Je Suis Charlie

So my friends, 2015 has arrived amidst much pomp, splendour and a fresh bunch of terror-attacks. Certain paradigm shifts that swept into this world in the past few decades seem to have finally achieved a definite shape with the arrival of this frosty month of January.

Going by recent world events, I have drawn some very sad and solid conclusions. When people shoot bullets these days, their faces hide behind masks and their identities are dictated by the religious beliefs of some trigger-happy fanatics. They prefer to remain anonymous not only to avoid being apprehended by angered authorities for their cold-blooded lust for death and sadism, but also because they choose to highlight their 'cause' rather than their own names or their personal angst.

The last three days saw a terrible bloodbath in France which began with the murder of some cartoonists who made apparently insensitive jokes about Prophet Mohammad. I read headlines, tweets and Facebook-statuses that declared that the pen was clearly no longer mightier than the sword. This felt like a personal defeat to me, because I regard myself as a woman whose life and sanity pretty much depends on the ink that flows out of my pen.

Two years ago, I drove from Geneva to Paris with two of my closest friends. We crossed gorgeous vineyards and quaint French towns on our seven-hour drive to my favourite city in the world. I still remember that we reached Paris around eleven in the night and the first glimpse we had of the Eiffel Tower that night happened to coincide with its daily sizzle that can charm even the snootiest of tourists. Those lights and that wonderfully elegant architecture left me with no option but to fall head over heels in love with this great city all over again. We spent some very memorable days in Paris, and when the time came for us to leave, I vowed to return soon and relive the lovely time that I had here.

To me, Paris will always be best defined by that hauntingly cheerful accordion that plays at the very start of Midnight In Paris (which I believe to be Woody Allen's finest film till date). 

That music instantly carries me to those outdoor cafes where we feasted on buttery croissants, to the cobbled streets of Rue Royale where we realized that we needed far heavier wallets to be walking around in this part of the city, to the densely packed Avenue des Champs-Élysées where we shopped until our wardrobes had been effectively revamped and our hunger levels had hit a record high, to the intensely gooey macaroons from Ladurée that made us forget that we had just paid for a dessert that cost more than a round-trip bus ride from Bombay to Poona, to the supremely stubborn and fearless pigeons of Paris that refused to budge despite an adult human being threatening them with angry hand gestures (at least until they had been bribed with some edible goodies), to that magical feeling of walking down those streets at midnight in stilettos that practically tortured your feet but you didn't have the gall to care for comfort when you were in the fashion capital of the world.

Those, among several others, are the memories I bear of this great city in my head. 

So, when I saw Anderson Cooper wearing a grave face on TV and telling the world about the horrors of the worst terrorist attack in France in the past half century, I asked myself if this was the lowest low that humanity could reach. Is this the most intolerant slough that we, as a species, have ever waded in? Have we forgotten how to laugh, or is it a forced ban that seems to have been newly imposed on us by these demonic Kalashnikov-bearing fractions?

Do we follow their cleverly laid down path and abide by this horrid rule that they have seemingly set down for us by curbing our sense of humour and extending the courtesies of being politically correct even into that very free, ambivalent world of comic books and laughter?

If you ask me, there's a rather clear answer in my head that pops with the urgency of a bursting corn kernel in a pressure cooker.

Courage is the most attractive and desirable quality in a person; it is also the quality that sets us apart from these cowards that hide in caves and fight an apparent 'holy war' against peaceful innocents the world over. A war is fought on a battlefield, where the fighting armies are prepared mentally, and equipped with adequate ammunition to defend and attack. They have said their goodbyes and their families know what to expect in a worst case scenario. It isn't fought in a marketplace or a magazine head-office, where the people who have been killed were possibly simply out to either buy some groceries or to spend another routine day at work.

The need of the hour is for us to be brave, for us to be unafraid of laughing in the face of pure evil, for us to stare these inhuman souls deep into their hollow eyes and let them know that we shall not change. We shall not cower before their guns. We shall not bow before their black flags. 

We shall not let them win, because this is not a war. This is cold-blooded murder.

2014 Has Left The Building

I seem to have made my own random traditions over the years when it comes to my writing habits- certain types of poetry that has its roots set firmly in rains and cloudy afternoons, some stories that come alive when the despotic beats of the summer months are raging high and strong, those essays that find release when I am low on inspiration and find myself falling prey to the boring nothingness of uneventful weeks, and most importantly, that one long and rather self-centered review of the year gone by that I find myself writing on an annual basis on the 31st of December.

