A Writer

She goes about her daily tasks in this routine world of hers. She is physically seen here from time to time, working, talking, living...her eyes blank, her mind absent. 

Her soul is at a different place. The world where she is free and truly alive and unstoppable. The world where she belongs...weaving plots, molding characters, living multiple lives. It has people she truly loves being with, striking conversations, beauty, feelings, and words. 

Her eyes gave away a sparkle. A smile escaped her lips. The worlds just collided again for the umpteenth time today. Quietly, she goes back to finishing her tasks for the day. 

A writer is at work. A story is in the making.

Fiction

"Write more of fiction instead of your own experiences", they said.

"It will be nice to show some creativity and imagination".

Feedback noted. She went back home, started working on a new post and titled it 'Love'.

Not for every one

As Sarah sat on the usual window seat on her daily train, her eyes met a pair of teary eyes. 

That girl who sat across, sobbed and cried as she stared outside the window, thinking, in pain, melancholy. 

A heart beat got skipped. Those tears hit her hard. Suddenly that girl's face became her own. Her stare looking out of that window became her own. Sarah saw her own self sitting there. Staring out of that window, looking at nothing and everything as the city's landscapes passed by. For months that she commuted by these trains, she never noticed those buildings or those sign boards, her own thoughts occupied all the senses. Her eyes saw nothing as her thoughts paced faster than the speed of that local train. Those endless times she's sat on those seats, fought that lame battle of holding her tears back, asking those questions, talking to herself, wondering, waiting. That big a city, all those people and yet no one to notice her tears. No one to say anything to her. All that noise inside her mind and yet absolute silence in her life made her go insane.

Train stopped. Sarah bounced back to reality. She noticed she herself had welled up. She decided to talk to that girl sitting across her. She could speak to her. At least comfort her. Say something...anything. She knew she would have felt comforted had someone noticed her sadness during those days. She got up. 

Suddenly, something happened that she hadn't anticipated. That girl received a call. Slowly, her tears stopped. She was now talking. After a minute, this girl wiped her tears and started smiling. In between the drying tears and occurring smiles, she talked, complained, and fought. Tears vanished. Love and beauty remained to be seen. Pain and then smiles. That's how it goes for everyone, isn't it?

Sitting back on her seat, Sarah looked at her own phone. She knew there isn't a call she'd receive. She wiped her own tears thinking..."not for everyone".

2013

Dear 2013,

What a wonderful year you've been to me! You gave me the best of moments, laughter, friends, and the most memorable times.  I have never felt this happy, this grateful, and this beautiful in life. 

This note is just for you, for you will remain etched in my mind...for a long long time to come.

Thank you! 

2014, as far as you are concerned...I think I am ready to welcome you, with a lot of love. A LOT OF IT. :) 

Unfinished

One fine day, I will publish all my drafts in this blog.
That fine day, you will get to listen to me finally talking.

In the unfinished business of those incomplete posts,
You will understand the complete story.

The Facebook Chronicles

As you all know, I am seen online only all the time. Across all social media platforms. No, it's not because I have got nothing to do. I mean it's true that I am free almost all the time, just that it's not the reason. The reason I am here is that I am one of those lucky ones who are paid to hang out at the social media platforms. Whiling my time around here, I keep observing the behavior and trends that take rounds. I couldn't help but write them all down at a place. Perhaps one fine day when Facebook would be dead, this piece will serve as a helpful tool to the one who need referring to it.

I love you and I want to remember your birthday. 

If one of your friends have sent you a "I want to add you to My Birthday Calendar" request, you will have the same request sent to you by at least a dozen more friends in the next one week. At one point in time, you will actually scream out - "Nahi chahiye...birthday calendar request nahi chahiye...bhaiyaa aage jaao" to your screen.

Photographer mai hoon, SLR idhar hai! 

Whoever owns a high tech camera, will have a profile picture posing with the camera, clicking something. Mostly it would be his/her reflection in the rear view mirror of a car, clicking the mirror. Then there would be albums, all clicked by the high end camera, edited in Picasa. Most of them will have a page for their 'photography'. More often than not it would be 'First Name Last Name Photography'. Not to forget the requests to like these pages by these friends. After 3-4 pages, you would go back to the "Nahi chahiye..." dialogue from the last point.

One more request and I SHALL CRUSH YOU!

Yes, they are the heartless, shameless souls who have gotten addicted to the Facebook dope 'Candy Crush' and are just sadistic enough to keep bugging the rest of us by sending unending Candy Crush requests.

We're in louve

People who are actually seeing someone in their lives, mostly stay away from the 'relationship status' bit on Facebook. The ones who really enjoy and give absolute meaning to that feature of Facebook are the ones who are about to get married. Especially if it's an arranged marriage. The moment the match gets confirmed, the first update 'In a relationship' happens. It stays for a few days, because the next inevitable one 'Engaged' happens. Sometimes the gap between the first and second status is only a week but then you know, it's the only time when they can be the cool ones with 'In a relationship' status. How many of us can actually afford that otherwise?

Switty switty switty tera pyaar chaahida

The Facebook romeos have it easy these days. They don't have to actually go after a girl singing the song. They don't have to take the pains of having to convey it to the girl that they are interested in her. They just have to start liking her pictures, posts, updates, comments. Just go on a liking spree for each and every post of the girl to tell her that you're interested in her. The number of likes decrease with the decreasing levels of these romeos' interests. 

