Inspire Me

“Nobody can hurt me without my permission.”
― Mahatma Gandhi


 “Life will break you. Nobody can protect you from that, and living alone won't either, for solitude will also break you with its yearning. You have to love. You have to feel. It is the reason you are here on earth. You are here to risk your heart. You are here to be swallowed up. And when it happens that you are broken, or betrayed, or left, or hurt, or death brushes near, let yourself sit by an apple tree and listen to the apples falling all around you in heaps, wasting their sweetness. Tell yourself you tasted as many as you could.”
― Louise Erdrich, The Painted Drum LP

“The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”
― Mahatma Gandhi, An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth


“If you meet a woman of whatever complexion who sails her life with strength and grace and assurance, talk to her! And what you will find is that there has been a suffering, that at some time she has left herself for hanging dead.”
― Sena Jeter Naslund, Ahab's Wife, or The Star-Gazer


“You have power over your mind - not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength.”
― Marcus Aurelius

“Listen to the people who love you. Believe that they are worth living for even when you don't believe it. Seek out the memories depression takes away and project them into the future. Be brave; be strong; take your pills. Exercise because it's good for you even if every step weighs a thousand pounds. Eat when food itself disgusts you. Reason with yourself when you have lost your reason.”
― Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

“Life is filled with unanswered questions, but it is the courage to seek those answers that continues to give meaning to life. You can spend your life wallowing in despair, wondering why you were the one who was led towards the road strewn with pain, or you can be grateful that you are strong enough to survive it.”
― J.D. Stroube, Caged by Damnation


“You almost have to step outside yourself and look at you as if you were someone else you really care about and really want to protect. Would you let someone take advantage of that person? Would you let someone use that person you really care about? Or would you speak up for them? If it was someone else you care about, you'd say something. I know you would. Okay, now put yourself back in that body. That person is you. Stand up and tell 'em, "Enough!”

Travel Diaries - 1

Saturday arrived with all its fanfare and glory. The sun was up, the birds sang and everyone was walking around whistling,smiling and feeling good about the next two days. I was excited too, but for different reasons. We were to go on a trail in Changi that was called the Changi Coast Walk. Now, it didn't look like anything extravagant. It was just a 2km walk along a beach, but it had been a while since I stepped out into nature and really enjoyed it. So it was something I was really looking forward to. 4 o clock came and went by the time we left. The journey to Changi took us close to an hour and a half as we trudged along talking about everything under the sky. When the destination finally arrived, we got off and started to look for the point where we had to begin the trail. Once we knew where we had to head, we stocked ourselves with some water bottles and took off. I must say here that the entire path was man made, so there were no surprises. It wasn't strenous, so we weren't sweating and panting either. We walked along at our own pace taking as many pictures as we could at all the places. Some of the sights were beautiful, but one wouldn't say from breathtaking. The sunset was worth it though. As the sun went down, the rays on the water gave it a pinkish tinge that was absolutely stunning. We walked past a few dark places, a few stairs, a sailing club and a few families that were staying in the Aloha resorts. I have heard rumours about the resorts being haunted, but we just moved along. After 2 hours of walking a stretch that should have ideally taken us half an hour, we sat for a bit at the point which we thought was the eastern tip of Singapore. It was our tiny little break after which we walked back quickly to the where we began to get home. Like I said, it wasn't the awesome-est trip, but i felt giddily happy for having reached out to nature after so long. Also, I was with the most controversy free, fun people on the trip , so yes, it was totally worth my Saturday evening. 

THE MIRACLE THAT HE IS-

Beneath the helmet, under that unruly curly hair, inside the cranium, there is something we don't know, something beyond scientific measure. Something that allows him to soar, to roam a territory of sport that, forget us, even those who are gifted enough to play alongside him cannot even fathom. When he goes out to bat, people switch on their television sets and switch off their lives - BBC on Sachin Tendulkar

I'm writing this post one day after India beat New Zealand in a 2 match test series at home. I was just reading the news and I am absolutely baffled and anguished by the number of people asking this man to hang up his boots and walk off from the game he has contributed SO much to, over the last two decades. I mean seriously, are you all out of your mind? Who are we to ask him to retire or walk away? Have you played the game ever? Even if you have, have you played like him? HAve you shouldered the hopes and expectations of over a billion cricket crazy fans? Have you been as consistent and fit as he has? If you haven't, you have no right to question his ability or decision to continue playing.

