Wednesday, 19 April 2017

Just A Woman: Part 2

A few years ago Kalki Koechlin sat down in front of a crowd and wowed them with her poetic performance:
'Dear Men'.
It was so inspirational that I could not let it ebb into the vast web.
This is why this video exists. 



Please share these amazing words.

Tuesday, 18 April 2017

The Feels of Anxiety

I'm not a good conversationalist and it makes me seem like a shitty friend. I don't jump into conversations. I'm quiet in groups and people assume that I'm sitting there, judging them.
But I'm just in awe of how easily they can communicate. How natural it is for them! How human they are!
I'm terrified of talking on the phone and starting conversations with strangers. I'm even scared of texting certain friends and coming on too strong. So I wait too long to answer back.
I don't let on that I care. But I care more than anyone realises. I care so much that it hurts. I don't reach out to people.
I come across as a snob, because I find it hard to talk, hard to force a smile.
But I'm not trying to be rude. I'm only trying to survive.
They just think I'm quiet, shy. They don't realise I have anxiety, because I'm not shaking at the table and hyperventilating into a paper bag.
And if someone happens to talk to me, I freak out so badly that I go around telling people the whole conversation just so because my anxiety tells me they could turn up against me and no matter what I must make sure that doesn't happen and that person doesn't dare talk to me ever again.
My meltdowns happen before I see them. The night before, on my drive there, on my bike - I'm freaking out the entire time imagining all the things that could go wrong, picturing how embarrassed I'll be. But when I'm finally in public, I internalise everything- I'm still anxious, I'm just not showing it. Secretly, I'm freaking out over what I look like. Freaking out over what to say next. Freaking out over why someone across the room gave me a strange look.
And if I need to compose myself, I escape to the bathroom and breathe heavy inside a stall or splash my face with water and then walk back into the room like I'm perfectly fine.
But I'm not fine.
Anxiety makes sure I'm never fine.
It makes me turn down opportunities that I know I'd enjoy.
It makes me stay quiet when I have something important to say.
In all honesty, anxiety makes me look like an asshole!

Saturday, 15 April 2017

This was so unexpected! ROFL

I couldn't stop ROFLing when I saw this.
I didn't need any cues to get me rolling there! Haha
Too bad US!



Anyone who doesn't get the sarcasm here, ping me ;)

Friday, 14 April 2017

Just A Woman: Part 1

Just a woman making a difference.
Probably one of the most stirring invective against a culture that maybe going morally numb, one newspaper edition at a time. Kalki Koechlin performs a self written poem titled 'The Printing Machine': a rhythmic and scathing satire against daily broadsheets, magazines, social media and textbooks. 

Wednesday, 5 April 2017

Bad days do end.

Hey, I'm still here, a little more hopeful than before, my last post was really depressing.

Any way, I still have bad days, when happiness seems more like a mirage than a destination.
It jumps further away again just out of reach each time I seem to get close to it.

While I'm at it, it feels like I'm in a desert full of sufferings and false hopes.
Like my desert isn't supposed to end after all.

It feels as if my universe isn't ever going to return all the good.
Maybe for some, everything never really gets back to them after all.

Sometimes it feels like I'll never be able to escape this dreary vacuum of distress.
Sometimes it feels like I'll never get there, like I'll never be okay.

I look behind me.
I feel the pain that I endured.
I notice all the vanquished inner demons.
I see everything that I've been through.
I realise how far I've come.

And I know, without question, that I'm never going back.
And if I'm not going back, then I'm only moving ahead.

I recall and live it all again and remind myself that I have to turn around and onward.
I've come too far to give up because of one bad decision and a few bad days.

Because now I know.

Bad days end.

New days begin.

And tomorrow will be better.

Thursday, 30 March 2017

Now I Know

I always wondered why it happened to me-

It wasn't my fault.

They were the one's with the wrong goals, trying to achieve the wrong things and hence, I was like a mountain of obstacles to them.

I showed them that their possessions were not enough to lure me in.

I was too strong for their weak minded games.

I was too much of a valiant before their cowardly and spineless nature.

They were typically pissed because I exposed their unduly adolescence.

It was just that I reminded them of the lack of substance and truth their hearts possessed.

Every time they saw me, they felt an invisible smack on their face.

They couldn't stand my veracity and truthfulness.

