My first love

I love my city. And I am truly proud to call myself a Delhiite. Yes, in spite of everything that goes on in it.

There is just so much in it. The city is beautiful. The lack of high rise buildings anywhere makes it exhilarating to look up at the sky. And yet, when a few of them appear suddenly, right in the centre of the city, you know that anything is possible 

It is quite disappointing then that more odes to it are not written. It is miserably underrepresented in our popular culture. And the few movies which do have references to it are just not enough.

I don’t watch very diverse cinema. But even in the little that I watch I see so many references to the greatness of, for example, New York City.

People keep telling themselves about how great this thing or that thing is and they eventually start believing it. And that belief actually transforms into something tangible. 

We have to accept that most of the people in India are too engrossed in thinking about arranging for their next meal and the others are just opening up to the pleasures some disposable income brings.

But somewhere between poverty and consumerism we have forgotten to dream big and to believe in ourselves and the fact that there is still hope. Yes, in spite of everything.

Some people are born with it. Others need the right environment and culture. We cannot be just satisfied and keep being thankful of the fact that chalo itna toh mila.

 

I will never say that it has the right mix to be A kind of city. No. There is no one ideal in anything. The beauty in everything has to be found within it. Delhi, has for me a lot which I like. It has history- a tremendous history. And its eclectic culture mixed with the fact that it never stops growing- in ALL ways makes me dream of a day when each one of its resident will take pride in the city.  Not only for it can be but also for it already is.  I will write more in it when my thoughts on why I really love this city can be more clearly etched. And for that, I will never stop looking, exploring, and loving this amazing place where I grew up. 

 

I hope this is read. Requires some more perspective.

Ok as always a thought before the actual post begins. It is very difficult to read long features online. I prefer reading the actual magazine. And maybe buying the thing will help in print journalism’s survival (Refer to this to understand what I’m talking about).

Now the actual thing follows.

Well, I just read Caravan’s piece on Samir Jain. And from what I’d read he sounded like Gail Wynand to me (well, in some parts at least).

It is really interesting how a person’s profile can provide an insight into journalism itself. But that’s another point and I don’t think I’m equipped enough to talk about that (too young, my sister says; not well read, I say).

What I has started thinking about was how people crave power. I was interning in a small law firm and even there I could sense power politics. And often I’ve thought about how even an office boy would have his family under his command. He also has the power to dictate the course of at least someone’s life. And of course NALSAR SBC (Student Bar Council) elections are proof enough of how much even the tiniest amount of power matters to some people.

Does everyone crave for this power? I don’t know. But I do know some people who don’t even want power over themselves.

The power over one’s self is willingly traded in some instances- democracy is the biggest example and love, another.

The helpless feeling sometimes we get when we feel that we just cannot do somethings is when we realize how much control we actually have over things. This can easily descend into self-pity and in the process we lose what little control we do have over ourselves.

Therefore, I think it is important that we think about what we want and how much of it we want and how much of it we can actually get. If this is not up to our satisfaction I feel one should act out against it. There will be costs, there always is.

But in the end this is all a trade-off. And this is the power which nobody can take from us- that what all we are willing to trade and for what.

And I guess this defines who we are and what place we have in the world.

Reverse bad conditioning

I was a cute little girl [:-)]. I had a friend who used to like me a lot and never wanted to play without me. But she also used to slightly bully me. Not very much. Slightly. But I still went and played happily with her. Ate tomatoes stolen from my fridge outside my house. Good times.

It is widely known that kids have that inherent sense of justice and fairness in them which gets skewed as they grow because of what my dad calls “conditioning”. In spite of all her faults she was still a good friend who used to become happy when she saw me. She must have grown out of her childishness obviously. And even as a little kid I must have known that small mistakes like that can be forgiven for the sake of all the good times I could share with her. Even now I remember only the good times and it is my mom who tells me about the bad things.

