Just About Everything

Some CRISIS- 20something!

2011-03-17T13:34:00.000-07:00

I want to write, but I don’t have a story. I want to sing but I don’t have a song. I want to capture so much, but I can’t see moments. There are impending decisions but I don’t want to stress myself with the process of deciding. I want answers and I have questions! And in the middle of all of this, I am laughing each day away, pushing all of this for another day.

There are tears that are waiting to fall, but I stop them there, right in my eyes behind my loud laughs. There are dreams that I had once nurtured, now when I am close to having all my dreams come true, I suddenly feel that they weren’t my dreams ever. Like I was forcing myself to believe that those were my dreams. Faced with reality today, I turn my face away, coz I am posed with so many questions and shit- I don’t have answers. I have notions, views, emotions- and I have my own contradictions for each of these notions, views, and emotions.

Every day is a battle within me. Every day I see me fighting with me. Every day, I also see myself avoiding these questions and choosing to laugh, gossip n bitch. But then there are also lonely nights, lonely travels to office and back home, lonely hours in my little cabin. And in my moments of loneliness, I wonder if I really need to do something about my life. Where is my life going, I need to plan coz my previous plans are wasted!! They were never my plans!! In the midst of my nonstop blabbers, there is a silent conflict inside me. In my very firm decisions, there are the same unanswered questions. While I dance madly, there is a madness waking up inside me. And then- I am not sure. Not at all!!

I know people I like, but then, maybe I don’t like them so much. There are people I trust and then I wonder if should have ever trusted them. I laugh with my friends and I wonder if they were really laughing. I doubt people I have trusted for ages. And I am not sure if I should have ever doubted them. Or if I should trust them still.

There are songs I love totally!! And then maybe I don’t want to listen to those songs again. I don’t know if I like what I like. I don’t know if I am happy doing all that I am doing- but I want to believe that I am happy with life. There is a whirlpool of thoughts, questions, and anarchy inside me. I find myself trapped in it. I want to come out- really.

I don’t know what should be important to me- money, fame or just following my passion. I am not sure what should I value more- care and love or freedom. Is giving unconditional? Is it coz it is supposed to be unconditional or is it coz it really is. I am torn between what is and what should be.

And again I feel like writing, but I don’t have a story, I feel like singing but I don’t have song, I feel like dancing but I don’t have a reason, I feel like flying – I don’t have wings. WHAT?? I don’t have wings??? Who the fuck cut them off!! No one did- I have ‘em!! I am going to fly!! Stop me and U cant!! And one day I should have all my questions answered- I wait! I wait for that day!

That Pink Page of My Life

2011-01-08T13:49:00.000-08:00

In the middle of all this excitement, I am just not excited!! It is dying in me... I can feel that it is fading away. I have reasons to celebrate but I just can’t see them. There are moments of apparent satiation, but I still can see the missing parts. I am close to happiness, but can’t reach it. I haven’t lived life in a while now, I haven’t admired myself in ages- I feel lifeless. There is so much time and yet I am running short of it.

I feel bored and boring- Have I grown up? Fuck – that growing up!! I was happier as a kid, at least I was excited all the time – for no reasons at all!! At least I didn’t hate looking into the mirror.

I dreaded growing up –coz I never wanted to be a boring person, coz I never wanted to just survive. It’s happening now and I am hating it- The pink pages of my life are turning grey- I want to stop this asap- I’ve been trying to – but I just find myself exactly where I started.

Like all that’s left in my life is to find enough time to sleep. Can I start finding time to live?? Sleep is however better. It is more exiting, dramatic, adventurous- At least I see stuff happening in sleep. It takes me away from this boring world- of who did what- and lets me live a non-existent life of just I, me and myself.

Can I swap life with sleep?? Or can life be as mesmerizing as slumber!! Can I go back o what life was a year back? Can I start flashing my real smiles? I want to be interested in me, I want to dance and sing, to talk and understand that I am awesome like I was!!

Why am I behaving like I suddenly grew up- there is irreverence of a kind- I don’t care anymore. I don’t want to take the pains to find out the whys and the whats- like I am in a world of my own – in house with shut windows. And I don’t feel like opening them – I don’t want the fresh air inside- or maybe I want it badly, I need it like I need oxygen and I am obviously dead coz I am not getting it. Or am I even trying hard enough… I don’t know. I am just sleeping through my life- I am ignoring the reality, I am just dreaming away every dream that I have. I am living those dreams in my sleep. Wake me up someone before it is too late- before I wake up like Rip Van Winkle, to realize that I am only obsolete for this world now!!