The grammar pricks

These are the pricks who just have taken the onus of correcting everyone's grammar on Facebook. They just can't stand spelling errors or stand grammatical errors. Therefore they assume their moral duty is to correct everything that's spelled wrongly and comment on every thread with the corrected word/sentence/punctuation attached with that bloody asterix(*). They think they are uplifting everyone's standards and spreading the knowledge while everyone else just quietly wants them to die and burn in hell for eternity.

I am happy and you must know it!

There would be people who are extremely happy in their lives. Their husbands are the best in the world. Their parents are the best in the world. Their kids are the best in the world. Their jobs are the best in the world. Their roommates are the best in the world. Their hometown. their friends, their sabziwala, the autowala who drove them to the office...bloody everyone they come across happens to be THE BEST IN THE WORLD!!! (Yes, the capital letters are intended. People belonging to this category end up using the 'all caps' feature a lot. The exclamation marks are intentional too.)

I am watching you

The stalkers. They stalk you. They won't like your statuses. They won't like your pictures. They would be seen only lurking around. Their likes are restricted for the mean/witty/sarcastic comments that might get posted on your posts by someone. One fine day you realize they have done this activity to almost all of your posts. That's when you realize they are monitoring your timeline and it creeps you out a little. You feel like removing them from your friends list. However it strikes you that stalking you and making those attempts at supporting your critics might be the only interesting thing they get to do all day. So you oblige and let them be.

There are plenty of more categories. For example: The dog lovers. They own/owned a dog. That's about it. That's where the online posts start and end. There is nothing to their personalities that doesn't revolve around dogs. There are whiners. Their life is a drama and you're all welcomed to be a part of it. There are the hot ones. 'Hot headed' ones to be precise. They can give a certain Mr. Goswamy a run for his money when talking about politics, fuming over the state of governance and seeking the answers that India needs. There are also the cool ones. They are just too cool to talk politics. Too cool to celebrate Indian festivals. They just talk smoke, dope, rock, and some random shit that a normal man can't understand. Yes, they are also the ones who will end all of their dialogues with '...and shit.' 

And yet, Facebook bring all of us idiots together on one platform. To observe each other's differences so that we can make fun of others, get jealous of others, get a high out of how our lives are better than others, or you know, just reflect on how free we are to actually pay attention to status updates and links that take you to such crappy blog posts. 

:D 

Love to hate you!

The 2 times I truly feel alive, 
When I love with all I have, and when I hate with all my might! 

As much as I like the spiritual concept of freeing your mind and seeing beyond the obvious to find goodness in this world, I DO believe in the sentiment of hatred. Like Sheldon Cooper, I too believe in having "Mortal enemies". I don't maintain a list on a floppy drive, but yeah, I do have people in my life who I hate, with all my might. 

Most of us believe (or would like to believe) that hatred causes no good. It's love that solves everything. I on the other hand believe, 'hatred' is a perfectly valid sentiment. The feeling of hatred is simply the feeling of love gone wrong. You despise someone because that person disappointed you, broke your trust or hurt your feelings. You end up hating this person because at some point of time, you liked this person for the qualities that he/she couldn't live up to in the end.

Hating/Disliking someone isn't bad. It shows you have a clear understanding of what is acceptable for you and what is not. It builds your character, defines your personality. After all, the people who love me, have taken care of me, and have always stood by me deserve something that is real and exclusive. I would treat them the way I won't treat everyone else. If I just let go and become casual towards those who have mistreated me, how am I doing justice to those who've been nice to me? If I am not bad to anyone, I am being good to no one.  

I too have forgiven and forgotten in life, but have done so when the person has duly apologized. That's when it's only justified to forgive and let bygones be bygones. It's good to build the capacity to forgive those who ask for it, have the bigger heart, perhaps.

But the world isn't the best place to live in and no one wants to be pushed around. Also, just how much have the nice feelings like love, beauty, serenity or peace really changed the course of your life? Have you ever experienced the drive to go beyond your comfort zones, fight all the adversities and, stretch your limits when you're in that blissful state of mind with life full of love and trust and beauty?

On the other hand think of the times when you forced yourself to work harder because these dark feelings overpowered your senses. More often than not the drive to prove yourself, the rush to succeed, the burning desire to reach beyond all heights somehow come from the feelings like hate, dejection, disappointment, or betrayal. Even if it comes in the form of overcompensation, you do end up doing the impossible. Had you just 'let go' of the hurt or never felt a thing against those people or situation that were so brutal towards you, nothing would have driven you. 

Now, there might be people who would think that we must in fact be thankful to the ones who harmed us because that drove us towards excellence or success. Why thank them? It was my discretion that made me choose to focus on myself instead of focusing on planning how to murder them. So anyone who hurt me ever and wants the credit for making me a better person, the only message for you is "You, sir/miss, are an asshole". 

Hold some grudge, burn a few bridges, let there be unfinished businesses, let yourself feel a little unsettled and unfulfilled in life. All of these bring out the evil in you, yes but as it goes, it's not as bad to embrace your dark side. ;)