My new white shoes and more.....

Last Saturday, i bought myself white ballet shoes and since then, I'm dressing in a way appropriate to include it in my 'look' (for the lack of word right now). So, today I'm in green and beige stripes skirt, black top and WHITE SHOES! now, you may think the colours are incompatible with each other but strangely, they fit fine! the bright white on my feet is making me happier than the pizza i had last night! and FYI a pizza really really makes me happy!

Then there is the cacophony of thoughts in my mind and i cannot comprehend any of them. Marketing-gym-blank-blank-love-gym-clothes-books-blank.....This was a small example i pulled out from there for you. So there is a lot, i am aware, and i have decided to let it settle down before i  start my analysis.

Barring the mind, the routine life is happy and easy. At work, stuff is simple and well, rare. As in, i rarely do the work i am being paid for. No! its not me! its just that there is only so much work! I am satisfied with it, however. I am learning at a slow pace which allows things to sink in deep (or so i think!) and i also get substantial time each day to explore what i am going to step into in sometime from now (how precise!).

I read up a lot on social media these days and there is so much out there about it. More on this later. Right now, I am more interested in just unfolding myself with this post.

While going through a friends blog, stumbled upon a blog which belongs to someone from my post grad college. I had limited interaction with her while we were arrested on our isolated hill top campus. Had been to her room just 2-3 times and i instantly took a liking to her then. i vividly remember this collage of her friends pictures she had up her wall. Her side of the room spoke a language i could not understand but relate to. She was 'my type' and i always gave her my warmest smiles.

But i never went beyond that, never initiated a talk or sat with her over breakfast/lunch/dinner. I concluded it would be rather weird, for her and me, if i did all this and expressed my inclination to her. So, i held myself back and gradually, she dissolved into 'others'. Only, today, this blog resurfaced the inexplicable familiarity.

The two years i spent there taught me a lot, to say the least. I do not wish to explain myself here. It was life changing. In both, good and bad ways. Period.

Digressing, I cleaned and sorted my cupboard over the weekend. I just cannot discard old clothes and books. It was tough and i still retained a few merely for memories sake. But now there in enough space for new things to come in. Metaphorically, a lesson in philosophy. Taken.


It is raining heavily these days and as i have said before on this blog, i love the sound of it. Yesterday, was drenched from head to toe and i walked to my house from station to enjoy the showers a little longer.

..and then Morrie told me a secret!

Yesterday I read 'Tuesdays with Morrie' and after a very..very long time, a book moved to the extent that there were silent tears streaming down my cheeks. After a long time indeed.

I feel sad that i never had a teacher like Morrie in my life. I  always hoped to meet someone so inspiring, always was on a look out . I tried my best to know my teachers, to talk beyond the classrooms, tried my best to squeeze out all their wisdom, their ideas and opinions but none of them could become a Morrie to me.
Something was always lacking.

Yesterday, while reading the book, while on one hand the grief of absence of such a figure grew, on the other i simply could not fathom the will of a human being. where does it begin and where does it end? what is the limit? actually, is there a limit at all?

I loved the aphorisms Morrie came up with.
~ Love each other or perish

~ Dying is only one thing to be sad over. Living unhappily is something else.

..and there are so many more. His conclusion and teaching, of someone walking towards his mortal end and assessing his journey, was 'LOVE - give and  be open to it.' only therein lies, true happiness. This was not something new but perhaps, the most repeated statements and the most taken-for-granted in our world so busy accruing money and fame, running away from the most basic to something grand and larger than life.

I particularly loved this one part where Albom (the author) asks Morrie that if he was granted a healthy body for a day, what would he do? what would you do, if you were ailing and had a day with a good health? I would fly off to some country on my 'to-visit' list with my family, my best friends and spend a day with them doing anything.

But Morrie did not select any exotic destination or celebrity moments, he instead chose a simple breakfast, a lunch with family and friends at his house, a swim, a dance, a chat, a conversation, a discussion and dinner with his people again, right there in the city in which he had lived for most of his life. He could see the specialness in the ordinary. Most of us dont. I dont and probably, that is the reason why all of us are so dissatisfied. always craving for something more but we dont know what.

I also refreshed another important learning: Man is a social animal. I was taught this in my primary school but somewhere with my experiences with people made me dislike the species. my own species. i had carefully picked my set of people and conveniently declared the rest as greedy, selfish, immature, foolish etc. But Morrie told me a secret yesterday. He said,"You need people to help you with your stuff when you're born and then when you're old and frail and most people know this. But i'll tell you a secret that you need people even in the between". There it is! So simple! and key to happiness.

How did i ever imagine happiness on my isolated island? Here, I am also reminded of this movie 'Into the Wild' and the crux of the movie was "Happiness is real only when it is shared". Again said by someone on his deathbed and who was on a mission to find what is life and what is happiness.

I remember as a kid, i always only saw the good in everybody i came across. It was easy. It was right there, so clear. Its easy to love. real easy to give. Then, i grew up! and complexities grew. i was told and unfortunately, i started believing that world is a bad, bad place. people are mean and selfish, so BEWARE!

So i was always on my guard, cautious and unwilling to open myself up to anyone. Scared that they might read me, know me and abuse my existence. After reading the book, i mourn over the time i have lost and wonderful people i have missed because of this belief.