I WASN'T EVEN BORN DURING THE 'SUMMER OF '69' SO GOD GAVE ME THE 'SUMMER OF 2006'

2010-07-13T11:56:00.000-07:00

I am constantly living in my past these days. Remembering the good old days, I smile in my moments of loneliness. There is more of nostalgia running in my veins than the blood. I want to go back, run to the past, relive it and live just that. Those old photographs, those mark-sheets, the diaries are all now memoirs from the utopia that I have lived. I have an exciting present that I love to live but I have behind me a season, an age and a time that probably no good times can ever beat!! It is the summer of 2006- it was a complete life in all senses.

It was my second year in college and I had just about everything that I would have ever wanted from life. I was doing a course that I had wanted to do since I was in school, I was studying in a good Delhi University college and as opposed to the notion that I had nurtured all my life, I was actually loving being in an all girls’ college. I could see how liberating it was to be in a girls’ college- I could really be myself, we would sing songs aloud in choruses, we would laugh the loudest we ever could, we could dress up just the way we wanted to without worrying about attracting unwanted attention, we could talk about anything and everything and we never had to be soft while talking. Everyone was a friend, there was no enmity, no jealousy, no competition- we were a united class and we loved it that way!

Those three years were just amazing, and the summer of 2006 is special to me in particular because that was the summer that made me realise what a perfect life meant. I had literally lived utopia in those few months. I had scored well in my annual exams, I had time for everything- friends, love, family hobbies, had my closest pals around me, there were parties, shopping loads of fun and that was the summer I met love and then we met every day. I met my buddies everyday too. There were morning coffees at college accompanied by interesting conversations, there were aerobics classes that I missed every day to just chat n talk my life out, there were gossips and tea, classes that we bunked to go shopping, lectures we slept through, exams we never studied for, a class that was united, loads of time that I spent romancing my life's love, those totally “vella” times in chaupal, those awesome fests, those rides back home, sleeping through the way to college, clicking a zillion pictures a day and posting them on Hi5 and Orkut (facebook was new to us then). There was passion for profession, there was a budding and a very inspired journalist in each one of us, there was independence, there was egalitarianism of a sort and pseudo-feminism that we took pride in. There were dreams we wanted to live not knowing that we were living the most beautiful of our dreams ever!!

There was college in the morning, romance in the day, friends in the evening and family at night. Everything was so complete and satiating about those days, that time and that year.

And seasons changed. And with every new season there was a new reason to feel complete. There was scorching heat and there was a lot of style in the campus, there were no A/Cs in DU but there was a breeze of fresh air. Then there were rains and the dances in the rain during college fests. There were pretty dates, there was love and there were kisses in the rain. Monsoons gave way to winters, and there was a chill in the air. There was hope for a brighter day and there was a lot of anticipation. There were layers over layers of woolens and if that didn’t suffice there were warm hugs from love. Soon it was spring and there were roads covered with flowers. There were was perfect weather and perfect company. There were more fests, more parties and life came full circle.

That was my perfect year, My perfect dream that I could live because I found so many right people around me. Here’s a big thanks to all those people who made that year wonderful and cheers to that summer that will always remain one of the most beautiful ones in my diary of nostalgia!!

THE RAVANAS THAT WE ARE

2010-03-24T10:58:00.000-07:00

OMG!! Yes I say OMG- coz I don’t know how many people am I. How many people are all of us? We are never just one person … each one of us has many persons living within us, some of them oozing out in our personalities while most of them living silently inside us. It’s only unfortunate that we ignore those silent people- not realizing that though they are silent, they have the potential to talk, and talk very loud at that.

I see that I am not just one but I am many- I am a crowd if I may say so. There is a loud, chirpy, passionate, happy me and then there is a very serious, emotional and a deep me too. So who am I? Am I the happy-go- lucky smile on my face or am I the tear in my eye when I see a little kid begging? Am I the loud laugh or am I the silent fear? Am I just that dreamer or am I the go getter? Who am I? And I don’t know who am I!

And yes, no doubt there is a writer in me, a budding journalist too. But then there is a mad dancer in me too, I see an artist inside me that wants to paint a picture that probably no one would understand. There is clarity and there is abstraction. In the midst of all these MEs, I still search for the real ME. I am lost in a crowd of my own many selves and I search within so many people for the one that I am.
I am confused! And I am sure too. Who knows me better, the one who thinks I am just a pleasant person who doesn’t care damn about anything or the one who thinks I am a deep thinker, an illogical dreamer? Whom should I depend on? The one who tells me to be mature or the one who wants to be mature like me? Who is it that understands me, the one who understands my writings or the one who understands my jokes?

