Dear Adrenalin, please behave.

It’s been a very eventful week. The outcome hasn’t been to clear, but all the same, the determination, or rather the obstinacy to stay all smiling has pulled me through.  Okay, getting to the point, here’s something I came up with.

There’s a little something
I should’ve said a while ago
But a little part of me
Still doesn’t want you to know

About the butterflies I get
When you’re here
How you fog up my head
When you’re here

And I can’t blame you for taking me away
From where I am when you’re here

I try to catch your eye and let myself go
I try to be by your side without letting you know
And when you nudge me outta my dream about you
I see you smiling in my reality too
Don’t wake me now
Don’t let the dream disappear
The dream that I dream
When you’re here

The times we pretend we’d do without the other
Ones when we pretend we couldn’t be bothered
The blood on my cheeks that lights up my eyes
The fire in your heart that turns mine into ice

Let’s pretend we’re alone
Let’s pretend things aren’t still clear
But deep down I know you can still hear
Those little things my heart says when you’re here.

The ‘R’ word.

People do perceive me as someone who’s open to a lot of ideas, a lot of fun, and heck loads of nonsense. None of which is untrue. I like the more-than-usual jabber. I love talking about stuff, more than any physical activity. I could talk for hours. Hell, I do.

But something yesterday made me realize how many things I WASN’T comfortable discussing. With anyone.

One of them stands out.

My religious perspective- Or the lack of it. I am not comfortable discussing religion. The stories in it, yes. But just as the usual fellow gets slightly squirmy the moment someone mentions to him that I am NOT an atheist (by birth and by choice), I feel like an oddity when someone enunciates the converse. Someone I barely know, but have come to be extremely fond of, for the first time observed my reaction to keeping an idol of a deity in my room. I really have no idea of how he came about it(unless he’s been told previously of course, but I highly doubt that because of the tone he said what he did in), but he looked at me for a second and asked, “You don’t believe in God, do you?”.

My first reaction to that, was “No, I do!” followed almost immediately by “Why? Any problem”. I wonder why I did that. Was I seeking to stop the subject because it’d have made the others uncomfortable, sitting in a room with someone who has a radical viewpoint about something, or was it because I’d feel terribly up-close and exposed by talking about something that’s such a personal choice?

I do believe it was the latter.

I’m an objective person- I don’t know what makes me that confident, but I am. Almost Nomadic- with opinion, friends, incidents. I move on really fast. So it is very necessary for me to have a clean slate every next hour, every next conversation. Religion stagnates my thoughts at times. I cannot deny that sometimes, and as pseudo-Ruskin-Bond that it sounds, when I am looking closely as a peacock’s feather, or the circle symmetry of multipetalled flowers, which I wonder of a mind greater than nature has gone into its making. But at the same time, it is the force of the waters; the pull of gravity and the vastness of the planets that makes me remember how strong our sciences are. How beautiful the world is, how old it is, and how little credit we give nature for being the way it is.

I also look at religion as something man has created to cover up his faults. His shortcomings and his inability to be as spontaneous as nature and science has forced him to say, “Tough luck” or “It was never meant to be” or “if He didn’t wish it, it wouldn’t happen”. That’s my perception, and I think discussing it, or debating over it anywhere, on this site or any other, even face to face, is as offensive as challenging your beliefs (if you’re religious). I don’t like to be proved wrong, no one does. And this is a topic that is a little closer than you’d believe it to be, even if I’m so blatant about it. It’s my idea of faith, not asking someone else to be in control of our lives, or expecting someone else to take charge of it, or even thanking someone else for what it is- but to keep trying, keep believing that the power that rests in the human mind and body is humongous enough to push us through the million years that we’ve been around in different forms. Often you’ll find me staring down at my hands- that’s when I’m either trying to muster the courage to do something I think needs my mind to gather all its faculties in, or I’ve just realized that I’ve accomplished a task that any person would’ve done less dedicatedly. It’s an overwhelming feeling, knowing how you can create beauty.

