Me, Me and Me. Sorry About That.

Merry Christmas! Because I'm suffering from boredom, I decided to talk about myself. To start out small, I love ice cream and chocolates. I hate marzipan. I love stories and literature and I detest physics. I love the sun on my face on a cold winter day and I hate the painful city traffic. I love British and Irish accents and I loathe mumbling. I love goofiness, but not to the extent of stupidity. I love wearing shorts and I dislike anything that itches or makes me feel suffocated. I adore sunflowers because of the story behind it and I hate it when I see people plucking flowers from someone else's garden. If I could, I would get a dog, preferably a husky, because they're absolutely adorable, or even a St. Bernard! I loathe cats because they freak me out with their staring and hissing. I love James McAvoy and Colin O'Donoghue mainly because of their accents (their fantastic good looks help too!).  I hate Twilight and Fifty Shades of Grey. I'm a die hard romantic and I passionately hate something if it ends sadly (watch out for loads of ranting). Also, I love to rant. I hate to speak on stage. I love watching movies, both Bollywood and Hollywood and I also watch way too many TV shows for my own good. I have a tendency to fantasise a lot. I'm off in my own world when alone. I dislike confrontation, but I know its necessary.  I love to gossip and I hate silly see-through excuses. When I'm alone in my room, I play my music and dance like nobody's watching, because, well, they aren't. I'm also a wimp and I cower under my blanket if I happen to watch a horror movie (that's a genre I hate).
I blush a lot, especially when someone compliments me and I hate it when someone calls me fat or stupid. I love food, especially non-vegetarian. I don't like food that has a lot of ghee. I hate exercise, but I love the way I look when I do. I feel self-conscious when everyone's eyes are on me. I love writing and I'm not a great fan of criticism. Oh, oh! I also live in the area where Milkha Singh once ran. Some claim to fame, right?
Wow, I can't think of anymore. I sound so self-centered, don't I? I really had to think during this one. But well, what does one do when bored? Probably not this, I know.

Finding Your Inner Crazy

We live in strange times; where, the physical attractiveness of someone is determined by the number of likes on their Facebook profile picture, popularity by the number of followers on Instagram, talent by the number of followers on Tumblr, Wordpress or Blogger. Strange, isn't it? There was the Neoclassical age, the Age of Enlightenment, the Age of the Romantics, the Renaissance and now? What would this age be called? The Age of the Emoticons? Or the Age of Narcissism? We're all so caught up with our own lives, we don't even know what's going on in the lives of our friends and families. We're concerned about our hair. We're concerned about our body. We're concerned about our image. We're concerned only with our own opinion, with our own "gift". It's all about me, me, me.
We don't even stop to acknowledge the fact that our work, whatever it may be, hasn't been compared to the  We believe we are the best. Us aspiring writers fancy ourselves the next J.R.R. Tolkien or J.K. Rowling. The aspiring photographers fancy themselves the next big thing. The aspiring dancers imagine they're the next sensation to take the stage by storm. The singers hope to achieve the fame that Kishore Kumar and Lata Mangeshkar did and the bands want to be The Beatles. And that's good. It's great that all of us have such high expectations of ourselves. What we have to ensure is that those aims of ours aren't lofty and beyond our reach. All of us start out aiming for the stars and beyond. Most of us crash and burn. As much as we hate to admit it, all of us can't be great. So, my question to you is, are you going to risk crashing and burning to go after something you love? Do you really love it? Or do you give up and choose the more traditional route and become part of the mundane but practical workforce? That's the real test, isn't it? Being crazy enough to jump off the deep end? This new year, let's search within and find the crazy that all of us have tried to hide within ourselves and attempted to stamp into oblivion. It's nice to be crazy sometimes.

The End of 2014. Well, Almost.

