musings

The “almosts” that haunt us

Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

(part 1)

ONE

A year ago, as i was about to take a U-turn at a service road, a bike knocked me into the fast-running highway.

The damage wasn’t extreme. The impact had broken the front and sides of my scooter. In the moment, I couldn’t help but think- what if a car, or a maniac bus driver had run me over? I cannot assume what awaited me that day. A second too soon, a second too late, and I wouldn’t be writing this piece. Perhaps, I was being paranoid. Or, my instincts were right.

Nevertheless, I hadn’t felt more alone my entire life, as i did that afternoon.

One moment i was alive, and the next- I wouldn’t have mattered.

Later on, i asked a few people- how did they feel, when they had a brush off with death? The answers were of elation. gratitude. Newfound-perspective on life. I wanted to sucker punch them. (But not really!)

I felt empty. dark. The hands of oblivion and nothingness choked me slowly, for days. I shut the world out. I shut myself in. Nothing mattered. No one mattered. Neither did I.

TWO

Three years ago- one morning, i was in a hurry to get to office (Now that i think of it, I wonder why? I never really much cared for authority figures. Their disappointment in me didn’t pressurize me to do better, or different)

In my over-zealousness to overtake slow paced cars, I hadn’t noticed the reason why there was an almost standstill on the road. A bus had blocked my view to the left, and a police jeep trying to make its way to the other side of the road, knocked me right onto the moving traffic. (again! duh? This is an unbroken pattern of my life)

This time, the speed of the jeep wasn’t really the problem; mine was.

The front and sides of my scooter were totaled (again!). I walked away with minor bruising on my thigh, (As I had my biking gear on) where the bike had fallen on me.

The realization of a probable oblivion didn’t escape my mind.

THREE

When I was 19, my family and I were visiting a family member in a different town. My brother was at the steering of our hatchback, with me riding shotgun. Mum was at the center-back, eyeing the road cautiously, as she never trusted his driving skills. ( Almost a decade later, nothing has changed, really. To my great fortune, she gets worse when I drive)

It was a pleasant cloudy afternoon in August. One moment it was breezy and calm, and the next- it was pouring cats and dogs. Where I come from, the summer heat makes you want to kill yourself, but when it rains- it rains heavily. As though the heavens decide to throw rocks over your head.

Quickly, we rolled up our windows. The wipers swung left and right with what can be considered as their best capacity. The heater was on, to clear off the fog forming on the glass.

At a four-way intersection, we slowed down to ride the bump. Just as we were about to cross the intersection, an Indica came out of nowhere and smashed us on the left. By the time I had spotted it, it was too close. Everything that followed, happened in a flash. Instinctively, my brother pulled the handbrake in the hopes to slow down the car. But instead, our car swirled a 180 degrees and landed on the other side of the road.

The Indica, on the other hand was smashed standstill at the center of the intersection. Its engine busted to a pulp. I can’t recall if we were speeding. But considering that we were merely a feet away from the speed bump, I’d hardly doubt that that was the case.

We build upon what we already think we know, which may never really be true.

The Indica had hit our car, inches behind my door. The back door was rammed all the way in. Anyone sitting closer to the backseat window would have been injured. Thankfully, since mum was in the center, she only had minor sprains around her neck, due to the whirlwind spin that the car took.

My brother and I, had bumped our heads against the window at some point, which we didn’t notice until the next day. It was as though we were in a toy car- a kid had picked up, bounced it around wildly and then placed it back on the side of the road.

To this day, I hate to think- what if we were a second too late, and the Indica had hit the side of my seat?

FOUR

When I was 11, I had fallen out of a moving van. It was after school, when we were returning home from the second pickup, as our van would pick up kids from two different schools. (In the rural towns of India, finding a seat isn’t the concern. Finding an inch to stand in, is.)

I was in the front seat, riding shotgun along with two other kids. (It was one of those hippie vans; a minibus, if you will) I was seated close to the door, sorta half seated-half leaning on the door, to compensate for the fact that two other kids had to sit in the same seat. (Sitting anywhere else was awful compared to this. We had dibs on it, and at any point-any other kid would jump to take the chance to sit in it.)

At a turn heading out of the school campus, the van swerved to the right. Somehow, the door clicked open on its own. Perhaps, the door wasn’t locked properly in the first place; or, the lock was faulty. Either way, there i was- rolling on the half worn concrete road, unable to stop myself from the centrifugal force. I should have cracked a bone from the impact, but all i got were cuts and bruises. (It took almost a month to heal, and I did cry a lot in the initial few days- every time the antiseptic solution touched my skin. Yet, I consider it a win!)

FIVE

One night, when i was 15 or 16, an overloaded truck carrying timber was attempting to park itself in the empty lot, next to our compound. The lot was considerably large. The road on the other hand, wasn’t. Whether it was terrible driving skills, or just the lack of proper light- the guy knocked down a part of our compound.

This triggered us, and my folks went outside in a flying rage to have a word with the driver.

[Let me give you cultural background in the mean time. This was a rural setting in India(elephants, and what not. Am i right?!). The houses were stretched far apart. But most importantly, we were the only Hindu family in the middle of a Muslim area. (I’m not trying to be a Racist. This had never bothered me on any other occasion, on the exception of a certain communal outburst where our safety was seriously compromised. For all the non-Indians, imagine being the only black family in a white neighborhood; or vice-versa!)

Why does the background matter, you ask? Help is uncertain, or may I dare say-denied, when you are an obvious outsider. Unless you have a good bond with your neighbors, a cry for help is usually ignored.]

