Don't let go of your Angels

All of us are running, everyday, from morning to night. Running after something, or in some cases, after someone :P. While the second might not be a healthy practice, the first definitely is, since it gives an essence to our life, a purpose, a path.

While on this path, we tend to meet people, good people, bad people and amazing people also, horrible people. To move forward smoothly, we need to take care of all these people, adjust them into various roles which they play to make our life complete. Everyone has their own very specific role in our life, big or small, positive or negative. Then there are those people, who are the constant presence, the people who make up the support system I talked about in the last post. These people are the ones who take care of us, while we take care of all the others in our life. What we sometimes forget is that these rocks of our life, need to be taken care of too. They need and deserve our attention. And most often it is these people, who are ignored by us, forgotten because they are taken for granted.

Sure sometimes we don't like certain qualities they possess, they might be boring, or always wallowing, or irritable or judgemental or any other quality which you might consider a kill-joy. But they stand by you always, however irritating you might be to them. These people shield you from all things bad, they help make your life worth living. They kick bad influences out of your life and knock sense into you when you start going wild. They keep you feet on the ground so that you can keep your head in the clouds. They are your own personal angels, If there is a God (and I strongly believe there is) he sent these people as our own royal guard. And in just the same way, you are theirs, because in life, there are no one-way streets.

The biggest mistake we can do is, not give these people there due, because after a limit of ignorance by us, they might just decide to leave us to our fate, and if such a person is lost once, they are rarely gained back.

I never realised I was doing this very same mistake, till I got a taste of my own medicine. There is this person, who was with me during my most difficult times, and I started taking her for granted, when I finally realised what I had been doing, I knew no amount of words would be enough for an apology, still that is all I can do, and hope that it's not too late to make amends. Because when you do find out who your angels are, you should never let them go. 

Who Show Me My Rainbows

Navratri started two days ago, it is an Indian festival where we get idols of goddess durga and perform pooja and be all religious. It is a festival which leads up to Dussehra, a symbol of good winning over evil.

Anyway, this is not what I really want to talk about, and as it is, I am not an expert on festivals either. So, I saw the procession when the idol was being brought to where it was going to be kept for the next nine days. It was in a big truck kind of thing, I don't know what it's called. From the distance I could see, a beautiful idol, richly dressed and smiling all around. Standing tall amidst the procession even with all the lights flashing. I was awed by the majesty, the beauty, the power. I stood there entranced, unable to take my eyes off of her. All the while, the truck kept coming closer and closer. When it was right in front of me, I noticed two people, one on the side and one at the back, holding the idol steady, the jerky movement of the truck was making the idol oscillate violently and these two people were standing there precariously maintaining there own balance and supporting the idol.

What I am trying to say here is something which is much more relevant to our own lives.
You can't stand tall alone.
When you wish to do something big, or for that matter when you wish to do anything small also, you need support, you need people you can lean on, people you can trust, people who stick around with you. You need people who are willing to bend over backwards to help you, to support you. You would think, "yeah! who is going to do that for me? As if there are people in this world you can trust".
My response would be, well, look around. Do you see your family? In the fringes of your life somewhere, your family is always present. Your mom, your dad, your significant other, your siblings. You may have a thousand fights with them, you may not get along a lot, one or the other or all of them hurt you or ditched you sometime,but when one ditched you, the other had your back. They may not always be present, they may not always treat you right, but hey, they are your go-to people. They will stand by you when all else fails. Not all of them, not all the time. But at least some of them, some of the time. All of this can be applied to friends too, if you are lucky enough to find good ones.

You know why it is difficult to find good friends? Because the people can't accept one another as they are, they wish to look for something perfect, I think that's the reason marriages so often fail. Accepting people as they are, is the key to lasting bonds, where you don't judge, you just love, not the imperfections, but the tiny little perfections in a person.

So, coming back, you need to recognise the group of people who are supporting you in your jerky truck, and you need to value them. Value them and support them right back. Because I don't think you would want your support system to become sloppy.