Now I know why it happened to me-

It was them!

To all those who want to bother me for the rest of my life, please don't give up!

I've always been working towards perfection.

And I'll need someone to pull me down so that I can slingshot myself even higher.

I'm not going to stop loving myself.

And I'll do it even more now because- Now I Know!

Tuesday, 21 March 2017

Do bad days end?
Maybe not...

There are bad days and there are good days.
For some, they come and go, but for some, they're meant to last forever.
There are those unlucky ones who end up with all their share of bad days.
For them, suffering is just suffering.
It doesn't heal, it doesn't make them any stronger, it doesn't help them move on.
Every effort they make to hold on and make it any better only makes it worse.
They want to give up but they can't.
They are tired of all the suffering and it hurts.
It only hurts and it hurts so bad that they no longer care if the suffering eventually ends or not.
They don't want to hope for an end, because if they do, they fear it may start all over again.
They're just so sick of it all.

Do bad days end?
May be not always.

Maybe life isn't like a roller coaster after all, 

Saturday, 18 March 2017

Monday, 13 March 2017

Happy Holi!
One Day May Be...

It took me 3 months to realise it's 2017, but always late than never. The last two wintry months only made me feel that maybe December had decided to stay back a little longer.

This morning was filled with colours, or I'd rather say people looked really colourful this morning, including me. It felt so good to be a part of something, smile and greet total strangers.
It brings such joy!

Holi this year shall be one of the most memorable festivals for me.
While I was running around coloured colouring others, I decided to make it last, not for a day, but for a lifetime. I was like-
Why not take down the gloomy shades and put on the vibrant ones for real?
Why can't I just let the dark ones wash and let the bright ones stay?

Inspiring?
Or so I thought.

Its always easier said than done.
But if such inspirations keep getting to me, then,
May be one day I'll make it happen,
May be one day I'll be able to let go,
May be one day I'll be able to forgive those who tried to ruin my life,
May be one day!

(I don't know why all my posts end up being the same, I cant help it, I need to move on, I'll try and may be one day I'll end up writing what I intend to in the first place.)

Be and let be - PATIENT!

HAPPY HOLI!

Wednesday, 1 March 2017

Never Trust The Beginnings


It seems just like yesterday when I stood pondering over why adults overreact to such trivial issues they face in relationships, when all they needed was to love each other like we loved our parents, we couldn't survive without them and I felt that's how relationships worked too. Maybe I was too young to be in a relationship and was too innocent  to realise that that was going to be the problem by the time I reached an age where I had to deal with similar relationships that I, as a child, misjudged had only ruined for lack of love.

I now know that relationships need love of course but trust and faith are as important.
The relationship that I fell prey to was one without any of the above. It took me more than a year to realise what deep shit I was in and how stupid I was to fancy love for lifetime when there actually existed no such thing.

A relationship without trust is like having a phone without service. And what do they do with a phone with no service? They play games.

The last few days revealed his true face, his dirty intentions and his purpose of deceiving me, till then I was only cursing myself as to why I was being tore down in spite of giving up everything for him, his family and our relationship.

I got my answer soon after.

Isn't it pathetic how we waste so much time on certain people and in the end they prove that they weren't even worth a second of it? In the end we realise, we mustn't trust the beginnings, because the truth is told in the last moments.

Wednesday, 22 February 2017

Wednesday, 8 February 2017

Blatant Chauvinism

Last evening I heard a man advocate the rules of English to someone. He openly declared that the 'usage' in English language is somewhat analogous to a 'husband', and 'grammar' to a 'wife'. He blatantly justified it by saying that since the husband is always right so is the usage, he also generalised that grammar goes wrong before usage just like a wife who is always wrong before a husband, and hence usage in English always comes before grammar.

I understood why he said that usage in English comes before grammar (because it does happen 'sometimes'), but I couldn't fathom why he compared these two concepts with husband and wife because he just stood there and stated it veraciously as if what he said was the universal truth.

Why are husbands always right?

Are men gods or intellectuals or did he want to declare that only men (who eventually become husbands) have the capacity to to think, reason and judge?

Why are wives always wrong before their husbands?



Are all wives dumb or did he want to declare that women (who eventually become wives) have no brains?

Or was he trying to imply that women didn't have the capacity to think and lacked lucidity (and may be he was trying to show women their 'place')?