Evolution fascinates me. Because it has reason. Of all the religion that I have heard, what only makes sense are the inferences and conclusions. Well, I’d suggest let us all follow them as laws, rules, and mores- all of those. Ethics, even. But clubbing people together and claiming that my set of beliefs supersedes yours- it’s sometimes as silly as street gang wars. Be nice to everyone, earn your money and name, have great holidays, do what you love, die in peace. What’s anyone else got to do with it?

I have a lot of people saying, “but there are so many things science can’t answer for us” in argument of my atheism and my support of science in the place of religion. As much as they have ground, I have nothing more to say to then than- your religion has been around a good thousand years- since there has been man, there has been religion. How long has science been around? How many things in the span of decades has it proved to be a matter of physics, and not of some unknown, interglacial force?

Something from Dan Brown’s Angels & Demons just struck me- how the Chamberlain speaks of science. He talks of how we’ve broken down every incident to a piece of physics and now the number of things that have been so beautiful and jaw-dropping for so many years have been reduced to experiments in a science lab by the theorem that man pins it down with. In argument, I’d say that man needs to know. With every such experiment has come the realization of how ignorant we really are. It sparks the scientist (the reasoners and the observers, not just the lab-coat-donning nerds) to believe more that nature has so much in store that no matter how far he goes, he’s still an infinity of knowledge from knowing everything.

It just struck me how hollow the theorem of religion, each claiming to be right, must be- if they’re all different. We’re living on the same planet, in the same country, breathing the same air. So if your God made this world one way, and someone else’s the other, who gave in? Who wasn’t powerful enough to stand out? Or maybe they coexisted as part of the same divine social circle.

I do find the topic of religion interesting, by the way- so long as it is not focused on why I’m not keen on being in the group. I think the stories and the characters are etched so finely, like trying to be ideal characters in their own fashion. I’d suggest you watch the movie Raavan, with Bachchan Jr and the Mrs. No entertainment per se, but there’s a strong perspective challenge it offers that makes you think, what if? I like stories, I like characters and I like the circumstances they find themselves in. I just don’t find them perfect and believable if you tell me one walked on water and the other’s head was chopped off, only to be replaced very successfully by an elephant’s. As a child encouraged to be curious, my reaction for each of these was the 3-year old’s version of “What the f**k?” I really do not know any Islamic stories, so I won’t bring that up.

My mother made me recite complex Sanskrit verses as a kid. I do have some idea of Ramdas’s Manaache Shlok as well. But that, she’d done to get my pronunciation right. I feel like I’m explaining myself here, which I hardly do, but it was more of a kindergarten lesson for me to not stumble over long-lettered words than any knowledge about religion.

I sometimes feel that people have a strange outlook about religion. In any scenario, when you’re walking in a crowd, let’s say, you come across a man with a long beard and a skull cap, you do a mental double-take and register- Okay, Islamic. Alright, their religion has a certain protocol that makes them physically stand out that way. But how many times do we go ‘Okay, Hindu’ when we’re in the same crowd surrounded by people without the skull cap?

Why?

When I look at a person, I want to be able to think, ‘Okay, mustached dude passed by me’ or ‘Okay, lady in nice top to the left’. It’s blatant discrimination in our heads that we hypocritically refuse to accept we make. Alright, granted that some names have a very strong religious ring to them. But that’s their significance. Very different from meaning. Why should that make it any different? Sakina, Saipriya and Rebecca are girls. But it comes easily for us to say- Muslim girl, Hindu girl and Christian girl.

Why?

Again, you may or may not agree. Perspective, I say.

Religion may have united people in thought, but I do believe it has distanced the world from being truly human. We’re just mankind, after that.

Cost of Happiness ..

Happiness is a rare commodity. Excuse me, I’ll rephrase. Contentment is a rare commodity. And in today’s context, contentment is all that one needs for happiness.

I once happened to ask an enlightened man about what is the difference between bliss and contentment. He answered,

“Contentment is when you are happy because of something that has happened from outside of you. Bliss is something that has happened from within.”

That day, I had a hope. A hope that one day, I’ll conquer my demons and understand what that statement meant.

I haven’t been able to do so. I am not hopeful of doing it in future too.

