Lover of Losers

My family and I watch a lot of television. By television, I mean soap operas. And we get very involved with the characters. Their pain becomes our pain. My mother fell half in love with Dr. Gregory House while watching the show. Now everyone loves the central characters, don't they? So do I. But I feel sorry for the ones nobody likes. They're the good guys-but they generally aren't good looking. They're the plucky sidekicks. The guys who completely blend into a crowd. The guys you rarely remember. They are, for the lack of a better word, losers. I'm sorry about how mean that sounds. And I'm a self-proclaimed "lover of losers".
Somebody has to like them. Somebody has to root for them. If someone always roots for the underdog or for the obviously stronger candidate, who's going to cheer for the little guy who's too afraid to open his mouth? The could-be underdog? How are we ever going to get him out of the shadows? Everybody needs somebody other than themselves to believe in them. Big breaks only come to those who have had a chance to demonstrate their potential.
So, this is a trait that I am mocked endlessly for. All in good faith, of course. I think I do it because I could very easily have been one of those guys. I could very easily have done my very best to blend in, to be a face in the crowd. Sometimes I think I'm still capable of it. Its easy. Its easy to not try. But what all of us need to realise is that we owe it to ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to be our best possible versions. We owe it to the ones who dared to take a chance on us when no one else would. So, in those 'reject' characters, I see a glimpse of myself. A glimpse of what could have been, of what could be. It serves as a reminder. A reminder that, there are a lot of unheard voices out there, just dying to shout out. And I root for them in the hope that one day they shall find the courage to speak up.

Sincerely, A Friend

So, this isn't me but a friend of mine and at my request, she wrote this. I hope you think she's as brilliant as I do-
I'm going to let you in on a secret:
There's no 100/100.
promise me you wouldn't throw it around like it wasn't something you already knew; and wanted to chafe at me for repeating what a hundred other people told you (over and over again).
I'll tell you why.
Because despite all the knowing, despite being the best ultracrepidarian you know there is, you strive for 100/100.
Remember the downcast eyes when your teacher told you she's cutting a few marks off for no logical reason apart from the simple truth that was supposedly universal: There's no 100/100.
Remember the one zit that kept coming back, no matter how hard you tried making it go?
Remember the relationship (yeah, stop thinking the term relationship only refers to that boy who looked at you in all the seriousness that his fifteen years on Earth taught him, and told you he wants to spend the rest of his life with you. I'm actually laughing) that didn't work? Remember your tears?
It's a farce. It's all a farce.
There's no 100/100.
We're the 99s who try everything in our power to get that one extra point.
And will continue to do so for the rest of our lives, if we don't take good care.

Wouldn't It Be Loverly?

People call me a Grammar Nazi. That's probably because they haven't met my mother. This afternoon, my darling mom proclaimed, that when she reads my posts, although she enjoys it, she feels the immense need to edit my grammar. I write as I think. So, sometimes my English isn't going to be perfect and flawless. My mom is my own personal Henry Higgins and I'm her Eliza Doolittle-without the 18-inch waist, of course.
My mother detests it. And maybe its hereditary, but so do I. Call me snooty, but I really can't help it. When I hear incorrect English, I'm overwhelmed by the urge to correct the person and then hit them over the head. God, I'm intolerant. Sometimes I wonder why I have friends at all.
Coincidentally, I'm taking a phonetics class this semester and so, one day a week, I'm sitting in front of the computer and making short and long vowel sounds. And that just gives me the 'Eliza Doolittle feeling' even more! I'm this close to bursting into song and exclaiming, "wouldn't it be loverly?!" If only I had the looks, it would be picture perfect.
Sorry for the randomness of this post. I just felt guilty about not updating for so long.

#JeSuisCharlie

Listening to the news these days leaves you feeling depressed. Everyday, a new attack. Everyday, a fresh story more gut wrenching than the previous. The recent attacks in Paris led to a rally today which many of our world leaders attended. A reaction to the attack on the people who worked at the Charlie Hebdo magazine, which is basically anti-establishment and had satirised Prophet Muhammed, among many other religious leaders and politicians. It was an attack on free speech. How dare anyone encroach on someone else's right to an opinion. Sure, maybe the cartoons were in 'bad taste' as my mom tactfully put it; but then, so are the infinite write-ups and paparazzi photos that invade the privacy of the famous. That doesn't mean we retaliate with violence. We retaliate with our voices.
We have the right to offend. We have the right to be offended. We have the right to express our beliefs without having to worry about death threats and actual attacks. And when it comes to religion, how can one's faith be shaken by reading an article or seeing a caricature showing an ugly truth? Being devout doesn't mean being a sycophant. Blindly believing whatever you're told is naivety. And just as you have the right to defend your faith,  you also have the right to see that its not perfect. All religions have their ugly sides. Fanaticism is present in all of them. But we have to be willing to recognise that. I was watching a debate on free speech with my mother. One of the panelists said that freedom of speech should exist, but in a controlled form. This caused one of the female panelists, a stand-up comedian, to say, "Controlled freedom is like being slightly pregnant". The idea is ridiculous. You either have complete freedom or you don't. And why shouldn't we have the right to speak our minds? We were endowed with them to use them-to think, to evaluate. Not to mechanically listen and accept whatever we are told.
Don't be afraid of voicing an opinion. Its an intrinsic right. And frankly, its insane that we are hesitant to use it. If these terrorists aren't afraid to pick up their guns and shoot more than a hundred children in Pakistan, cartoonists at their workplace, innocent shoppers buying their groceries, and countless other heart wrenching and blood-boiling crimes, why should be be afraid and be denied our right to speak up? Every single time we hesitate to speak up for what we think is right, we're no better than the person we hesitated to speak up against. I'll sign off with this French statement by the philosopher, Descartes - Je pense donc je suis. It means, " I think, therefore I am".
My interpretation of it is that we were blessed with the ability to think, to understand, to draw conclusions, to look at the whole picture. And when we don't take advantage of that, what are we really?

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.