The extreme satisfaction, security,
and love that I derive from the weather, the trees, and the empty roads, is
something that probably no other love will attain. The spring is the catalyst to
the bounce in my step. Yet I feel most grounded but free and unbounded. My
heart swells up, as I awaken to the cold breeze after a long sleep, from within
myself. Every masquerade is dropped, shellacked. There is romance, there is
laughter, and there is kindness- all within myself. The indifference and
disappointment of every-day life that limits such emotions, unties and unfurls,
and I can see, beyond that reality to what is actually real, for me.
Isn’t it lovely, I wonder how all the
good memories are played in your mind as the wind sweeps your hair, and you
move into it, smiling. There is no one who would interrupt, no one who would distort
the images in your head; just good daydreams in the blooming passion that is
spring.
This is not how I clicked it, but pictured it.
“I hope life only goes uphill from
here!” I said to myself.
But even in the atmosphere, nothing
stays the same. Nothing is constant. We live in the troposphere, where
temperature falls as we go up. And as soon as the troposphere ends, and
stratosphere begins, temperature increases as we go up. There is no spring in
space, only blackness. Life is weird, and unlike science, there’re no
explanations about why we feel the way feel, or why what happened happened.
Oh, I was talking about spring. My
mind drifted to another layer of the atmosphere. But it’s certain, that nothing
is set in stone, right?
So when spring comes, embrace it. I
hope one day I can find ways to enjoy a sweltering hot weather too. Until then,
spring will be my respite; winters will be my pause. And summers, my rush!
Yes, I change with the weather, capricious,
and susceptible to the glow of the bright moon, the dark colours of the sky, and
the chill in the air. And clinging; to every bit of what anything that is good
Why
is choosing a road less traveled poetic in theory but baleful in reality? Why do
I have to straighten up my upper lip every time I’m out alone? Why is going to
the gym my only strength when I’m mentally strong too? Why isn’t that enough? Why
do boys always stare at you? What is my body and why does it even exist as
another entity altogether? What are my legs if they’re not walking away from
threat? Constant vigilance, Professor Mad-Eye Moody would say.
These
are the questions that young adult women like me have today; among many others.
The one most important answer to these questions is that my life lacks a
million characters of a good fiction book, and so it is not.
It
is so easy to lose all temptation to acquire knowledge, to settle for vapid frivolities,
to bury the hatchet of curiosity; and live forever, in the transient paradise
of defiance. Chill, relax, they say. Look up at the sky, why is it serene to
look at the color blue but then it is associated with depression and sadness? What
is the fracture point in the stress-strain graph of a human mind? When did you
last stop believing in the existence of a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow? What
makes you, you? What makes your heart flutter, and your chest swollen with
pride?
We
had a plethora of questions while growing up; we looked up to adults for the
know-it-all giants they were to us. Who is god and where do we go when we die?
Why is learning tables more important than the diorama of a kitchen set? Why
are some things, and some people, placed at a higher value than the rest? Why
do I have to be of that age, to do that? Who gave love a bad name? Why do we fight
wars?
I
wonder what would be the answer to these questions, if they were asked by a
kid. But then again, kids are very smart these days, most of them are. Innocence
is a rare gift; it shouldn’t be exploited with half-assed truths. But as we
grow up, we glean information. We open several tabs. We clear our histories. We
become aware. We satisfy our curiosities and begin to consolidate answers for
ourselves.
Limitless,
you do NOT have to be of that age, to learn that; though I still think that only
prodigies can do that, maybe because of the embedded fear of failure in my
mind. But I like to believe the former, and do most of the things based on
words sewn together to form my life mantra – I can be whoever I want to be.
Equity,
being a jargon in the world of finance is also the part and parcel of life
itself. Equity is imperative. Hierarchy is status; order which is relevant, though
not permanent. Atheism, feminism, nationalism, patriarchy, all resonated within
me in a similar fashion. At times the answers I was being given seemed incongruent
with the reality, so much so that I was being propelled by a great desire to
just let go of everything. Every little doubt was relinquished for peacefulness.
