inventing that we ignored ourselves and how our bodies worked? Got so absorbed in the silly toys we were making that we just forgot all about what else we are capable of achieving.
I close my eyes and try to look at humans today from an unknown creature’s point of view – an alien if you may – and I wonder, what would we be perceived as? A life form that is constantly analysing its surroundings, its environment and all that is around it; that which it can see, hear, smell, taste or touch. So knowledgable. Such understanding of physics, chemistry, of the world even. And what does this life form know about itself? Nothing. Or nothing MUCH.
We are so caught up by science and technology and machines, so wrapped up in basing our world only on the five senses that we are aware of, that we just never let ourselves to be truly incepted. When I think more deeply about this – I think that we would all probably go mad if we gave every crazy concept to ever possess our mind the chance of being true or not being true. But would it be so bad if ALL of us became mad? Not the connotation of mad that we usually associate with the word.
It is like the story of the city where one fine day everybody who drinks the water of a particular well goes mad. They decide to overthrow the King. A rather worried King then seeks advice of the Queen, who comes up with an amazing solution – ‘Let us drink from the well as well. Then we shall be as mad as they are, and all would be good again.’
That is what has happened with us I think – we have all been drinking from the well. And anybody who doesn’t is not normal – is abnormal. But who are truly abnormal, those who drink from the well or those who refuse to? In fact if we take a look at the word ‘abnormal’ it can be split up as ‘ab’ + ‘normal’ = above normal. Isn’t that a fantastic little joke that those we call abnormal are only above normal, above us?
I guess I have made you think about too many things already. And even if I haven’t, I’m running out of time; also feeling like I am going to catch a cold. I must get out of Barista and back home. But I have not said everything I want to. I am still going to do my homework and come with another one.
Hopefully I will be incepted by something while I am doing my research; and probably you have been too, while reading this article.
Amen.
A couple of movies seen in quick succession of each other is enough to make me go into the hyperactive overthinking mode. And that is exactly what has happened over the past couple of weeks.
I saw Inception. Then I saw Inception again. And then I saw Shutter Island. And I thought to myself – Man! I am going to write one good article on what these movies talk about. And I thought I will take some time, go on and do a little bit of homework and then come up with a fantastic article, like what my friend did a few days back. (Yeah Neha, I am talking of you.)
But hell. An idea once planted in the mind only knows to grow. So here I am; sitting in Barista, flaunting my new laptop, and typing away to glory, oblivious to the track playing in the background and the people staring at me and probably wondering why my eyes look so puffy, and why is my hair so messy. To complete the image is a half-eaten black forest pastry next to my laptop on the table. Now if only this headache will at least subside a little and let me think so I can pen down just what I am thinking…
*squeezes her temples hard*
Another reason for wanting to do my homework and then write this article – that is of course before the idea of writing this article grew too big to be ignored – is the fact that, this is a rather vast topic that I wish to write upon. And also the reason that more has already been written, by far more learned men than me on this topic, than can be understood in a lifetime. Men have wasted entire births, trying to grasp a fraction of what the human mind is, how it functions and what it is capable of; for there is infinitely more that it IS capable of doing, rather than NOT.
Is it really that hard to let go of an idea you possess? Or rather an idea that has possessed you?
While you are reading this that I have typed, you are thinking of something too, I guess. Every one of us is at almost every waking moment doing at least some amount of parallel thinking. As you are reading these words I have typed out, you are probably going back on a few incidents of your life, something you saw or read or experienced or felt. And if you aren’t, then me mentioning it must have triggered it. Isn’t it?
I will tell you what I am going through.
I am rethinking of an idea that has very deeply planted itself in my head. What it is, I am not going to tell you. At least I don’t plan to at this moment, maybe by the time I am done writing this article I will have let it slip anyway. But that idea is always in my head – not always conspicuous, but persistent. It is the background of my head, the thought on which other thoughts get piled over as the day proceeds, and the thought that remains when I go to bed at the end of the day; like a stage that may host many plays with different settings, but the basic skeleton remains after the play is over. Or like this headache I have right now that is refusing to go away, though it is not affecting my thought process.
Just think – how many times is a thought process ever involved in our beliefs? We hear something, and even before we are conscious of being in the process of making a decision whether to believe or not believe what we have just heard, we have already arrived at the answer. ‘I don’t believe you.’ Or ‘Yes of course! I believe in it/him/her.’ And then all our lives we just keep looking for things, people, places, friends, that reinforce our idea. ‘See, she believes in it too.’ ‘Ya he said the same.’ ‘Oh no, she is just so different, she doesn’t agree. I don’t like her.’
I saw Inception, and I couldn’t sleep after I got back home. An idea had been planted in my head. And I just kept going at it again and again and again.
Is it really possible to incept someone with a thought?