And I wonder if my identity is really my identity? Am I the writer, the dancer, the counselor, the budding journo or am I the one who wants party all her life? And these questions would never end, they would keep increasing just like the people inside me. This confusion has some clarity, but the clarity itself is confused.

They ask me about me, and I am lost in anarchy. Ask me what I like, and I might like it now and hate it tomorrow. I like watching films but I don’t like the idea of wasting 3 hours sitting in front of a screen, I find that unproductive and yet I regret not being able to watch some films. I like to sing but I am not a fan of my voice. I like to paint but only once in a blue moon. I love to sleep only to wake up and hate the fact that I wasted time sleeping. I like winters but I hate the chill, I like the roads but I am scared of them.

I am a paradox, I am the irony. I don’t know who I am but I am glad that I know who WE are. I may not be clear about the individual that I am but I understand very deeply the crowd inside me. May be that is what all of us are- we are full of contradictions, dichotomies and questions about our own selves. We all have multiple capabilities, we all can be so many things at the same time but then why do we chose to be just one? We are all Ravanas in our own ways, with many faces but we all want to have only one face, unlike Ravana. Just the way we burn Ravana’s effigies, we also often chose to burn all the other faces that we have.

But we must not forget that Ravana was also one of the most intelligent persons of his time and that was because he let all the 10 Ravana’s inside him live. He had 10 faces and he was a proud owner of them.

Sunscreen and Shades

2010-03-21T13:12:00.000-07:00

Of course there are words … so what if they are all mine? I am glad you listen and not just hear, coz people will laugh at my jokes without understanding the depth of what I say, without knowing that what I say isn’t a joke. I am damn serious when others think it was an attempt to be funny.

Yes there is drama about me… yes I talk mostly and mostly I talk, Yes I love myself and I live to love. I might sound random but I am just honest. Those who don’t understand me don’t even need to make that effort- I don’t need them… Those who know me can understand why I laugh or cry when there seemingly is no reason- they are the ones who understand the madness in me.

I don’t talk coz I have nothing better to do, but I talk because I think talking is the solution to every problem, It helps me understand people, it helps me understand me.

I laugh loud and the whole world can hear me when I laugh. Those who don’t like the way I laugh can learn how to (laugh) from me. And those ever constipated faces – those epitomes of frustration – just stay away. If you can’t make me feel happy about the life that I have, then u better not know me.

And then there is music that leads to greater madness. Take me into that world- it is no longer here, it’s only in music and that’s all where it is. There is music and there are dreams. And there is Hope. Hope is why we are alive, hope is why I laugh, hope is why I can love and hope is why we breathe.

There is craziness in the air as much as there is love, there is a tinge of heat and I have applied ample sunscreen. There are leaves falling off from trees and I believe they are being showered upon me, there are roads covered with flowers and I know that’s god’s way of making my journey beautiful. It’s all like a beautiful dream, like a dream that I live, like this life that I have is a book being written and there are beautiful lines for everything that I do or say. Those lines are waiting to be written, and one day I shall write them down.

If life really is a dream, then it better be a dream in the spring or the summers. I like it sunny. I like it hot!! It’s brighter, with rays of hope around than a dull day with only shady clouds. And then for heat, as I said, there’s always sunscreen n shades.

I can live on oxygen but I would rather live on love. I can quench my thirst with water, but I’d rather drink positivity and let it flow in my veins … mix it with the blood that makes me and allow optimism to keep me going.

I would cry this moment and the next second you might see me laughing louder than anyone ever can. It’s not like pain just vanished away in a second, it’s just that I chose to ignore it and focus on anything that can make me smile. I don’t like my face when I cry, and like every other person I like to look good. I know that I don’t have the prettiest smile nor does my smile add any aesthetic value to my face, but it probably makes me look happier and keep the air around me pleasant.

I often feel like a bubble that floats in the air, that aims to go higher and just moves with the flow of air. And often I feel like the bubble because it is vulnerable, fragile and delicate. It’s like a sphere of life, full of transparency leaving no scope for hypocrisy. And finally, I feel like a bubble coz a bubble is vivacious-it’s too “Bubbly”.

And a bubble like me would probably never burst, coz it has so much care, love and protection around it. If you think I sound crazy, I think you’re just as normal as every other boring person on earth.

For me, sun only shines bright, it never gets harsh and for those scorching hot summer days, there is always "Sunscreen and Shades!!"

Are Delhi Girls Uniformly Trendy ??