While my folks were having a verbal standoff with the obnoxious driver (who refused to take responsibility. What a surprise!) a good 50ft away from the house, I was outside in the sit-out, watching it all unravel. Amidst all this, the cleaner decided to pay me a visit.

It was dark outside. So,until he was at the gate, I didn’t really spot him. Or, he was sneaky to start with. Our sit-out was clad with an iron-grill on all sides. (Mum had originally installed it out of paranoia- considering we were in a Muslim neighborhood. But never had I been more grateful for it.)

Just as the sneaky cleaner entered through the main gate, my instincts kicked in. I jumped to the wide-open iron door on my right, latched it close and hooked the giant lock sitting on the window sill next to me. (I couldn’t spot the keys to the lock in the moment, but he didn’t have to know that it was a ruse)

In a flash, I pulled myself-away from the door, to the center of the room. He inched closer to the bars, but perhaps realized that I had the home field advantage. Trying to sweet talk me to step out and calm my folks down, it seemed as though he was biding his time. I knew his intentions weren’t right. But I couldn’t tell if he wanted to rob the house, or just hurt me. Either way, I didn’t budge. Obvious or not, i was scared shitless- waiting for my parents to return. When they did make their way back into the compound, he snuck out.

The argument was futile. The driver refused to compensate for the damage.

a) probably because his measly paycheck would take a hit.

b) because why should he? He would be gone the next morning. (See what I wrote earlier about outsiders in community neighborhoods? Ultimately, you are on own your own)

c) The justice system in rural areas (or anywhere else in this country) is a goddamn joke. They can’t catch murderers or rapists. What’s the point of suing someone over minor property damages?

Anyways, i never told my folks about what had (almost) happened that night. Why add to their misery?

(to be continued)

How much do we really know about what we know?

Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

I am someone whose go-to line is- ‘I know!’
(Not that I’m making a Monica reference here)

Even when my rational side has charted out graphs based on statistics and logic, I usually end up taking a decision based on the gut feeling (or, what I assume to be a gut feeling- the signs of clarity, I guess)

One of the disadvantages of thinking that you’re one bit too sure about something is the stubbornness of refusing to look elsewhere or reconsider your decision.
(I could only assume that this is mainly an Aquarian trait. But, then again- We are responsible for our actions, and not our sun signs)

Let’s say you’re someone who likes yoga and has been practising it for quite sometime now. (You’ve developed your chi) A friend asks you to join them for a trial boxing session.

If it doesn’t seem aggressive, or intimidating to you, you’ll perhaps do one of the two things:

  1. Agree to try it out, for the heck of it. (Could be fun, right?)
  2. Dismiss the idea altogether (without a second thought)

This depends on whether you like boxing or not.

If you’re one of those people who does a thing due to FOMO, this post is irrelevant to you. (Clearly, you have bigger problems to deal with)

If you haven’t tried boxing all your life, then how could you possibly know whether you like it or not?

It’s merely your perception of boxing that is leading you towards this decision. There is a myriad of things that come into the picture when one needs to excel in boxing. Agility, strength, determination, quickness, accuracy, power, Grit and Guts. If you suck at those, it’s quite obvious that you’d come to hate boxing.

Sure, there’re people who may be good at it, (perhaps on day-one & two. Beginners luck, perhaps) but post the happy-period, its grit, and sweat.

If you played poker at a house party and won every single round, what are the odds that you’d dislike poker the next day?

You would love it because you appeared to be good at it. (Incidental)

But if we consider the same situation in reverse: where you lost miserably at poker. It would clearly make you hate it; until you win again. (A Gambler’s feedback loop)

It’s the gamble of Life, the gamble of choices

Earlier today, I watched psychologist Petter Johansson TED talk on “choice blindness” — a phenomenon where we convince ourselves something is what we want, even when it is not.

(Ironically, perhaps you’d convince yourself that you don’t want to watch this video, whilst watching him prove it to you that- you don’t know what you want.)

Watch it anyway.

The things you think you know, you don’t.

The only thing you can ever be sure of, is that you can’t be sure of anything.

Such a cliche, isn’t it?

Donal Rumsfeld brought up the concept of known knowns, as a response during a defense new briefing

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know.
There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don’t know
But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don’t know we don’t know.

Everything in life is an art of balance- Good and bad; Life and death; Happiness and Sorrow; Love and loss.

When the scales are tipped, chaos sets in. But the chaos always, always returns to its origination, if you just let it.

Say, a war goes on for 4 years. But, for the next 50 years, there’s peace.

You may ask: Even in that calm period, there are bound to be a few internal conflicts. How then, can it be a peaceful period?

Implore then, during the 4 years of war- was there never a moment of peace?

How is that fair?

It’s not fair. But its also not all unfair, is it? One doesn’t exist without the other.

An incident in itself may seem good or bad. But take the complete picture, (regardless of the time frame) it would make sense.

You cannot ignore the existence of one, due to the presence of another.

Balance.

Trust, but verify:

Prior to accepting something, maintaining a hint of skepticism to question the same, helps you keep an open mind.

Any idea, or theory which you may have already believed, or come across (including this article for that matter) if dissected for the right reasons, is progress.

Imagine, that you read 10 self-help books a year, and accept the anthem it sings with blind faith. (If the reviews say it’s eye-opening, then your eyes must open. Right?)

What good will that do?