Several tabs were all closed, at once. I felt it to be important that I do not
get pummeled for my interest in history, so I hid it. And escaped the chaos it
was so famous for brewing. So I did bury the hatchet, did I go back to it? Who knows?
“Dad!
Sparkling! Wires!” I screamed at the glow of electricity in the air.
“It’s
Sparking, kiddo. Not Sparkling.” He laughed
I
remember being upset for being wrong. I was so bad at English; I still am just
ok at it. I was disparaged for my English. So I made words my best crony. I
asked questions. These questions were nothing, but meaning of the words I found
in the texts that I read. And that meaning has been important for me; it has
been the driving force for my not so fictitious life.
If this 22 year old girl ever wrote a book about her life,
it is going to be called “Memoir of an unaccomplished girl”. And if you decide
to read further than the title, it is because you’re simply intrigued. Maybe
ultimately she has something to offer, something to say. Maybe she has figured
everything out to reach to such conclusion. Maybe she has defeated love, or
conquered it.
Maybe you will find your unfulfilled wishes in the
flickering pages of her book. Maybe you will find the answers to your
questions, something which would be pacifying and corroborative. Because we all
have things which have been left unaccomplished, dreams that were relinquished,
wishes lost to the enduring tides of reality. Ultimately, rendering what could
have been to what could not be accomplished.
She will know that there is nothing extraordinary about not
accomplishing anything. But being unaccomplished can have myriad of
possibilities, it keeps you off the pedestal and mostly free. And even if this
girl is an accomplished girl, being unaccomplished gives her life purpose, and more
room for exploration.
Why does she have to be labelled as unaccomplished?
She is not validating her life, but simply laying out the
facts of a contrite heart.
This girl will write about the boy who kept pulling at her
heart strings. She will write about her first crush; and her last. She will
tell her readers that everything she writes about should be taken with a pinch
of salt. She will write in a haphazard manner, since chronology is weakening
and mundane.
In her book, she will introduce sharp and shrewd characters.
They will be quick to notice the signs concealed beyond comprehension by
destiny. She will severe her ties with the almighty, when in a riotous uproar
of events her heart is broken.
From the very first chapter, she will plunge into the
beginning of her first regret. She will create madness, propelled by her earliest memories. She will write about the dull, cold months,
preparing for exams and finding solace in her imagination. She will write about
those warm, soothing summer nights spent reading Harry Potter. And the sick
days, spent reading about Katniss Everdeen, when she would imagine herself to
be as strong, and standing as tall as her.
She will write about the pungent smell of alcohol in the
chapter where she didn’t drink. She will write about the laughter that followed
her “No”, which still echoes in the valleys of her mind.
She will write about fate, and possibilities, ignited by
those not confined within the four walls of human capacity, lying inside the
four walls constructed by our egos.
She will write about writing, about finding solace in the
scribbled sentences and ragged blotches on a yellow paper.
Finally, she will write about finding herself, in an
alternate universe. Detached from reality, right where she loses herself in the
beginning. She will find her old journals there, and rummaging through them,
she will find no regrets. They will be brimming with happy memories, full of
good people.
She will write about her
slow pace in this new world, about tasting every win and defeat.
She will learn that
the pace of life is not dictated by how fast or slow you are moving, it is
decided by how much you are learning. In the end she will say, “The faster
everything moves, the more it hurts."
And with that, she will take a break, and
stop writing. Hence, she will be successful, in being a truly unaccomplished
girl.
Etched in my memory to remind me That happiness comes to those who are brave.
She doesn’t have an organized personality. She gets
disappointed often these days, like yesterday, when she was trying to download
something but got lost in the instruction manual and day before that; sitting
in a class, wondering what she’d learned in these two years. Upon coming with
no immediate answer, she sat lamenting the trajectory of her not-so-happening
life. And the never ending questions which take breakage at: How DID she end up
here?