People will say, I don't need anybody, I can do things all on my own. They couldn't be more wrong. I spent a lot of time trying to do just that. Couldn't have been more horrible a failure. And then it struck me, while I proclaimed that I was doing everything on my own, it couldn't have been any bigger a lie. Because I had my family right beside me, and I didn't even consider them people! They were my support, and I didn't recognise it, I won't be able to take a single step without my support. Because it is easy to say I can manage on my own when things are going good or even okay, it's when the waters are troubled that you can't manage on your own, when you need you support.

To reach the top of the pyramid, you need someone to be the base, you need your equipment, you need your stabilizers. Alone, you are just a drop of water, with others, you can fill up a bottle (come on, no one has a support system as big as an ocean :P )

You need help, you always will, you just need to find out who the people are who are those pillars who hold your roof, who are the shoulders carrying you to a pedestal, who are the prisms giving you the rainbows.

The view from my bus window

There are few things in life which are so difficult to understand. They are complex and they are present everywhere, which makes it easy to just look past them, to avoid the mind-boggling.

During my internship, I took the city bus to work everyday, and that was all I needed to see one very very weird phenomenon. The phenomenon of progress. That city is supposed to be one of the most progressive in India. If progress means everyone owning a cell phone and using it to listen to their favorite songs during commute, then yes, there was progress. But if progress means everyone sharing an ideology, a changing ideology, that everyone has access the same set of resources which have been made available to the people, then I can't say there was progress.

The 'supermarket culture', as I like to call it, where everything can be found at supermarkets and people do not look beyond that, is limited to some people. The people with a higher strata of income, the people who live in housing societies and bungalows. There is another section of people, a significantly larger one, for whom this remains something beyond their reach. The resources available to the public are of two kinds, the ones influenced by the increasing western culture, monopolized by the jeans wearing population and the other being traditionally Indian, belonging to the older ways.

I don't know which kind is better, and it is not for me to decide either. But what's observable is the social disparity led by an economic disparity in India. To one side of the road is the big superbazaar, to the other, a sabzi-mandi and some privately owned shops. This is not where the problem lies, the problem lies in the fact, that the people using one do not use the other, they cannot or would not use the other side of the road. We take our 'supermarket culture' from the west, but we don't take their equality of people. In the west, even the hired help of a supermarket buys from the supermarket.

Progress does not only mean new investments and big brands. Progress means that new whatever is available, is available to everybody. If we don't take the entire nation forward together, there is no point to progress. it is like taking your head somewhere leaving your body behind. And you know what happens when you do that, your body falls apart and dies.

What I am trying to say here is that what all is reality for some people, still remains a dream for others. What is basic necessity for some people, still remains a luxury for others.

And when analysed, everything boils down to one thing, population. So many people, so many mouths to feed. Surplus human resource, but no manager. Services provided by one, are given cheaper, by another.

I don't know what the solution to this large scale problem is, but I think more people should pay attention to it, because it is known to everybody, we just choose to ignore it, thinking, this is not my problem alone but if it is your country's problem, aren't you, in some small way bound to help solve it?

All this, I could see, just sitting in the city bus during my internship, the professionals see this everyday. Well, it's time everyone had a really good look around and try to make a change, towards a less unequal country, towards a more progressive nation. 

Dear Girls

Dear Girls,

I have some very cliched advice to give you. Be yourself. Everyone today is telling everyone else to be themselves. You would think, what's the big deal? So, I be a little fake, who isn't now-a-days. I would say, truly said, but it's that fakeness precisely which is holding you back. Holding you back from happiness. Because when you are fake, people can see it, they can tell you are not being yourself, and trust me, that causes a lot of misery.

I know this girl, she is the kindest, sweetest, most intelligent girl I have ever met. She is very beautiful too. But she is a tomboy, or tries to hide behind it. She would love to dress up and look good and be appreciated, but she doesn't. And sometimes you can sense that that's what she wants but is scared. I think she is scared of not being taken seriously as a person if she does that. I don't really know the reason, but I can see that she is holding herself back. If she just is herself without fear and guilt and whatever else she feels, she will probably blast everyone and every stereotype out of her way and be the happiest and most content person around.

Because when you are not being yourself, you are scared, not confident, shy, and then you try to hide behind someone you are not, and that is bad for you, really bad.