Wise men say hopelessness is the first step to discontent. Discontent is the next step to bitterness. Bitterness is the seed for disharmony. Disharmony is another name for sadness. All of this sounds too depressing. Like a chain of reactions, all assuming the worst case scenario, and leading up to a life full of worthlessness and embitterment. A very judgmental and harsh thing to do. So again, let me rephrase.

There are optimists who say the glass is half full.

There are pessimists who say that glass is half empty.

And then there are people like me, who will drink it up, bang the glass back, and ask for more.

Because nothing can ever be enough.  Contentment, just like Kasturi (musk), can never be found outside.

People say there is always a silver lining. That thing’s always have a way of coming around. That pain, life and happiness are all temporary. Whoever says corny stuff like this feel they are being optimistic and encouraging and all. Sort of thing a Robin Sharma will do. “The night is darkest just before the dawn” People think its cool to say stuff like that. Its cool to sound in control of what is happening. Its cool to know that the wheel is in your hand. But the fact is, its not. And it never was. And this illusion of holding it is also created by the bitchy mind, which always has the lust to be in control.

Pessimists are no better. Nor am I. The fact is, until something good happens, we all feel that our fate has only leaded us to doom. That all the time in our life, while we are up against it, struggling every second, we are just counting down to the next moment of happiness. We are all waiting to get recharged, like Duracell batteries, to bear this pain, to bear this monstrous shittiness called life, till the time we can be recharged again to bear the so called night.

But sometimes the batteries simply run out. Sometimes the gap between one moment of happiness and other is too long to be bridged.

People call it hopelessness.

I call it reality.

Reality that it is possible that the only thing that exists is the darkness. That day, light, brightness, color, all things happy, gay and full of life, may very well be an illusion.

Hope is beautiful thing. Like a poppy flower. Smells delicious. Tastes heavenly. It pulls you towards itself. It gives life a meaning.  A destination. A way out. It gives you the power to understand and chart your way. To plan and think that you can make it through. That you can succeed.

Hope gives you the illusion that success is the only objective in life.

It makes you feel that the only way to evaluate your life is in terms of the Hits and Misses.

It kills the knowledge that whatever you do, there will be no end to it. That there is no escape from where you are. That like a circle, life loops on and on. You think you are going to get away with it? You think you are changing and moving on?

Think again.

You are at the same place every single time. Like staring into a room full of mirrors. Whatever you do, wherever you look, you’ll look back at the same thing again.

We are a band of escapists. Each day, we find a way to escape yet another thing. We find reasons to escape. If we don’t find good enough reasons, we create them. We escape our life. Spin through it, and jump like an adventurous ballerina through the loop. We feel that once we are past it, we are going to escape the problems and enter a new life.

But we don’t. We are still at the same place. We are still stuck in the middle.

We are still there, with our heads buried in sand, while the storm passes away. That does not erase the storms existence. It just erases our awareness thereof.

Like poppy, Hope lures you with its scent. It promises of a better life. And it gives it to you too.

Hope anesthetizes you to the grey reality that happiness, or what we know of it, has nothing to do with achievement.

The opium works quicker and better than reality. Opium is a good friend. It removes your specs. It makes life blurry. It makes you close your eyes and dream.

And dreams never end, do they?

In the dream, you are in control, aren’t you?

And so you smoke your life away. Jumping from one instance of happiness to the other. Struggling to bear whatever pain and misfortune is written for most part of your life.

The cost of happiness is heavy. It’s a cost of opportunity. It’s a cost of choosing the lesser evil.

The cost of happiness is to choose the value of your sacrifice.

One day, I hope that I understand that enlightened man’s words.

One day, the cost of happiness will not be in trade for something outside of me.

It will be for something from within.

 

Choices I Made.

Today I missed school a little more than I meant to. I wouldn’t know if ‘missed’ is the correct word- let’s say I thought a lot about school.

When we were in class 9, our teachers had made some sort of an occupation of telling us how secure school life is and how we need to treasure and enjoy our last year at school. They did it partly to shut us away from damaging school property, but mostly because they probably had to rationalize against our unawareness  grown through their pampering. Even the most evil child among us was convinced that there’s a big, reckless monster of a planet with only one mission in mind- stamping out all life from his existence.