Before we go any further, I want to emphasize that I don't think Sachin is GOD, I don't think he is the greatest cricketer to have ever played the game (simply because I haven't watched every generation and I can't say that unless I have seen all of them, even then I may not be knowledgable enough to make that call). Hell, he's not even my favourite-est cricketer, that would be Rahul Dravid. Then why am I so pissed about all
this news? Because you cannot, absolutely CANNOT deny his contribution to this game just like you cannot question his brilliance and amazing talent. He has been a worthy role model for many a kid. There is a Rahul Mehra, from Times Of India asking this question. "what does he get out of playing now, he has almost all the records, he won the world cup, he has scored so many centuries, what has he got left to prove"!! You NITWIT, you've touched upon the answer yourself, he has nothing left to prove, or nothing left to achieve. Yet he plays the game because he believes he can contribute further to Indian cricket. With all the legends like Dravid, Laxman retiring one after the other, have you thought of the consequences if Sachin were to retire now? This was New Zealand, who don't have extraordinary bowling or batting. Next to come will be England followed by Australia and I don't think your 'youngsters' alone are going to be able to handle that. If you give me shit like he's playing for money, one SLAP on your face is all you will get. What money does he not have that he will possibly get out of putting his body through more torture. Give him a break. The man is almost 40, and cricket requires training hard, he is not going to put himself through that kind of physical stress for nothing. So instead of yelling for him to leave, sit back and enjoy while he still plays because when he does decide to retire (which is not too far away), you are going to miss him, Indian cricket will miss him and world cricket will say goodbye to one of their most precious gems.

As Mathew Hayden put it -

His life seems to be a stillness in a frantic world... [When he goes out to bat], it is beyond chaos - it is a frantic appeal by a nation to one man.

The chaos WILL come to an end one day. It will be a sad day because you are never going to find someone to fill the void that he is going to leave. So until that dreaded day arrives, let him be. Your Sharmas, Tiwaris and Rahanes can wait. Of all the people that have been unceremoniously kicked out, at least this man deserves to go out on his own terms!

A little Koffee anyone - No? Really? Not even a little bit?

Just the other day, when I was sitting in my room absolutely bored, I turned to YouTube for some much needed entertainment. I spent half an hour going through a lot of crap before I chanced upon an episode of the show 'Koffee with Karan'. Now, I am not a huge movie buff, I don't really give a shit about most of the movies that are running in the multiplexes. But I like filmy gossip,again not to the extent that I sit over it for hours and ponder and worry about it, but just generally, I like to watch chat/talk shows with different famous people in them. Now don't get it in your head that this is the only reason I watch these shows, I am not that shallow either, but it is definitely one of the reasons when it involves film stars. I am not looking for any kind of 'gyan' from them, obviously.

So for those of you who are not familiar with the show itself, Karan Johar is a director in Bollywood who most of the actors would die to work apparently. Lets not get into that kind of logistics for the time being. He hosts this chat show where he gets all the biggies from the industry to come by and chat with him in a 45 minute episode where they discuss everything from the actor's journey to stardom, new movies,ex relationships and current flames on an apparently steaming couch ( Don't blame me, I borrowed the cliche from Mr Karan himself). Despite how cheesy and terribly annoying it sounds here, it is actually quite nice. As in, the show is well hosted and some of the movie stars are really funny. You wouldn't want to watch this if you are in the mood for something useful because this really is utter nonsense. But sometime utter nonsense is what you need for entertainment.If you can watch movies like Shivaji or Dabangg or Ready which is actually mindless shit, this should be OK too. You watch it for 45 minutes,smile and laugh wit them and then you let go. You don't ponder over what they said and what they are doing because the truth is that you don't care. Neither do I. Nor do we have that kind of time in this age. So for all those who keep bitching about talk shows like this, go get a life. If you only wanted to do something useful in life everyday and nothing else, you wouldn't be doing half the things that you are actually doing.

