around the world in 300 days

still trudging on my personal "writer" project..

2011-11-21T10:06:00.002+05:30

I started this with aplomb, and am determined to finish it, as my writer's block continues its psychotherapy (I continue to call myself a writer :))

Here are my next five exercizes that i will attend to in one breath:
Day 06 – Favorite super hero and why?:
Does Alladin count? He did some really incredible stuff! No? OK, so if we are talking strictly superheroes, I would choose Mr. Incredible :) For those who live in the "real" world, Mr Incredible is an animated big-town man who is a superhero by birth, had incredulous strength and magnificent reflexes, who fell in love with and married "Elastagirl" and they had superhero babies, but he was bound to matrimony and domesticized to a home-at-six desk job, away from his thrilling life. He stayed, furtively, on the crime fighting scene despite his admonishing wife. :) You have to see him squeeze his burly frame into his tiny vestibule of a car and drive to work by day and sneak out at night to crime-fight-cheat his wife by night to love him. :) He's downright adorable. :)

Day 07 – A picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on me.
Happily, I do not have anyone like this. :) Everyone ive met and who has made an impact on me has done it in spoonfuls at a time, and impacts have waxed and waned enough to not qualify anybody for this blogpost, no matter how creative i choose to be. :)

Day 08 – Short term goals for this month and why?
Oh, that's easy! I want to plan my first lone-vacation :) And i'm taking one goal at a time, given my habit of piling my plate and running around with it. :)

Day 09 – Something I’m proud of in the past few days.
Oh, I am on my own in a new city, and I'm doing just fine so far. Adventurous enough, cautious enough. :)

Day 10 – Songs I listen to when Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad
Happy song: Beach boys: Wouldn't it be nice
Sad song: I don't really listen to songs when i am sad. :p Cant answer this honestly.
Bored: The Radio.
Hyper: Jason Mraz (nowadays)
Mad: Again, I don't think i would listen to any song when i am mad, i might just put on music and distract myself with it.

That's five exercizes at one go! :) I'll be back soon, only five to go before I "graduate!" :)

Ciao!

somewhere i've been to recently

2011-10-27T12:25:00.001+05:30

..And i love beaches :)

A habit i wish i didn't have..

2011-10-27T12:06:00.003+05:30

I have so many habits i wish i didn't have, it has been quite a task, picking and choosing, while writing this post. But one particular habit that has been annoying me with how pervasive it is in all my thoughts and emotions, is how i stop myself (and now the habit expresses itself as naturally as method) from indulging myself, making myself happy, in ways that are silly or not.

A friend has recently observed that i am quite complacent, and easy to placate, because i don't REALLY want anything, so can do with most things. I suppose that makes me a very accommodating and easy going girl, but i did not like the sound of that. And A lot of profound introspection revealed that I live in a guilt ridden world where pleasures are met with guilt. In my head, everything pleasure inducing is filtered out before it maybe translated to action. I have not yet figured out why (i guess my introspection was not so deep after-all), but i suppose it stems from my natural tendency to keep to myself. I am not expressive and outgoing about my preferences, like i am not forthcoming about myself to most people. I hate to think that my preference might come in the way of what another is thinking or devising. I have been pushing all my desires to the backseat, so far back that now when i turned to find them, i could not locate any that could validate the me that is today.

So here's to dropping a bad habit, getting to know myself, and living accordingly. :) :) and this time, i know i've got it right! :)

A picture of me and some friends :)

2011-10-27T12:01:00.002+05:30

This is only prt of the exercize; i really do not have a picture with all my friends, but heres two of my forever-girls :)

The meaning behind my blog name

2011-10-12T11:40:00.003+05:30

When i began writing this blog, it was only for a couple of friends who insisted that i keep writing. We were all in transition: career, further studies, trans-continental shift, marriage! Life had set in, like everyone had said it would, and we weren't going to be around each other anymore. Suddenly everything we had to say to each other, and everyday we spent with each other had become very significant.

And on a parting note, several of my girls told me "keep writing, and keep sharing your writing with us". I had not written for months then, and i hadn't thought i could write again. But they were very effective :) And I created this blog.

I named it "around the world in 300 days" after a very life-altering year, that had morphed me into a new individual who had to determine her identity all over again. But the blog was originally named "inside a yellow rosebud", in cheesy and childish memory of a once-special time that i shared with my best friends forever, there was a once-special boy, and because of him, a yellow rosebud that figured somewhere in the story. :)

I've lived more years since than i've actually grown, but times like those remain a large part of what defines me and my choices. :) So there, that was my blog name, drawn from the purest portion of my life of joy and sharing and believing in forever.

2011-10-10T12:30:00.004+05:30

Much delayed (nods disapprovingly) :(

Why I close this blog window everytime i open it to write eludes me. And in the spirit of the flavor of the season, to js do it, here I am, writing again in the face of the ridiculous inhibition that i have nurtured to write again.