Is any thought ever entirely new to us?
People create worlds and realities that do not exist, based on their thoughts. A woman lives in a mental institution and thinks that all the doctors, the orderlies, other patients in the institution are all just milkmen, postmen, gardner… just imagine how deeply that idea has gripped her mind – so much so that she has created a world based on it, and that is the only truth in her life. Who are you to convince her otherwise?
Sometimes I say things like – ‘I just know it.’ And I have heard other people around me say similar stuff too. How do I know? How do they know? How do you just KNOW something? And is it really possible to just KNOW, without reason or logic?
We are only beginning to speculate certain things, ideas that our forefathers were not only sure of, but have written books about. The mind travelling outside the body; the secret that the herbs of the Himalayas hold; even biology, human anatomy; stars, planets, galaxies; we are only rediscovering knowledge. Stuff like life and death, rebirth.
I think our ancestors were more open and receptive to ideas. They gave every crazy thought or idea or imagination a chance – this could or could not be true. And I think they have gone far beyond what we, with our technology and with Science, can ever manage to even comprehend. They were the Originals; the only people to have ever been truly Incepted with anything at all – we are only trying to base everything on what we know.
They say we use only a fraction of the brain’s true potential or capacity when we are awake. And the rest, remains to be discovered. The subconscious, dreams, hallucinations, paranoia, extra-sensory perceptions, visions – there is so much more literature about the mind when we are not aware it is working than the waking mind. Even if they maybe only speculations – isn’t it fascinating that there are more of these than of things we are sure of? It’s like the selfish DNA – more of junk heterochromatin than can be understood to exist as compared to functional DNA. Is it all really junk? How do we classify useful and junk? The take of Indian philosophy on it is – it is DNA that we don’t put to use. We always hear of impossible feats that our forefathers and the generations of human beings before them could perform – tales that we call Legends. What happened to these abilities that our ancestors had? How did we lose them? Wouldn’t it be nice if we could travel outside our bodies in today’s world? Imagine – no air fare to visit our over-seas relatives! Did we get so absorbed in things we were inventing that we ignored ourselves and how our bodies worked? Got so absorbed in the silly toys we were making that we just forgot all about what else we are capable of achieving.
I close my eyes and try to look at humans today from an unknown creature’s point of view – an alien if you may – and I wonder, what would we be perceived as? A life form that is constantly analysing its surroundings, its environment and all that is around it; that which it can see, hear, smell, taste or touch. So knowledgable. Such understanding of physics, chemistry, of the world even. And what does this life form know about itself? Nothing. Or nothing MUCH.
We are so caught up by science and technology and machines, so wrapped up in basing our world only on the five senses that we are aware of, that we just never let ourselves to be truly incepted. When I think more deeply about this – I think that we would all probably go mad if we gave every crazy concept to ever possess our mind the chance of being true or not being true. But would it be so bad if ALL of us became mad? Not the connotation of mad that we usually associate with the word.
It is like the story of the city where one fine day everybody who drinks the water of a particular well goes mad. They decide to overthrow the King. A rather worried King then seeks advice of the Queen, who comes up with an amazing solution – ‘Let us drink from the well as well. Then we shall be as mad as they are, and all would be good again.’
That is what has happened with us I think – we have all been drinking from the well. And anybody who doesn’t is not normal – is abnormal. But who are truly abnormal, those who drink from the well or those who refuse to? In fact if we take a look at the word ‘abnormal’ it can be split up as ‘ab’ + ‘normal’ = above normal. Isn’t that a fantastic little joke that those we call abnormal are only above normal, above us?
I guess I have made you think about too many things already. And even if I haven’t, I’m running out of time; also feeling like I am going to catch a cold. I must get out of Barista and back home. But I have not said everything I want to. I am still going to do my homework and come with another one.
Hopefully I will be incepted by something while I am doing my research; and probably you have been too, while reading this article.
Amen.
Sunday, August 1, 2010
TO EACH HIS OWN
They say adhyatma, philosophy, spirituality is not everybody’s cup of tea, and that such knowledge comes to you only when you are ready for it, no matter how sincere your efforts, or how long your search.
I always find it amusing – how all these things work. All of us are in fact exposed to spiritual teachings ever since we are kids, but we are somehow not aware of them. Do good and forget. Tit for tat. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Karma kar, phal ki asha na kar. Only that we never look at them like that.
But what really amuses me is the way destiny works at large scale – at the level of masses and people of a country, or inhabitants of a city or state, or staff of companies. What is amusing to me is how destiny works during natural disasters, during plane-crashes. We are talking here of hundreds and thousands of people who all happened to be at a particular place and at a particular time. What is it that brought exactly these and no other people there?
Someone may have chosen to fill in for someone at office when the Twin Towers were blasted.
Someone may have dropped out of a family trip that ended up on the beach right when the tsunami hit the beach.
