A Shout Into The Void

There are times all of us have felt alone. Misunderstood. It's part of growing up. Sadly, that's a lifelong process. And feeling pain is a big part of it. Character building, I presume.

In one of my favourite love stories,'The Fault In Our Stars', Hazel Grace talks about how oblivion is inevitable. What she means to say is after the ones we knew and loved are gone, we won't be remembered. Augustus Waters, while professing his love to her, says that love is "just a shout into the void", but he is in love with her. 

At some point or the other, all of us have felt like the world's burdens rest on our shoulders. We're self-centered. We can't help ourselves. The truth is, most of us don't realise how lucky we are. There's a lot more pain and suffering in the world  than we think and have ever felt. Whether we like it or not, we aren't the center of the universe. The world won't collapse once we're gone. It will go on as it is. Sure, our loved ones will remember us. But they aren't immortal themselves.

I think all of us come into this world wanting to leave our mark on it. You have to be pretty darn exceptional to accomplish such a feat. Your deeds in History textbooks, your words of wisdom used in debates. To be exceptional, you have to do something exceptional.

Now, we can't ALL be exceptional-that negates the meaning of the word. What we CAN do is be the best possible versions of ourselves. Give all we've got to the ones we love. And, as my mom repeatedly says, live with gratitude. And, chew on this; at the end of the day, would you rather be remembered fondly by the ones you love, or the faceless strangers who mean absolutely nothing to you? You may not leave a mark on the world, but you do make a difference in the lives of those who know you.

Fame will come if it has to. It's high maintenance. Very picky on whom she chooses. We just have to keep doing what we do. And what we do, what we say may just be a shout into the void, but we get the message across to those we intended it for. That's what matters, right?

The Allure Of The Prince Of Darkness

I'm pretty sure all girls love the brooding bad boy. There's something so irresistible about the forbidden, isn't there? Sadly, this post isn't about my rendezvous with some bad boy. I don't know any at all. This is yet another post about Paradise Lost-Satan, in particular. You see, I haven't gotten very far in the first volume, but I have read Satan's speech. Milton really sounds sympathetic to his predicament. He took on God, obviously lost and was thrown into Hell into a burning lake. He tricks the reader into feeling really sorry for Satan, and then suddenly it hits you. You're sympathizing with the Devil himself. And then you see Satan is the underdog here. All of us want the underdog to succeed. And, well he does portray God as an unforgiving tyrant. I don't know if this counts as blasphemy. If so, I'm sorry.
Satan is almost Shakespearean. And Milton seems to be, literally, the Devil's advocate. I call him Shakespearean because he can be compared to some of Shakespeare's greatest characters-Macbeth, Hamlet, Caesar, Othello. All good men, possibly great-but with one fatal flaw that unravels everything. Satan just started believing that he was greater than God and deserved his throne. And being considered one of the most beautiful angels and being closest to God, it is kind of an insult when God calls a mere mortal his son. It's the age-old emotions in play here-anger and envy. All of us feel it. Usually together. You'd think celestial beings would be above all this, but that just shows, emotions aren't restricted to mortality.
Satan is the ultimate bad boy. He knows just what to say to pluck at the strings of your heart. He's like the villain you can't hate. You know he's evil, you know he's wrong and yet you still root for him. Milton manages to tempt and seduce the readers into feeling sorry for Satan. Some say it's his way of tricking the readers. Much like how Satan tempted Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. He re-enacted the 'Fall', showing that we are, at our very core, the same. Basically, we aren't much smarter now. We still give into temptation. The allure of the dark and the forbidden is just too irresistible to hold back. The best of us have given in. Hey, Satan, or rather Lucifer, couldn't control his thirst for power and that's what landed him in Hell. And he was an archangel. He was supposed to be an embodiment of goodness. We're humans. How much can you expect from us?
So, the good can definitely be boring. And the bad can be so incredibly attractive. However, at the end of the day, we have to choose the good. Because how much ever the dark tempts us, it's going to lead us off a cliff, figuratively and sometimes literally. But then, being just a tad bit bad never hurt anybody. You're only young once, right?

A Portal To Different Worlds

While waiting for a friend at the club, I decided to pass my time in the library. There's a certain peacefulness about it. It's calm and serene and tranquil. The silence isn't awkward or forced, it's natural. It's as if it were a place of worship, you instantly shut up the moment you enter. 

As I sat and looked around, I noticed that the few people present were probably around the age of my grandparents'. Not a single person even close to my age group, other than the librarian who peeked at me suspiciously over his desktop as I ventured around the books. As if I would do something sacrilegious.