2014 did everything in its power to change the way my life ran; I've done an ungraceful pirouette on my axis and landed back on my own two feet, except for one little fact. I started this year on shaky, uncertain grounds where the future was as visible and predictable to me as the road looks to a driver on a foggy winter morning in Delhi.
I wished for money, success, glory and recognition on this day last year, like a greedy little leprechaun with tunnel-vision, a skewed perception of the world and an insatiable desire to prove to everyone that I wasn't an ordinary person with ordinary dreams. I was fueled by a mad ambition and fanned my own flames in a way that was previously alien to me.
Maybe this was because of the experiences that sat in my memory and glared smugly at my present, or maybe this was because I had reached some kind of moral nadir which allowed me to barter life's more intangible priorities for material pleasure, abandon emotion and adopt this severely inordinate desire to shine brighter than imaginable.
Driven by cynicism and blinded by this hunt for power, I trudged along into 2014 without knowing for a second that I was in for a life-changing ride on the world's wildest roller-coaster.
The year began with an insidious sickness that crept into my mother's life and thus, inescapably, into mine. There were innumerable hospital visits and needle pricks that we dealt with, and it took a few months before we could point our tired fingers to an accurate diagnosis; and even then, mother's recovery took nearly the whole year. I can only assume that this was God trying to teach me the value of good health and how we can never take our bodies for granted and run them mercilessly like they're just another gizmo we decided to buy from the nearest Apple store that possibly has a replacement policy. Our bodies do not have a replacement policy, and any damage done can take months to heal. I learnt the value of a healthy body, a loving family and the simple joys of waking up the next morning without worrying about hospital visits or blood tests.
I started working and making money (however embarrassingly meager it might be) this year, which is quite a liberating experience. It makes you feel like a grown-up in ways that grey hair or wrinkles probably won't. There are days when I hate my boss with a ferocious strength and evenings when I find some patients being distrustful of my surgical abilities because I'm merely twenty-five and I wear nail-paint. However, there are also days when my patients gift me chocolates and give me warm hugs when they leave my clinic free of pain and being able to smile freely again.
I faced failure and I faced success when it came to academic avenues, and although at the time, the success didn't seem successful enough and the failure seemed all encompassing, in retrospect, it wasn't so. I learned to take neither success nor failure seriously.
I suppose the only one thing that is worth acknowledgment in life is happiness.
This year gave me the biggest source of happiness I have ever known, so despite whatever negatives it may have showered on me, this one little spring of joy is strong enough to hold my attention till my dying day and remind me when necessary, that the biggest priority in one's life should be love and family.
Shiny exteriors fade away with time, dollar bills depreciate in value, and fancy cars eventually run out of fuel. A true friend/ partner will stand by your side at your best and worst and make your journey a more memorable one.
From the year that starts tomorrow, I wish for good health, peace and success for all the people I love. I wish for the world to be a safer place and for fewer children to die at the hands of merciless demons with Kalashnikovs.
And as for myself, I only ask that this year be the happiest one that I have ever had so far in my quarter century on earth. Simple enough, eh?

Have a great night folks! It's a wrap.

Have Your Cake/ Eat It Too

Do we hunt for ambition, recognition and financial success to compensate for the lack/ absence of a certain wholehearted, unadulterated, uncompromising, unfaltering acceptance of who we are by a fellow human being who shall concurrently also promise to walk by our side when we are at our least attractive nadir and snappiest possible mood..?
I'm beginning to wonder if this statement holds true for me. Whether I am an exception to the rule or just another head in the crowd of predictable human specimens. I think I have always been fairly well-aware of the faults that I harbour in my system and the demons that I carry in my mental suitcase; and I have also been just as conscious about my strengths and the secret superpowers that I conveniently hide and save for a rainy day. I know what I'm good at and I know what I can effortlessly mess up; I've always know this thanks to my father who always told me to work harder on the things that I'm good at so I became invincible at them.
All my life, I've been one of those kids who have known exactly what they want. My doubts and indecisiveness was restricted to restaurant menus alone. I knew I wanted to be a dentist and I chased that dream until it came true. I knew I wanted to travel the world and live alone for a long enough period to know what I'm capable of doing when left to my own commands; I did that and learned the lessons that were deemed important enough by my very analytical and overactive mind.
On the top of my head, these are the dreams that I have managed to scratch off my list up until now.

However, what about the contrasting dreams that still tend to occupy my proverbial throne? How do I deal with that steadfast wish to be a published author sitting at a bookstore with cameras flashing at me and fans getting their copies signed, when this clashes with that very primal, feminine desire to have a beautiful home of my own with a family that I love and nurture, tending to details like the colour of my coffee mugs and if the lightbulbs in the pantry have been changed or not..?
Are these two images possibly viable to sustain at a simultaneous pace, or are these parallel train-tracks that cannot really exist together for long enough?
Which side of the coin do we choose when both halves offer a slice of a sweet victory that will undeniably bring a smile to our face?
And more importantly, will that one victory be enough, or will our very human tendency to still hope for greener pastures continue?