[ Disclaimer:- Not advocating bullying. If it’s serious, action has to be taken]

Then something happened to me that unfortunately happens to everyone- I grew up. Became less tolerant. Got more irritated. Couldn’t handle any negative thing about anyone. The result was that I was bitching about people a lot more and talking about them rather than actually enjoying and rejoicing what is good in them.

Obviously, there are some things in people which cannot be forgiven. Like horrible bathroom manners. Sorry. But other than that, its ok, right?

You are tactless, boring, extremely stupid, insecure, dress horribly, are very lazy, care too much about what other people will say, are very rude, charmless, and so on..But still. Still. I love you. We can laugh together. In times of need you will be there for me. And I will be there for you. You will bear with me when I am just not in the mood. And so will I. And I will miss you when you are not there and eat all your food when you are there.

But my dearest friends, lets be more tolerant. Lets forgive people for some of the bad or stupid or tactless parts in them. Lets not discuss it. Get over it. Lets not discuss people so much.

So much is happening in this world which deserves our enlightened minds’ attention. Lets not waste it on small quirks which you and I have.

I am saying sorry for all the times you have had to bear with me but I will also say that there have been lots of times when I have let things pass.

Another thing about growing up is that you start realizing that your mom is right many times. Even when you didn’t agree with her initially. Now I can see that she was right and infinitely more sensible when she said that “Accept people as they are” { and when he said “people are people”}.

Life is really short. Damn, I am almost 21 [:-O]

I want to be at peace with the people I love so that I can then move on to tolerating those I don’t.

Inconsequential

The attractive thing about not doing anything in this world is that you don’t have to face any consequence of your actions. 

But then, you are never not doing anything. There are consequences. Always.

It is okay if those consequences only affect you. You can cry in silence or crib in public. Your call.

But when a decision you make hurts someone else you can do neither. Worst is when you care so deeply about that person that you jaw hurts when you make that decision. (Try not breathing and crying and talking at the same time. Maybe it’ll explain the jaw.)

But I am a firm believer. I believe that whatever happens happens for the good. Maybe not the collective good but definitely for the individual.

Like promises are meant to be broken, belief and faith are meant to shake and sometimes be lost.

When that happens you shed a tear and write a blog.

            Life, in the meanwhile, marches on.

Not a full stop. Just…..a stop.

A long day.

Sitting in the same place.

Happens to everyone.

 

That is why we feel hungry. So that we can get up and eat. ( Loo breaks, Of Course!!!).

To give us those breaks. That points in our life- stops as Ayn Rand calls it, which we remember and give us the strength to bear the rest of our lives.

Those small moments which we live for.

A year is longer so instead of lunch breaks you have birthdays and parties and festivals. Days which make the rest of the year worthwhile.

 

Why work is important is because it makes you enjoy that break even more when you have been wanting it desperately.

Like water tastes better after a run in the park or food satiates not only hunger after a long of work.

 

That is why we have to learn to work hard. To enjoy the moments when we are not working.

Nobody likes monotony. Do we?

 

Self-Destruct

Before I begin an unrelated fact:- I’ve made peace with the fact that my blog is never going to be on the Freshly Pressed Blogs. I make my blog as difficult to understand as possible because it is actually some event which triggers the thought but mostly the event is too personal to share. So, many people might not relate to it. I am OK with that but there is still a tiny hope that a miracle happens and it becomes popular. But then there is nothing really different about a 20 year old writing about..well, things. 

Food which is absolutely delicious and still very healthy is very rare. That is why we love it when we are told that Chocolate can actually be good for us. Of course while munching that sugar laden Diary Milk we forget that they were talking about the pure bitter chocolate which very few actually like.

It is indeed a cruel trick on humanity that all the things which we find enjoyable are not that good for us.

It is a hard, hard life. What is it in us that causes us to break relationships we cherish, leave people we love and walk away from their lives, allow egos to come between friendships or acquaintances we value?

We know we hurting ourselves in the process but still at that moment we are not thinking about the consequences. And if we do end up thinking about consequences all the time then do we end up missing  all the fun in life?