I never took those threats seriously.

A. I was too lazy to bother.

B. My self-assurance came from this maddening habit of never taking myself too seriously.

I often got the repercussions of it- not getting what I worked for, playing second fiddle, having my heart broken more times than what I’d bargained. But to me it seemed ok.

Now I know where the insecurity seeps from. It’s from growing up.

Someone*  knocked at my brains and suggested that I start looking out for myself, standing up to all the apparent wrong that was being done to me. Also because, apparently, I was too important and too much of a good person to be crushed upon.

Suddenly I had all the things that seem to invite trouble. An ego, a plan, to belong somewhere, to somebody and a uncontrolled passion for hacking an axe at my own feet every few months.  Takes talent I tell you. Amidst all of this hormonal roller coaster riding, comes a pang of emptiness where you mean the world to yourself, but you certainly aren’t the world you enjoyed. Pretty weird, ya know, because it’s supposed to be the same, only it isn’t. You try protecting yourself from too many forces and from too many offences to actually enjoy being beaten up. My ego was never up for sale, and now the stupidest things irk me.

What sort of a person actually gets mad when someone doesn’t reply to an SMS? A highly stupid person.

No, I decided, time for a revamp. And the revamp will be in the following cases- don’t go for a revamp. It isn’t worth it. It’s all right if you don’t want to be hurt by something. Emotions aren’t a case of public polling- you like it, or you don’t, or even if you want to hang in the air about it, you might as well. Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn’t mean it’s the right thing. On the other hand, if you want to do it just because everyone else is doing it, go right ahead.

But never regret.

I may not be making sense here, to a lot of you, or all of you. But to me I am. Classic example.

I’m beginning to see the light. No, I’m not dying, but I wasn’t living before this either. Not for those two-four months that Damocles conveniently hung that sword we benefit to him above me. I loved myself all through, just not completely.

So I’ll go back on my word there.

Stop calculating the risks. Face them first. Que sera sera. So really, bring it on.

You can fall as many times, you may get up if you want to. But if you want to stay there, it’s your right to.

Happiness is subjective. What your friends do about it is irrelevant in the scheme of things. You can only wish to include everyone on yours, while they have the choice of living out theirs.

It’s alright to expect, and it’s alright to disappoint. I know that makes murder legal, but things have a way of getting nullified by the things that happen after them. Chapters close on their own and tears are either wiped away or dry up.

Music helps. Gives you a lot of stuff to relate to, so don’t change that song that came up on shuffle because it reminds you of someone. Play it. Because if it reminds you of someone, then the memory deserves to live.

At the end of the day, if you aren’t okay with where you’ve landed- start again. Believe it or not, you do have all the time in the world.

30 days over.

So I complete a month today in my new flat. Flat sounds too raw. So call it home J 30 days before I remember I fucked up I was living with some relatives. Fucked up obligations, stupid rules (not shutting room’s door while you sleep was one of them), crazy schedules (like you have a night before the exams –don’t sleep in the noon), home before 8 (the most difficult to follow), karela (bitter gourd) juice every Sunday (ya that’s how they welcomed the weekend) and absolutely no salt in the food (you might just die of high blood pressure with one spoon of salt in your meal). They almost tied me against my own self. Weekends had got more painful than Mondays.

And then comes a time when I realize I am a victim of household violence. (Not that my husband hit me while he was drunk & not that I’m married.) I read that direct or indirect mental torture is a form of household violence too. So that was it. I couldn’t be there anymore.

Action: laptop on. Google chrome- www.quickr.com – need a rented flat/pg. An ad pops up “We need a flatmate.” (it wasn’t as shady as it sounds here) and I make a call.  Comes into picture Apoorva – a complete golu-polu cute guy in girl’s packaging.  The first time I spoke to her, she almost sold the house to me. I drop in to check the house. On the back of my mind, I knew that however bad the house is, I AM SHIFTING IN NEXT 3 DAYS. And the law of attraction worked. I kept praying about a decent house, good sweet roommates and something near to the station. And BINGO! Got it. Couldn’t have got luckier.