There is this other girl I know, she really is herself all the time (well, most of the time). She is her own kind of person, with elements of tomboyishness and girlishness. She can speak for hours on sports and she has a great fashion sense. She is not scared of who she is, or of not being liked. She is the most popular girl in her college (goes without saying, doesn't it?).

See, the importance of being your own kind of person cannot be emphasized enough. You need to be exactly who you are, without restrictions on yourself. The world needs originals, copies can be manufactured in factories. And it's the originals who change the world. And the world needs changing. The world will always need changing and you can't do it unless you embrace your own self first. Be unapologetic for who you are, or what you like. 

But there is one thing you need to remember, being your own self should not be destructive for others. You can say that I identify with being a burglar, so I am a burglar and I don't apologize for it (now, that would be something worth watching :P), Your values, your beliefs, your self should be such that it enhances you without damaging others. Your freedom ends at the point where another person's freedom begins.

And you should not just embrace yourself, but also others for who they are, because there is some magic, some good, inside everyone. What you see in a person is a direct result of your equation with the person. Even the Indian Gods,when angered, tend to be evil and irrational. Everyone has their own brand of good in them, you should try to see it, and let them be, just like you should let yourself be. Don't judge yourself, love yourself.

Although this is true for everybody but it is more important for girls because I see that girls have more self-image and self-confidence issues than guys. Don't have issues with your own self, it's perfect. 

Be you, unapologetically.

Love,

plain_jane

Parents

I have been struggling with this post for days now. I am unable to understand how to begin, not sounding too cliched yet making my point. This thing that I want to say is so very close to my heart that I don't know if I know the words to do a full justice to it. Needless to say, it revolves around something very uncool, parents.

Parents, love them, hate them but you can't ignore them. People don't get along well with their parents, specially during the teenage. When parents are the essential enemy. Sure they are irrational sometimes, like my mother and her fears for my safety. Her assumption that every innocent guy I pass during the day is out to abduct me. Sometimes it irritates me, but then I realise she is only being my mom. Other parents have other irritating habits, and we tend to hate them for that. In fact, not fours years ago, I couldn't wait to leave the house for good.

Do this, do that, talk like this, don't laugh like that, it was getting on my nerves. I thought any place in the world had to be better than this. So, I took the first opportunity out, and boy! there was a tectonic shift in my perspective of things. Without my safety net, my parents, I was scared of everything. And they knew I was scared, so they stood by me and helped me. I had hated them, and they knew it, yet they helped me. They helped me stand on my own two feet and face the world. 

Recently, a friend's father fell majorly ill, while he is on the road to complete recovery and every time the news is steadily better, I saw very closely, the shock, the fear and most importantly the impact of such a life or death event of a parent. It is nothing you can ever think of. Even the thought of losing a parent is earth-shattering. Even if you are not on the best terms with them, they will always continue to remain the most prominent presence in your life.

As our parents get older, they can't always keep up with the world. They are not what they used to be twenty years ago. And sometimes we think, they are so stupid, why can't they do this, it is so simple. But they patiently taught us to ride a bike and a car, when they thought it was so simple.

They know what's happening to them, but they won't admit it, because they know we are not ready for it. We are not ready for our parents to grow old. We are not ready to see them incapacitated and frail. Because that would mean the loss of that protective shield, the safety net. We are not ready to let go of the idea that our parents are invincible. But they are not. And love them or hate them, it's time for us to protect them.

Being a kid again

I know my blogs are becoming increasingly about my own life, but that's where I draw most of my insights. So, I tend to be biased and personal in my blogs.

So, here is what I want to say this time, don't grow up too fast.

Recently, a list was put up in my department detaining the students having less attendance. There was a process with quite a bit of paperwork to get out of the detention which most people followed, after all, who wants detention?

But it sent a loud and clear message to the students that the days of their tyranny were over. They had to toe the line and attend classes. Everybody was disgruntled of course.

For the past few days, my class has seen unprecedented attendance rise. Almost seventy percent of the class has been coming. And surprisingly enough, those three days have been few of my happiest in college. Now, you would say I lead a sad little life to be happy about this but there is something about a full class which makes you forget your miseries.

