You're only young once...

So the 23rd year came and went and here we are on the doorstep of 24. I am done with graduation, pursing post grad, working and dancing (something I love doing the most), shouldering more responsibilities than I thought I would have at this age and I am married ! 

I used to be a somewhat insane person !! My insanity has gone for a toss!! It doesn't feel like me anymore. I am so much more practical and rational. 

I used to be so unorganized. (No debating allowed on that.)

Now I clean my cupboards every 2 weeks!

I use to sit quietly and ponder the universe and all its wonders

Now I wonder just where in the universe  the quiet went. 

I used to write poetry and sing songs.

Now I talk to myself and debate the TV.

I use to just go into my bathroom to do what I needed.

Now I have to perform covert ops to get there so I can be uninterrupted.

I used to eat meals and enjoy. I still do. 

I used to go out with friends and talk.

Now I blog and update on facebook.

I used to be able to think clearly.

Then I think, I just grew up!

From a Megacity to a SMALL city !!

Light and luxury have the power to fascinate anyone and everyone. A big city has a lot to offer ! Good scope, good standard of living, great exposure, better transportation, there are cinemas, restos,hotels, parks,recreation centres, universities, malls, patisseries, pubs, theatres and operas and the very famous rat race as well amongst many other things that one comes across int he big cities.

Yes, one would agree that a big giant city gives you the luxurious life with some candy floss to make it glossy IF and only IF you have " it " in you.This " it " factor basically the sparked and wild survival insticnt within. 'Survival of the fittest' is the only rule that one has to master to live successfully in a big city. In the contemporary times, we all have witnessed the gigantic flow of masses drift towatrds the big centres in search of jobs, career, education, money, luxury.

Somehow there are still some others left who desire to delve into the simpler pleasures of life that only a small city / town can offer.

Here are some great advantages of living in a small city :

• Great chance to make new friends. Small city, lesser people, more bonding !
• TIME. People always have time. Time to stop and talk. Time to do what they like.
• You can always trust your neighbours or other people be of help in case need arises. People are more concerned about one another and take good interest in one anothers' lives.
• You never have too much to travel to go anywhere, whether to school or college, or to shop, or even to work !
• There's always plenty of fresh air to breathe in !
• You can always sleep peacefully in the nights as late night transportaion frequency is lesser here.
• Country life gives you the chance to reconnect with nature and all that settles within it's abode.
• You can hear the birds in the trees, have huge backyards, gardens and a home which is a lot more than a 400 sq feet room!
• In the nights you can actually do stargazing unlike in the big cities where the city lights and pollution dispair the vision.

Lastly,if you are a person with an adapting nature and can take change easily,then going from the rat race life to a simplistic life in a small city might just work for you ! 

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. 

When I get lonely these days, I think: So BE lonely, D !

I am beginning to find myself. It is a means of self-discovery. It is a road less travelled, and I am not afraid of falling. I could fall, I would be wrong, but I need to have something so valuable. Myself.

I begin to wonder along the way. The multitude of roads beginning to make me believe in all possible directions. One moment, I think I am down and other times I feel lost. But keeping in mind the dawn of realization, the straying of mind is important too. Really... When I feel lonely and helpless, I now try to simply enjoy it and not try to fathom it out. Nothingness is a beautiful state of mind.

The world and its chaos seem a lot less trivial to me! And that's when I feel, free.
I am free. I'm on my way, to become the way I had decided to be. To be, me.

I'm not worried about failure or anxious about what might happen next. It is something I have long left behind. I can not go back. I will not go back.

Each tour that I take, covers along a new thing to think about. The road is never similar.

Its twists and turns and goes upstairs and down. Sometimes it is smooth and other times rough.

But sometimes, my heart beats fast when I think about these things. The adrenaline in my spine shoots high.
But I know, I am a believer. I gradually became entangled in a web. The Web that my mind has created. It is rather complex. I will not drag on it, but I will have to word hard and smart to get out of it, leaving it to rise above the horizon to have a clear vision.
I simply let go and dive into the nothingness that beckons clarity !

One

What is the purpose of existence? The first few drizzles of thoughts come down. Slowly, methodically, with logic backing them; the very first one being Darwin's speculation! the mind goes on with a series reasons: we live to learn and to earn, to work, and to live happily.. slowly the clouds of curiosity start to pile up the entire space of my mind.
I begin to wonder, why am I not contented?!