And to keep promises, here is my first exercize in introspect and de-shelling; 15 not known facts about me:
1) i am a control freak; anything going out of control alerts, an SOS within me, and i struggle obsessively to normalize it to what i can only call "the last settings that functioned"
2) I am stubornly resistant to good advise, even when i ask for it, till the time i learn my own lessons.
3) I thrive on change. (so far) when i get too comfortable, i get uneasy, and I want to grow out of it; i call it evolution, and hope that it doesnt call for a survival of the fittest. :)
4) I need hugs like nourishment.
5) I am very receptive to horror movies; even the worse of these movies cleverly nests in my mind with its images and sounds and keeps coming back.. brrr.. :(
6) I NEED something to read in the bathroom; and don't ask me why, i wouldn't know :)
7) I believed, when i was a kid, that there is a monster under my bed, i could never stand next to my bed in the dark because i was SO sure a monster would pull me under with its sinewy arms, well, I still have that fear.
8) I have some kind of deep seated fundamental repulsion for "boy-smells". Very very often i hold my breath in elevators when there is at least one boy in there.
9) I am horrified of elevators, its a fear i have not been able to overcome, i have only leanred to assume the required decorum so i dont appear like a 28-year old retard everytime i get into an elevator.
10) I may have OCD; to me, nothing is ever clean enough.
11) I stay silent in disagreement more often than not, and usually seem to not be affected by how my opinion comes across, i treat my opinions as my own to have, use, and change :) offshoots from the stubborn-ness, but in a good way i guess.
12) Unless if someone is really interesting me, i drift off into my own thoughts while maintaining an impeccable expression of attention and interest, complete with the right noises.
13) I HATE being the centre of attention anywhere at any time no matter how flattering it may seem. I am not asocial, i just lack knowledge of the socially relevant methods that are used to handle attention.
14) I lack any kind of useful wisdom. :( Sad but true. Everything i know is from my own experiences, which have been anything but conventional.
15) I hurt easily, anyone being disappointed in me, angry with me, deceitful, unfair, loud and injurious, caustic, even in the smallest degree, can hurt me very much and very invisibly.

:) And this is the me that some souls on earth know, but some may not. It was hard enough for me to list things about my own self, goes to prove what i always knew, my life always pointed outwards, but 2011 and 2012 are going to be inside me :) cheers to that! more soon (and i mean very soon).

-Simin

letter to me

2011-01-14T15:18:00.004+05:30

So,

Its been over a year since i shared something here. Perhaps there wasn't anything really worth sharing, or perhaps it was a verbal inadequacy, for all that could have been written. Anyhow, I burned out all the lame excuses that kept presenting themselves, and got to the real reason: I am Lazy. And I am not proud!

Today i though, what the heck, here it goes: an overwhelming multitude of unprocessed thoughts, that i have been rudely piling on my previously categorized musings making me quite the knot.

Gathering the bearings of my rusted introspection, and with a desire to absolve myself of some suspect intentions that have come with being in the "big bad world", I take a few snap shots in rear view.

In most of my past year mental images, I see myself with a bewildered heart dangling from my sleeve, and i am surprized by it! Here i was thinking that I am learning the art of smooth pretention and finer social skills, but I have been more impulsive and undecided in the last year than I have ever been. 2010 was a year of defeated philosophies, unchanged faith, renewed spirit, and rounding off of my external being.

I learned that everubody who smiles does not really mean to, that compassion is a rare quality to find, that being unaware is a very limiting handicap, that trust is not so easy to give anymore, and that I am three very well segregated people congruently placed in one mind, in a constant state of conflict (I extrapolate this to growing up to adulthood).

And that I have very frequent writer's blocks. (i will pretend to be a writer here :))

So, before I burn holes in my mental web with sudden and unaccustomed introspection, i though i could delve into some spots of thought that could jog my mind into this direction and that. Call it warm up if you wish! I borrowed this from another blogger, as an exercize, beginning soon :)

Day 01 – 15 not known facts about me.
Day 02 – The meaning behind my blog name.
Day 03 – A picture of me and friends.
Day 04 – A habit that I wish I didn’t have?
Day 05 – A picture of somewhere I’ve been to.
Day 06 – Favorite super hero and why?
Day 07 – A picture of someone/something that has had the biggest impact on me.
Day 08 – Short term goals for this month and why?
Day 09 – Something I’m proud of in the past few days.
Day 10 – Songs I listen to when Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad.
Day 11 – Another picture of me and friends.
Day 12 – How did I find out about Twitter and why I’m on it?
Day 13 – A letter to someone who has hurt me recently.
Day 14 – A picture that says a lot.
Day 15 – Put iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play?
Day 16 – A picture of me.
Day 17 – Someone I would want to switch lives with for one day and why?
Day 18 – Plans/dreams/goals I have?
Day 19 – Nicknames I have; why do I have them?
Day 20 – Someone I see myself marrying/being with in the future?
Day 21 – A picture of something that makes me happy.
Day 22 – What makes me different from everyone else?
Day 23 – Something I crave for a lot?
Day 24 – A letter to the parents?
Day 25- What would you find in my bag?
Day 26 – What you think about you are your friends?
Day 27 – Why am I doing this 30 day challenge?
Day 28 – A picture of me from last year and now, how have I changed since then?
Day 29 – In this past month, what have I learned?
Day 30 – Who am I?

Until then!

Hiding place

2009-12-29T17:57:00.001+05:30

Today I awoke and felt like a knot,
Devoid of reason and ill-begot,
It grew unallayed with fresh torment,
It knew no mercy, nor how to relent.

The hours grew into one restless thirst,
Invading my veins and threatening to burst,
It was stripped of sense, completely bizarre,
Like an old wound agape, allowing no scar.

It weighed on my breath, dark and pure,
It had no design, but I knew the cure,
I reached for a hand, a sweet embrace,
And drowned the demon in my hiding place

Overwhelmed....

2009-09-29T00:31:00.005+05:30

It was a little more than a year ago when realization dawned on me, that i have something that i have always wanted. For the first time in life, an attachment was going to be easy and natural.

I had my head in the clouds and my feet in what can only be called shit. And he was that liberated soul with an attitude to match. I should have hated his guts and burned secret holes in his life with jealousy, he should have mocked me and made opinions of me as a deliberately screwed-up ridiculous girl. This was the plan. But what twist of fate made us friends is something that still bewilders me.

He was sweet, almost afraid to be sweet, always carefully reminding me that i should not form such an opinion of him, it doesn't really go with the rest of his image. I was amused, at the simple but audacious way he could brighten up an hour, an evening, a day a week... He was among a distant league of people, gregarious, outspoken, a total charmer. I saw him from that distance, fascinated and still amused. I was a shy, dilapidated girl who could not ingest the prospect of being the centre of anyone's attention, always content being the silent one. He lent me a new perspective. It was blinding seeing life with his eyes, uncomplicated, colorful, immediate and brilliant. I learnt the good old art of living in the present with him.. and this is where i started using words like "with him" and "us".. a mindless thought that would leave me laughing, there was no "us", he was still the soul in liberated flight, and i was still squinting to look up and marvel at him.