The constant buzz, the jokes on each other, the talking to people sitting ahead and behind you, the very mundane things. These ordinary things seem special to me, because they remind me of school. It reminded me of those carefree days where the goal of coming to class was having fun with the people who were inaccessible otherwise (friends staying far).

Our professors put this rule for their own good reason but what it has done is remind me that I am still a kid. I was so busy trying to grow up, that I forgot to enjoy the few years left to me of still being considered a kid. Once out of college, everyone will be considered a responsible adult. You have to be on time, be disciplined, maintain your own life, earn money, support families. This change is expected immediately after you leave college, so we drive ourselves crazy preparing for it. Filling our resumes with new and important stuff that we do, trying to cram a lot of stuff in our college years to make ourselves an asset to our future company.

What we become in the process are cynical people, who blame the system for pointless assignments, abuse our teachers for their incompetency, find that attending classes is a waste of the precious time which could be used to strengthen job prospects. While all that is true, their is one essential thing we forget, we are still kids. That going to classes is fun if everyone comes. Yes, people hang out with their friends all the time, spending time with people who mean something to them. But the countless meaningless people who fill up our classrooms are what make the classes fun for us. For many of us sad people, that's the only place a few laughs come from.

I can see the change is so good, I enjoy coming to class again. it's not the monotonous drone of a professor now, it is a place where I laugh, on others and myself. A place filled with a positive buzz. A place so much like my home of twelve years, my school, where I had some of the best days of my life.

I don't know what others think, but I think the professors have given me a gift, a gift to be a carefree kid, for the very last time.

Home

Home.
What is the definition of home?
What comes into the category of home?
Probably the place where your loved ones are, the ones who stay by you even when you are at your worst. The place where unconditional love is found.
One such place is you childhood home, the place where you grow up.
I recently had a wave of nostalgia when I visited my home, the place where I spent my childhood. Where my school was. My school is still there, but it has changed. The building is same, the people have changed. I don't recognise any face there anymore. That made me sad. No semblance of familiarity remained. The teachers were different. I know my teachers moved to bigger and better schools and I know where a few of them are but that I would never see them again with a familiar blackboard behind them made me feel that something is missing. That part of my life, of me, is gone and all that's left behind is memories. Some memories I wince from, but would never trade anything to forget them.

My city has changed too. Big roads, big malls. It has always been changing, progressing, but it never felt so stark when I lived there. Things change, sometimes so much so that it is difficult to compare them to what they used to be. My favorite ice cream shop shut down, and my friend who used to live right across from it moved to some other place, got married, had kids (she is much older than me). So many new restaurants and eateries opened up that I lost track. What used to be a single road with a railway line obstructing it's functioning every now and then, has given way to a flyover with cars zooming through it.

My point here is, things change, and keep changing whether you witness them or not. There is change everywhere, even in us. We keep evolving, that is why people change. Transience is the very nature of life. Trying to grab on to things and trying to keep them that way is futile. Beautiful moments are etched in memory and are beautiful because they cannot be repeated. You find friendships in life and you lose them, because you evolve differently. No two people can evolve the same. If you want to hold on to people you have to embrace the change. And sometimes, letting go is best.

You will find no person or place the same as you left them, that is why the concept of home is so abstract. It raises the issue, if everything is changing, home will also change. Yes, the people who make your home will change, they will evolve, but so will you, and if the bond is worth it, your home will embrace you and make you a part of their life.

The day I left home, I stopped being the constant presence, the people left behind fell into a pattern which functioned without me. They didn't need me yet they needed me. They could live without me, but I constituted their home just as they constituted mine. So when I go back, I feel like a misfit in perfect harmony. Because all of us have changed, but somehow we all align perfectly to make the jigsaw complete.

I guess home is, where you depend on people by choice. Where you trust people completely and where you are always a part of each other's evolution. Where geography doesn't tear you apart. And where it is not a-phone-call-a-day kind of commitment but the I-got-your-back kind of commitment. As someone very wise once said, "Home is where the heart is".

My worst enemy

For really long I have blamed so many people for so many things that I have done or felt. Back at school, there was a time, till fifth grade, when I was so confident, so smart, I would get things done, I was not afraid of making enemies, I understood little and said a lot. I was opinionated, I was me.