I can assure you that the pointers of each book will wage a civil war in your brain, when they contradict each other. (And contradict they will)

When I read a self-help/non-fictional book, (regardless of its popularity and shining reviews) the first time, I try to keep an open mind and accept it wholeheartedly, even if it makes my skin boil.

The second time around, I read it with skepticism. Not just questioning the theory it implies, but also to verify if I agree with it.

If yes, why? If I don’t, then why not?

The reason being: I would know why I believe in something. Questioning it, is equivalent to watering the soil, in order to loosen it up.

How else will you plant ideas in a rigid mind?

So, the next time someone calls out your BS, (and it will happen, my friend. Regardless of how mature/refined you consider yourself to be) instead of trying to build up your defenses and figure out a way to sneak back into comfortable-righteous territory, you will implore the accuracy of the statement and your necessity to alter the mindset.

It is safe to assume that we never know the entirety of a situation, a person, a theory, a problem, or anything.

Let’s start there since it adds a certain volatility to your routine. This may seem unnerving at first: walking with uncertainty.

No one said life was easy. But simple? Perhaps, (if you learn to look at it the right way) but never easy.

Blind faith uproots you in the end anyway. Might as well carry that uncertainty in your hands like the fragile baby bird it is, and wade through life.

[There’s a myriad of avenues I haven’t yet explored, when it comes to ‘Choice Blindness’. More to come, in the future pieces]

Until next time,
The Hippie Soul

Titles win end games. But this one won’t!?

Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

Reverse engineering works on most areas of life.

If you want to understand how Eiffel tower was built, start looking at its very foundation and work your way up.

If you want to learn swimming:
Start by wading through water; learn to hold your breath under water; then try to float; learn to glide;then try to kick, and so on. There’s a technique and a process to learning almost anything. So its only obvious, that one would try to break down the art of writing.

But can you teach someone to write?

What can be taught- What to write?
Or, how to write it?

Look up on the internet for writing advice, and it’ll start raining. Just like in the self-help section, you’ll find all sorts of advice for every logical/illogical problem the human mind could ever perceive.

Half of them are irrelevant, but it’s there.

When it comes to advice, we all are trying to sell our shit out there. We all claim-our shit is the best. 

Watch me. Learn from me. Register on my site. Sign up for my newsletter. Enroll for this course and I’ll change your life in 30 days. Read my so-and-so book on improving your personality.

Sound familiar?

There’re bad solutions out there. Half-assed solutions. Good solutions. Okay-ish solutions.

Someone may have spent all their life on a theory and it still may suck. Someone may have had a eureka moment in 30 minutes and had discovered how to resolve (Oh, I don’t know) Poverty.

Someone may have offered a solution based on what worked for them. Yet another may have done that based on what’d bring them the highest royalty.

Doesn’t mean only one solution works or none works.

Coming back to the point in hand, none of the solutions i came across really worked for me. Or worse, I couldn’t relate to them.
So, there’s a reason why I don’t rely on a ‘technique’ or ‘style’ or ‘process’ of writing.

What ‘makes‘ you write?

More often than not, the idea is a trigger- as a response to something I read, or watch.
Don’t get me wrong. It isn’t rage, or the impulsiveness to react, which brings forth the chain of thoughts.

Instead, the desire to dwell on them and the need to understand the reasoning behind, the desire to retrospect on our own perception about what why we see things the way we see them, is what it really is.

Good writing is a conversation.

The aim is not to flatter the reader. They our adversaries.

A good writing, challenges what the reader knows, makes them question it, and then tries to win them over.

Sometimes the work of an artist induces a dialogue within you. More often than not, the tone of the former sets in the tone of the latter.

I wouldn’t necessarily call this an ‘inspiration’; but rather a ‘voice’ you cannot easily subdue. (Depending on what you choose to do with it. Either you let it fade away with time, by never acting on it. Or, you learn to channel the energy into something else.
ex: putting pen to paper)

At times, an observation, a thought, an experience, urges you to write. This is where your unique tone sets in.

If you wanna play it with humor; laden with nostalgia; fill with sarcasm; churn philosophy in it; saddle with satire; sprinkle suspense/drama; bring in empathy/boredom
or, simply state fact-by-fact.

The game’s yours- however you choose. (Experiment with one, or all of these things. Why not?)

What do you write about?

A friend once asked me about the genre of my writing, After I’d explained her the plot of my book. (One, I’m yet to complete. It’ll be the project of the millennium, considering the time that has lapsed since I first started working on it)

Unlike books, blogs are multi-dimensional. One has the privilege to write about everything and nothing under the sun. (But we never really make use of it. Do we?)

Now, disregarding my momentary existential crisis over the question; the thing about genres are that, they’re pretty little boxes inside which plots (gigantic-shapeless- ambiguous-plots-like-mine) are stuffed in.

Sure. You can label it – realistic fiction or young adult or something else (Look up the genres and tell me if your head doesn’t start spinning looking at the sets and subsets of categories!) as you see fit.

But its simply the tip of the iceberg. Consider the Harry potter series:

It was a Children’s book, spun off on fantasy. But neither the prologue, nor the titles, or the cover of the book did justice to the worlds that were woven in those pages. They were simply selling points.

Anyone who’d put the philosophers stone back into its shelf (before the book was caught in the whirlwind of fame post the release of  movie) is someone I gravely pity. (including myself)

Imaginations cannot be categorized. At least it won’t be neat.

Genres, Prologues, covers, titles are simply selling points.

Even when you’re not judging the book by a cover, you’re judging the book by what’s on its cover.