Life is not meant to do only useful and awesome stuff. Take a break once in a while, do some nonsense, it helps :)

TIRED and CRABBY

Working and studying simultaneously has to be the worst thing on the planet. Bleh. Sitting through a lecture now trying very hard to keep my eyes open. CANNOT understand a word of what my professor is saying. Panic is happening. Bleh

The best days of the week

I have been a happy kid these last two days :) So what has been driving me... Some good work at office and a lot of cleaning at home. I don't know what it is about cleaning, but it makes me so happy after I've done it. I like to think I'm like Monica from F.R.I.E.N.D.S who has the obssesive need to clean. The sad part though is that after I'm done cleaning, I find it that much harder to maintain. But its good in a way because then in a couple of weeks, my room's messy enough to warrant another cleaning session. Ok, I'm just babbling about something here that has no connection to the topic posted above, so lets get back to that. The best days of the week for me are always Fridays and Saturdays. Yes, that's all. In a week of 7 days, I only find 2 days of true happiness. Now if your curious, here are my thoughts for all days in the week -

Monday - Oh no! Its Monday again. Not only do I have to be at work for the entire day, I have to worry about not getting my Monday headache (If you've read my older posts, you know what this is)

Tuesday - OK, 4 more days for the week to come to a close. 4 days-4 days-4 days-4 days (chants in the head) . Its going to be ok. (Then the realization) Shit, I have to get up early tomorrow because I have to be at work by 8.30 :(

Wednesday - Ahhhh! Class.. Trust me, nothing is more painful than having to work all day from 8.30 am to 4.30 pm and then having to head down to school to attend a lecture taught by an innocent looking albeit cunning professor for 2 hours. ( But yay! he lets us go at 8.05pm instead of 8.30pm)

Thursday - Week's coming to a end. Muhahahahahahaha ( I wish I had class on Thursdays instead of Fridays so I could truly enjoy my Friday, but its OK I guess)

Friday - If your happy and you know it, clap your hands . *Clap-Clap* :D Even the class in the evening does nothing to dampen my spirits because I know I have two days up ahead to laze around and chill and do more cleaning. :P

Saturday - Yawn. Best day of the week. Knowing that you don't have to do anything for that day and the next is  pure awesomeness. Its that kind of a day where you can lie down doing nothing the entire day and still be smiling!

Sunday - Sunday I think is a holiday to make you do all the tough physical work that you diligently avoided over the week. Cook,do the dishes,the pile of laundry and not to forget, the gloom that hovers around you because Monday is fast approaching.

And that is how my week goes by. No prizes for guessing what day of the week it is today. :)

If your happy and you know it, clap your hands *clap-clap*
If your happy and you know it, snap your fingers *snap-snap*
if your happy and you know it, and you really want to show it
If your happy and you know it, tap your feet *tap-tap*

YES! Its Friday and I'm a happy kid who's anticipating the weekend. :D :D

Theory of Relativity?

How is it that weekends go by so fast even when you are not doing ANYTHING fun.. (like you know even when your absolutely bored to death)
As for the weekdays - well, every second seems like an hour.  And yet, when I have tons of work to do, time seems to be in a hurry on weekdays too. 

The thrill of competing

The spectacle that London 2012 was is finally over. Personally, I did not watch anything other than the terrfic gold medal badminton match between Lee Chong Wei of Malaysia and Lin Dan of China (both, being players who I had never heard of before, but then again I don't follow the sport, so yes, its alright). So what am I writing about here? No! Not about the 6 medals that my country won. As proud as I am of our athletes, I am also miffed by the fact that 6 medals was all a country with over a billion people could manage. So then what is this about?

The other day, purely because I was bored, I watched a video of Usain Bolt's 200m race in the Olympics. It was a 20 second affair, but an absolutely gripping contest. At 150m , Blake and Bolt were running head to head. The fastest man on the planet was being challenged at that point! It is of course another thing that he eventually pulled away and won comfortably with Jamaica taking silver and bronze as well . So excited I was while watching this that it brought back fond memories from my own life. Long long ago, when I walked those tracks, when I could hear my heart beating as fast as I don't know what.. at the start line while I tried to listen to the person yellin Ready...Set...GO, when we celebrated victory like it was the most important thing on the planet. I don't compete in this sphere anymore, but what fun it was in those days, training together, the team work and effort, cheering for team mates when we were not competing in that event. It is definitely one of the things about my life that I miss a lot - the thrill of competing.