Somewhere between sixth grade to eighth grade, I got a lot of new ideas into my head. I stopped believing in myself, started doubting my ideas. The worst thing was, I started believing something horrible. That fat people were not people. They didn't deserve to live like a normal person. That a fat girl couldn't be girly and neither could she be tomboyish. Subliminally, I held on to that belief for almost 10 years. Till now.

I grew up thinking at I was a different species, someone to be made fun of, someone who could never shine. I believed I was a non-being. I would be scared to spend time in front of the mirror, because who was I fooling? I could never look good. I yearned to get accepted by people, when I never really accepted myself. All through school, I labeled myself unworthy and lamented that people were mean to me, when I was being the meanest to myself. I tried to excel in whatever I did, and was better than 80% of my class in everything I did, yet nobody accepted me, specially the girl inside me. She would always be like, you won't fit-in ever, you were not meant to fit-in, the perpetual failure, the lesser one of the two sisters, you are not even a girl, no one knows who you are, you probably don't deserve to live or be happy.

I don't know when or how I got this into my head, I kept blaming the world for so long, when the devil really was inside me. I was my worst enemy. Subconsciously, I kept believing that I could never be good enough, that if I wasn't thin like the girls on T.V. and in movies, my existence didn't matter, I would always be a social reject. Worst part is, I didn't even realise that I felt this way till very recently. That I could have avoided all the torture and agony, that it was all in my head.

 But now that I know it, I can change it. I have learnt that most of my demons hide right inside me, that I am my worst enemy and I can change it and be my best friend. Because acceptance is the first step towards change. I wanted to share this today because like me, many people are their own worst enemies, they put themselves down in the worst way possible and don't even realise it. But when you do realise it, you hold the power. When you stop blaming others for the way you are and realise that it has been you all along, you take the power to mold your life, back into your hands. You learn to forgive yourself, you learn to appreciate yourself. You encourage yourself and you motivate yourself because now the voice inside of you is not critical of you, it is supportive of you, because you made it to be that. And in the process, you become your best friend. Your life is all about you, your mind, your body and how you decide to live with it, as it's worst enemy or best friend.

So, think well and choose wisely, because it is you and only you, which can cause you a life full of joy and love or a lifetime of misery.

Worst Day Ever

Have you ever felt that you are having the worst day of your life?
You wake up in the morning, full of hope and enthusiasm, you want the day to be perfect, you have it all planned out and then Bam! Your sandals are broken, so you say fine, I will wear the ugly ones.

Refusing to dampen your spirit, you go about your day, every small thing keeps going wrong, you don't get cold water to drink, you are late for class and are picked on by the teacher, you forget the notebook, and much more.

Eventually you decide, that maybe today is not going to be that great, so you settle for it being average. Fine, everything can't be perfect. But things keep going downhill for you, you end up feeling lost and lonely, good things happen to your friends and not you, someone else is given credit for your work, someone less deserving gets the big raise you wanted, no one understands you are upset. In short, the day is a nightmare.

So, you do what comes most naturally, you lock yourself up in your room and cry. You cry and cry till tears come no more. You blame the world for all your problems, nothing goes right for you ever, you shout, you cry your heart out. Your nose is running, you are sobbing uncontrollably, your eyes are swollen... and then you know, that you are done. You have taken the sting out of the pain. The party is over and it's time to clear up after. You are sad, but now it's just a phase, your mind is clear and you know what to do next. Your heart is not in it but your brain tells you to snap out of it. You set about working mechanically when your phone rings, it's mom!!

You pick up and talk as normal as possible, in a second she knows something is wrong and before you know it, you are pouring your heart out, she comforts you and makes your heart swell with love for her, which dulls the pain a bit. Now you are more into things although you wish the day would just get over. Then when you have lost any hope that something could go right today you get an IM, it's one of your classmates, he says, "hey, I read your blog today, you write well, let me know about further posts yeah?"