Sure! Your choices are simplified, when 10 people have given their reviews about a book.
But, if you’re an old soul who doesn’t get influenced by pop-culture, you’ll know that  talent doesn’t always find popularity.

The Billboard hot 100 list that changes every week is based on sales, radio play and streaming. But how often have you heard a song on the list, that seems overrated? Popularity doesn’t necessarily guarantee quality.

There are artists, bands, writers, actors whose work goes unnoticed by mainstream media- EVERYDAY.

What is a writing style?

I never really understood this question; or the answers that arrive on the analysis of such a question.

The only thing I know is,

What you write and why you write it, almost always trumps how you write it.

When I’d first started working on the ‘project of the millennium’, there was one advice that I’d constantly stumbled upon. Avoid the word ‘said’ (like the plague) in your dialogues. Instead, use words based on the emotion and scenario. Using it constantly, was  (apparently?!) sandpaper to the ears.

Agreed. This became my bible. I spent better parts of my writing hours, using other dialogue words, since I’d moral issues on using ‘said’ even once, in a page.

The only thing that ever came out of it, was- Chronic over-thinking.

Bottom line: If your dialogues are getting crappier by the minute because of investing precious time in deciding what to use instead of ‘said’; Well, you know what to do here.

The best advice, I ever came across is this- When you write; write as though no one is going to read it. Write as though its just for you. But be a motherf***r when you sit down to edit. Cut down everything that does not belong in your piece. Write it word-by-word all over again- Even if you don’t change anything in the end.

At least, you’ll end up with a better understanding of the words that bled out of you.

Because, all through this piece, I kept asking myself- Why?

Why am I writing this?

Neither have I been writing for decades- to offer advice; nor have I had a Eureka moment or a ground breaking discovery in the recent past.

But this little voice whispered in me-

If you label yourself as one type of a writer, or hell- even one type of a person, what good are you to yourself? If you’re walking through life following every direction that is handed to you, how would you ever know the path that you’re capable of carving- all by yourself?

We tell ourselves stories about us. The narrative is always on. Sometimes, we are the victim; Sometimes, the unforgivable villian; Sometimes we aren’t good enough; and at other times nothing is good enough for us. Yet how often do we realize- we are not ANY of these narratives!

For almost a week, I was struggling to write an appropriate ending for this piece. It seemed hard, as though i was answering- what is the point of life? Nothing i wrote, felt right. I had it’s-fine-brush-it-under-the-carpet sort of endings, but they were as good as having none at all.

But at 5.30 a.m., as i was tossing and turning in the sheets- fully awake, but too disappointed to wake up, it hit me.

What did we come up with boxes, categories and labels in the first place?

To make the chaos seem bearable; organized; less painful to rummage through. To make us feel safe. Right?

That’s why we put people in boxes. If we believe that we’ve them figured out; if we believe that we’ve figured the answers to life’s questions, then we’ve nothing to be afraid of. Isn’t that the reason we go to colleges-get degrees, work in meaningless jobs, get into unhappy relationships with all the wrong reasons, buy houses and cars on mortgages and pay them for the rest of our lives and quit on our dreams?

We try all our lives to fit into these boxes, but we never ever really do.

So tell me, what is the point of these boxes when they do nothing but diminish you? What does that make you?

(I could tell you to get a large sledgehammer and beat the crap out of these boxes;  but we’d be straying here)

Maybe that’s the point.

We were never supposed to fit into boxes.

Because, in this wild-fucking-complicated-unpredictable-chaotic-universe, how can you expect that you be any less of that?

How can you?

Why ‘Good enough’ is rather important than ‘Purrfect’

Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

I mean, first of all, what is- Perfect?

I read this FAQ page on Kris Gage’s process of writing.

Any aspiring writers looking for inspiration must check it out (Only if you want to. It is a free country, after all)

Also, before I carry on- if you’re wondering on how to increase the number of your blog followers, I’d like to give you a very insightful piece of information –you’re breathing through the wrong end of the straw!

Which brings me back to the question of the hour.

You may have already ready a gazillion articles on why “perfectionism maybe the doom of you”. But more importantly, what’s perfect according to you, may not seem perfect to someone else.

Can someone else take your perfect and make it better?

(And in my defense, I don’t mean to give you an existential crisis with that question)

I have painted a giant Buddha on a wall in my living room. It was the offspring of insomnia and frustration. Its spectacular, and a work of art. I couldn’t make it any better. But then, there are times when I wonder. Couldn’t I? If someone else had done it, could they make it better? (Uh, I don’t know Dianne. Michelangelo definitely would paint it better. Shakespeare wouldn’t)

So, the point to remember here fellas, is that- there’s no such thing as Perfect.

Lemme rephrase it to you-

There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect. 
No such thing as perfect. Perfect. No. Thing. Such. Perfect. No. As. No.Thing. No.

Why? Because you can build a Burj Khalifa, all by yourself (I’ve faith in you!) but even so, one day someone will decide to put a large bronze eagle on top of the thing. And not only will it be taller than the tallest building in the world; it’ll also be better.

It’ll be better than your perfect.

So what are you going to do about it?

Wait until you arrive at a magical eureka moment, when an angel will hammer your head with a Spectastic idea, so that you can get to work like a mad scientist who’s on the way to great greatness?

Yeah! You can do that on a Friday morning after an awful swim practice and downing three cups of Coffee. (I should know!)

Is this piece Perfect? I don’t know Dianne, it’s good enough.

Mad scientist- Peace out!

Ladies! Here’s why y’all should get married by the age of 24!

Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

  1. You’ve probably just graduated. Certainly you understand yourself a lot better than when you’ll do, when you’re, I don’t know- 28, or 41.
  2. It’s easy for your parents to convince you over the following ground breaking theories. Honestly, they’re fool proof.
    1. This-is-the-right-age, it’s good for you. Absolutely. All single men are simply going to vanish if you’re unmarried by the time you’re 28 or 41 or 65.
    2. Sharma uncle’s daughter got married when she was 23. Look how happy she is.
    3. Grandchildren! I mean, there are other ways to do this. But who’s arguing? Adoption. I was suggesting adoption. Don’t get your knickers in a twist!
  3. You haven’t fully explored your sexuality. You could be straight, gay, bi, Demi, Pan sexual, or even asexual. But hey, knowing what you like is so 70’s, right. Why bother?
  4. You’re at the beginning of your career ladder. It would be misogyny to assume that you can’t be a juggler. Personal life, house, husband, family, parents, in-laws, oh and what did I miss? Career. That’s right. Toss it in the air and catch it right back, or don’t. No one is going to send you on a guilt trip.
  5. Your biological clock is going to tick-tick-tick and explode. Late pregnancies are a myth, people. If you don’t believe me, ask Shilpa Shetty, Madhuri Dixit, Aishwarya Rai, or Farah Khan.
  6. No one would tug your cheeks at the next wedding, and shamelessly inform you (let alone ask you) – ‘Agla number tumhara hai beta…’ Bending over, due to social pressure is undeniably, a solid reason to get married.
  7. Traveling solo, playing in a band, getting a tattoo anywhere (anywhere!!) on your body, buzzing off on unplanned treks with your friends, volunteering for the peace corps, spending a year abroad, having wild adventures- we can do all of this, and a lot more, with the permission of…..wait, they’re all going to tell you it’s safe. Self-exploration is, after-all a prevalent job in India, with a 36% reservation, solely for women.
  8. Responsibility to yourself. It means, accepting the ‘behavioral manual for women’ handed out by every other person on the street. The authors are unknown, yet everyone is a contributor. From the sweeper gawking at you, when you’re jogging down the street; to the upstairs aunty who can’t even persuade her own son to return home, without reeking like the entire bar. And do I dare get started on the moral police, or the politicians who’ve found the fool-proof solutions to avoid rapes? People, who’re convinced that they’re a higher breed than women, sure are painfully afraid of feminism. Get married, get married, get married. It’s an automatic solution to all the travesties in life.
  9. Here’s a list of women whose lives have fallen into a swirl of misery, for not being married by the age of 30.
    1. Pooja Dhingra: Achievements? Oh, I don’t know. Best-selling books, innumerable awards, A-list celebrity clients, and a thriving business. How terrible!
    2. Zoya Akhtar: Do the movies Zindagi na milegi dobaara, luck by chance, or Talaash, ring a bell? Why isn’t anyone lecturing her to get married? Call all the aunties.
    3. Priyanka Chopra: I’m not even gonna…
    4. Barkha Dutt: A nomination for Emmy? A first for India. What was it all for? Surely, she should have listened to her parents at twenty-t-h-r-e-e.
    5. Ekta Kapoor: No, we do not watch her movies or long-running serials. Who has time for all that, whilst juggling our family, husband, children, in-laws, house, personal life…. Oh wait, what did I miss again?
    6. Kiran Desai: A winner of Booker prize? How is she ever going to face all that cheek-pulling at the weddings?
    7. Sushmita Sen: Good lord. Being jaw-dropping gorgeous at 41, holding the Miss. Universe tiara, bringing up two daughters all-by-herself, starring in hella movies must be a crime. Someone amend the laws. Her parents must be sighing for grandchildren.
    8. Mindy Kaling, aka, Vera Mindy Chokalingam: Starring in her own show The Mindy project, as well as others such as Ocean’s eleven, A wrinkle in time along with writing best sellers such as Is everyone hanging out without me, Why not me, must be horrendous achievements to bear.
  10. If you’re not yet convinced to get married right away, I might have to call the next door aunty to convince you.

Until next time,

The girl in the green shrug!

    Anything is to be preferred and endured rather than marrying without affection. – Jane Austen

    Build a home

    Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

    You know these thoughts and feelings that you keep dismissing out of your mind? They’ll keep coming back to you as time passes by, like haunted spirits on a new moon night. Because you never really gave them a place to stay. You never accepted them because it was unsettling to think about. Yes, someone hurt you and the only known way to move on was to let them go. You walked away from that place,  that person,  that time. You buried your feelings and assumed that until the day you ran into one of those three,  the feelings would never resurface again. 
    But they did. Didn’t they? 

    Everytime you heard or mentioned their name,  a painful feeling ran through your spine, you lost your breath for a split second, a familiar memory crept into your mind in the dark depths of the night. 
    Even when you promised yourself to never think of them again, as time passed by, you occasionally forgot why you made that promise in the first place. 

    You slip. That yearning to see their face, to hear their voice again overrules every cell in your body. 
    A lot of time has Passed now. Maybe they’re different. Maybe things can be different, you think.

    We never shelter the unrequited feelings of our heart- out of embarrassment,  out of pain,  out of fear. No matter how strong the relationship was,  we’ve found ourselves down that one way street, alone- waiting for the other person to see us, acknowledge our feelings and reciprocate them. 
    When we imagine going back to the person, we once walked away from,  what we really hope for,  is to return to the way we expected things to be. What we really want,  is for people to redeem themselves and treat us better. 
    Would you go back, to the same person who treated you in the same crappy way? 