THINGS THAT MATTER

To you, I owe my life
You taught me right and showed me wrong
You broke my heart a countless times
Yet I could not turn my back to you.
You failed miserably in a few important things,
But you also taught me to be strong, to take failure in my stride
You showed me early that this life would not be an easy journey,
But you taught me not to give up too.
You may have been harsh at times,
And I might have been mad at you more often than not
But I love you so just the same.

To the two people I owe my life to,
I miss you terribly, I wish I did not have to grow up,
I wish you did not have to grow old,
I wish you'd show me some more love,
And I wish you were here! 

The 'friendly' Golden Retriever

Rewind --
 I must have been 7 or 8 years old. Cinika and I played in front of 'F' block on a lazy Sunday evening as we normally did. From far off, we could see a dog running towards where we were playing. We looked around hoping to see someone older who could rescue us if there was a need, but there was no one in sight. I was a tall kid back then too, but not big enough to handle a dog. As the wretched animal got closer, we saw it grow in size and it seemed to be coming faster encouraged by the fear on our faces. It took us two minutes, but soon we were screaming and running in opposite directions. Now obviously the dog took off too and unfortunately for me, it decided to let her go and take me on instead. I was absolutely petrified, I yelled as loudly as I could while I ran for my life.The tears began to flow. I don' remember how long this running and chasing happened. I must have been quite fast because it never caught up with me to bite. I vaguely remember getting saved by some random uncle on the road after what seemed like an eternity. He chased the dog away, made me sit down and waited for my crying to subside. When I was done, he told me never to run from a dog and that if I was too afraid of it when it came near me, all I had to do was 'shoo' it away. I went back home wiser, but more afraid.

Back in the Present --

CYNOPHOBIA??

I always feared dogs, but I realized that it was much worse than just fear yesterday. Singapore is not a country I love, but I have many nice things to say about this place, one of it being the absence of stray dogs on the road. Having been here for a year, I have gotten used to tame well behaved dogs being walked by their owners. Of course, I never dared to go closer than was necessary, but that is not the point. Last evening as I stepped out of my room to go out, I saw this big furry creature run out at me from the lobby. I panicked, my heart was beating so fast I thought it would burst open spilling blood everywhere. I tried to ignore it, after all dogs are well behaved in this country. But no, not this one. He ran straight at me, beige in color, apparently a golden retriever ( as I found out later, but I couldn't care lesser). When he was within inches from me, as I saw no responsible owner, it felt like I was 7 again, I started to run. Maybe I have gotten slow over the years,this time the stupid dog did catch up and though he did not bite, he kept running around my legs and trying to reach up to my hand ( No, I did not have any food). I wanted to scream, but it seemed like I had lost my voice. I remembered the wisdom I had acquired as a young kid, I tried to 'shoo' him away. But my feeble 'shoos' were not enough to scare the big boy. Then suddenly I found my voice and I screamed, screamed so loud, but once again there was not a soul who could do anything. I started to cry again, I could not breathe properly, it was the most awful feeling in the world. The dog had not left me yet, it was still there rubbing its stupid nose and fur on my legs unperturbed by the screaming and racket I was causing. Then a friend came to my rescue and tried to calm me as he asked some random person to lead the dog away. I sobbed for 15 minutes afterwards. Not a thing has changed in 15 years,I complained to the manager her and she told me it was a friendly dog and that it came by on Saturdays. I don't care if its friendly, I don't care who it belongs to, just don't ever bring it in front of me again.

HEADACHES..

When you have headaches for 3 days in a row no matter how much you eat/rest/relax, should you press the panic button and run to a doctor? I wonder why people get headaches, why can't something else ache. When I have a headache, I can barely think and I throw up if I try to get food in my system. Its so bad that I cannot even fall asleep. Its like being punished for some terrible crime. There is no cure that hasn't been tried. Apparently aspirin works for some people, sadly it doesn't for me. To make things worse, I can only take the medicine with some food in my stomach and at that point my system fails me by instantaneosly throwing out anything that is injected. I wonder if anyone's heard of a monday headache. As strange as it sounds, it happens and you cannot imagine my delight when I found someone else with the same problem. Every Monday, as if the body clock is set, by 11 in the morning I have a splitting headache and the only thing I want to do is apply a bucketload of Amrutanjan or Tiger Balm ( for those of you who don't know what that is - it is a 'pain-relief' balm) on my eye lids and savour the burning sensation tht it brings. The reason why I apply it on my eye lids is that it does not have any effect if I apply it on the temples where it is supposed to be applied. Daddy dearest agrees with me that this is the best thing to do with a headache. Yannnnyway, I think today's headache is primarily due to the pressure that I have been feeling over meeting my professor for over a week now. In about two hours, I hope I will be done with that. Got to get back to working now.