How DID she end at a classroom at DTU, studying artificial
intelligence and machine learning, and half solved solutions of problems which
were too made up? How was she not in the next room, where the Model United Nations’
conference was going on? Why was she not part of the friendly banter? Why was
she not one of those happy, energetic faces? Why was she sitting among people
who were too muted, too tired, and too dispassionate? Why was SHE, one of them?
She used to be different, more of herself, less of this molded
version of her molded self.She’d
always had an unflinching optimism. She’s a cheery and foolishly unflappable
person. And she has only wanted to be more, more of the person she’d wanted to
become. But she has seamlessly and inadvertently found herself settling, or as
she likes to call it: succumbing. People say that she is brave; she believes
that she is nothing but an intrepid coward.
She is mostly scared, that things she holds so close to her
heart are drifting away. She’s scared of a gradual decline in her interests, in
her love for things and people, and vice-versa. Her worst nightmare is the kind
of change that slowly creeps in, and intermittently destroys every sought-after connection, renders every conversation useless, every hobby a waste of time.
She dreads uncalled unhappiness, the one that alters you; the kind of change
that portrays a lifeless picture of the guitar, shrouded by books. She dreads
insanity.
Hurriedly, like a mouse scuttled across the room, she picked
up the jumbled pieces; HER jumbled pieces. Haphazardly, she tried to put them
together, lacking any clear cognition of how it looks and how she wants it to
look. She is scared that the things which make her who she is, will be forgotten;
that she will no longer be able to afford her dear mundane tasks, because the
price will be too heavy to bear.
She’s confused, and there is no one to blame. Even then, when
she talked about Guitar, her father talked about Badminton. When she talked about
Art, her father talked about IIT. When she was looking at decent universities
in the US, her father was looking at Harvard. He’d always wanted something
rigid, something which was defining, or as she likes to call it: confining. But
she’d always flung at breakable threads, something not rigid, but fulfilling.
She’s emotional, sensitive; but she has always been so, only that she’s
realizing it now.
Go outside and feel
the breeze, she tells herself. This is the person that she has always been.
Even if everybody stops caring beyond one
certain point, she’ll still be here. She’ll still have the same blood
running through her veins; she’ll still have the same eyes, same smile. Every
once in a while someone, or something will awaken a boldness in her, which will
keep the fire burning.
But it’s getting cold. She needs to come back inside.
Traveling
to a place we’ve always wanted to explore is an enriching experience. A planned
trip is a journey whose destination we surely know. But it brings me immense cognitive
joy to think about the place I might end up at, knowing absolutely nothing prior
to reaching there. Knowing that whichever place it would be, it will be different
from where I really am, or maybe it would be the same place. But the curiosity
and the thrill of travelling will make it worth it.
An
unbridled lust, to explore different parts of the world, to meet new people, to
learn to live, to fall in love with all of it, is now what has taken over my
bucket list.
In
the past twenty-one years, I must have traveled as many places as I could
count on my fingertips. Therefore, I would not call myself a traveler and
neither have I been a tourist in another country. But, it would be absurd of me
to not have a list of places I would love to visit and explore. Therefore, I do
have a quite vague list that I started making since when I was in 8th grade. Funnily it started off with Las Vegas, and to be precise the destination
was supposed to be the Miami Space Club. I know, it sounds very outlandish for
an 8th grader, but that’s how far-fetched our ideas used to be. The
list goes on to experiencing drinking champagne in Venice and ends somewhere at
going to watch the Northern lights, or visiting the Deception Island in Antarctica. The list could go on and on,
depending on the amount of obscure facts I could gather about a place.
There
is something utterly romantic and heavenly about travelling, no, scratch that,
travelling can’t be contained in a few lovely adjectives because it is mired in
several different adjectives. When we travel, along with exploring myriads of
paths and places, we also explore ourselves; our limitations, our strengths,
our fears, our open-mindedness, our temperament. Travelling for me is indeed self-exploration
in its truest sense.
I
have dreamed, and I have imagined, of innumerable events taking place in a
disjunctive world that holds no relation with reality. I have dreamed of
walking in the streets, brushing past strangers, with a sense of belongingness.
