"I shut my eyes and all the world drops dead;
I lift my lids and all is born again.
I think I made you up inside my head"

I finished Plath's The Bell Jar yesterday. It was not an easy read. I had been hearing about this book for so long now that I decided to just get done with it. I will never come back to this book.

The Bell Jar frightens me because it is about a young girl's descent into clinical depression, her days spent in asylums and the continuous fight to break out of The Bell Jar - an amazing metaphor for entrapment. It frightens me because I thought I would never be able to get inside the head of a person dealing with depression. I have never been through anything like this. I have always been a very optimistic person and a strong believer in the goodness that will eventually replace any speck of trouble that I might be having at that point in time. For me, things will always get better. They have to. I am always very hopeful. Why then of all people do I relate to this mad girl? This girl whose reasons for her scary descent into madness is all too believable.

The thin line between the life where everything is fine and the life which is slowly slipping away into an abyss where you no longer possess the faculties to see clearly into reasoning was at first very startling to me. Of course, the hints were there right from the beginning. However, what scares me is that you do not always need something catastrophic to strike you. Your current self might just betray you any day and you might yourself become this crazy girl who is afraid of mediocrity, of a life not worthy enough - a girl, who constantly questions her own self; someone who is forever displeased in her own self; someone who is begging approval of herself from her own self. All this might sound too looped up. For me however, there is absolute clarity regarding these things. I understand.

I might not have ever gone through depression but I have often questioned myself like Esther. I have very often lost confidence in myself and dismissed myself too quickly. This book jolts me up and reminds me to be kinder to myself. The book in its own way shows me an alternate mirror and the reflection there is absolutely horrifying. It is extremely important to love yourself and more important to accept yourself. Because in this acceptance lies the lens through which we will see the rest of the world. I promise to never tint this lens with hopelessness or unkindness and to always protect it.

दायर-इ-इश्क़ में अपना मकाम पैदा कर 

नया  ज़माना, नए सुबह-ओ-शाम पैदा कर 

खुदा  अगर दिल-इ-फ़ितरत  शनास  दे  तुझको 
सकूत -इ-लाला -ओ-गुल  से कलाम पैदा कर 

मेरा  तारीक़ अमीरी नहीं, फ़कीरी  है 
ख़ुदा  न  बेंच , गरीबी में नाम पैदा कर 

-इक़बाल 

Europe happened a month back. 

On some particular nights as tonight, I cannot help but drift away to Champs-Elysees or La Rambla. It's like my heart is still there and I have been somehow dragged here back to India with my mind intact. This disconnect between the heart and the mind - I cannot begin to explain how difficult it can be at times.

It was like a beautiful dream which is now over. Everyone talks about dreaming, working hard to make your dreams come true, nurturing the dream all along and fighting to never let it fade away. No one however talks about what happens when you begin to live your dream and what happens most importantly when the dream has been fulfilled - taken the best shape possible. What happens after that?

I am somewhere in the middle of this last question. I always dreamt of seeing Europe. Worked very hard for almost 3 years to save as much as I could for this dream. And it did happen. In the most beautiful way possible. But it's now over. It's a dream fulfilled. And that somehow, in the most bizarre way is very, very painful.

I don't want to let it go. Yes, I can go back. Yes, I can also go to a million other places in this world and continue my explorations. But this - this childhood dream is too good to let go. I am struggling to find something back again which would make me yearn as much as I did for Europe.

I think I know what the problem is. It's the loss of one of your firsts. You know, your first kiss or your first sight of the Eiffel or your first paycheck. I have yet again lost one of my firsts. So this is what happy-sad feels like. No more palpitating excitement of what will it be like to see Europe. No more butterflies in the stomach before the plane finally touches the European soil. Just a bag full of happy memories.

It will take me some time to step back and move towards a new dream - towards so many more dreams I have seen and will see in the future. For now, I am somewhere floating between Belgium and Spain. And it's beautiful!

What's the point?

So for the last few months, I've had a rough time professionally. I had been interviewing with this really big-shot company. It went on for almost three months. I was always clearing all the successive rounds and clutching on a little tighter each time to the hope that I would get the job. All of a sudden, this job was the only thing I wanted in life. Like really really bad.

And as life/luck/randomness would have it, they did not choose me. In fact, they never gave me a clear yes/no and technically I'm still waiting for their feedback. Wait, I'm not. Am I ? Any-who!

So there was a lot of frustration, anger and helplessness. It's so weird - I wasn't even looking for a job when this came my way and ever since this incident I just cannot get to appreciate my current job anymore. I know it's stupid. It's like life is perfect, it's all lalala..and then BAM! And thereafter, it's just not the same anymore. I know I am unnecessarily fretting over it. It was never meant to be. However, one thing that I have been asking myself ever since is that what was the point of it all? I mean three months of immense stress, immense hope and intermittent successes - only to be all wiped off!

And then today I was watching this movie about a young woman who finds (true) love at the age of 19. She falls head over heels in love with this guy only to be loved back as much. Her entire life changes, they get married and settle blissfully into a happy life. All is perfect with the world when suddenly out of the blue, the guy dies. Yes, dies!