It takes a measure of equality to belong. There was no parameter that could satisfactorily equate us. The difference is still startling. He is Mr. i am in total control of my life, and i am still Miss. ok, i guess, maybe.. The common thread that binds us does not exist. I wonder what does. Like all things beautiful, it cannot be described. I have never before been bestowed this measure of understanding, respect and fair honest support. For the first time i wasn't feeling silly to say that angels do exist. He is a charming stark honest perfectly put together piece of work that i have an overwhelming urge to spoil him rotten with affection..

He has brought me the joy of a friend who is always there, he's shared with me his guileless ideas of how everything will always be alright, he has planted the roots of an ever elusive peace deep within me, he has been the reason for my happiness in many ways. I remain in awe, of him, his existence, his presence in my life, his audacity.. I am still a lost girl with my head out of the cloud, and my heart firmly lodged in his palms, in wonder of this feeling, with an urge not to blink or i will miss out on one more feeling of pure joy that he has endlessly wrapped me with :)

The pattern of destiny is not something i attempt to trace, but i know with permanence, that whatever happens ahead, i would have known an angel who let me look into his eyes enough to believe in forever...

measuring myself

2009-09-08T23:59:00.003+05:30

It now alarms me how much importance we would give to relationships when we were younger.. for better or worse.. it brought to light several other concepts i over rate..

fidelity, commitment, loyalty.. its the beginning and end of the world for me! and the strange part is that inspite of my acceptance that i over-emphasize the importance of "commitment", i can't bring myself down from there. Ask me what fidelity really means, i wouldn't know what to say. I had many thoeries, (here i'm purely on a love relationship) the predominant one has been that a person bringing some third into the same space of physical intimacy is performing a breach of loyalty, and then at some point it seemed that a person allowing a distraction, even encouraging it was unacceptable, and sometimes loyalty is put up against the most "unpassable" test of all.. if one enjoys attention from an "outsider", it is disloyalty, bad bad disloyalty.. Lately i've been thinking, i have seen all of the above, i have seen blatant cheating, secret affairs, virtual intimacy.. but none has felt quite right, when made anonymous with love.. this concept of loyalty feels like a load.. love is light.. where do these really even align..? have i always over rated loyalty? can i completely separate love from fidelity?
acceptance.. i remain a firm believer of a thought that the biggest gift you can give someone is acceptance of the way they are.. in this spirit i accept things that are 'wrong' (don't get me started on wrong, i am not clear :p) i have chosen to love n live with things that have been wrong and hurtful.. all for the upliftment of the perennail glow of acceptance and appreciation.. i am coming to see the relevance of judgement, in my list of things to do, i have to install a filter, to accept the stuff that really is worth it.. easier said than done.. its like revamping my whole spirit, but i see how much it is required..

more later....

life and blah

2009-08-27T23:31:00.002+05:30

I stopped all my thoughts,
And shut them in a box,
To think them another day,

When joy comes abound,
And friends are around,
And words are easy to say…

But one thought escaped,
Took color and shape,
And found me alone one night,

I begged it be gone,
And left it forlorn,
And forced my eyes shut tight…

It stayed till I rose,
And always stayed close,
I humored it on for a while,

You see it sometimes,
In poem and rhyme,
Or the shadow that weighs down my smile

Learning to use rear-view

2009-08-23T13:14:00.005+05:30

There's a cliche, a given person grows old enough to talk about the "good old days" and say it with conviction "i don't have regrets" and make a simple statement "i screwed up, my bad".

These lines seem like something that i would say when I'd be 40, but here i am, saying them. For whatever reason living on your own brings you more perspective and like sunsets make most people sentimental, i looked back on my life. And i saw something i have never seen before.. clarity. How often I've talked of life like a blur.. and yet when i was not paying attention, my life was adjusting my own peering lens into focus..

There has been purposelessness, spontaneity, pointless passions, randomness, misunderstanding, and we sure did wear our hearts on our sleeve, with an ease that now seems endearing. And in this bout of retrospect, i envisioned these barely differentiated brushstrokes in the designs of my past. I saw how common blood does not define who we are and what we become, i saw that our mistakes are only new walls broken down and new windows to your soul opened, i saw that the decisions i had made were in the true passion of the moment, they lacked foresight but they were full of my soul, and i saw that regrets are only opportunities making themselves visible for the life yet to be lived....

....and i saw that it is true, i have truly had some "good old days", i have "no real regrets" and that "i have screwed up", but a qaurter of a century's worth life has been good. :)

dum de dah...

2009-04-06T12:27:00.003+05:30

i haven't written in long! i guess that's a product of a lack of introspect in the last couple of months, or the brilliant changes in my life, my self, perceptions...

it is a new feeling to me, words darting about in my head, not waiting enough for me to catch them n put them down on this keyboard.. i am writing this post just to stay connected, like i used to. change is beautiful and scary...

i have, in fact, changed....

doubt interrupted....