2014 is coming to a close. Its not been a great year. What with MH370 vanishing into thin air; another Malaysian Airlines flight getting shot down in Ukraine; the crisis in Ukraine; Boko Haram abducting schoolgirls in Nigeria; the death of Robin Williams; the outbreak of the Ebola virus; the terror that ISIS spread around the world with their executions of journalists and aide workers; the Israel-Palestine conflict; the Ferguson shooting and the violence that followed; the protests in Hong Kong; the gang rape and murder of two teenage girls from a village in Uttar Pradesh; the cowards who didn't have the courage to stand up for the two sisters in a bus in Rohtak; the ferry that capsized in South Korea; the 20 year old girl who was gang raped by 12 people on the orders of the head of the village and of course, the most recent massacre of children in Peshawar.
It hasn't been a good year for the world. Of course, there were some moments of joy, moments of happiness; moments of humanity. Narendra Modi was elected Prime Minister of India. The social experiment in Canada after the attack on Parliament hill in Ottawa. Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzai receiving the Nobel Peace Prize. There have been moments when the times didn't seem so bleak. But they are bleak, aren't they? As much as we would like to live in our pretty little homes with the outside world shut out so that we can never get hurt, it's getting to be quite impossible. Terror is everywhere. Evil is everywhere. Tragedy lurks in every corner. But we ignore it. We're content in our little bubbles. Those bubbles were meant to pop. And when they do, you fall hard.
But how can one ignore the events of 16th December? How can one pretend not to shudder at the evil that lurks in the hearts of mankind? How can one's heart not be filled with sympathy for those parents who lost their innocent children at the hands of the Taliban? However much we can compartmentalise and avoid, nobody could ignore this. This unspeakable act of violence. Innocent children. They'd barely lived. They hadn't seen the world. They were bright-eyed, little boys and girls just waiting to grow up. And that was taken away from them. Even the ones who weren't killed have to live with the violence that they witnessed. They took away their childhood. The monsters stole their innocence. WHAT HAS THE WORLD COME TO? So much violence, so much grief, so much...
There's a little more than a week left for the year to end. Here's to a better, safer and a more humane 2015.

Knowing What To Say

Some of us are lucky enough to born with the gift of the gab. Some of us learn it as we grow up. And unfortunately, some of us never acquire the skill of knowing what to say when. And these guys? They're usually in the majority.
When speaking to others, there are things that you can say and things that you can't. For example, you never ask a girl that's been recently jilted at the altar about her love life. Then why can't some people keep a zip on their mouths?
Our mouths are like DVD players. Sometimes you have to pause; sometimes you have to rewind; and sometimes you change the track. And like all DVD players, ours' need servicing as well. Some don't stop. Some don't start. Some stop abruptly between dialogue and some actually do the opposite of what you want them to.
All of us have made a faux pas more than once. We're only human. However, there are those of us who make such errors everyday, not realising the effect it has on the person we're saying it to. I wonder why they don't teach us etiquette at school. Is it something that we're expected to be naturally endowed with? Because most of us aren't. We can say the worst things at the worst times and not even realise it. There are different ways of talking to people. Politely, confrontationally, warmly, coldly, aggressively and of course passive  aggressively. Passive aggression is something all of us have experienced and we've probably used it on others without thinking. The thing about passive aggression is you really don't know how to respond without sounding like you're blowing things out of proportion. Passive aggression is ugly. It can be snide, laced with malice; its a thinly veiled insult. And it usually pops up out of nowhere. It fascinates me. What could possibly prompt someone to say something like that?  What are our deepest thoughts? Why are we all capable of such darkness? Passive aggression is just our way of letting out something that we've been steaming over. Its a subconscious reaction. Always at the back of our head. Like a little imp, making mischief and is never found at the scene of the crime.
There are always things to be said. There is always a time for them. There also things that needn't be said-they may not be true, or they may be completely apparent. And the trick is to know when to say what and what not to say at all. Not an easy trick, I suppose.

The Cliches We So Easily Fall Into

The easiest thing to do in the world is to fall into a stereotype. Its easy to be what everyone thinks you are. Being the younger sister, people naturally assume I'll be the spoilt and pampered one. Also, I'll probably be the rebel-trying to be as different as I can from my elder, wiser sibling.
We look to clichés because clichés are comfortable. They're familiar. They're easy to understand. Its easier to understand people when you can compartmentalise them into little boxes. The pretty one, the aggressive one, the smart one, the rebellious one, the gentle one. Facets are hard to comprehend. Its simpler to think of the intelligent girl as the one who studies all the time. When that probably isn't true. She most certainly will have a life that is beyond her books.
So, instead of compartmentalising people, why don't we take the time to get to know them? Their likes, their dislikes, their habits, their quirks. Why don't we take the time to form our opinion, instead of making assumptions?
And why do we compartmentalise ourselves? Why do I, the younger one, have to be the irresponsible one? Why does my sister have to be the model student? Why does a stay-at-home mom have to portrayed as harrowed and running after her children (Mrs. Weasley comes to mind)? Why does the businessman have to be stiff and stodgy? Why does the artist have to be broody? Why? Why don't we break these stereotypes? To be who we want to be? Why do we restrict ourselves to a path? There's time yet for us to grow up. And when we do choose, we choose on our terms. Why shouldn't I be ambitious, yet playful? Why shouldn't a businessman play football with the juniors? Why should the smart girl always have her nose in her book? Why shouldn't the sporty guy also be equally intelligent?
We are who we let ourselves be. If I decide that I am worthless and I'm not going to amount to anything, its a self fulfilling prophecy. I HAVE to believe that I am capable of more. Sure, I may not be lucky enough to give a speech on TED, but I need to have faith in my skills, in my talent. We all do. Its the first step to achievement.