I inform them about me moving out, pack my stuff and I’m free. Free to fly. Shut my room while I sleep, come home after 8, sleep late on weekends and more importantly breathe. Happiness came to me in the form of a sweet little house. Not that beautiful, but definitely blessed with beautiful people. In next 24 hours I realize my roommates are as crazy as me. I’m back to the life which I loved the most – ke sara sara!

Make your own bed, own food, stay the way you want, sleep with your teddies (no-one will judge you by it), make mistakes and throw them in the dustbin (in the kitchen) , randomly move out at 2 in the night because you miss home, sit late hours in the balcony and discuss life’s fuck ups with roommates. I am living and loving every bit of it.

I am a murderer. I kill people in my mind. I am a hero in my mind. I am a fighter. They tried to break me, shake me. Almost shatter me, make me feel bad about my existence. But I fought back.. Because, I know I am a hero.

Mom says –forgive people.

I say-  Don’t just forgive, but leave them. Don’t just move on. Move forward. Move ahead.

 

Overcoming Mondays!

I have survived precisely 1144 Mondays till now. Since my kindergarten days, I have been a staunch hater of Mondays. I still remember those painful Sunday evenings when even half a thought of the next morning would literally kill all the fun. Those frustrating Monday mornings when you ‘have to’ get up and get back to the robotic mode. Waking up was a task and bathing was bigger task. As a child, I was highly irritating and lazy ass (mom feels I still am). Oiling the hair so that they behave civilized while I’m in school was yet another job. Secretly, I prayed God to get me bald. Be it during the pre-school, primary school or secondary school- I hated Monday with the same intensity. I’m a big girl now. Working. Almost independent. But still the ‘hateyoubitch’ relationship with Monday remains unchanged. But I have realized that just the way every dog has its day and every issue has a solution, Monday blues can be killed to.

So ladies and ladke log, heres the list of proposed solution to kill Monday morning suckiness:

1.       Keep Calm and Pretend Like It’s Not Monday:

This definitely helps. Don’t just remind your brain that it’s the D-day. Fool it. Make it believe like it’s just another day of the week and NOT the sucky Monday. Don’t get pissed on people around. Don’t shout at your mom if you don’t find your keys. Remember, it’s not her fault. And neither is the key’s fault. It’s just the Monday acting out. Chill. If you don’t find your keys, walk down to your work or simply board a bus. Just don’t stop. Don’t let the day rule over you.

2.       Dress-up Your Best:

No matter if you are a guy or a girl, everyone has a favorite pair of clothes. Wear them on Mondays. It will help you feel good about yourself. If you’re a girl, dress-up in pink, red, whatever you feel suits you the most. Wear your favorite fragrance. Kill the boredom. The logic is, we all love complements. When you wear your favorite dress, you get complements. Words of praise will make you happy. And yet again, you manage killing the Monday blues.

3.       Don’t read the main Newspaper. Read the Supplement:

Thanks to the scandals and scams, fucked up economy and raped political situation of the country, newspapers are the weapon of spreading mass frustration. So don’t read them on Mondays. If you are an avid newspaper reader, than avoid reading the main supplement for the day. Read entertainment section. Read on Sexpert columns. They’re funny. If you are good with numbers, solve Sudoku. If you have a good vocabulary, solve criss-cross. But don’t just pick up the main newspaper!

4.        Swear on random people on road:

I have this very amazing habit of taking out my anger on random people. Verbally abusing random people is no crime. If people around are weird, annoying or just boring swear on them. Don’t slap them because they might just slap you back. You can swear on them as they too my swear on you because it’s their Monday too. Shouting on random people has two advantages:

1. They are strangers. You never have to face them again.
2. It gives you that inner satisfaction of venting out your life’s issues to someone.

5.       Change your wallpaper for Office desktop/laptop/phone. Every wallpaper:

Wallpapers believe it or not play a very important role on how you start your day. Wallpaper like “TGIF” or Its “Weekend. Praise the Lord” can be really harsh on Monday mornings. So go ahead and take off all such wallpapers that remind you of Friday evening happiness.

I still believe our work week should start on Tuesday, instead of Mondays.  Then take Wednesday, Thursday and Friday off.  What do you think?