This was probably one of the biggest conflict i had. What is this about the world and people? What do they want and why? I realized i was out of focus, the question is what is this world and what is me? what do i want and why? and i have these answers!

He makes an excellent point when he says:


 Life is a series of back and forth(Tension of the opposites). You want to do one thing, but you are bound to do something else. Something hurts you, yet you know it shouldn't. You take certain things for granted, even when you know you should never take anything for granted...

Simple to understand, isnt it?

Inspire : Influence

I fall into the category of easily influenced people and interestingly, what influences me inspires me (i am not sure if  this is the way for everyone but i know a few people for whom it is not). I've had several discussions on merits and demerits of this habit and yet, i am not sure whether it is a good or a bad thing and i do not really want to know any more because i am quiet enjoying dwelling on this ambiguity. One good thing is I find inspiration very easily if i am seeking one at all.

Like for this blog, my inspiration was a classmate of mine from my grad college. Zainab . I absolutely love her style of writing. Actually, I am not sure if there is one that she adheres to and this is perhaps the best part! I love her posts, her topics, her choice of words and usage, her thoughts and her ideas and how with such great ease she unfolds the layers of complex, entangled emotions. Her writing is very honest and humble and refreshing unlike a lot of others around. What i like about her blog is that it is all about her expressions and is not trying in any way to impress (somehow, i find that need to impress and get 'so many' followers with a lot of bloggers)e. I simply love reading her!

With me it is people who do this to me the most. I know it can adversely impact if it is not checked and kept within the limits but then i really cannot set a limit to this. How can i set a limit to my source of inspiration? i would like to get the maximum out of it? but having said this, i also realize that being inspired by someone from your own species and by, say nature for example, is very different. In the former, you run a risk of losing yourself in the quest to become like him/her. Got to be careful.

And so, even if in the English vocabulary, 'influence' and 'inspire' may not be interchangeable (or they maybe. i am not sure), in my life, i am sure they are. Interesting, isn't it, how we construct our own personal vocab!

An observation, a silly one perhaps that both 'inspire' and 'influence' begin from 'i' and in the end, somewhere i guess this is what is important! i !

the storm before the silence and the hard work before the fun

nowadays, life feels like a day before a big race, only that each day feels like this. the anxiety and waiting, the fear of failure and want for triumphant, the desperation to race ahead of everyone and the desperation for the feel of the victory smile.

i am not suggesting there is anything amiss in my life at the moment but there is this strange sort of a wait for something to happen and i cannot clearly understand what! i am living each day waiting for the next but not being unhappy or dissatisfied.

there is a longing for something but cannot point it out. it feels like the storm before the silence and the hard work before the fun.

my reading habits

I like books which explore human relationships. something which has some drama infused in a subtle way. a tale which attempts to uncover the human behaviour, something which rides me through the labyrinths of human emotions. a book that describes the most routine roles (like wife, father etc), conventionally designed, but wrapped with complex layers of desires and dreams, morals and duties, struggles and victories.

generally, such books end rather abruptly with you never knowing what happened later in his/her life. these stories usually take one major life event/incident as the plot with multiple side plots, which are never closed in the book. for example, a woman with a perfect family of a husband and three children, suddenly finds herself as a co-chair at a gala event. hereafter, this god-fearing, pious, sensitive soul starts off an extra marital affair followed by another brief period of longing for her ex-boyfriend. however, by the end of the book, this event is successful and her life is sorted.

now, what I would like to know is what happened when she encountered these two extra marital partners later in life? were there nights when she sat up and cried? did she ever contemplate telling her husband the truth or even suicide? how did she patch up with her best friend with whom she had fought? how did her kids grow up to be? did she have another affair?

i know it is impossible to contain the answers to all these or rather a lifetime in a fiction book but then these are the remnants after the story has evaporated. I, for one, can relate to such characters instantly and so i actually think of how his/her life would have progressed had it been a true story. moreover, the characters and the events in their lives are so routine and everyday (unlike something say a sci-fic novel) that it could be the story of your neighbour or even say your best friend. who knows!

yeah, maybe you'll say that perhaps i should read a biography or an autobiography as it contains the entire life of an individual. i say it lacks the much needed drama and emotional twist. somehow, it does not move me.

and for the kind of books i like, the stories are made up of the usual life stuff - childhood, parents, best friends, siblings, romance, marriage, kids, ex-s, job, emotions, dreams, achievements, failures, but then i enjoy these. so while the basic ingredients remain the same, each story is a different concoction. each of these stir me differently and ooze out different emotions. however, all of them, help me realize myself a little more, discover those sub conscience thoughts, unveil the consequences of my current actions in the future or present me with a clearer window to see the how and why of my past decisions. yes, and that means i think a lot!! even unnecessarily!

Some of the recent books i have enjoyed:

1) Connections - Sheila O'Flanagan

2) A Summer Affair - Elin Hilderbrand

3) Eat, Pray, Love - Elizabeth Gilbert

4) Committed - Elizabeth Gilbert

5) P S I Love You - Cecelia Ahern

6) Pride & Prejudice - Jane Austen

7) Wish You Were Here - Cecelia Ahern

8) Letters to Sam - Gottlieb

this is me! :) the drama queen, as jen puts it! ;)