Does he have a wife and daughters?
If yes, does he always slap and correct them when they talk because husbands are always right and hence all the females in his house are wrong?
Did his dad treat his mother the same?

It took me at least a minute to realise he definitely wasn't there to talk about English and its usage but rather declare and establish the fact the men are always right and express his chauvinism towards men.

Many decades ago, marriage was defined as a fundamentally sexist institution where the wife was both financially and sexually subservient to her husband, and no matter what, wives weren't supposed to talk before their husbands because they were assumed to be stupid and their reasoning was believed to be limited to the kitchen and its spices.

Though our national constitution has been amended and laws have changed drastically to favour the equality of both husband and wife, disseminating such subservient norms immoral, the reality is that the way we define the concept of marriage according to the law bears little resemblance to the actual concept of marriage still being adhered to.

Men fail to realise that while they are judging, mocking and stereotyping the women of today, women are getting ready for tomorrow, getting ready to fight back for their rights, and getting ready to fight against the concept that women merely exist for men.

The man who was chastening women yesterday needs to be admonished and reprimanded because he was rude, adamant, stubborn, and was being an aggrandising  narcissist.
His understanding of English is also flawed- he has no idea that without grammar, the usage won't even matter!

This post was featured here!

Image source:David Henry Friston [Public domain or Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons, for representational purpose only.

Wednesday, 1 February 2017

Today You Begin!

Today is the day, the day I start believing again.

Today, today is the day I stop holding myself back tied down with things I wish I'd done differently, burdened with the what-ifs and the if-onlys.

Today, today is the day I remember that there are still good people in this world who wish well and want what I want.

Today, today is the day I regain my faith that there truly is a purpose for everything, each and every step, every heartbreak, every joy, every loss.

These last few weeks, months, years have really tested me, they've scraped me up, bruised me, tested the limits of my strength, stretched the boundaries of my heart, hurt my hands as I tried so hard to hold on to things that were tearing at my grasp. It has been a hard road and yet, here I am, unbroken, still standing, with teary eyes and healing, but ready, ready on this new day to start believing again, believing that the plan for my life is not just already what has happened to me, believing that my future, your destiny is still being written, shaped, refined, perfected, all just like the pieces of a puzzle that don't even have a complete picture painted yet, but eventually will.

Diffidence was never a virtue, and today I promise that I will crown myself with self confidence. No matter who has hurt me, or what's been taken from me, or no matter how many times I've had to start over.

Today, I am standing in the eye of the storm. And once the storm is over, I won't remember how I made it through, how I managed to survive. I won't even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain, when I come out of the storm, I won't be the same person who walked in.

If I needed a sign, here it is, its time to let go and go fearlessly, joyfully and with a boundless hope into a fresh new world washed by the storm.

That's what this storm is all about.

That's what today is all about.

Today is my plain canvas to start over.

Today is the day.

Today I Begin!

Saturday, 14 January 2017

On my own... Making things alright...

After so long, I thought I might as well try living life my own way than trying to please others who want me to live theirs..
And here I am! I've made some changes in my routine and I've also set some goals. (You might also want to check my updated bucket list.)

Old habits die easier than we think and new ones form. So much has changed, life has changed here. No longer do I wake up to the nightmares at 4, I rather wake up to the morning radio and the milkman's calls.

I don't feel cold and nor do I yearn for friends like before, I don't miss them, but I don't feel like meeting any of them at all. I think I'll find a way out, I might even grow accustomed to a place where people rush to places as if they were rushing for life, with no human touch at all people here just go about their business. I've been put to cold tests for long enough; I don't find it hard here, though it looks as if I were in a world where love has turned around, .

Life is like wind, resist and you'll be knocked over, blend into it and you'll smoothly glide onto the other side. The challenge is to cope with it, not just cope with it but thrive and survive, and I will.

It's true that the person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing. And I'm glad I gathered the courage to stand up against all those who wanted to hold me back.

All I know about the future is that it'll change, it'll be different. What I fear is that it'll be the same, and I don't wanna go back to the same dawning and live it all over.

So I'm going to celebrate the changes and be happy as life greets me with it.

Because, Everything's Gonna Be Alright in the end and if it's not alright, then trust me, it's not yet the end.