That unborn life ..

A lady I saw in the hospital today was weeping. A nurse around told me she had a miscarriage the night before.

Miscarriages happen all the time, I’d heard. So no matter how long I carried my baby, no matter what dreams I saw for it- there’ll always be that one little doubt of the insane mind that says, you could be wrong. Four words that drive the sleep out of anyone’s mind. You nurture the fetus, it isn’t a child yet. So it’s like a rough sketch you’re practicing all your caring abilities on.

How good these are, is a matter of thorough subjectivity.

You could, for instance, smoke. Or inhale smoke. Or breathe in some virus that never existed before it gets to that little thing waiting to break out. You could trip on an uneven tile or slip in a little soapy water. Right on your face, crushing your baby. You also could have an accident, that saves you and kills that one.

And all of this time, you’ve been eating right, stepping steady, missing work, skipping the vodka.

So whose fault is it anyway?

A different and horrendous scenario is, when you lose your baby a little after it’s born. You’ve seen the eyes open, you’ve felt the heartbeat, counted the toes, cooed in its ear, heard the voice. And one day, it stops doing all of this. A weak immunity system, an angle of the head, a slip of the hand, an adulterated bowl of baby mixture. A future of colours and books and scolding fading away in fast forward. A sudden void where there was a life, a movement.

And then you’ve rubbished all hope.

The world doesn’t seem to care enough. All claims for sympathy are false. No one can soothe you now. You’ve been cheated on by the world which is so desperate to move on while you’re left grasping for those swift moments of belonging, of having put your sweat and blood into the making of another you. A part of you dies.

And exhausted, you lie down. Beaten by chance, exploited for no fault of yours.

Some of us, are different.

We try again. A different life, in a different name. Built on the memories and the principles on what you dreamed of growing all those brief rays of joy on. A foundation is what you have, but your blood is at stake again, and so are your tears.

Some of us, we venture out again.

Some of us, we don’t give up.

We dream again. We try again. It makes us nervous, and our feet tremble when with each day, we re-dream the same dreams that we once saw for someone else. Something else. At every breath it takes, it shakes your confidence if the next will be its last. It makes you paranoid and disbelieving in any good. All the good news is greeted only with anticipation of failure- because our minds, we train to live by experience.The pride, however, is when it takes its first step and you could lay down a million lives to see that day dawn.

Welcome to life, my baby. May you live to see another day.

Toilet seat.. And why?

I never wanted to call my blog ‘The Karishma Jani Blog’. I find that cheesy and self-absorbed. I am not Pranab Mukherjee (for those who don’t know, he is the new self-proclaimed President of free India) . So lately, with a nice job in hand, I have been reading a lot of blogs, online press releases and news articles. That kicked me to write up this one.

Coming back to the question ‘why toilet seat ideas’ , I feel why not! I believe its one of the most crucial chore of every single day you live on this earth. And the most productive time too. While you’re shitting, you are not reporting to anyone- no boss, no boyfriend, no parents, no professor (if you listen to one). Its just you and your mind. Its your time. No-one will (or would want to) take away those 10 minutes (pardon me if you take more) of private time. Its the place that has given birth to thousands of brilliant ideas. Your washroom has given you the place and time you need for yourself, away from the world.

A poll of 500 adults by coach operator National Express revealed that answering the call of nature could be the most productive part of a person’s day.More than two-thirds said they dreamed up great ideas, while others read a book, wrote a shopping list, played video games or even learned a foreign language while shitting. So its not just me! There are at least 500 people in this world think like me. And this blog is for those 500.

This place (my blog) is not for those who think reading a newspaper in the loo or planning your day while shitting is gross. Its not for the ones who have never really utilized those 10 minutes of their day in planning or thinking something productive. I feel you get world’s best ideas while you are on your toilet seat. Because, Random thoughts-(minus) shit = creative, productive ideas. I live by it.

I confess, some of my life’s important decisions I have taken while I was on the toilet seat (if you think I’m weird, deal with it.). Because some thoughts are worth not flushing! If you too think we share the same ideas, keep up with my posts.