The Infamous L-Word

Like predators out on the prowl for a juicy catch, we haunt the streets and lands, hunting for love and acceptance like our lives depend on it.
But then, perhaps, our lives do depend on love and open-armed acceptance, because every great love story begins with a selfish motive, no matter how pure, everlasting, or impressive it might seem in the end.
It could be the cynic in me that's typing these rather harsh words, but I've come to believe that we all give with an aim to receive, eventually. And if you ask me, love has turned into a difficult game of chess where one wrong move could mean that your King is gone.

I hear silly women crooning feel-good songs proclaiming "If-ya-like-it-then-ya-should've-put-a-ring-on-it!" and it hits me like a tidal wave how these ladies are actually sitting and complaining about how rejected they feel because someone let them go, because someone didn't give them a diamond ring and pop a cheesy proposal. Do I sound like a pompous, bitchy toerag/ intolerable little feminist/ dark, cynical and bitter young woman writing one of those forgettable articles that announce the redundancy of men? Because if I do, that was not the intention.
Not to sound defensive, but I like men. As much as they can possibly be liked considering how temperamental they tend to be and how I severely lack patience when it comes to dealing with such creatures. (Okay, that was my feeble attempt at sounding humorous).
I don't think that the problem lies solely in the male population and its many shortcomings. Popular culture has built up this giant technicolour image of The Ideal Man and how he must treat his woman--no matter how annoying or unlikeable she might be--and it is this very image that goes around and screws up heads of innocents such as myself when we encounter the everyday specimens.
And because of the chemical imbalances created by these notorious technicolour images and how they fall flat on their perfectly carved faces, most women end up getting disappointed with what the real world has to offer.

I think Cupid's job has become way tougher in today's day and age than it has ever been before. The mandatory Facebook/ Twitter background checks that we all tend to do before agreeing to show up for a second date tend to kill the mystery and freshness that are so crucial for the cultivation of those infamous butterflies that flutter their way into letting love bloom into your life.
The loneliness of modern day lifestyles has crept in on all of us single ladies and gentlemen out there, and we've become what can only be called non-believers.
We live for the moment, not believing that we might even be alive tomorrow, not believing that there actually is someone out there who would whole heartedly love me, not believing that I could love someone without wanting to run away from them after a few days, not believing that they don't have any of their own ulterior motives in place..

I'm speaking for myself now, and boy, I've turned into such a sceptic. People tell me it's unhealthy and it's wrong and pessimistic and doesn't go with my general philosophies in life, but I tend to only believe in what I see, hence this cynicism is well-placed and more of a defence mechanism than anything else.

So, as I said at the very beginning of this rant, every great love story has a very selfish, very primal birth, and I suppose if you really even want to have a love story someday, you'll need to succumb to your fears and let go.
As someone told me not so long ago, only when you completely let go can you possibly rejoice. And that, my friends, I need to remember all my life. It would certainly make for a good-looking tattoo, don't you think?

From Calcutta To Substernal Space

Over time,I have come to draw some very objective conclusions and deductions about life, as I suppose everyone tends to do with the passage of time and the collection of memories.
Stability was a virtue that strongly defined the first eighteen years of my life. But with a change of address came a stark sense of shakiness and confusion making me as unstable as a free radical. I lead a vagabond's life, largely by choice. There is a certain sense of comfort in doing as you please and running behind leads guided by mad impulses. To know that I wake up every morning to a different adventure, however silly and inconsequential it might be, is the sign of a life well lived.
Home used to spell my fifty-year old house with the high ceilings, and the cacophony of different voices, and the mosaic of paintings and framed family photographs on walls that have witnessed four generations of my family. Home was the garden where I played as a little girl climbing guava trees and making makeshift swings out of old deflated tyres. Home was Calcutta.
Home will still always be that beautiful house, and that beautiful city, but perhaps the definition of home has changed in my dictionary. Homes are made from memories, and memories are made from love. Someone once told me that home is not a place, but a place in time. Perhaps when I shift back to Calcutta and I reminisce about Poona, the thoughts of my tiny little hostel room here will make me think of it with a certain secret fondness. When I think of all the madness I've experienced with my friends here, perhaps I'll miss even the dingy little stalls where we sat and gossiped  over cups of sickeningly sweet coffee. Perhaps when I move away, Poona--or at least the past half decade here--will seem like a once-upon-a-time home to me.
Life is so funny, and so very overwhelming. And you realise with every day that passes that everything is so transient, and everything is so unsure. The only thing that I'm sure of is that no matter where you are, where you live, home is where the heart is. So I'm keeping this heart beneath this sternum, secure behind this bodily shell, so I can live my life with an honest smile on my face like the free radical that I am, impulsive madness firmly in place.

It's Been A While

After a long year of working, traveling, writing, and eventually succumbing to stagnation and a blog-hacking, here I am, refreshed and refueled. I usually write my annual year-ending posts on the 31st of December each year, but in all senses of the term, my "year" ends in a few weeks.
The past half decade was spent taking tender/tiny/shaky steps into the world of medicine and dentistry while concurrently trying not to lose my sanity as I was overwhelmed by new life-experiences and encounters. Leaving Poona and moving back to Calcutta will be anything but easy, but unlike before, I am no longer afraid of change. Perhaps time does that to you. Or maybe it's an after-effect of stagnation.

Now, I want change! I want to move the hell on. Meet people who make me believe that life truly does have a lot of potential, and that I truly am meant to do big things with this life that I've been blessed with.
Ambition was never such an ally of mine, what with me being a lover of simplicity and peace. But suddenly I find that that's not all I love. I also love glitz and glamour and shiny new things which money can buy. I'm not a materialistic bimbo, but I have learned the hard way that to grab life by the balls and make things go your way, you need a voice, and the voice is only heard by those who matter when you speak through microphones of gold that your wallet allowed you to own and use.

I've met some amazing people over the past five years, and I've also met those who made me question the existence of humanity. Learning to love, and to live alone have probably been the biggest lessons I'm going to carry with my luggage when I leave this city.

What lies ahead in my life, I do not yet know, but I'm sure it's going to be worth it (yes, I know I sound optimistic to the point of being called juvenile sometimes, but that's one thing I refuse to let go of).

Right now, it's the movement that matters and concerns me. At whatever pace, but I must move forward.