Thursday, 5 January 2017

HNY :)

I remember when blogging was my absolute favorite thing to do, then life got in the way and it got a little messy. So I'm here once again to let you know that I'm still alive and I still have every intention of continuing to blog about my little, insane, messy life.

Ah! Yes! Happy New Year! Late but heart felt wishes to you all...

Monday, 25 July 2016

Taming the untamed...

Mention any cult or group, and we will find practises and norms laid down for women that would turn us contemporary women into outraged devils hungry for justice. There are many writings and ancient rules that further the dis-allowance of women to do things that were permissible to men.
Why even make such rules?


This is just one example where men have tried to dominate over women, this misogyny has played its part too, in India, where women are worshipped as goddesses and have also been tried as slaves and sold as brides with dowry...  The designations men have for women: sluts and whores and what not in 7104 other languages where women take birth to give birth, work and entertain men.
Now, if she sleeps with you, she is a slut and if she doesn't you simply call her a whore and move on. Either way, females are humiliated, frowned upon and abused.
However hard we try, the barbaric attitude of men towards females seems to be unabated and unfazed no matter what rules and laws are made, men can't be policed!

They are the untamable wild creatures of nature who were created to be so. Period.

According to our forefathers (there has never ever been any importance given to foremothers, mind you!), women are meant to be tamed, bound, intimidated, enslaved and protected by the owner from other men as if they were objects like cattle and stock which could be stolen or fought over for ownership. We hear guys fighting over for girls, bets being placed on our bodies and abuses made out of our body parts hurled at each other in anger and as jokes to humiliate us too. This not about feminism or equality, it is about women being treated as individuals and humans with rights to their own body and life. We don't owe you anything men, even our birth was given by a woman.
We are supposed to stay behind the veil and if we ever decide to come out of it then what happens to us next is only our responsibility, as it was the girl's who was raped in the bus and thrown on the road, as it was the woman's who was molested on new year's eve, as it was the little girl's who was born to a family with men. And this is normal, this is how it has always been since ages and we aren't expected to oppose it. Being normal is not necessarily a virtue, sometimes it rather denotes lack of courage. It's not the future that we are afraid of, it's repeating the past that makes us anxious, hence 'what if' always remain unanswered!
Have you ever heard of a topless man being groped in the midst of 50 women? Never! But when its a woman walking completely clad and covered (or not) she becomes an object of entertainment and molestation because she is a woman. Forget about 50 men, lets just take a woman amidst 3-4 men from her own family, would they leave her untouched? Okay, let's take a woman and her own husband, does he even wait for her acceptance before he enforces himself on her? Every 4th woman has a history of being assaulted by her own family members.

Do men even understand the meaning of consent?

Why can't men keep their body and thoughts to themselves?

To men: "Is it because you can't or you just won't?"

Men can't, we have seen them helpless, but we can!

Not all men are alike, but the ones who don't indulge in such violence are the ones who make up the audience that whistles and coaxes the rest to commit such horrible tussles and escapades (for men). They have all sorts of reasons for their actions like being drunk, the woman was standing/sitting too close to him, the woman was scarcely clad, because he was a man with needs or may be because she was just a woman and SHE EXISTED!

Men hate women so much that they go berserk to the point of causing life-threatening injury if women "invade" their spaces never mind their constant whining and mocking women's need for safe spaces from men.


There have been incidences where a woman is beat up at home or in public, and no one dares to interfere because they feel that she is being beaten up by someone who owns her.

Now, let me restate the misogynistic definition of an ownership of a woman: "A woman can only be owned by her father, brother, husband, boyfriend, or the male head of the group or society she belongs to. She has no right to any of her dreams, soul, life and body and remains to be in the same state until death. Throughout her life, the ownership may vary, but the order is never feminine, neither can she set herself free nor can she buy her way out of it. If she tries to escape any of her boundaries (which includes all human feelings and aspirations), she will be burnt alive, shamed and shunned upon, looked upon as an outlandish morality, paraded naked or even raped and let to die."

In order to uproot this misogyny, we need to stand up against a plethora of violence which begins right from the moment we are born... It's time we tame the untamed!
[Image Source : pixabay]


This post was published here too!

Saturday, 2 April 2016

Those Damn Princes!