So obviously this woman is all heart broken. One day she breaks down before her mum and laments that what was the point of it all. How could life be so terribly unfair to her? If the guy had to die so soon anyway, what was THE POINT OF IT all??

Now, this really struck me. Wasn't I trying to reason with myself exactly the same thing? Well, accept it or not, life is unfair. And not just at times! Everything is just so random.

I decided I'm not going to lament over this episode anymore. Bigger tragedies strike people. And sometimes all too randomly, without them having to do anything at all to trigger it in the first place. You cannot always have everything planned AND executed. Sometimes the string snaps in between.

If you have ever faced a similar WHATS-THE-POINT incident, just let go. It did not work out because it was never meant to.

Move on. Move strong.

आज एहसास हुआ की बालकनी में रखे पौधें, मर चुके हैं.

बड़े अरमानों से लाएं गए थे।
खैर, फिर कभी अफ़सोस करेंगे.
अभी फुर्सत कहान. 

I’m already beginning to fall in love with my new home.

I had a friend who always insisted that it’s important never to stay in one place for too long. Leave before your roots tie you down to the place and rip off your wings. Though I found it too flamboyant then, I decided to be cautious.

Hence, from the moment I stepped into this house, I promised myself I would not let it grow over me. I would not give away too much of myself, just enough to make it livable  I was trying to be calculative. But the person I am would just not let it be so. No matter how much I compel myself to not love something, the more head over heels I fall for it. And so seems to be the case with this place too.

I already have like a million ideas in my head about doing up this little home. All the colors blend in perfectly inside my head. I know exactly where everything would go. It’s like I can already see it in my head - how my home would look once I’m done with it. And I’m so proud of myself for making all this happen.

I don’t care if I have to die a million deaths when I finally have to leave this place. What’s more important is that it’s my home and it’s just the way I have always wanted it to be. I believe in living life completely. Treading too carefully takes away the thrill and the fun of life.

What’s the point if you don’t give away a little of yourself to the moments which sum up life? What’s the point if you don’t feel the pain of love? I think it’s alright to be tied down to your loved ones. Because how long can a lonely flight hold you up? The wings would eventually tire out.

“Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil. My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth.” 

― Nathaniel Hawthorne

# On moving to a new place with a new job.

 " Aisa kahan se laoon ke tujh sa kahein jise "

- Ghalib

One Day

I watched a movie to my liking after a long time yesterday. “One day” tells the story of two people – Emma and Dexter. The movie walks us through twenty years of their lives post university graduation but shows only one particular day from each of those twenty years.

To be honest, the story is very regular. It’s the same-old two very different people struggling to find themselves and their love for each other kind of story. Just as they grow and drift away from who they were from where the story takes off, their bond too weakens and strengthens. I am not going to review the movie. It may not be a brilliant movie but there are several things that I’d like to take away from this movie for my keeps. And this post is just about that.

What struck me most about the movie was how real to life it was. The movie brilliantly portrays the mediocrity gap which separates so many of us from our lofty, ambitious and sometimes unattainable dreams. The way confidence wanes away when things are not happening, the way you cannot hide your utter dismay at doing things you never wanted to, the way you create a make-believe world to lie to yourself, the way life sometimes just refuses to work out – all of this has been brilliantly captured through Emma’s character as she struggles to make a living in her initial days and then settles for a life with a man she is not in love with.

Another thing that I really liked was the way the movie tracks a dwindling and yet passionate friendship between the two. This time it really isn’t just about the love between a boy and a girl. It’s about a relationship, which could be just any relationship, and how it’s so precious and yet rusting away. In one of their meetings after three years, Emma tells Dexter, “I love you, Dex, so much. I just don't like you anymore. I'm sorry.” This is something I would like to tell so many, just so many people in my own life. This line somehow beautifully summarizes what most relationships in life eventually turn out to be. It’s true. With time, we find it difficult to accept that our old people have changed, whether for good or for bad, whether for real or for not. If they somehow don’t suit our preferences, are not compatible with the decisions we’ve made in life, they stick out like an incorrect piece in a puzzle. We love them fiercely, well at least in my case I do, but we can’t somehow stand them for who they are today. And isn’t that what real life is like?

Real life is not pretty all the time. Often it’s creepy and oftener it’s embarrassingly true. We’d like to believe that everything works out at the end, yet sometimes for some life may not work out, even till the end. Yet, call it optimism or helplessness, we find beauty even in the morsels left behind by life. And almost always, we find a way.

"What an unreliable thing is time - when I want it to fly, the hours stick to me like glue. And what a changeable thing, too. Time is the twine to tie our lives into parcels of years and months. Or a rubber band stretched to suit our fancy. Time can be the pretty ribbon in a little girl's hair. Or the lines in your face, stealing your youthful colour and your hair. ...But in the end, time is a noose around the neck, strangling slowly."

- Rohinton Mistry, A Fine Balance