And, just like that, the entire day turns around. Now what's so special about that sentence?
Well it's a nearly honest opinion, because you didn't ask for his opinion, he liked what he read and decided to mention it to the author. A struggling author, with no presence in the literary world. What a compliment means to such a person is beyond happiness. You wish to reach out, and you are able to, it's the best feeling in the world!

You realise that pain is constant, suffering is optional (borrowed line, apologies for not knowing the real author), you realise you will hurt, but that you will be happy too. And just when you think you are happy finally, it's time for bed.
You look forward to tomorrow. Maybe, it could be the perfect (bad) day you have wanted for some time now. You can't really lose hope, can you?

Women who Inspire

At home, we have a household help, a woman who cooks for us. I just love the tadka daal she makes, whenever I go home, I insist on she making it. Incidentally, where I currently live happens to be her hometown. So, whenever I am home, she asks about the weather, the place, every general thing that comes to her mind.

When she got married she came to my hometown, she had a decent marriage I think, I don't know much about that. What I do know is, after a brief period of married life and two kids, her husband died. I don't know why, I never asked my mum, and my mum knows everything about everybody (and doesn't gossip about it, coz she is a decent woman). Ever since I have known her, she has been a widow who works at four places to earn money. 

After her husband died, she took the responsibility of her entire family, old in-laws, an unmarried sister-in-law and two young kids.With her father-in-law's support, she took this brave step and decided to support her husband's family like her own, well, it is her family too, because this crazy thing about marriage is, you end up having two families. 

Her problems didn't end there, in fact they just started, her sister and mother-in-law were vicious to her, like it was her fault that her husband died. They would make life hell at home for her. she wouldn't have survived there had it not been for her father-in-law. He was her rock, he would veto everything in her favor whenever he could, even then they two found petty ways to hurt her. She would work from 6 in the morning to 9:30 at night to provide for those people who made her life hell. At times I felt like asking her why did she tolerate them, she could easily leave them to their fates, but I knew what she would say, they were her family, her father-in-law, her kids it's for them that all this was worth it.

Years passed and the viciousness diluted some, then one day, she came to my mum, crying. This is the first time I had seen her cry. I found out later what had happened. Her father-in-law had passed away a few months back, naming their house in her name and from that house, her sister-in-law had thrown her out, forbidden her to meet her children and asked her to not come back. 

I was flabbergasted! Was this even possible? 

She being a resourceful woman had found for herself temporary arrangements. My mother told her that if the house was legally hers nobody could throw her out and that she should go and stay there. Eventually, she did that and for once, sized down her sister-in-law a bit, her problems have toned down a little since then while not dying away altogether. 

Through all this, this woman has shown an enormous amount of courage and strength. Everyday she would work with full dedication, never once did she take leave. She smiles all the time, she has an easy laugh which is always on her lips. She has raised two nice kids who are getting proper education, and she makes awesome tadka daal. 

I have grown to respect and admire her. She is one woman who is my hero. She has not done anything extraordinary maybe, neither is she very erudite, to so many other houses where she works, she is just their cook, but she is so much more than that. She is an inspirational story to me. She is in my list of women who inspire. There are so many more in my life. They are the women who worry about me, who want me to be better than what I am today, they are the ones I hate sometimes but also the ones I will always look up to. These are the strong women who are shaping the society more than anyone else. Everybody will have them in their vicinity, homes, offices or other places, because these are the everyday women who make a difference.

Hello World

Hi,

This is my first post to this blog. I decided to start posting from Independence day (15th August), a great day to begin penning free thought. But disciplined as I am, I couldn't :P . I want to write about everything under the sun. Everything which affects people. Everything which does not. From the orange-blue shades of dusk sky to the current state of politics, everything that provokes thought. Because thought is food for the brain. And thought is what makes man different. Thought is what brings about emotion and thought is what brings about change. Thought is what creates opinion and thought is what defies stereotype. Thought is what keeps us alive and thought is what gives us the drive.

Thinking is something everyone should do, because that's where brainwaves are born. And so I will write as I think and think as I write, as I gain experience and live my life. This is my first post to this blog and I try to keep it interesting. There will be many more and I hope you think they are engaging.
A big Hello to everyone, keep your smiles on because with a smiling heart beautiful lives are born.

Namaste!