I decide not to force the answers out. I sit on the swing and while watching the traffic rush by I slowly begin to ponder at leisure. The mind gets pensive and it dawns to a realization that this is only a layer of illusion which has settled down on my understanding, the way dust settles down on the furniture which is kept shut inside a room for a long long time.

Even before I know, there is a downpour.

"Once there lived a village of creatures along the bottom of a great crystal river. The current of the river swept silently all over them- young and old, rich and poor, good and evil, the current going it's own way, knowing it's own crystal self.

Each creature in it's own manner clung to the twigs and rocks of the river bottom, for clinging their way of life and resisting the current what each had learned from birth.

But one creature said at last, 'I'm tired of clinging. Though I cannot see with my eyes, I trust that the current knows where it is going. I shall let go and let it take me where it will. Clinging I shall die of boredom.

The other creatures laughed and said, 'Fool! Let go and the current you worship will throw you tumbled and smashed across the rocks and you will die quicker than boredom!

but the one heeded them not, and taking a breath did let go, and at once was tumbled and smashed by the current across the rocks.

Yet in time, as the creature refused to cling again, the current lifted him free from the bottom and he was bruised and hurt no more.

And the creatures downstream to whom he was a stranger cried, 'See a miracle! A creature like us, yet he flies! See the messiah, come to save us all!'

And the one carried in the current said, ' I am no more messiah than you. the river delights to lift us free. Our true work is this voyage, this adventure.' (ref., Illusions The Adventures of a Reluctant Messiah, 1977, Pan Books)

Contentment looms over the horizon.

Can't Get Over The Full Moon Night ...

“Why do we close our eyes, when we pray, when we cry, when dream… because the most important things in life are not seen but felt by heart.”

In the instant that I read this sms, I smiled and nodded in agreement to myself, ‘how very true’.

Some moments assert that life is beautiful. They are so powerful; they can change the course of one’s life.

I had tears in my eyes. Suddenly, I felt so full of happiness. The cold breeze of November, brushed past my face. I held my shawl closer to keep myself warm. Standing on that boulder made of cement, on which also stood the shrine of Goddess Minal Devi, the world where I came from felt far far away. Suddenly, I was a part of another world. All I wanted to do then was to keep looking at the moon and soak in as much of that world as the seconds trickled by.

The moon- in its full magnitude and grandeur, felt so close, yet so distant!

The uninhabited hill surrounded by plains all around, abundant with cacti didn’t seem wild at all. My mind was at peace. Deep within me, I knew that this was a one-in-a-million experiences.

That moment came to stay. Today, while I think of it, it doesn’t feel like a memory. That night stirred something within me.

My whole body, from forehead to toes, was breaking free of form. The chain of thoughts that our brain forms mechanically were all breaking.

I knew nothing and I knew everything. I shut my eyes once again and a universe of possibilities unfurled itself.

Duality

I am confused. I am not used to this kind of behaviour. Perhaps I am, but that is not what is confusing me.

From what I have known so far, people, generally are manipulative. They generally are mean. They are egocentric. Yet in spite of being all these, at least they have a mind of their own! They can think for themselves. And I have been lucky enough to have met many who are of this kind.

But, you… no. You aren’t any of these. You are plain dumb!

And I am scared of dumb people. Simply because, they don’t have a mind of their own and can get easily drawn away. For e.g. you.

You, as I now think of you, aren’t (or rather weren’t) what I thought you were. You judge people on the basis of what others tell you and not on the basis of your impression of the people and that is what confounds me.

I never knew you possessed this quality too. You are a real surprise package!

At first I was only drawn towards you, but now I am totally drawn towards you. And that is because I am curious… I really really am… I can’t fathom you! How could I have missed seeing that you had put on a mask all this while?

It is unbelievable that I am actually affected by this behaviour of yours! Yes.. you are having an effect on me!

I can’t figure you out! ‘What’ are you?
Do what you feel like. Honestly, I have stopped caring. When you can’t even think for yourself, I am sorry, I cannot help you either! Go on, behave as you like and avoid me as much as you wish to, because I…. simply do not give a damn anymore.

Just one remorse, why was I so blind?