Someone may have missed a flight that went on to end up in a plane-crash.
Just how does destiny work in such situations?
Were all the people who suffered anything during such incidents due with their share of this life?
Or is it exactly that that they were destined for – to have witnessed an accident like that?
We all talk about karma and bhog, and destiny, and how we are constantly bound in the birth and death and rebirth cycle. But things like narrowly escaping a car-accident, or joining a company just weeks before it is going to be dissolved or taken over by some other, or even good things, like an exam getting cancelled right when you thought you were unprepared for it – maybe not the last one, but all the others are life-changing experiences. It takes only a moment to lose your faith, your confidence, all the money you ever earned in your life, or even all the respect – and also only a moment to get it all back sometimes. Moments can make and break people, relationships, and history.
And to think of it, all this is a big chain reaction, a catapult, a cumulative effect. Everything connected to every other thing, all fine-tuned and never without a reason.
I have now turned to writing again, after a long gap, and when I look back at how my past year has been, it is amazing to know how every minute thing has played its role in bringing me to the point in life where I am right now – where I am thinking of taking up my writing more seriously and doing something about it. I was trying to get into some universities abroad for my Masters, but it didn’t work out for the silliest of reasons, then I didn’t get through at my second and third and fourth options, and finally had to settle for my last option. Then an entire year full of misunderstandings and miscommunications, fights, quarrels, discussions, consoling and counselling (more the latter than the former), then the ultra-depression mode, all that negativity around me… so many relations broken, so many friends lost, being failed and betrayed by so many people… and then emerging out of all this; like in the tail of the ugly duckling… emerging scratched and bruised, yes, but with better understanding of myself and of the people around me, of how the world is… then a chance tarot card session with my sister-in-law, a suggestion slipped in by her casually, (write about all this, let it come out of your system, in some form; why writing, cos you are good at it) and here I am, blogging all over again, writing all over again, happy all over again, but consciously aware of how deep the rabbit hole can go. One of my friends who is into palmistry and can also read faces said to me the other day – ‘You are soon going to change what you are doing in life now, and what you then become is going to be the best thing for you. It will change your life, and bring you name and fame.’ I don’t know about the latter, but yes, I have been thinking again about what it is that I want to do in life.
I used to worry myself sick as to why I couldn’t get into those universities abroad, and how come I could have made stupid silly mistakes and what went wrong. It is like, I could feel something was slipping out of my hands; like something had gone horribly wrong, just that I didn’t know what and why. And now when I look back at everything, I am glad I am not outside my country right now, stuck with lab-work in some university, for yes, that is how I feel about it now – I feel like it is a task, a job. I don’t enjoy it anymore… at least not as much as I used to before. And who knows, if this is what I am destined to be – a writer rather than a research person – then it makes perfect sense how everything went wrong and made me take up my last option, how all those people turned, how situations became the way they did. For each of these things has played a role no matter how small or how big, in making me think again.
It is one thing to have the capability or capacity to do something, and another to have the urge to do it. I can become an excellent lawyer. My father says I have all the makings of one – I have ‘all it takes’, in his words. That however, does NOT mean I take up law!
Yes I am someone who is seven out of ten times sure of what she wants. But that also means that when I want to change, I want to change. And people should accept that change just as they accept my decisions. Period.
But wait, I am drifting away from the topic!
Point is – everything happens for a reason. You get exactly that in life which you are destined for, and most of the times, it is what you deserve. In fact, it is almost always what you deserve, only we are not able to make out two plus two is four always. We have our grip so tight on the one ‘two’ in our hand that we fail to see the other ‘two’, which may well be lying right under your nose! We are delivered with exactly that what is meant for us – to each his own. Our share of this life is fixed, and who serves it to us, who become the instrument to deliver us, is fixed too. If I am to be betrayed by my most trustworthy friend, then that is what will happen. Only that will probably put me through a phase that will really change me into something that I ought to be. Just an acquaintance betraying me is not going to have the same effect, and so it won’t happen.
Why we act in a certain way in certain situations may not always be in our grasp. But nothing is without reason. Even co-incidence is nothing but merely the co-occurrence of two incidents…! It is rather fascinating to even try and understand how things take their natural course – for that is exactly what they do… take their natural course! So then what’s in our hands? To do good and forget. Maybe good things don’t always happen to good people – again a matter of destiny – but good always does beget good, and nothing bad will happen to you for a good deed you do.
I always find it amusing – how all these things work. All of us are in fact exposed to spiritual teachings ever since we are kids, but we are somehow not aware of them. Do good and forget. Tit for tat. An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind. Karma kar, phal ki asha na kar. Only that we never look at them like that.