2009-01-09T09:14:00.002+05:30

he was afraid she didn't know
that he loved her the way she was
she was afraid he didn't hear
what she said when she took a pause

he held her hand and sang to her
he tried to mend her broken smile
she heard the words and felt the warmth
but searched his eyes for doubt and guile

he saw the cloud inside her head
and held her close, to show he's there
she wondered why he wouldn't speak
and told herself he didn't care

he held her long, she fell asleep
he smiled, relieved, turned the lights dim
he slept that night thinking, now, she's fine
she awoke, convinced, she's losing him.....

beauty in a blur

2008-10-30T19:05:00.005+05:30

is that air you breathing girl?
that purple light in morning skies?
seems you aren't who you were thinking,
tomorrow's here, time flies

have you thought where you are?
run, girl... run

creation's going crazy on you,
yet you slipping so calmly on,
looks like you going to remember,
the way a self is born

keep those eyes open now,
and run girl... run

you find a hand in yours, you smile,
too blurred to see faces yet,
look back, look forth, there's only light,
but you're free, unbound, you've lost the net

hold on tight, we're speeding now,
just run girl.... run

rose red

2008-06-07T10:26:00.003+05:30

inside her house of daffodils,
she let her days go by,
they plucked out all the flowers one day,
and told her not to cry.

she searched the meadows for scented bloom,
but returned, an empty heart,
it rained on her that night so long,
the stars had played their part.

but tasting hope and tear and rain,
a rose burst out from dust,
it reached out for the golden skies,
another day came like it must.

she saw the rose's deepening hue,
and wondered why it blushed,
she gathered it in her empty arms,
back to the day she rushed.

when night fell dark, she held the rose,
withering, yet fragrant still,
and wondered why it smelled so sweet,
though it wasn't a daffodil.

have you ever touched life....

2008-04-09T11:22:00.004+05:30

there comes a time in life, when your childish fantasies start to look ridiculously colorful, and a giant black hole in your heart sucks them all inside. and the yellows and reds all fade to black and white.
you walk into the "real world".

that's where i found myself the other day. at first it appeared like i was rudely pushed into it. and then, like it weighs down everyone else, it anchored me to its gray infertile ground. and there i remained. afraid to be too happy, holding my lips down with a frown when i smiled, guarding my step if i spring too much, watching my lips if they hum that delicious song....

if it reads like another dreamer martyred then it probably isnt. martyrdom is too important a word to be used for an event this commonplace. today, i choose to glorify the other kind of people, who aren't martyrs, who don't suffer and sacrifice, they "live", in such an absolute way that the air around them breathes life into others.

they aren't weighed down by real world. they aren't even aware of it. they walk around, free spirits, because they can see the color that we dont. they don't look down to see if they're leavin their footprints or their mark. they look ahead because the world is theirs, and they are free to walk. they drink from fountains that spring up just for them, not because they are born lucky, but because they dream in the real world, their eyes paint color in the gray skies.

they laugh, untempered by doubts. loud and pure. their laughter is music, tugging at our heart, tickling the "ourselves" that we've allowed to vanish into the black holes in our hearts. they smile, a smile that starts in their eyes, and is mirrored on our lips, and in our hearts that ache dully at the memory of beauty. they have miseries, but they are hope themselves. they make you understand, that beauty is a feeling inside you, and beauty is all you feel when you look at them live.

sometimes they stop to shake hands with you. your eyes can then paint colour into the skies, not because they taught you how, but because their touch is what god meant life to be. in their eyes they carry the whole world that you have locked up inside your heart, the color, the music, the laughter. how many worlds they are inside themselves, you may never understand, but when they speak, they sound like they are completing your unfinished symphonies, singing your unsung songs and adressing your forgotten dreams.

but they don't know your eyes and your heart. they are only being romanced by their own lives.
you want to look into their eyes some more, you want to hold their hands and hear them, to feel the beauty inside you, to see your dreams again, to experience pure love.
but they move on, because they are the unbound free. they take nothing from you, but they leave their eyes on you, and all those worlds in their eyes to call yours, they leave the color in your skies, and the smile on your lips, they leave your heart in the hands of yourself...

the real world becomes a pallete to color, and you know, for always, inside your heart, that you have known the resonance of true beauty, love and hope........

conventionally yours.....

2008-02-01T15:40:00.000+05:30

what's the population of planet earth? in billions?
and we all agree that we are each different from the other. so a few billion different minds... opinions, desires and directions.... now, define "conventional".

me against myself...

2008-01-29T08:21:00.000+05:30

THE NIGHT, LIKE ME, WITH BATED BREATH,
DREW BLACK, OR DID I SHUT MY EYES,
AND WITH THAT THOUGHT DID I EXHALE,
THAT THOUGHT, THATS BORN WHEN CAUTION DIES.

WHY I INDULGE THAT THOUGHT TONIGHT,
A QUERY I'D ANSWERED YESTER YEAR,
LEST I RECALL IT I OPEN MY EYES,
LEST I CAN TOUCH, LEST I DON'T FEAR.

THEN COME THOSE WORDS I CAN'T FORGET,
THOSE EYES THAT SPOKE, THOSE SONGS THAT MEANT,
THOSE HANDS THAT ALMOST NEVER TOUCHED,
THOUGH HEARTS HAD BLED, AND LETTERS SENT.

THOSE PLANS WE MADE AND MASTERED THEN,
THE ROADS WE CROSSED, THE SUN WE BURNED,
WHEN MOONSHINE PROMISED TOMORROWS TO COME,

THOSE FOREVER DAYS, THOSE FATES THEY TURNED.

YET ISN'T IT TRUE AFTER ALL,
THE PROMISES THE WORDS, THE FOREVERS WE SWORE?
THE HEARTS THE SUNS THE MOONS THE SONGS,
AREN'T THEY JUST AS THEY WERE BEFORE?

WE'VE LIVED A LIFE AND LEARNED THE ART,
OF DENYING OUR HEARTS IN MOCK AND JEST,
BUT NIGHTS LIKE THESE, THEY UNDO IT ALL,
ITS IN NIGHTS LIKE THESE, I CANNOT REST.....

forgotten dream...

2008-01-14T09:29:00.000+05:30

the other day, while fencing my heart,
i chanced upon an impossible dream,
it rose, in beauty, on feet of hope
and embraced a teardrop out of me...

with hurried steps i rushed away,
to find my mask, my book of sense.
to invalidate my yesterday.
then turned to build my trusted fence.

there it lies unto this day,
un-nurtured, neglected, growing still,
i hoped it gone, wished it away,
but there it stays against my will.

i leave it at the gallows, pronounce it dead,
but come event of tender mind,
i look back and find it there.
only a few steps behind...

beguilingly tangible... agonizingly beautiful...
mercilessly invisible to all but me.

half past today

2008-01-14T09:23:00.000+05:30

17th Aug, 2007 @ 07:20

there's not much to do when the night is falling, all my "work" is done, dinner has been eaten, bed clothes changed into, prayers have been said... then comes the scary part...thinking...about what happened today, what it meant, what it changed, where it matters.... wrongs and rights... sleeping on it is even more strange... i get up in someone else's shoes, looking at myself like i exist in someone else's body.... i am a first second and third person veiw in one mind... :) when i'm 80 i might know if its good or bad....