2010-01-26T04:43:00.000-08:00

“All Delhi girls look the same from behind” I heard an engineer from Calcutta say this. Now this was one of the most interestingly vague comments I had ever heard about Delhi women. Being a Delhi girl I was forced to ask him to explain this very intriguing statement he had made. He was more than happy to explain, as though he was just waiting for someone to ask for an explanation and bingo! – he got the opportunity he was looking for. He went on to explain, “You know you all look the same. All Delhi women have straight hair, they all wear straight skinny jeans, they all wear long tops/sweaters and now they all also wear boots. I don’t know how one Delhi girl would be different from another in terms of looks and style.” WOW – now that was some discovery!! I never ever thought of this before.

Though a little exaggerated, his statement wasn’t completely untrue. In Delhi, we are all very very stylish and following trends is something we take very seriously- yeah sometimes we take it more seriously than our jobs too. But what we don’t realize is that we are all ‘Uniformly Stylish’- or are we? With every new trend, our uniforms change but they still remain uniforms. That’s what trends do to us. If last summer we all sported colorful chappals, skinny jeans in darker hues, racer tops in bright colors, this winter it was all about fur and boots, long tops and tights. There was undoubtedly some kind of uniformity in our individual styles.

But in our collective defense, I would also like to add that though an outsider might see a certain kind of uniformity in out styles, we are still uniquely trendy in our own individual fashions . Though we all sport straight hair, we sport different haircuts- they range widely from fringes and razors to plain long hair or steps. Also our seemingly similar skinny jeans vary greatly, while some women would prefer plain jeans in basic blue, some would sport darker colors and the very daring ones would also be seen in embellished skinny jeans.

Now let’s come to this season. Yes I agree we’ve been completely nuts over boots. We have worn boots like never before but that doesn’t mean we all had the same boots all the time. Our boots were of all kinds – leather, suede, patent and other stuff. Our styles in boots differed too. Some women sported heals, some liked gum boots while a large number were very comfortable in their stiletto boots.

So though, in Delhi, we like to follow trends religiously, we know how to maintain our individualities through our own different styles. From a long shot we might all look the same but look at us in close-ups and you’ll know how each one of us is novel n distinct in our ways. We are trendy- very very trendy at that! But, we are not really uniform!! Following fashion trends is just like a way of life for most of us and that’s the only similarity between all Delhi women and their styles.

Masquerading As the Connector, Enabling the Disconnect

2009-11-28T11:24:00.000-08:00

“What’s on your mind” says the status bar on my facebook profile. Before I go on to write what really is on my mind, I sit down to contemplate if I really should tell the whole world about it. If it was only for my “friends” to read it, I would have probably put it down but then the reality is that most of the people in our friend’s lists are not really our friends. Anyone and everyone gets the chance to be featured in our friend’s lists- from our distant cousins to acquaintances we met 10 years ago to random people we met during trips. Are they really our friends?? What happened to the concept of “privacy” and all that we said about “we choose our friends and we choose whom we disclose our lives to?” And this leads to a further debate on what is really ‘being in touch’.

I met you some 4 years back, I had a telephonic conversation with you around the same time, but I know where all you’ve been in these four years, how many times you walked in and out of relationships, what do you do for fun, what all universities you went to and I have seen all your pictures in these 4 years. So are we in touch?? Are we even friends?? Do I even know you??

Increasingly, facebook is turning out to be about lack of being in touch. If earlier my friends called me up at least 5 times a year to wish me on my birthday, new year, diwali, holi etc, now they don’t call me even once a year- all this wishing is done on facebook- its short, crisp and saves time!!

If earlier friends and cousins coming back to India called up after reaching here, now they just put it on their status messages. And what happened to all those long heart to heart conversations on phone? Facebook chat has replaced them too!

So it really boils down to the fact that though social networking started as an add-on for staying in touch with friends and family, it slowly progressed towards replacing it and has now completely eliminated “staying in touch”.

In fact, it only makes you add some 300 odd people to your friend’s list with you actually interacting on a regular basis with say just 5 of them, letting the remaining 295 rot in your friend’s list!! Don’t they ever corrode?

So I wonder how much sense would it make for me to put down my current status on facebook if 80% of my “friends” aren’t going to give a damn to it!! Yeah I am arrogant in that sense but then isn’t everyone arrogant when it comes to making a public notice of your personal life. Why should you make an announcement of whether your single, committed or getting married today to a cluster of unsorted paraphernalia that your ‘friend’s list’ has been carrying from your past?

If someone chose to forget you soon as the two of you stepped out of a common school, institute or a workplace, why should you let yourself live in denial and still let him/her be in your friend’s list? I mean wake up!! There is no touch, no connect, nothing at all- except that name under that very narcissistic photograph that gives you some updates on your home page everyday but says absolutely nothing to you nor does it hear what you say.

