Pocketful of Sunshine

After completing my grad with a degree in media I somehow just felt it did not fit. Even before I could give myself a chance to think of "what now", I encountered a series of life changing events. Almost as if the course of life altered. Life did not give me a chance to ask myself "what now". It had so much in store for me that I was blown over. :-)

Suddenly I was practising Bharatanatyam, something I was dying to start all over again ever since I completed Visharad years ago! It was probably life's way, rather a brilliant to throw surprises at me. All I had to do was to be there at the right time with my mind open to welcome all that was there for me to accept.

A year later I was getting increasingly anxious to get back to studies and so I secured admission in MA with English Literature. Being fully aware I was delving into an unknown territory I was somehow trying to find means to get on track with the studies as "Prose and Poetry" was the only text to come under literature I had ever studied that too in high school!

It came to my notice that I could attend lectures if I wished to and I did exactly that. Attending university in a new city was such a new and different experience! A whole new world opened before me. People of my own age; so similar yet so different. I made it a point to leave behind stereotypes and enter that new space with a blank mind. George Orwell has said, " The eye sees only what the mind is prepared to comprehend."

I was never bad at making friends and so struck a good chord with quite a few people. Due to other responsibilities I shoulder I cannot always make it to attending lectures regularly. I feel fascinated by literature. I feel at a loss of words to describe how I exactly feel to be back again in the company of books. And this time around reading, understanding different stuff from Mark twain, Rushdie or AynRand. I've devoured Richard Bach, Brain Weiss, Rushdie(my fav), Ayn Rand, Pupul Jaykar, Arundhati Roy and many more. But its a different kind of a high to read archaic literature and the way Shakespeare speaks of love or revenge or the way Elliot manipulates her characters. There is so much out there to know and understand, so much more than one can think of. I have barely begun and it feels amazing already!

 Someone said that 'books are the windows to the world' and after a considerably long hiatus from books it feels awesome, as if I've finally gotten my pocketful of sunshine. :-)

Stop wearing your wishbone where your backbone ought to be.

For too long now, I have been cribbing. Grumbling away way too much. Inside my head ofcourse! I have always felt that I could have had the best of things in life but then I did not have them! I could have fulfilled all my dreams but they weren't! I could have done all I ever wanted to do but then I never did! Why?

I blamed circumstances for what I was. Freud called it 'defence mechanisms'. To know the reality is different from facing it. Far more difficult and demanding. I was always told how creative I was since childhood. An honest declaration would be that I have always been more of a fantasising kind of a person. Barely ever practical!

I tend to imagine how things in my life should take place, possible conversations, fulfilling my desires. But all this happens only in my head! Then I gape at people around who have it all.( all that I wish for myself.) And then I curse life for being cruel to me!

But recently I have had eye-opening experiences. I recall the words of a close friend, "I am my own destiny". So true. It seems clearly that the time has come for things to start taking shape, for unfulfilled dreams to come true, for long been left blanks to be filled.
Without much difficulty I accept that at core I am indolent. It is very addictive. To push yourself out of your comfort zone is easier said than done.

So it's time I guess to wrap up the covers that have long hidden my dreams beneath them and head to see them take shape!

I don't believe in circumstances anymore. To get on in this world, one has to get up and look for the circumstances they want. And if they cannot be found, they'd rather be made!

State of Mind!

There’s a difference between ‘giving space’ and ‘spacing out’. People can be rather funny when they start to space themselves out. There are times when confusion gets the better of me. It feels like I am lost in the middle of nowhere.

I gasp to breathe but there’s no air. I try to reach out with my arms but emptiness pushes them back. My mind tries to calm down but an unexpected intense void tenses it.

Suddenly my pores start sticking close to each other and in moments my whole being starts to cling on to its self so tightly that I feel Fix-ed.

I try. Nothing moves. Within me a surge of perplexity roars like a sea caught in a storm shadowed by dark clouds. I try to turn to my right. I can’t. I try again to turn to my left. I still can’t. I try to say something. Useless. My mouth refuses to open. Everything I try to do turns out ineffectual. I feel as if I have been chained. Trapped in a manner so horribly scary that all I can do is see. My eyes wide open, the only part of me that escaped!

They see everything around me from right to left. With all my force I try to flutter them but not a thing changes. Helplessness engulfs my being inside out.

Alarm rings and I open my eyes. I stop the alarm and take a deep breath. Looking around I notice it is 2:00 a.m. I think to myself. No, there are no thoughts. Everything: Point Blank. I get inside my blanket and go to sleep. My body is subconsciously asleep but my mind still lies awake and still. It refuses to move. Paralysed I continue to struggle with my own being.