18th Aug, 2007 @ 07:15

something people asking me often lately...it starts like "how are u?" proceeding to "how's work going?" then the apparently benign "what're you planning to do next?" what next? what kind of question is that anyway? It should be constitutionally illegal to ask this to anyone… how is one supposed to answer something like that? don't we know that we don’t know what we know tomorrow? did u have to read the previous sentence twice?repeat in head...I do that all the time... the "what next" question just doesn’t seem relevant... it doesn’t seem to register with its meaning in my mind.... i repeat it to myself again...I don’t have an answer... it feels so wrong... to people I talk to even... I don’t have an answer to give them...I go "hmm... huh... u no...There is always... mmm.. glug!" then I cough... :) and I compliment them on something they have on... :) (Gloating on excellence in distracting people)okay. coming back, I think I need to have a desire, an aim... I mean, I have some, but its completely estranged from passion... I have a lead though..

it cant be forced
it cant be borrowed
it cant be looked for…

it comes…

ambition and aim will recognize me one day…. They will…

later

19th Aug, 2007 @ 23:16

independance???

we say its independance day and sing patriotic songs for a day, everyone has something good to say about the country, and we have a holiday, special shows on tv, special supplements in the newspaper, all talkin of our country as an emerging goddess....then its another day, nobody is patriotic anymore, newspapers carry the same old stories of oppression, murder, injustice, stealth and extortion (among page three and sport where lifes a ball game)and i wonder, where is the independance they spoke of so passionately the day before?

we have become a sovereign... swaraj...so we have become slightly financially indigenous, but all the rest, we have taken the power of suppression and discrimination from another nation and put it into our own hands... so this is it.... indians being unjust with indians, indians discriminating among their own people, indians killing indians in the name of things that dont make sense...yes, we are independant of another nation's rule... we can be brutal with our own kind now..... who'l deliver us from ourselves? :(

22nd Aug, 2007 @ 02:51

i see myself inside your eyes,
a word i couldn't start to share,
when a tear falls, i realise,
a hug would be too hard to bear

a hundred thoughts, a second's worth,
"someday" is "hope" in other word,
breaths apart or a thousand miles,
along the flight of a thousand birds....

.....together again, then drawn apart
a thread, a dream, a lonely sigh
i hold your hand, it breaks me now,
to sing this heart a lullaby....

in memory....

2008-01-03T21:59:00.000+05:30

there's place for one truth in my heart...
either that he was here, or that he's gone...

blah!

2007-10-26T16:49:00.000+05:30

this post is meant to mean nothing... i haven't written in a while and the interval makes me uneasy.
i've felt the first spark of ambition.... real ambition... last week.
i didn't quite know what it was. i've been familiar with only one dimension of ambition... "looking forward to something" :)

the other dimensions i called dreaming and wishful thinking remain, but somewhere special in my heart. they cannot and should not be described. :) what i felt recently was a rush of blood to my palms, my eyes, my feet... like i wanna start right now! maybe it is ambition, i have no standardized guidelines to say "yes this is it!" but it makes me feel happy thunking i can and want to do it.... :)

apart from this im living an invisible life, invisible even to myself. when i think i'll write. :)

thill then , :)

complaint box

2007-08-19T10:50:00.000+05:30

i know a friend who calls me chatterbox
i know i talk a lot, one thought leads to another and they find their way to my tongue promptly...

about 3 years ago, i was talking to this other friend and realised that in 45 minutes of monologue, all i did was complain about stuff... the weather, that im sleepy, that i dont wanna do dentistry, that i cant go out whenever i wish to, etc etc etc...
i just went on and on like an empty complaint box was waiting to be filled up, and boy,was i generous!

then at one point i stopped. my friend looked at me, (she then seemed to have snapped out of a spell of hypnosis ;P) and i asked her "have i been complaining all this while?" she looked at me uncertain first, then said "well,.... yes actually"

and i felt middle aged..

it was awful! i'd see all these middle aged females cribbing and ranting about in odd issues, and i'd wish to god that i dont turn into one of them... and there i was! i didnt even see it coming!

it was then that i took a concious decision and stopped cribbing. it felt so good! its easier to see the better side of things when im not looking for whats wrong in them :)

three long years have gone since, and about three weeks without a friend's supervision... (she always reprimanded me when i thretened to crib) and i found myself rise and shine today morning and realise its a sunday and say "why do sundays come! i hate sundays!"
then i missed her :(

its so much easier to listen to myself and the promises i made to myself when friends are around! :( four weeks ago my friend and i shopped ourselves dry of cash and were forced to walk from main street to koregaon park... what more? we enjoyed the walk... i can call it fun :)
it seemed so easy then...

cover my eyes...

2007-08-10T18:59:00.000+05:30

i saw a woman on the street the other day, very old, weak, haggard, bent with age and with cataracts in both eyes... she was begging on the road, being pushed around among the pedestrians, eating newspaper because she was hungry ....

i saw a frail man dressed in rags , almost concious, being held by two other men, one man at each arm, being dragged across the road, with both knees scraping the ground, producing a slight trail of blood behind him... and people walked and drove over his blood as though it were dust...

i saw three men heave a large log of wood onto a vehicle and drive it towards the timber market... debating a price to put on a dead piece of a living tree that they killed...

i thought about misery for hours... i wondered why certain things happen, why certain things make sense to people... i wanted it to change, i wanted to change it... i felt small, very unresourceful, helpless...

then, i changed somewhere....

wiped clean...