At the beginning of this month, I told my best friend that I would stick to being zen from now; be at a forced ceasefire with the skeletons in my closet and outside evils that threaten my inner peace.
I think that's a wise call and that perhaps the best thing for me to do would be to stick to this idea until I forget that I'm forcing myself to ignore the issues that trouble me.
Whatever gets me there, to that elusive Utopian fairytale.

Just To Break The Jinx

The past four articles that I wrote never really got to see the unrelenting traffic of the cyber world or the relatively peaceful waters of my webpage. They were written, rewritten, rejected and frowned upon by the merciless critic that sits inside my skull.
I have been going through a rather long phase of creative inertia that has taken an undeniable toll on my sanity. It is quite correct to say that a writer's mind is the most cluttered space you can possibly find. Ideas have been floating around in my head like directionless rafts setting out to cross stormy seas and torrid oceans, only to sink, unsurprisingly, into dark nothingness.
There has, however, been a singular story that has magically managed to remain afloat despite the sadistic tidal waves that have hit my mental shores and ravaged my creative centers.
It is now my job to take this story and see it through to the finish line.
I shall never forgive myself if I let it go. 

A Longer Sonnet

Like crystals of salt

Borne from rough seas,

And like round fists of topaz

Meant to gleam and evoke

Praise and envy-

Your eyes shone in that

Ineluctable sunshine

That had arrived after

Winning wars 

Against clouds and darkness

To tickle my skin,

And to dye your face 

With a shade of molten gold

That did everything in its power

To draw me to you

Like a compass to a map...

You curled your lips into a round egg,

Calling out my name like it was a prayer,

Your tongue romancing your palate to give sound

To my bisyllabic name, as if it was given

Merely so you could call out to me

And I could come home to you and never have to leave...

Guardian

You can
Demolish an entire city
With the wrath of your eyes
When another pair scans mine...
You can
Bring moving bullet trains
To a halt as severe
As the unexpected arrival of death
When another heart hurts mine...
You can
Burn the shadows that haunt me
To an unforgiving merciless char
Without allowing an escape...
And you can
Hold the key to my kingdom
Until that day is past
When my remains have met
With mud and sea,
And I am again one
With where we all stem from...

The Unforgiving Shroud of Idealism

I was once told by an acquaintance to never be an idealist. I understand why one would give this piece of free advice to people around-an idealist will always expect things to be of a certain textbook standard and never leave enough room to accommodate others' mistakes. To summarize, such a person will always be left hanging in an uncomfortable state of limbo; neither here nor there. Always disappointed to not have received as much as they gave, always dejected to not be able to get an appropriate representation of the script they wrote for the world around and how it ought to be.

In my quest for mental peace and my impassioned pursuit of happiness over the past quarter-century, I suppose I have inadvertently and unwittingly been transformed into an idealist. Was this the deed of all the books I read over the years which advertised happy endings and perfect worlds with perfect friendships? Or perhaps the wrong doing of all the life-lessons taught to me as a child and adolescent by parents and well-wishers?
Either way, it did its job and left me in that unenviable position of living a life of great expectations and therefore, constant let-me-downs.
All those friends that you had saved from turbulent storms conveniently seemed to disappear when your wars were being waged and your body took on beatings. And sometimes, they complained of you not caring enough and not being present when you should have been. When did life become this busy whirlwind where you had to actually set aside a time to come up for air just to make sure that you didn't drown? How did the days compress into hours which flew by like seconds when you least expected them to? How did mornings turn into nights with such speed and mercilessness? Whatever happened to the world living up to be like what all our books promised?

I am undoubtedly naive and unarguably daft to truly have held such beliefs and expectations in my head and heart for people. I am also extremely stupid for expecting a pat on the back for something I may have done for another's benefit, even if it was devoid of any selfish intent and executed purely out of concern and a deep, understated love.

No, this world is unforgiving and harsh. People are strange and cold. Nobody stops to stare at the flowers anymore, or to even say hi and exchange a smile or two.
Idealists ought to hang their boots up in shame. Their time is past. Their reign is long over.
This world now belongs to the heaviness of a man's wallet and the mileage of his car; the length of a woman's legs and the smokiness of her voice.
No one has the time to peel layers and dig deep.
I must remember that the next time I'm in a soup and expect a friend to turn up or help out. That's the thing about great expectations-they always fall, ungracefully and unattractively, flat on their porcelain faces.