There's something truly amazing about libraries. It's always welcoming. It's a rainy day? Come on in! There are several heartwarming books for you to read. A broken heart? We can empathise. You don't have much time to kill? No worries, there's still plenty for you. A library is like a therapist. It's a solace, a sanctuary. Most of us don't realise how calming it is just being there. Surrounded by pages that tell stories-not just of the characters that the authors create, but also the authors themselves. The most beautiful writing is one that has incredible honesty in it. Because writing isn't about getting words down on a page. It's about giving a part of yourself to your reader. Otherwise, it's just superficial and you really aren't fooling anybody.

So, my advice to anyone who wants it, spend a little time around books. You don't have to read them if you don't want to. But being around them is a start. I'm sure you won't be able to resist. It's a portal to magical worlds. Who doesn't want that?

Dark is Beautiful

We Indians are quite biased when it comes to skin colour. The light-skinned are instantly considered superior and better looking than the dark-skinned. Frankly, this bothers me. How does the colour of one's skin determine if one is pretty or beautiful? We're so obsessed with making our skin fairer that we spend god-only-knows how much on cosmetics that vow to give lighter skin in a few days. An entire industry thrives on our desire to have fair skin.
Beauty can't be determined by just the colour of your skin. You could be the fairest of all and yet, still not be beautiful. And fairness isn't just considered a prerequisite for beauty; it's also a prerequisite for success. How can brands like Fair & Lovely and Fair & Handsome send messages to the people that using the cream gives you "the power to shape your destiny"; and fame and fortune. Only you can determine that. Not some silly cream, that probably doesn't work. And since when does being fair and lovely and fair and handsome go hand in hand? Loveliness is something that comes from nurturing, from good values, from a kind heart. And handsome? Well, isn't Matthew McConaughey the sexiest man alive? And how many of us have dreamed of a tall, dark and handsome hunk sweeping us off our feet?
 I understand wanting to look the best you possibly can. I do. What I don't understand is, completely changing the way you look. Do you really hate yourself that much? Or do you really think that everyone will look past you just because of the colour of your skin?
Some of us have to learn to love ourselves. For others, it comes easy. If you don't love yourself, how can you ever expect to be loved? We were meant to be this way. Why would we want to change that? It isn't easy, I know. When you're surrounded by advertisements that tell you that fair skin is gorgeous, you're bound to look in the mirror and feel inadequate about yourself. The "seduction of inadequacy" is too hard to resist. I take that phrase from Lupita N'yongo's speech. But why should we let a billboard or some brand tell us that we aren't good enough? We all come out perfect into the world. Not caring about colour, about size. We can be the best versions of ourselves, we can't be someone else. We're only deceiving ourselves at the end of the day. Believe in yourself, in your talent. All of us are meant for something. And we shouldn't go screwing it up by obsessing over something like the colour of our skin.

A Futile Search For Inspiration

I seem to be suffering from a lack of inspiration. I want to, I really want to write, but the words just don't seem to come. I'm so desperate, I'm reading articles on the internet, hoping to get something. The Oxford dictionary defines inspiration as 'the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, especially to do something creative'. Sounds pretty darn inspiring, doesn't it? If the writing doesn't explain it, I'm being sarcastic.
The thing is, I don't get it myself. I don't get what inspires me. It's almost as though it comes from within. It's a reaction to something, to someone. It could be someone you know or a total stranger. It could be a song, it could be something someone said; heck, it could be food! It's something that no dictionary can describe. That feeling? Of the words flowing, of the paintbrush moving? It's poetic, almost. You'll never actually see it, but you do feel it. You feel it when you read a beautiful story, when you see the works of an artist.
 I've read some of the "inspiring" quotes that are online, and frankly, they really don't inspire me. Stories inspire me. TED talks inspire me. Some movies inspire me; The Blind Side, for one. Elizabeth Gilbert, in one of her TED speeches, called her inspiration the 'elusive creative genius'. She said that people once considered works of art and beauty, almost divine. So divine, that us mere mortals couldn't come up with it. There had to be some divine or supernatural intervention of some sort. She also said that treating creativity like that takes off the pressure. Because, if you screw up or produce something mediocre, it really isn't all your fault. Also, you don't act like a smug shmuck when you produce something brilliant, because all the credit can't be given to you. I am yet to produce a work of brilliance, but that's a pretty great idea, isn't it?
One of my favourite books,'A Geography Of Bliss', says that if you look for happiness you'll never find it. It's the same with inspiration. When you yell to the high heavens asking to get inspired, you're unlikely to get a response. The truth is, you just have to keep trying. You'll churn out total rubbish sometimes, but sometimes, that elusive creative genius of yours, might just take some pity on you and lend you a hand. And then what, you ask? Magic, of course!