2007-08-10T13:15:00.000+05:30

when everything in life has taken me where i least expected it, brought me joy from the places that were always in my peri-vision and brought all my dreams to fall into the traps of insecurity especially when my support system is slightly compromised, and all i can do is break down and marvel at the strange patterns of destiny that god's weaving into my existence, surrender to its complexity, i wonder if its all too screwed up to ever be right again... if every good thing is too late already and every dream is done fighting for.....

the beautiful picture i thought my life would make in a frame is transformed into a morbid form of modern art that does NOT make sense... and then i think that i made mistakes, i can learn from them still, i can wipe that canvas clean of the absurdity and start with new colors... maybe.... maybe i can...

the crash has been traumatic. its broken me down, but i have enough of me left to move... :)
i'll move, i'll paint that pretty picture again, i'll dream again...

i will...

shades of gray...

2007-08-09T18:31:00.000+05:30

a LITTLE while, a little while,
The weary task is put away,
And I can sing and I can smile,
Alike, while I have holiday.

Where wilt thou go, my harassed heart-
What thought, what scene invites thee now
What spot, or near or far apart,
Has rest for thee, my weary brow?

There is a spot, 'mid barren hills,
Where winter howls, and driving rain;
But, if the dreary tempest chills,
There is a light that warms again.

Could I have lingered but an hour,
It well had paid a week of toil;
But Truth has banished Fancy's power:
Restraint and heavy task recoil.

Even as I stood with raptured eye,
Absorbed in bliss so deep and dear,
My hour of rest had fleeted by,
And back came labour, bondage, care

learning life...

2007-08-07T18:37:00.000+05:30

“I've learned that good-byes will always hurt, pictures will never replace having been there, memories good and bad will bring tears, and words can never replace feelings" i don't know who wrote this :) but it fell in my lap just when i thought i needed someone to tell me....

it is so, that the last few months of my being have been a revelation of changes that have turned me around, carved new roads where i never anticipated roads could be tread... i've had to fight wars that came without warning and have found cushions in the queerest corners of my heart...

i've almost just survived (or have i?) and i dont have any way of explaining what really happened with me!!! i remember how hard the year 2006 was for us. we even wanted to make a bonfire of all we could find associated with that year.... but this year!!! i dont know what to do with it!!! this year has been a decade already, but it has made diamonds with its cuts and oyester pearls with the pain, every aspect of life came a round circle back to where it was, making me whole...

i realised i had a few precious things with me but was too occupied to notice them, like putting my fingers in my pocket to unexpectedly find a chocolate left behind..... :) i've had the best most uninhibited time with my friends (since junior college) in the last few months!!!

but there was a breach of trust here and there, there were disappointments, loss, injury, unforgivable behaviour.....and then forgiving and forgetting... most of all, a few questions dissolved into clarity....

i don't have answers or explainations, but i can look my doubts in the eye, i can adress them...

i dont know if i like self awareness yet, but its new, i'll look around.... :)

lost and found....

2007-08-04T14:05:00.000+05:30

i hold it now, now let it go,
hide it now, now let it show,

a tear comes now, i close my eyes,
u look away, i say good byes,

its been so long, my life falls short,
you've been around in flesh and thought,

you take your leave, i walk away,
like nothing else is left to say,

a piece of my smile lies at your door,
smiling for you, one time more.....

good bye is not even a word..... :(

2007-08-02T18:27:00.000+05:30

a tear shed, a smile spent,
a moment paused in thought,
a hand held, an eye met,
a word spoken (or not),

a moon shared, a secret bared,
a hope in times of hurt,
a warm embrace, a mirrored face,
chocolate stain on a shirt,

a night of talking,
a day of walking,
a lifetime or a mile,
a scream of joy,
a special boy,
fo'ever for a while,

a lovely start,
a homely heart,
a dream set on your wing,
of everything you mean to me,
good bye don't mean a thing....

when its not important to grow up.....

2007-07-31T21:33:00.000+05:30

sometimes its just okay to be little again... immature, impulsive, unmannered......

laughing out loud whenever i really want to, breaking into song at the drop of a hat, saying lets go to the first idea that comes to my head.... there was a time i was this person... i was wild noisy company, unabashedly drinking from life like it was a high.... :) i loved that me....

enter responsibility, the "appropriate age" to have a goal, pressure to "get serious" and other stuff like that....

i did just that, got serious, buried my impulses, laughed in moderation... they said to be someone i would have to be serious and focussed.... i didnt know i'd lose myself to form this "identity"

i never knew what i felt anymore, it was trapped somewhere between reason and rhyme... even borrowed logic that i'm not supposed to feel such n such in such n such circumstances....
i was only one mosaic, a piece of modern art, that people find appealing, but it cannot be defined... it confirms to the interpretation of any veiwer who looks upon it...

then i looked into myself one day.

its was like visiting a place of the past that gave u comfort, a sepia toned era of warmth and ease.... i took a nose dive.... and there i was... me again :)

often i think about the futility of growing up... must we really?

i feel life doesn't get harder as we grow up, we choose to make it hard for us unconsciously...
people expect us to be different people suddenly and we accept those new different people as skins we have to grow into...

grown ups say no a bit too often for their own comfort... for youngsters there are 7 options between a yes and a no that they consider before "chucking it". i feel life deserves the latter kind of treatment.....

for the people who dont agree with me, i'm sure you are intelligent people... living everyday like it should be.... i'm only among those who want to live upto life rather than have life live upto me.... :)

cheers :)

we, the fortunate

2007-07-19T21:46:00.000+05:30

today, once again, i found myself not convinced that i must give a beggar a coin. like countless other days, innumerable other instances that haven't found themselves important enough to linger on in my memory.
but today i thought, why am i judging the need of another man! who am i really, to gauge the depths of his misery?
to decide that he doesn't deserve that coin? whereas if he were a little more deprived i'd have given it to him.