Wanderlust

I have lived in Hyderabad all my life. And frankly, I now want to experience living somewhere else. And by that I don't mean going somewhere for a holiday. I mean actual living. I haven't known anything other than Hyderabad. And I think the world has much more to offer. But where to live? I wish I could snap my fingers and teleport anywhere in the world to experience that way of life. I want to travel before I settle. I want to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower to look at Paris. I want to see the Tower of London and the ravens that guard it, I want to see the Parthenon, the Colosseum and the Sistine Chapel. I want to see the pyramids in Giza. I want to see the Sagrada Famiglia once it's finally done, once Gaudi's vision is finally complete. I want to breathe the smell of freshly baked bread in the mornings in France. I want to see the temples in Madurai.I want to visit the gardens of Kashmir. I want to go to Ladakh to see the magnificence of natural beauty. I want to see the Grand Canyon. There's so much I want to do. Yet, I don't know if I'll ever have the time to do all of it. I'm no longer satisfied being the frog in the well.
The one thing dictionaries do is that they make everything boring. They make every word sound boring. It's like a robot talking mechanically. Here is one-
"Travel is the movement of people between relatively distant geographical locations, and can involve travel by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, airplane, or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel can also include relatively short stays between successive movements."
How lovely. It's like going to Paris and saying, "I flew to Paris. I saw the river Seine. I saw the Eiffel Tower. I saw the Louvre. I ate macaroons. I came back." It completely diminishes the taste and beauty of travel. Travel isn't just about checking tourist attractions off a list. It's about trying the local food-even if you end up not liking it. It's about sitting in one place and just cherishing where you are and whom you're with. It's about learning a new culture, so different from your own, yet you find something to identify with. The desire to travel is wanderlust. What a beautiful word for a beautiful experience. So, I have an endless list of places I want to go to. And I know that I probably might never get to see all of them. And I also know that the list has just begun. And part of the allure of travel is the endless possibilities of where you could go. It's about dreaming a dream with someone you care about. It's about making memories. Whether it's where you go. Or whether its the plans you make that may not see the light of day. It's about stories. It's about opening your eyes to the unknown. It's wanderlust...

Fighting Inner Demons

It never takes much to annoy me. In fact, its actually quite simple to get me all riled up. Call me fat, call me dumb or just be indecisive. Its not a fantastic trait to have, I know. I'll probably get nowhere if I put that on my resume.
My mom says I should meditate to get rid of all that negative energy that I have bottled up inside of me. Because when I'm annoyed, I 'radiate' negativity and basically repel anyone in sight. The ones who come close enough usually end up getting scorched. So, I sat down today, thinking, "I haven't written in a really long time! God that's annoying!" And my thoughts randomly reach a point where I begin to wonder why I was even thinking about it.
Today, I thought about why I get annoyed so easily. And no, I couldn't come up with a solution. If only life was a cakewalk, my friends. But I do have a theory. I think I get annoyed so easily because I'm more annoyed with myself than with anyone else and I have the selfish tendency of projecting it on others. Quite unfair, isn't it? But how does one get rid of the feeling of being annoyed with oneself? However minor your inner demons maybe. It could be the inability to learn a skill that everyone else seems to be doing with aplomb. It could be not being able to lose those few extra kilos. It could be anything. How does one battle oneself? I don't think there's a right answer to that. We just have to suck it up and take it one day at a time. Swallow the nasty remarks that are at the tip of your tongue. Smile away the frown. Take the anger away with a few deep breaths. Do it meticulously until it becomes second nature.
And, I know my post was probably repetitive. But I just heard my mom talking about rebellion in teenagers. And my tendency to start either screaming or weeping when I feel cornered. God. I just realised how much of a wuss I am. I'd want to give myself a good shake too if I was in her place. But, I promise my next post will be better!