You might feel absolutely popular and extrovert-like when you look at your 300 friend’s long friend’s list, that might give you a sense of having a huge network, being a super-social individual, but how good is that network when u haven’t spoken to 99% of it in last 5 years? If 90% of them don’t have your phone number and if most of them don’t even want to know how you are? What kind of popularity is that?

Ever wondered if you didn’t spend hours procrastinating on facebook, you could have done all that you wanted to but could never find time for.

More importantly, by adding up anyone and everyone on facebook, you are actually letting a literal non-entity stalk on you and gossip about you- you are actually allowing grapevine going against you. And of course those pictures from your trips, parties etc are giving people a peek into your life, but they are also giving someone a good laugh!

So maybe, I can be a bit more alert while adding people to my facebook friend’s list. And even though as I write this blog here, I am still forced to keep my facebook account for the time being cause you never know when you’re completely jobless and might want to have a good laugh!!

Why Cant We Be Just Indians??

2009-10-19T00:31:00.000-07:00

I always thought that the world was as optimistic as the sunrise. But I guess it was my lack of knowing that made me feel that way. Only recently, when I started interacting with people from different parts of the country, I realised that the act of appreciating does not come naturally to everyone. I learnt that optimism and appreciation were arts that lived in my upbringing, surroundings and the larger culture I grew up in. I don’t know if it was a coincidence that I grew up with people like me or if I just always chose to have happy, optimistic people around me but I know that I have learnt to see the negative aspects but only paint positive pictures of communities, religions, cities etc in my mind. Not that I can’t be critical of places and people but I choose not to attach negative generalisations with places and communities.

Undeniably, every city has its own share of problems. No city is free of hassles. In every city, every new comer has to adjust to and accept the inherent problems and deficiencies of the place. What differentiates the people of one place from that of another is how they cope with the challenges that a new place provides them with. Also, the way people belonging to a city/state treat or welcome the newcomers, defines the nature of the place and its inhabitants.

As a Delhiite, the responses of those coming in from other parts of the country towards Delhi upset me. People often complain about the transport system not being as good as that of their states, women are not secure about their safety in the city, they complain of “Delhi men” being lecherous and we are termed as pompous and show-offs, we are “slow”, Delhi weather is too hot and too humid etc. And then there are the paradoxical Delhiites who tend to like any and every place on earth!! I often sit back and wonder if Delhi is such a bad place that everything else sounds just great when compared with it? And is it that bad that hardly any outsiders appreciate the place??

While my interactions with most of those coming into the city make me feel that I live in one of the most uninhabitable cities of India, my own emotional attachment with the place and my experiences scream out, “It’s all untrue. Delhi is the best place to be.” And then I think of the experiences of my Delhiiite friends in various other parts of the country. They too have faced problems living in those “other” cities. While some have faced huge problems in finding “good accommodations” in those places, others have suffered prolonged illnesses owing to unavailability of “good food.” There are many who have had a bad time fighting with traffic jams in other metros of the country. Some of them have found other cities unfriendly and unwelcoming while the others have had serious safety issues. However, what is very very interesting here is that despite facing all kinds of problems and going through difficult phases in these cities, my Delhiite friends still like those places. They prefer looking at and remembering the “good times” they spent there and they choose to identify the places through the “good experiences.”

And here is the answer to my question. Delhi is not a bad place to live in; Delhiites have been blessed with the exceptional art of optimism and appreciation. As Delhiites, we learn to adjust and find beauty even in the ugliest of situations. And we are warm, welcoming people.

But what I find extremely disappointing is that our very welcoming nature is also looked at with doubt. The other day I heard a non-Delhiiite telling another non-Delhiite that people here interact with you and help you not because they are genuinely nice and helpful but because they love to gossip and are more interested in others’ lives than their own lives. It was heartbreaking to hear this. Why are people always tempted to find faults even in positivity?

I could not help but ask this non delhiite about her experiences where people have been friendly to her only to get gossip material out of her? And pat comes the reply, “well no one really did that to me but my friends back in my hometown said that to me.” How beautiful is the act of generalisation! How alarming it is when one person’s experience becomes the identity of an entire community! And even more disturbing is the non-Delhiite who forms opinions about the city not based on his/her own experiences but on hearsay!! How conveniently people pass on misconceptions, generalisations and biases. And even more conveniently, people accepts others’ biases and make them their own biases too!!

why in a country like ours, we are not Indians but Delhiites, Maharashtrians (I still don’t understand the whole deal about ‘jai maharashtra’ ans 'marathi manoos'), Biharis, South Indians etc. Why are our state identities eroding away our national identities? Lets just be INDIANS for a change an learn to say JAI HIND instead!!