its quite unfair on my part to go around laying my verdict on these people who obviously, besides their poverty, suffer the humiliation at all times to have to stretch their arms before unfeeling souls. the excuse i often give myself is that the man is strong enough to work. or that i have more important things to do rather than stop and open my purse.... i could be the better person if i only do that bit, but i forgo the chance, and choose only to be myself.

is myself good enough? its not even an exhibition of generosity to give alms to a beggar. kahlil gibran very aptly said "it is unfair that i own gold and i give you silver and deem myself generous" i wrote this post as a reminder of a valuable step i've taken closer to being just. justice, respect, acceptance, are what should be our basic and honoured birthrights. yet, it is sought in this world of billions.....

all the good things in life

2007-07-17T14:29:00.000+05:30

It's the times we're so crazy,
that people think we're high.
It's the times we laugh so hard,
we can't help but cry.
It's all the inside jokes
and "remember whens".
those are all the reasons
that we're best friends!

Our inside jokes-too many to name.
When we're apart it's never the same.
When we're together it's nothing but fun.
Replacing my girls just can't be done.
As the years pass, and we grow apart.
I want you to know, that you guys are in my heart.

You helped me through problems,
through things good and bad.
You helped me keep smiling :-),
when I was sad.
You helped me with guys,
you made me stay strong.
How will I live, when you guys are gone?

And where the years take us,
no place is too far.
We will think of each other,
wherever we are.
You're wonderful people,
with good hearts to lend.
And I want you to know,
that you'll always be my Best Friends

change.....

2007-06-27T20:49:00.000+05:30

every day is a new piece of time to spend...

every person is a new world to be lived in...

every thought is a new direction in the making...

every second takes us into a new irreversible frame of time...

everything around us is because it changes....

why make such a big deal out of change? if a person around us changes why make it an accusation? with the innumerable variables affecting our lives, we do change... into better or worse people, never knowing where the changes started.

the next time you want to tell another person he or she has changed, think a while if its worth it. the way you say it may hurt that somebody, and things might never be the same again...

heathcliff

2007-06-07T17:35:00.000+05:30

catherine about heathcliff............

he shall never know how I love him: and that, not because he's handsome, but because he's more myself than I am. Whatever our souls are made of, his and mine are the same

My great miseries in this world have been Heathcliff's miseries, and I watched and felt each from the beginning: my great thought in living is himself. If all else perished, and he remained, I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated, the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it

My love for Heathcliff resembles the eternal rocks beneath: a source of little visible delight, but necessary. I am Heathcliff! He's always, always in my mind: not as a pleasure, any more than I am always a pleasure to myself, but as my own being. So don't talk of our separation again

heathcliff about catherine........

I saw they were full of stupid admiration; she is so immeasurably superior to them--to everybody on earth, is she not?

You teach me now how cruel you've been--cruel and false. Why did you despise me? Why did you betray your own heart, Cathy? I have not one word of comfort. You deserve this. You have killed yourself. Yes, you may kiss me, and cry; and ring out my kisses and tears: they'll blight you--they'll damn you. You loved me--then what right had you to leave me? What right--answer me--for the poor fancy you felt for Linton? Because misery and degradation, and death, and nothing that God or Satan could inflict would have parted us, you, of your own will, did it. I have not broken your heart--you have broken it; and in breaking it, you have broken mine. So much the worse for me, that I am strong. Do I want to live? What kind of living will it be when you--oh, God! would you like to live with your soul in the grave?'

He endeavoured to pronounce the name, but could not manage it; and compressing his mouth he held a silent combat with his inward agony, defying, meanwhile, my sympathy with an unflinching ferocious stare. `How did she die?' he resumed at last--fain, notwithstanding his hardihood, to have a support behind him; for, after the struggle, he trembled, in spite of himself, to his very finger-ends.

And I pray one prayer--I repeat it till my tongue stiffens--Catherine Earnshaw, may you not rest as long as I am living! You said I killed you--haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always--take any form--drive me mad! only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you! Oh, God! it is unutterable! I cannot live without my life! I cannot live without my soul!

heathcliff and catherine, when death did them apart....

I was going to the Grange one evening--a dark evening, threatening thunder--and, just at the turn of the Heights, I encountered a little boy with a sheep and two lambs before him; he was crying terribly; and I supposed the lambs were skittish, and would not be guided.
"What's the matter, my little man?' I asked.
`There's Heathcliff and a woman, yonder, under t' nab,' he blubbered, `un' I darnut pass `em.'

romantic comedy

2007-05-22T18:07:00.011+05:30

i believe that god is watching over us all the time.

and because I've been granted rather minuscule proportions of brain, my perception of it brings to mind a laaaaaaaaarge cabin, with billions of t.v. monitors.. each of our lives playing on those screens.

maybe god categorises these "motion pictures" into categories according to

1) age groups: the ones, twos, threes....

2) type of activities: drama, comedy, suspense, tragedy, action....

3) the characters we play: heroes, bad people, sidekicks, comedians.....

4) the level of entertainment we provide: with star ratings....

what category would i belong to is constant curiosity...

have i been "heroes" ?

would my life look like a "comedy" from up there?

i would like to be watched as a hero in a romantic comedy with 5 star rating.....

these have happy endings, its funny all the way, only the climax maybe sad, and i can be all glory...... :)

i felt a desire to have such a review of our lives before us... then i was reminded that they already exist..... we call them epitaphs.

past days....

2007-05-22T18:07:00.010+05:30

by Anne Brontë
'Tis strange to think, there was a time
When mirth was not an empty name,
When laughter really cheered the heart,
And frequent smiles unbidden came,

And tears of grief would only flow
In sympathy for others' woe;
When speech expressed the inward thought,
And heart to kindred heart was bare,
And Summer days were far too short
For all the pleasures crowded there,

And silence, solitude, and rest,
Now welcome to the weary breast
Were all unprized, uncourted then
And all the joy one spirit showed,
The other deeply felt again;
And friendship like a river flowed,
Constant and strong its silent course,
For nought withstood its gentle force

a thought...