    Build a home for all the feelings that you once shunned away into the cold darkness. 

    And if you still feel that your relationship can be salvaged, then open the door of your heart and let them in.

    Excerpts from a story (You & I)

    Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

    “I don’t know how to be, or who to be around you anymore”

    Our conversations didn’t make sense to me anymore. There used to be a time, when I could see my whole world in your eyes. But now, all I see is how deeply I am lost. It wasn’t that things had changed. No, they didn’t change. I probably never realized the wall that stood between us all this time. A wall made of things that I never told you, of all the feelings I kept bottled inside, of the moments we never shared with each other, of all the time in the world that I didn’t get to spend with you. Nothing new has changed.

    Everything is still the same as the way it was before, yet now I feel the drift between us. I feel the burden of my dreams that will never turn into reality.

    The dreams of our future, the possibility of a life that we would never get to share with each other; that there will come a day when we will grow old but never together, the adventures that we cannot take, the fights we’d never have; there would be no making-ups, the stories that we wouldn’t get to tell people about each other, about our lives. The children and grandchildren who we’d never get to spoil or dress in blue, green and purple, all your weird festivals we’d never get to celebrate, the places we’d never get to go, or the people we won’t be able to offend with our PDA’s. The houses we’d never get to move into, the rooms we’d never get to decorate and re-decorate, the chances I’d never get to bug you about my complete ignorance of colors and rose-gold paints, because you’d be painting your dream house with someone else. The sunrises and sunsets we’d never watch together, the stars we’d never count, the moving clouds we’d never lazily gaze, the dogs we’d never adopt and name ‘Happy’. The innumerable, yet intense conversations we’d never have, the pointless and endless circles of all the parks and tea shops and lakes that we’ll never make, the absence of silly arguments & ridiculous jokes or the peaceful moments in each others company, the memories we’d never create, the mistakes we’d never get to make;

    Probably, because you felt that the greatest and only mistake we could ever make is, Us!

    Maybe I realized that the hope and dreams I had, were just castles built in thin air. Sometimes, the image of a certain someone in our mind, feels closer and true than the way they are in real life.

    The only hope I have is that in time I would learn to make peace with my shattered dreams. I hope that someday we will be able to pick up the pieces of our memories frozen in time, and smile at it; grateful that we had what we had, even if it was short-lived. And I hope that one day you would understand that ‘we’ would have never been a mistake, and that every little thing that brought a smile to your face was my holy grail.

    Maybe, someday you’ll realize that for someone like me, who’s never known a feeling called ‘Home’; You felt like home!

    Dear Zindagi, Thank You!

    Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

    At times, when we are so bound by inertia, we tend to push aside the things that we always wanted to do. Call it procrastination or simply fear; everyone does it.  That’s why we have bucket lists-to look forward to, whether or not we do those things. Speaking of bucket lists, I finally gathered the courage to watch a movie in a theater, all by myself. **Checking that off the list ** this movie, in all honesty had struck a chord- deep in my heart before it had even been premiered. The lyrics of every song; the tiny bits of the trailers released every week had secured a soft corner in my heart. It’s weird how a trailer almost gives away the plot of the movie (esp. Indian movies!). But as long as it has sparked your curiosity, it’s still worth watching the entire movie. To me, it’s a journey at the end of which, you always have something to take home.

    In the line at the ticket counter, amongst the shy couples and cousins, there was an older woman who was buying a ticket for herself, and I wondered- Has our generation become terrifyingly co-dependent, such that we can’t imagine going anywhere without company; or was it just me? One can be alone, without ever feeling lonely. I wonder how many of us can do that? A little time spent in your own safe space in silence can do wonders for the soul.

    Now, for the people who haven’t watched it; I won’t give away any spoilers, but I do have to mention this- There are overwhelming depths to the oceans that we are, and to become our true selves, we need to take that plunge; we need to swim a little deeper each day until we find the bottom of that ocean. The ocean bed isn’t dark and gloomy; in fact it is the revelation that is the true purpose of this journey called life.

    I’m sure most of us can relate to Kaira in more than one way. Everyone has done self-destructive things at some point in their lives. But most importantly, the lesson out of the movie is that we need to be kinder to ourselves & in turn kinder to the world around us. In a world, where we label ourselves and others as per the definitions created by the society, we need to learn how to accept ourselves and others without categorizing everything. It’s okay if things don’t work out or if they don’t make sense. The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you, and neither are you. It’s perfectly fine if you don’t know where you fit in this fast changing world or if you don’t know which direction to head in. It’s okay if you’re 28 and unmarried or 35 without children. It’s so easy for us to be hard on ourselves, trying to make the most of it, rushing against time added with all the negative self-talk and self loathing. Just imagine- what would happen if you said the same things you tell yourself to someone else? Not too nice huh?

    But you know what? It’s okay if you don’t have a “plan” or if you screwed up a little. Does it matter if you don’t have the next 10 or 15 years figured out, right now? Is that time promised to you anyways?

    We aren’t race horses-fighting to get to the finish line. We are people. Fragile, broken, clumsy, messed up, sweet, innocent, quirky, adorable, over-thinking and amazing-people!