Taking a Step Back

A friend told me, that I jumped to conclusions much too soon with the Bible. She said that perhaps. I should have sat through the entire thing, and then gone on to form a proper opinion. As much as all of us dread criticism, I could see her point. We make a lot of errors just by jumping to conclusions. We lose out on opportunities, we lose potentially great friends; basically, we make mistakes-some gigantic, some not so major.What I did, was that I ignored the good, and saw only the negative.

My mom told me, that if the world considers something great, you have to give it a fair shot. You may not like it, you don't have to; but you have to see it for yourself. And then if you don't like it, it's okay. You have justification. You don't prejudge someone on the basis of what someone else says. You can't say that you hate the works of Picasso, without actually visiting one of his museums. The same way, you simply can't say you won't read 'Lord of the Rings' or 'Harry Potter' just because you don't want to. or you don't like books. These are books that have shaped generations. These are books that have fostered dreams in budding writers. I think everyone can be a book lover. They just have to find the right book. According to me, 'Harry Potter' would be a good start.

Coming back to my point, I do have a tendency to jump to way more than just one conclusion. And once that happens, well, there's no stopping me. Today was a bit of an eye-opener actually. Sometimes, taking a step back is all that is required. Because, taking a step back gives you a new perspective. It makes you think from someone else's point of view. How much ever we would like to think that we are the center of the universe, we really aren't. What IS at the center of the universe, we may never know. For the time being, I'm just going retract my opinion and once I'm completely done with the Bible, I'll officially have my opinion. Till then, I'll find something else to write about

Religion is a Misogynist

As I've been doing Milton in Literature, I decided to read the Bible as that would give me a better perspective on Paradise Lost. I haven't read beyond Genesis yet, but I have come to one conclusion-if religion were to be personified, it would be a misogynist. No, really.
Women are portrayed as impure, as temptresses, the weaker, the lesser beings. How is that fair? Women who were good with healing and midwifery were accused of witchcraft. Men felt threatened by a woman in a position of power.
 India's most famous early legal code, The Laws of Manu (Manusmriti), says that a woman is a liar and a sinner. That it is in their nature to seduce men and that a husband can leave his wife if she has only given him daughters; and and and! She should never be allowed to assert herself independently. She always has to be in the custody of a man-be it her father, brother or husband. How evil can you be to compose something like that? That, if a woman overhears Vedic chants by accident, hot molten glass has to be poured in her ears? How can one be capable of such cruelty against your own race?
I haven't read the Quran, but after doing some research, I found that it does say that husbands have a right to hit their wives, if the men fear highhandedness; man is superior to woman-he has to manage her affairs. A direct quote from the Quran is-The Prophet said, "I looked at Paradise and found poor people forming the majority of its inhabitants; and I looked at Hell and saw that the majority of its inhabitants were women.". The Prophet said, "Isn’t the witness of a woman equal to half of that of a man?" The women said, "Yes." He said, "This is because of the deficiency of a woman’s mind." . Women apparently, deserved only half of what the man deserved. 
Now, coming to Christianity, which was actually what prompted me to write this post. In Genesis, right at the beginning- God created Eve because he wanted a helper for Adam. He creates her from Adam's rib. Eve is the one who tempts Adam into eating the forbidden fruit and is cursed with painful childbirth and the domination of her husband. Lot tells the villagers to rape his daughters instead of the angels of God; his wife is turned into a pillar of salt for disobeying God and he sleeps with his daughters when drunk and impregnates them. And this is just the top of the dungheap. 
One thing that all religions have in common is that, polygamy is perfectly okay if you're a man. The woman was created for only one purpose. To serve. The man could do anything, ANYTHING; and he would still be considered superior and it would probably be blamed on the poor woman. How can books that supposedly preach the word of God say all this? my blood boils even thinking of it. I'm not saying that the people who follow these religions are misogynistic pigs. The ones who actually wrote it... Well that's a whole other story. What if women hadn't finally gotten up and said,"Enough"? Would we still be subservient and willing to endure abuse at the hands of our families? The saddest thing is, that some people still believe in all this. They think that as it is the word of God, it must be true. What a world we live in, don't we?