I think I’ve said this before but I am still really confused between the two lines of thought propagated- Live for today or that save for tomorrow.

All these are obviously weaknesses which are sought to be eliminated if you want to reach the top. But it is difficult. Very. That is why whenever we think of the top we think of a pyramid. Not everyone reaches there.

The rest of us have to self-destruct to give space for the strong to climb up and reach the solitary pinnacle. 

I want the vamp to be the heroine

When I read Gone With the Wind I knew I liked it. My mom gave me one of the reasons why.

It has really strong characters. Even the nanny has a personality. It makes the book fatter but that much better to read. J K Rowling took 7 years to give Harry some character. But other than that he was just a normal guy we could all relate to. Anger, jealousy, crushes, love, fear, and the inevitable maturity which comes after each of these phases.

Now compare this to say Malfoy, who had one particular dominant trait which recurred through the books and for which he was rewarded with a receding hairline in the end- he hated Harry.

All this will make sense. Wait.

If you’ve seen Delhi Belly it might strike you that Imran Khan gets to do all the cool stuff like the girl and chase the car. The humour and wit (and the shit) are reserved to his sidekicks.

In Sex and the City, Samantha is the free and confident woman, Charlotte is the uptight one and Miranda is well, just plain tight. We are told this right from the beginning. But Carrie, whose real name comes first in the credits, is mostly the one who is just asking questions- a mere observer with more dialogues and boyfriends.

Why are the main characters always the same? The safe ones. Non-controversial- the oh-so real ones. The answer of course is to make them relatable to everyone. To make these characters so flexible and undefinable that everyone can see a bit of themselves in them. We don’t want to be like the sidekick do we? After all that person with deplorably generic characteristics is still the hero/heroine and gets the fairy tale in the end. And the more number of people who want to be like the hero greater the viewership/ readership. This means more money.

I don’t know how this thought affects anyone but still my belief is that in real life we like to typecast people into one bracket- the good, bad, weird, smelly, creepy. In farewells we have this one tag given to us that apparently defines what we are in just one word.

I don’t know how any of this makes sense- just another thought I had. Oh! Let me stop analyzing and watch the next episode in the series. It still is good fun.

Addiction

I was very happy when I realized that I was not addicted to Tea. There were days when I didn’t feel like having tea at all.

It made me happy because then my head was under my control. I didn’t something else to freshen me up. Bright sunlight (good sleep usually) does it for me.

Addiction starts from wanting to escape. That’s what I believe. When we are happy with what we are we don’t need some thing external to ourselves to make us happy.

I realized that when I just sat down and thought that I like myself. With all my faults, fears, inadequacies, etc (read the rest of the my blog for what I think are my other shortcomings) I still like myself. And am grateful to myself for giving me the capacity of that joy.

This doesn’t mean that I don’t have issues with me anymore or that there is nothing in the world which makes me happy or sad or I don’t feel like getting an alcoholic high.

It’s just that these things don’t hurt beyond a point. There is that point which I know exists in me which makes me appreciate the world and its beauty and the opportunities of joy it offers.

Not wanting to be charged with theft of ideas I credit the above statement of “not hurting beyond a point” to Fountainhead. Where Roark says that not having Dominique in his life will hurt him immensely but not beyond that point. I love Roark (please don’t confuse Roark with his creator- not a fan of Ayn Rand)

I don’t know why in this world addiction to material substances is looked down upon while addiction to something which makes you “clingy” is not considered to be as serious an issue. I hate it that someone else’s grief/dejection/disappointment makes me thankful that  I am not one to be grieved by such things.

Having just one love in your life is good. But the fact that you can live without that love of your life also is what makes you attractive.

P.S.:- Sorry to be so self-eulogizing but I think it makes a welcome change from the usual self deprecation.

 

My first post with the thought that someone might read it

A friend once told me that the problem with me was that I never let myself be. That is why different people knew me as a different person.