    All the talks about your future, your career, your marriage, your kids-their education, your education, your own house; they all can wait for a minute. Right now, just breathe & smile. You’ve made it this far, even though you don’t give yourself credit for it. Look out the window, listen to the birds chirping, take off your earphones and listen to the clock ticking, or to the beating of your own heart. IF you just look up toward the sky and watch for a moment, you can see the clouds passing, or the eagles circling in the sky along with the wind. Listen! Right this moment, your neighbor might be yelling (unpleasant as it is). Can you hear the leaves rustling on the trees; the whistling of the cooker in your kitchen; the click clacking of the keyboard of your colleague sitting next to you?

    A moment of stillness; how does that feel?

    You don’t have to figure it all right now! You don’t!

    We all have this picture in our mind- of the path that we’re supposed to take, of the person that we want to be, of the mother ship that would take us on this journey. At times, we all get anxious about the choices we didn’t make, or the opportunities that we didn’t grab. But where would you have landed if you had said “Yes” to everything that knocked on your door? It would lead to your alternate life, the one that you’re not in. We don’t know if that’s a good thing or not, and we’ll never do. So do what’s best for you now. Because when the future unravels itself, it’ll be a lot different than you’d ever imagined. Oh! And all that burden you carry in your heart; all the sorrow, the guilt, the pain & the hatred?  It doesn’t have a power over you, if you don’t let it. Don’t carry the mountain that you were only supposed to climb.

    At the end of the movie, I stayed back in the theater as everyone left, because I was still in the moment. And to my surprise, there was an older woman at the end of my row, still seated; letting it all sink in. I felt that somewhere deep inside of us, a lot of broken pieces had been put together. A solemn smile stayed on our lips & I wondered- what demons did she bid goodbye to, at the end of this 2.5 hours? I know, I still have many; buried deep down that need to be put to rest and made peace with, in time.

    But, I hope her days get a little brighter, a little easier and a lot happier.

    I hope her demons rest in peace.

    Excerpts from a story untold!

    Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

    “Why wouldn’t you tell someone, how deeply you feel about them?” I asked him, surprised.

    Cupping the warm coffee mug in my palms, I watched him as he took a sip from his cup of steamy tea. Shifting uncomfortably in his chair, he looked out the window for a moment to gather his thoughts.

    Love changes people. Here is a person, who used to be the most confident person I ever knew, who’s now second guessing himself.

    “It’s not that I don’t want to express my feelings out in the open, even though a part of me is terrified beyond reason.  Some things when said out loud, changes everything.”

    “Yes, it would. But that’s the beauty of life, isn’t it? The possibility of a change! Say it, what do you’ve to lose?” I question him passionately. It doesn’t make sense to me, that someone could suppress their love, for the fear of being rejected.

    “Everything! We have been friends for a while now and even though I haven’t known her forever, it sure feels that way” He said, smiling like a 15-year old boy in love.

    He let out a deep sigh; the weight of his thoughts unraveled into words, “I don’t want to risk our friendship; I don’t want to risk her.” He continued, shaking his head lightly

    He seemed like he was troubled by the constant tug of his thoughts, but for a moment, his eyes lit up, and that smitten-teenage-boy smile appeared back on his lips, as though he was reminiscing about her.

    “I wish you could see yourself right now. God, you’re hopelessly in love with her; yet, here you are, debating whether or not you’re worthy of her.” I exclaimed with joy.

    “We are different people. Yes, I’d do anything to make her smile, to keep her happy. I’d fight the world if it comes to that. But at the end of the day, I don’t belong in her world; she doesn’t feel that way about me.” He explained, although it sounded as if he was trying to convince himself more than me.

    “If you’re going to come up with reasons, you better come up with ones that at least make sense. Tell me, what good is it to either of you, if you repress your feelings?” I grilled him.

    There are two kinds of people who I know of. One who find love, as an incurable disease. They fall in love according to the whims of the wind. So much, that ‘Being/Falling in love’ could be a hobby. The other kind is the one that questions everything they feel, know and understand about love. They’ve trouble falling in love, but more so, when falling out of it.

    Unfortunately, I fall on both ends of the spectrum. So, Lately I’ve decided to stay out of the entire cycle of falling in and out of love. Probably it’s for the best that I couldn’t make sense of it. How does one know what love is, until he’s completely aware of what love isn’t?

    “At least, we’ll be friends, if not anything else” He answered solemnly, breaking my thoughts.

    “And what good is such friendship? If one suffers withholding his affection towards the other, sinking deep into sorrow, while the other person is unaware, forbidden to witness & share or ease the misery?” I asked him.

    He looked away, slipping back into the world outside the glass windows. Reality can be a nightmare when you feel lost.

    “Don’t get me wrong. I’ve been at the same cross roads once. I won’t deny the possibility that she may push you away, once you’ve disclosed your feelings. Losing a friend hurts like hell; but you know what’s worse? Considering someone your friend, when they’re clearly not one.” I continued.

    It wasn’t new to me, this feeling of rejection. Wearing your heart on the sleeve can open your eyes to new light, but it also meant that you pay the price of heartbreak. But, I’ve learnt it the hard way that you can’t let your past control your future. Maybe Love is a myth; maybe one will never truly understand the depths of it.

    Or maybe we’ve got it all wrong. Love opens the doors of your heart for new light to enter. What we ask out of life, is for that door to remain open, for that Love to always stay inside. But, Love knows no boundaries, no limits and no rules. It enters when it pleases, and leaves when its journey is complete.

    We are the fools, who’ve been taught that it is here to stay forever. Forever afters’ are overrated; how can you say that Love will last forever, when your own life won’t? All I know is that you’ve to believe that you’re here to make the best of everything. Life is nothing but merely an experience.