As young girls we often dream of candy lands with endless chocolate flowing in rivers. We grow up and we begin to imagine our beloved princes on white horses riding over and carrying us back with them.
We grow up a bit more and as the years pass, we realize what the real world is made of, that there ain't gonna be any princes on white horses riding for us. There is going to be just men, normal men - patriarchal men, narcissists men, in a world of men, for men.
Our dreams as young girls never break, they only transform into a crueler version. And yes, they all are fulfilled, well, most of them.
I am not talking of my young dreams here, just sharing my version of the transformed dream.
I'm now stand in the same world which I was born in, facing ridicule, insult, blames and emotional cruelty. Prepared only for love and harmony and peace, I struggle each day to feel some warmth and oneness from the one I love but I get none.
"My prince did ride to me on a white horse, only that he didn't have a heart!"
I then felt sorry for myself, damn those princes, but since I've realized there are no princes anymore, also, Mustangs and albinos from Arabia are expensive, I am supposed to ride into the rugged terrain on my own with my alsatian and love myself so intensely that it teaches others how to love.

Thursday, 24 March 2016

Goodbye Dread!

I watched our world's separate!
I looked through to the other side of the window,
as thick smoke curtained the gap between us,
as I departed,
.
.
.
and as the train left!

It was then I realised,
it's not just time,
not just people,
.
.
.
but my own emotions as well that had joined hands to boycott me from that woeful world and brace my own dreams.

The same old world where I used to live and hoard my sorrow of loneliness and crave the bliss of togetherness had now made me a stranger to myself!

Goodbye dark old world, I wish I had never let myself in...

(Like a lot of my posts, this one too was written a lot later than the time stamp shows, I scheduled it to an earlier date just because I  wanted them to be sequenced appropriately.)

Sunday, 11 October 2015

Vs Him

Those of you who follow my blog, you must have read the debate on "The Good Guys Vs The Bad Guys", recall point number one.
This is for you girls, men can be very bad, girls can be bad too, but if you are soft at heart then you will end up really hurt- not all of us can be cruel.
If he says he is bad, believe him. Stay away, and if you can't, then be prepared for the worst- this way at least you will know where you are headed to.
I can't say I've dealt with a lot of men, but I've seen the devil in them. They can be ultra cold towards you, taunt you, abuse you mentally. They can beat you, threaten you, abuse you physically. They can take away everything that you own, your love, life and soul and leave you like a withering leaf off a tree.
I am scared of them, the people who can hurt me, but I'm prepared. Its better to know what's gonna kill you than ending up into it blindfolded.

Friday, 5 December 2014

A Strange Me!

Before, life was simple, it was seen as it was, it was shown as it was.
I left that world far away behind me, and it has been a lot of time since then.
It's all too complicated for me now. It's all fake. Me, the people around, the things happening, everything!
All the people I now know are too fast for me to cope up with their speed.

So, technically, I've outlived my past, and the the present is too fast for me to catch up to meet these fake futuristic demands.

All in all, I'm lost-
It happens sometimes that I can't accept the reality and so I tend to live in delusions... in a photo framed world where I force myself to live in those skeptical boundaries which I can't escape.
And this is happening to me.

It's not just words. I can't let anybody into me.
I talk only because I can't ignore.

Whenever I talk to people from my past, it freaks me out. It makes me realize what I have become, a stranger to my own self.
I have unknowingly changed myself, completely, and now I want to get back where I was before.

Am I still the girl who loved herself more than anything in the world?

Am I still my own fashionista?
Do I still have my conscience alive and strong?
Can I still fight my fights alone?


I doubt if the answers for the above are affirmative, and that's really bad.

I hate my surroundings, feel like getting a new place for myself, going somewhere nobody knows me, and starting all over again with my life, only this time being very very careful.

What I now do is, make friends with machines, speak with the web. I feel nothing, I have not a bit of heart in what I do. I splatter my thoughts over write ups like this and feel relieved. I'm messed up and so are my posts. My thoughts are vague, beyond understanding sometimes. You may not know what I think, but I know what I think, the way I think and I know it's complicated, too heavy.

All I want is that simplicity in my life, I wanna be simple in thoughts, simple in style and again, simple in writing so that- why I write and what I write is lucid and facile.

Hope my next post is much more sententious and meaningful!
Click on the image to read about the interview and more!