And at times, I have felt my heart beating out of my chest, and felt the rush
of blood from falling deep into the ocean. And it’s all part of the adventure,
of travelling to a different place, and therefore #TheBlindList, sounds
tempting. It would be a glorious experience, to fall in love with the world, to
experience everything to its extreme; all without knowing where you’re going to
end up at. Moreover, it would be a life lesson in disguise, quite literally!
Even
if I end up at the same place where I’m at, give me a few new directions which
lead up to where I am, if perception is all I’ll gain, I’m happy with it. I’m
the one who purports not to follow blindly, and I purport to be rebellious. Ironically,
a blind destination will soothe my conscience and feed my rebellious nature,
even though I’ll be following blindly, a path not known to me before.
A
misadventure onto the barren land, onto a mysterious cobbled street, and a voyage
into the uncharted seas- the blind list could entail only this vast expanse
filled with adventure, filled only with what is unpredictable.
My
eyes gleam, my head is full of dreams of such shades of skies which I’ve never
witnessed before. I am walking upwards, defeating gravity. I’m floating on the
land, flying over oceans, exploring possibilities and visiting places; where
the air is a bit cooler, where the trees are a bit taller and where the dreams
are much bigger.
As I ruined the most
important paper of my life, I thought about those three years and how
everything led up to this exact moment. How I landed up here. Three years ago,
if someone had told me that I’d be doing what I am doing now, I would have
laughed my ass off. I wanted to change that, but redemption turned out to be
axiomatically in the negative.
I'm all the things I thought I'd never be. The good and the bad, both. And
I know that I will never be what I'm not. I will never have that brazen
feeling, the one which would make me dauntless. The landscape has
changed, drastically. I'm the mis-toggled shirt, the rust tainted pure white
paper.
This failure of mine, it
will never cease to define me. Because it's all I had wanted to be.
It feels so different, in every sense of the word.
Sometimes I wake up in the morning and I can’t shake this feeling of living
in a perpetual nightmare. I’m still in denial, in utter disbelief. It’s crazy.
I just cannot define this feeling.
Tell me shadow, you love darkness. I loathe it. Yet, it follows me. Yet you
follow me. Why?
But no matter how bad the nightmare is, I've learned that the trick is to
never talk about it. I do this often, only because I just don’t know how to
react to other people’s dilemmas. I’m empathetic but I don’t know how to
empathize. And sympathy is nothing but pity offered by callow people.
“Oh”. What a pretentious expression. Tell them a sad story, teach them how
to laugh.
Lately, I’ve been compelled to question everything. A wrong moment in time
seemed to outline every choice I’ve ever made in my life, and made me look
back; to all the wrong friends, wrong acquaintances, wrong place, wrong
path, wrong university, wrong school, wrong talk, wrong class, wrong questions,
wrong conversations-every connection.
I’ve learnt to sketch all
that was wrong for me since the beginning of time. Perception.
Indulgence. Lessons.
I try to think about all the extremely wonderful people who’ve been in my
life, or could be in my life, but are not. And never will be.
But I’ve learnt some
things.
I'm going to be proud of my goals, no matter the result. I will say
NO- to stupid hangouts, stupid conversations, outright invasion of privacy,
people who try to bring me down, deflating opinions of people about me. I'm
going to stay away from all of this.
Ultimately all that makes you unhappy, all the people who make you unhappy,
everything that screams unhappiness is meaningless. It does not define you. It
does not define me. It’s a black space. Aurthohin.
I’m starting over, again. What do you think shadow? Wait, don’t
answer. I’m leaving you; and everyone else, and everything else, of you, with
you.
A girl with a passion for Art, Fashion and Photography, who is now crossing out all the wrong words. ;) I am awkward with my layers of silence on silence. I like - Books, Sketching, Letters, Writing. I wander around and listen to music.
Can you get past my 10 layers of shyness, awkwardness, creepiness and crazinesss? I ness you can't and you mustn't
Hello from the girl with a transparent mask of a lamb, worn to hide her idiosyncrasies and her urge to control spilling out the prodigious memory she has, of the shirt you wore on Saturday.