    “If she really wants you in her life, if you mean something to her, if she knows the value of a relation-any relation, then she wouldn’t let you go. And I don’t mean that she’ll accept you as her partner; but she would surely find a way to keep you around. It may sound corny, but people who’ve known loss are the ones who truly understand life, they’re the ones that matter & are worth keeping around in the long run” I added.

    Wait until you fall madly in love with someone, and that’s the person whom you should ruthlessly pursue. Of all the things in life, remember,  love isn’t mediocre. If it doesn’t scare you a little, if you have to convince yourself of being in love, then you are fooling yourself.

    Connections aren’t made in the skies; souls don’t find each other in thin air. There’s more, much more at play here. Don’t deny your intuition; don’t fool yourself even if it breaks your heart. If they’re supposed to be in your life, even if for the shortest duration, celebrate it! For if you pursue that love, you may have a shot at a life with them, or else a lifetime of memories.

    On looking back…

    Posted on by Girl in the green $hrug

    “Where to?”

    Anytime I hear these words, I can only remember him. A glimpse of him, leaning out the window of the bus, talking to his buddies seated on bikes, asking them this question.

    Now, don’t get me wrong. I wasn’t in love with him or anything. He probably didn’t even know I existed.

    Trouble, he was trouble. Handsome, well-built, part of the football and basketball team, with a bad-boy charm. Back in college, when life was much simpler, I liked such boys. I always wondered, what it’d be like to be a part of his world.

    I always felt like an outsider, all my life. I envied people who lived with ease, who messed up, who were fiercely themselves; because for me, it was impossible. I could never let my guard down, not for anyone. Even when I acted goofy, some part of me would always be wary of letting people in, letting someone see my demons, my brokenness, all that made me anxious and sad. They’d only see what I wanted them to see. I wore a mask that would hide my vulnerability, I still do. It is only through these writings that I truly express my emotions, my fears, my dreams- the ones I weave and the ones that have been broken.

    Back then, I was the naïve girl who wanted to be like one of those heroines from rom-coms. Madly in love, waiting to be rescued by my one true love with the glorious promises of love and happily ever-after’s, dancing under the moonlight, receiving flowers on valentine’s day. I wanted someone to sing and play the guitar for me from my garden, as I watched them with teary eyes from my bedroom window. I believed in fairytales, I wanted to live in one; I still do. It’s just that the story sounds a lot different now than it used to.

    Back then, I desperately wanted someone to love me, I wanted to be someone’s entire world, I wanted to be the apple of someone’s eye, I wanted someone to make me feel better about myself, I wanted glorious gestures of love. There’s nothing wrong in feeling that way. It’s just that I missed the underlying truth. Before I could love someone else, or be loved, I needed to learn to love myself. I had to learn to stop selling myself short, stop the inner critic in me. Back then, I wanted to fall for someone, for I didn’t know the consequences that choice could bring.

    I used to be the girl who believed that only & only the promise of a love could complete me and without it, I’d be useless. I believed that happiness came only in grandiose moments of life- proposals, marriages, anniversaries, birthdays, graduations, Jobs in large organizations. Don’t get me wrong, I still believe they do. But I’ve also learnt what the small moments can do. The late night conversations, the encouraging text messages when you need them the most, pointless wandering in parks, drenching in the rain, singing along with an old song, long drives, watching the sunset & contemplating on life, as if you’ve a clue. Small meaningful gestures of love, unexpected gifts of chocolates, having a heartfelt conversation with a long lost friend, helping a stranger, gazing at a starry night, window shopping with your sister- rejecting every dress as a piece of shit, but really because you can’t afford it, getting lost in a city with a friend, smile from a stranger, trekking & struggling your way to the top of a mountain- only to admire the unbelievable view, getting over your fear-of heights, of water; sipping peppermint tea, complementing an old lady, petting stray dogs, receiving kindness from strangers, dancing with people you’ve just met in a bus that’s one the less a disco in itself, jumping into an ice cold river, travelling hundreds of miles at night to catch the sunrise from a hilltop.

    I used to automatically consider people to be important/cool if most people thought that they were so. I guess our minds are programmed that way. It’s not that I want to judge people for who they are, God knows I’m not perfect. But, deciding for yourself, choosing your path based on your experiences rather than believing what the general crowd believes is an important milestone one can achieve as a human being.

    Up until college, I wanted to be a part of the ‘cool’ group, no matter how miserable and out of place I really felt along with them. Now, when I look back, I can’t relate to that girl. I’ve always admired and liked people who’ve had a tough journey in life, but I never tried to cut myself off of all the drama and bullshit that the ‘cool’ people brought along.

    Well, what did I know about being cool?

    The lady from the maintenance team in my office, who’s bringing up her two teenage children, all on her own after escaping her abusive-alcoholic husband; She’s COOL.

    The kid, I taught in college who lived with his cousin in a shack, away from his family of farmers, working night shifts to pay for his college; He’s COOL.

    The girl who is everybody’s friend, who is there for everyone, even when she doesn’t receive the same love back, who believes and fights for a cause, also fighting her own battle of health issues with a wide smile on her face; She’s COOL.

    The boy who wears his heart on the sleeve, helping anyone in need, heartbroken by the one girl he loves more than anyone in this world, who dreams to fight for & serve the country someday; He’s COOL.

    The girl who is gravely mistaken & misunderstood by her peers and family, who chooses to see the good in people despite of what they see in her, who hates and loves the world at the same time, who believes in fairytales knowing the grim reality; She’s COOL!