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!