Your Mother Warned You There'll Be Days Like These

There is suddenly this requirement, this urgent need for the sort of companionship that does not require any explanations, that does not demand any unattainable goals, that does not admonish my behavior; that is there, unquestionably and always, like a silent prayer that has been softly but surely cast into the skies.

No man is an island, even though I have often claimed that I’d like to be one. And going by how I've been living my life over the past couple of years, I’d say that I've carved a nice little island off the coast of Australia for myself, somewhere, seeded deeply in the waters of the Indian Ocean, invisible to all those eyes who do not know where to look for it.

Looking around, I see almost everyone in a relationship or getting engaged/married, and here I am, sitting with my computer day and night, filling college applications or spending my father’s money sending them out to those faraway lands which bear that seductive promise of a lucrative future. It opens my eyes to so many things that are wrong with the way the world has become. Or perhaps it’s always been this way and it’s only now that I’ve managed to scrutinize it thus.

My country is going positively berserk with all the election based drama. Politicians are behaving like monkeys vying for the top spot of Most-Entertaining-Circus-Animal-of-the-Year, trying to make each other look even more ridiculous than they already do. All this, just so that they get to wear the bloody Prime Ministerial crown and rule over the land. Wow, maybe even that dolt Rahul Gandhi has a point—power really is poison! It manages to worm its way into your bloodstream like an evil parasite, and then it blinds you to everything.

Some of my friends asked me recently who I’d like to vote for this year, and it made me feel like I was being forced to choose between the devil and the deep sea. This was literally the first thing that popped out of my mouth. How sad is that? Imagine—if the first analogy that comes to me when I think of the two men vying to become the Prime Minister of my country evokes this sense of haplessness, and a desire to keep running away, far away until I hit a happier shore—something is really really wrong with the way things are.

The place in my life that I am currently in, well let’s just say it’s a slippery ground. I have a degree and a license to practice medicine, but what I don’t have yet is that sense of balance that’s mythically supposed to have arrived by now in my life. I live happily with my family, after five years of living alone, and I’m frankly quite lucky to be getting this time with them. This, I most certainly am grateful for! What I do not like is that even now, I have that slightly hollow sensation somewhere in my thorax, as if something very vital has been pulled away from me. I really miss my friends, and I wish that I could still have those random, unplanned craziness-sessions with the gang,

But still, I don’t think that that’s what is supposed to fill up that thoracic void. I don’t know what it is, I don’t know how I’ll get it, but I need to get it. Somehow, anyhow.

Everybody deserves to have their moments of contentment and pure unadulterated joy in life. I’d say mine is long overdue. Come on already!

Afternoon

It is on silent afternoons

Such as this, when—

With my legs

Up a table,

And my hand balancing the stem

Of a tall glass of golden wine, I lie

Drunk enough for analgesia

And awake enough

To appreciate your loving eyes

Do I realize that with you

I am me, incomplete in achievements,

Indecisive in choices,

Incorrigible in habits…

But you love my tainted, rusty armor

And you love my questionable impulses,

And you worship every inch I touch…

Are you the effect of

An unknowingly uttered spell?

Or the blessing of whichever god

Watches over the earth, sun and moon?

Because beauty such as yours

Is too bright for my eyes,

And too precious to my soul…

Remember, Remember

Must we live, simply because we are born, deemed alive by blood cells racing through our veins, and neurons firing impulses trying to teach us life lessons? Or perhaps because two people chose—or maybe didn’t—to bring forth a life into this crazy world?

Despite those motley instances where one is forced to wonder why that mysterious cosmic governing force chose to create this absurd, ironical, intricate little plot called life, I honestly believe that we, as a collective living unit, are headed towards a greater destiny.

Each moment leads up to a bigger calling, a more elaborate reason that shall one day define our existence.

I’d like to believe that I live because I choose to, and because I refuse to be just another face in the crowd of men, women and urban fables. Unless you believe in your own self, it’s highly unlikely that someone else will fall down that same rabbit hole with you. In a way, it all feels like marketing and advertising yourself to the world to achieve a more widespread, a more heartfelt acceptance. And I don’t think I’m wrong in assuming this, because I really do think that we are born to learn and to teach what we learn to others around us. Knowledge must be shared, no matter how trivial it is. A dead brain is as useful as a broken cup, so before your cups starts showing any cracks, share your wisdom, however ridiculous it may seem to you.

You shall only be remembered for your actions and your words after you’re dead and gone, because a pretty face will fade away like a blurry candle flame and a baritone voice will be forgotten like a seldom heard melody.

You can choose to be different and to stand out, or you can be remembered as someone who simply came and went, stuck to the script.

I, on the other hand, like to improvise. I’d hate nothing more than to be forgotten.

My Scandalous Views On Weddings/ Marriage

I have always been someone immensely fond of celebrations, parties, fireworks, weddings and the like. The idea of meeting long lost cousins and uncles and friends at social gatherings such as the aforementioned ones always used to excite me. Good food, good music, good clothes, good company-- it all spelled perfection to me. So to put it simply, I was always a fan of everything lavish and "big".
And yet suddenly I find myself at this stage in life where I know for a fact that if/ when I ever choose to get married (I'm rolling my eyes), it's going to be a couple of signed pieces of paper followed by a long holiday away from civilization.