2007-05-22T18:07:00.009+05:30

strange it is, that we are given the world to live in, and we take it and build walls to confine ourselves......

......and it rained :)

2007-05-22T18:07:00.008+05:30

a drop of rain fell to the ground,

and met my face instead....

it fell like a tear to the corner of my lips,

and when i parted them to smile,

it tasted like freedom :)

moonshine and love

2007-05-22T18:07:00.007+05:30

I will tell you.
Many Years ago there was a young handsome Shepherd (who fed his flocks on a Mountain's Side) called Latmus - he was a very contemplative sort of a Person and lived solitary among the trees and Plains, little thinking - that such a beautiful Creature as the Moon was growing mad in Love with him - However so it was; and when he was asleep on the Grass, she used to come down from heaven and admire him excessively from a long time; and at last could not refrain from carrying him away in her arms to the top of that high Mountain Latmus while he was dreaming -

-john keats

time and tide

2007-05-22T18:07:00.006+05:30

i look upon a bird called time,
feeble voiced and deathly pale,
resting from war, weary, weak,
yet mute endeavour to tell its tale...

who stole the wind from its wings,
what beast devoured its breath?
i wonder while the bird called time,
plays daunting games with death.

it sings a song and lifts a feather,
battered by rain and storm,
then wraps its life within its wings,
its shroud to keep it warm.

identity crisis

2007-05-22T18:07:00.005+05:30

this question seems to be a constant stimulus for thought.

how do you introduce yourself to a complete stranger? my name means nothing. nationalities, they are only man made. professional qualification? dad's name? likes and dislikes? religious faith? would they define me?

do we have identities? rather, must we have identities? is it really imperative to life?

over the years i visit the same quiery. but contrary to a hope in wisdom, i've not found an answer to satisfy myself.

sometimes these quieries occur to me as far from clarifying answers...... the question being "who am i?"

reflections / mirages

2007-05-22T18:07:00.004+05:30

i looked at a mirror, and i did see,

a perfect stranger staring back at me.......

first lessons in loss

2007-05-22T18:07:00.003+05:30

as if the days grow weary of me
they come and go so callously,
and there you live, oblivious of this,
that with you dwells my joy and bliss,
all the love and strength that i sought,
is born and buried with every thought,
that brings you back to memory,
when the moon comes down to sleep with me.

so come your thoughts in lonely hour,
and tell me of the deepest scar,
but oh! joy! i know its true,
the same moonlight does sleep with you..

17/7/00, my first sense of loss.....

one of the crushed truths

2007-05-22T18:07:00.002+05:30

The forceps of our minds are clumsy forceps, and crush the truth a little in taking hold of it
HG Wells

guilty as charged

2007-05-22T18:07:00.001+05:30

most of the lessons i've learned have been the hard way. that's because i've wronged people. there is a certain glory in being the victim, who rises to the light of knowledge after ignorant naivety, learning one's lesson in caution. i have met my teachers however, at the tail end of this glorious horse.

the guilty. the charged. charged with treason, carrying a weapon, sentenced to.... permanence?

i've learned my lessons, but without glory. i've accepted myself for them, never made them twice, but what of it? why is it so tht the lessons i learned cannot help the ones i wronged? why must guilt have no correction?

sorry is a word i use often. even so, its not the eraser or correction fluid we mean it to be. a short while ago, i tried to relieve myself of the worms in my conscience, by apologising to those people i know i've hurt. it didn't help me one bit. well, what did help me was knowing that they had moved on beyond that spot i'd stopped at and revisited so many times. the injuries i'd inflicted on them carried no permanent mark.

but those same injuries translocated themselves onto me. my apology, and every word in it, hurt me. the guilt remained. the hurt added onto it. it is disillusioning. even today, i hurt people, but i find it just as impossible to "make it up" to them, if such a thing exists. i hope to be someone who always gets it right. .................well, almost always, when its important.......

i don't know what to title this one....

2007-05-22T18:07:00.000+05:30

i was in a train, on a journey back home from a place 18 hours away. mid afternoon in a sleeper class coach leaves you with nothing to do but read/ listen to music/ talk to others, options which i exhausted rapidly. i submitted myself to watching a world framed by a grilled window. i wouldn't be able to tell you when it happened but i felt a gentle detachment from the world, like i was born again. my nascent memory couldn't recall the tall green leafy "things" that filed up against my view, my hands in my lap looked alien, the people in my compartment seemed like a hitherto unseen species of presumably civilized existence. it was as though i had unlearned everything i had acquired in life.

it was a mesmerising feeling that evaporated almost as soon as the fascination shone in. a new fresh start. your dirty slate wiped clean. a spectral bubble of promise and anticipation that burst only because i touched it with feeling it. life after that has been distinctly but unfathomably different. it still seems like god rearranged something in my life, and at that moment he hit the pause button.

slowing down in life can be about as hazardous as its break-neck speed. it makes me conscious of the several people who live in me.when i slow down to "smell the flowers" these "people" sequestrate as though each of my individual senses assume independent human form.it is at these brief episodes when i can watch my own life from a second, third, even fourth person point of view. it may sound to you adequately profound for maturity, but the truth is i never know of what consequence it might be or what is to be done with it.

then there are times when my other selves can't express themselves. life runs so fast that my integral self falls short of it. any effort to capture it reveals a blur, devoid of direction, colour or feature. at present i live in my latter self, trying to catch up with life, marvelling at the absolute servitude of god that we dwell in. for us, security means to hold, possess, sense in some way, anything we love, any place even person.... it is a deep-rooted compulsive human tendency, that is the defaming catalyst of the divinity of love. only god can achieve this, to make man understand and lose his perspective at once. where our perspective and understanding meet, i imagine, we'll touch the hem of god for one breathless moment....