So much for not being able to work with a headache! Bleh

I, Me and Myself

25 random,crazy facts about me:

1. I love food, I will say I am not hungry, but when I see food that looks yummy, my hands will be the first to reach out.

2. When I ask you to leave me alone, mostly you'd do well to do that. But yes, there is that 5% percent when I expect you to come back and ask me what happened.

3. I may put on a brave face, but I am more sensitive than your average girl.

4. I miss my girl friends. Sure boys are cool and less complicated sometimes, but I miss the girls like hell. :(

5. I love my space and I love having things for myself. My bed,my room,my laptop, my phone, my everything.

6. I am smart but I like to act silly sometimes to keep the child in me alive and well, to make some others smile.

7. I like to laugh - like really laugh, not smile stupidly. I like to laugh till I have tears in my eyes ( I don't remember the last time that happened)

8. I love playing pranks in the most serious of situations. I think it lightens up the mood a little bit.

9. There is rarely an in between for me. Either I am very happy or very unhappy. If its in between, I'm in an 'I don't care' mood!

10. I hate being told off, I hate people controlling my life. You force me to not do something and that is exactly what I will be doing when you are not watching.

11. To me what you don't know will not hurt you.

12.My best friends are still Shruthi, Aparajita, Shainika, Mithali, Anusha and Sofie (yaa, all girls) in the order of having gotten to know them. I don't necessarily talk to them everyday, but I know I can go back to them on any given day and tell them everything ( well, almost) without feeling weird.

13. I think men are sometimes the worst creatures that grace this planet.

14. Almost all TV shows are awesome. From Friends to Prison Break to MasterChef, everything is AWESOME.

15. I love to pretend that I am a character in the book I am reading or the show I am watching.

16. I pretend to be way cooler than I actually am.

17. I put my head down on a wooden desk and when I hear weird sounds, I like to pretend that there are tiny people inside working away to keep the desk together

18. I love playing outdoors and I love going to different places, but I will fuss about every mode of travel (bus,train,car) except maybe bike. I may have had just a scooty, but I loved it nevertheless.

19. I love to feel the wind in my hair when I walk on the roads.

20. I am afraid of all the animal. Dogs,cats, squirrels,Everything!

21. I do not like coffee or tea or milk.

22. Some things I do, just because I like to, even if its terrible to watch and hear ( dancing and singing are some examples)

23. I have gotten terribly drunk once and puked everywhere on the streets, with that died my desire to drink till I have no idea what I am doing.

24. I want to read the news on TV someday.

25. I want to watch Federer play and win at least once in the stadium,same with the Indian cricket team  ( I am a sore loser by the way)

Ok, enough for now. More on the way soon!

Because I love writing!

Many times you come across something that inspires you to do 'something' yet again. For me writing is what that 'something' is. I had stopped writing for a while because what I wrote once offended someone. I intended no harm of course, but it still did bother me that my actions could cause someone so much pain. But I am back again, wiser than before. After all paper does have more patience than man ( well, in this case, the computer). So much has changed since my last post, I am working again and I no longer have time for all the small pleasures in life. All the time I was idle while I was in college, I wish I had utilised my time better, for the things that I want to do now, I do not have the time and when I had the time back then, I did not do these things. Before I proceed, forgive my terrible language because as you can see, it has been a while. I haven't had much time to read either, so yes, catastrophic fail! But I will get better with time and then it should be ok.

Cannot this of anything else for now. It's good to be back. Hopefully will have more to write about next time :-)

The slave

She worked all day and all night,

To keep others happy, she worked so much

Sadly though, she knew not, what made her happy.

She was lonely, she wished for freedom,

Freedom from the chains of fate

Those bloody chains,
the ones that had already cut into her skin

leaving behind marks of agony,

Marks that would not be erased by anything.

Marks that she would regret getting for 

a long time afterwards!