It amuses me in a grotesque way how much money goes into planning a wedding. Perhaps because I just returned from a fortnight of mad partying and celebrating, I seem to have deeper insight than I did before.
You could accuse me of being a girl who doesn't respect tradition and customs, and that would be a fair accusation to make, going by my seemingly scandalous declarations, but I'd simply say to you that it's a deeply personal choice to make. I wouldn't want to remember my wedding day (if at all that ever even arrives!) as an atrocious explosion of the family's funds.

I sound miserly and cheap and disrespectful, I know.

Maybe it's just the falling economy and the rising rates of inflation that's drawn these conclusions from me, but it seems to make sense to me somehow.
A wedding is just a fun excuse for a few days of celebration, and I'd much rather focus on a happy marriage that lasts a lifetime and proves to be an everlasting source of joy and comfort.

Cynical, much?

The Big F

My "trying times" (if you'll allow me to be cheesy this one time) started on July 30th. I'll never forget that day, and that horrid phone conversation, with me standing on a rainy grey terrace, getting drenched in the unrelenting Poona rain.
Little did I know how the next two months were going to unfold, nor did I have a clue about how I would deal with failure considering I've always been a sore loser. Not to mention, this was officially my first tryst with the big F. Thus far, despite my flair and attraction for the dramatic and the extreme, I have had a fairly steady climb career-wise.
Coming from the family I come from, failure has never been an option. I was always a good student through school and college, and as the end of my undergrad days drew closer, the pressure to do something worthwhile and impressive with my life multiplied.
Although the pressure was a definite catalyst, the real reason my ambitious career-woman mode turned on was far more personal. My experiences in the last eighteen months or so convinced me that it wasn't just about pleasing my family, but the fact that I wouldn't really like myself too much if I let myself warm my seat and be complacent about life. Complacency was a plague I immediately began to detest, and thank God for that, because that allowed me to dream big, perhaps a little too big.
I have had several instances in life when everyone has questioned my judgement and looked at me with doubting eyes, including my family, but I pride myself on always sticking to my own choices. I am impulsive, sometimes dangerously so, and stubborn.
The dream I chose to dream for myself is quite ambitious and quite big, and with the passage of time, I have come to believe that my life is about to change irrevocably in a very short time. My fear of rejection, loneliness, self-doubt, and failure have now passed and turned into wispy ghosts of the past, because like someone said, we only fear the unknown, and I am now fairly familiar to these past fears.

I am not exactly in the happiest frame of mind presently. I am home-sick and exhausted beyond words, and could seriously do with a giant bear hug, but hell, I'm closer to the finish line than I've ever been.
Now is not the time to rest and look back.
I'm trying very hard to be zen and just move forward with every day that passes.
Failure is a part of life, one that we must all face some day. All you can do is be grateful that you are now introduced to this largely feared beast, and the only place you can go from rock bottom is up.

This too shall pass..

Genes, Genetics and Family

The inheritance of that lopsided smile, of a certain trill in your laugh, and how your hair tends to fall in stubborn little rings on the sides- these are tiny little proofs of genetics at work, because at sudden moments, like perhaps when you're looking at old photographs of yourself with your children some day, or when you're dressing up for a party and suddenly notice these quirks of yourself in the mirror, you realise that you were once nothing but a single cell packed with DNA carrying several more peculiar traits such as these..
We are mirrors of our parents and our grandparents; maybe the mirror is a bit skewed, a little less polished, but I do believe we reflect, more or less accurately, who we have been raised by.
Little mannerisms and preferences that we have, like choosing to sleep flat on our tummies at night, or having our parathas with ketchup, or our choices in music, these things aren't as original to our personalities as we might want to believe. They've been bequeathed down to us and pumped into our blood by several others who came before us and lent us their last names.
I've always been so enamoured by the fact that I have my father's nose, and my mother's voice, and a thousand other little things borrowed and hidden in little bundles of twisted DNA strands. It's realizations such as these that ground you, make you aware of the fact that you're just a puzzle made up of so many different pieces that come from all over your family tree.
The unlikeliest sources might be the origin of a personality trait of yours that you value most.
Have you ever wondered where those fingernails came from, or where you got the colour of your eyes from, or where your love for karela stems from?
Oh, how I wish we had technology clever enough to decipher these little clues that add to the bigger picture!
The world would make a lot more sense then, and perhaps we'd be a whole lot more comfortable in our own skins.

An Ode To Your Disappearing Act

As subtle as your footsteps
Could possibly be,
Caressing the little fables
And the pretty lies--
You strolled in
With the confidence of a warrior
And the grace of a bride..
And as you drew the blade
Of that silver sword
Closer to my jugular,
All I could think of
Was that moment we shared,
That night, holding hands,
That bottle of liquid fizz,
And the sudden abandonment..
I'm used to evaporation,
So used to singularity,
And yet your blade
Managed to stab
A hidden sense of belief
And a silent prayer for company..