But what really amuses me is the way destiny works at large scale – at the level of masses and people of a country, or inhabitants of a city or state, or staff of companies. What is amusing to me is how destiny works during natural disasters, during plane-crashes. We are talking here of hundreds and thousands of people who all happened to be at a particular place and at a particular time. What is it that brought exactly these and no other people there?
Someone may have chosen to fill in for someone at office when the Twin Towers were blasted.
Someone may have dropped out of a family trip that ended up on the beach right when the tsunami hit the beach.
Someone may have missed a flight that went on to end up in a plane-crash.
Just how does destiny work in such situations?
Were all the people who suffered anything during such incidents due with their share of this life?
Or is it exactly that that they were destined for – to have witnessed an accident like that?
We all talk about karma and bhog, and destiny, and how we are constantly bound in the birth and death and rebirth cycle. But things like narrowly escaping a car-accident, or joining a company just weeks before it is going to be dissolved or taken over by some other, or even good things, like an exam getting cancelled right when you thought you were unprepared for it – maybe not the last one, but all the others are life-changing experiences. It takes only a moment to lose your faith, your confidence, all the money you ever earned in your life, or even all the respect – and also only a moment to get it all back sometimes. Moments can make and break people, relationships, and history.
And to think of it, all this is a big chain reaction, a catapult, a cumulative effect. Everything connected to every other thing, all fine-tuned and never without a reason.
I have now turned to writing again, after a long gap, and when I look back at how my past year has been, it is amazing to know how every minute thing has played its role in bringing me to the point in life where I am right now – where I am thinking of taking up my writing more seriously and doing something about it. I was trying to get into some universities abroad for my Masters, but it didn’t work out for the silliest of reasons, then I didn’t get through at my second and third and fourth options, and finally had to settle for my last option. Then an entire year full of misunderstandings and miscommunications, fights, quarrels, discussions, consoling and counselling (more the latter than the former), then the ultra-depression mode, all that negativity around me… so many relations broken, so many friends lost, being failed and betrayed by so many people… and then emerging out of all this; like in the tail of the ugly duckling… emerging scratched and bruised, yes, but with better understanding of myself and of the people around me, of how the world is… then a chance tarot card session with my sister-in-law, a suggestion slipped in by her casually, (write about all this, let it come out of your system, in some form; why writing, cos you are good at it) and here I am, blogging all over again, writing all over again, happy all over again, but consciously aware of how deep the rabbit hole can go. One of my friends who is into palmistry and can also read faces said to me the other day – ‘You are soon going to change what you are doing in life now, and what you then become is going to be the best thing for you. It will change your life, and bring you name and fame.’ I don’t know about the latter, but yes, I have been thinking again about what it is that I want to do in life.
I used to worry myself sick as to why I couldn’t get into those universities abroad, and how come I could have made stupid silly mistakes and what went wrong. It is like, I could feel something was slipping out of my hands; like something had gone horribly wrong, just that I didn’t know what and why. And now when I look back at everything, I am glad I am not outside my country right now, stuck with lab-work in some university, for yes, that is how I feel about it now – I feel like it is a task, a job. I don’t enjoy it anymore… at least not as much as I used to before. And who knows, if this is what I am destined to be – a writer rather than a research person – then it makes perfect sense how everything went wrong and made me take up my last option, how all those people turned, how situations became the way they did. For each of these things has played a role no matter how small or how big, in making me think again.
It is one thing to have the capability or capacity to do something, and another to have the urge to do it. I can become an excellent lawyer. My father says I have all the makings of one – I have ‘all it takes’, in his words. That however, does NOT mean I take up law!
Yes I am someone who is seven out of ten times sure of what she wants. But that also means that when I want to change, I want to change. And people should accept that change just as they accept my decisions. Period.
But wait, I am drifting away from the topic!
Point is – everything happens for a reason. You get exactly that in life which you are destined for, and most of the times, it is what you deserve. In fact, it is almost always what you deserve, only we are not able to make out two plus two is four always. We have our grip so tight on the one ‘two’ in our hand that we fail to see the other ‘two’, which may well be lying right under your nose! We are delivered with exactly that what is meant for us – to each his own. Our share of this life is fixed, and who serves it to us, who become the instrument to deliver us, is fixed too. If I am to be betrayed by my most trustworthy friend, then that is what will happen. Only that will probably put me through a phase that will really change me into something that I ought to be. Just an acquaintance betraying me is not going to have the same effect, and so it won’t happen.
Why we act in a certain way in certain situations may not always be in our grasp. But nothing is without reason. Even co-incidence is nothing but merely the co-occurrence of two incidents…! It is rather fascinating to even try and understand how things take their natural course – for that is exactly what they do… take their natural course! So then what’s in our hands? To do good and forget. Maybe good things don’t always happen to good people – again a matter of destiny – but good always does beget good, and nothing bad will happen to you for a good deed you do.
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