And the clichéd and overstated “thing” (if any of my college classmates will read this they should at least smile at this) applied to me that you had to meet me to really know me and then I would be different from what you would expect of me. I think that this is just euphemism for saying that I don’t have much personality.

I mean why the hell shouldn’t a person come across as someone who he or she really is. Otherwise it has to be hypocrisy by the common meaning of the term.

Actually I was thinking of something before I was about to write and then suddenly this thought sprang into my head. There must have been some connection with my original thought but I think I must have forgotten it in the loo only. (You just need a moment, even if it is in the loo, to be enlightened you see).

So, the point I was going to write about is the idea which I got from reading Ayn Rand. One may disagree with her on numerous counts but you have to give it to the lady when she says that one is defined by the work one does. And how he does it.

I mean you really have to love what you do to do it well and then it will not be a burden on you. Each person will have to look into his core and find out what is it that actually interests him genuinely.

But then, I wonder, what will happen to the person who feels that he does not want to do anything? I definitely know a person like this, and I am sure that everyone would know even more than one. And what about the people who want to do everything?

Well, I guess this is an answer which each individual has to find on his own. The problem is that one is not exposed to so many things to as to make a choice effectively. More often than not an individual is just able to figure out that he does NOT want to do what he is doing but he is as clueless about what he actually wants to do. Everyone is not lucky enough to “want” to do the conventional things. I guess the person who has a burning desire to become an engineer is the luckiest person in the world or at least in India (disregarding the state of colleges in India, but that is a subject for a more serious blog or a newspaper).

Well, here I am. Sitting in a law college which is considered to be a good one by the people outside. And I am wondering why is it that I had to write what I wrote in my last post.  And I am puzzling over at the question what is that makes the few Mr. Xs and Ms. Ys tick and where is that I am lacking.

The thought that I do not love what I do scares me. Like Hell.

I hope I am just lazy.

 

 

 

 

A major cribbing session

I could think of a 100 different ways to start this post. This also was one of them.

But none of them could in one sentence capture what I wanted to say today.

I am in law school. No one made that decision for me. It was completely mine and I am still so exhilirated at having made that choice on my own that I didn’t realize that there were many more different choices which were waiting to be made.

I don’t know whether this is my fault or someone else’s that I needed someone to sit down and tell me objectively that these are all the things I could do once I start my life and I can make a choice between A, B, or C.

But obviously, if you have gotten the drift, nobody was there. I have always made my choices on my own. This is not something like what Voldemort does. He operated alone because he didn’t need anyone. He alone was not enough.

But in my case the problem is I don’t know where to start. How to phrase my problem in the first place.

When you go to the doctor’s you tell him ok now this is hurting, I seem to have a problem somewhere here. But what do I say?

I still don’t know what the problem is.

Ok maybe the following sentence will somewhat explain it:- I don’t want to be mediocre.

But that’s what I have been throughout my life.

In 12th I was a mediocre student in school. Surrounded by other members of my species but who did not move to any such different place but only to where they found others of their kind.

This is not being derogatory.

Wish I could have been in that place. Where I wouldn’t find myself to be inadequate.

In a smaller pool where I swam the fastest.

But because of some weird connection in the cosmos I got transported here. To a very different world.

Where surprise, surprise I wasn’t the worst.

But I wasn’t the best either.

I am just somewhere hanging in between.

And the first part of my problem is that I don’t like that place between two extremes.

The connection between the best and the worst in the world.

I have the potential to be at one end but the push only to be at the other.

How do some people know instinctively what to do?

Here I am writing about what I wanted to do and there some people are going and doing it.

They just got into law school and decided or didn’t decided, as the case may be, and somehow their place in the world got fixed. And those at both the ends seem satisfied with where they are.

I am not. I am just not able to be.

But try as I might I am not able to be at either end.

I don’t know how to be there at either end.

In one end I am destined to feel I can do better. At the other I am destined to feel I am no good.

This leaves me here where I am.

Like a pendulum swinging between the two ends.

What is it that I need to do?

To love what you are doing is really not as easy as it sounds.