I live life on my own terms.
I make my own decisions.
I set my own goals.
I choose my own methods of achieving them.
I take my life where I want it to go (or at least steer it in that direction)
I am in the driver's seat.

My thoughts are mine.
What I say, is a product of what I think.
What I do, is a product of what I think.
I am a product of what I think.

You can't tell me what to do.
You can't tell me what to say.
You can't tell me how to think.

I have spent a large chunk of my life confident that all of the above is true. Even when I knew I was being influenced, I told myself that I was only taking advice and that this was what I wanted. Decisions were still mine.

It felt good. It seemed to empower me knowing that I, and only I, was in control of my life. The credit was all mine, the blame was all mine. No one else had anything to do with the way I ran MY life.

Enter sociology.

Nothing was allowed to be "just because!". Nothing was allowed to be left as it is. Nothing escaped questioning. Nothing escaped critique.

Everything I ever believed crumbled under the weight of all the questions that kept piling on. All my "givens" were now being plucked out from their roots. I didn't know which ones I could plant back. I didn't know if I wanted any planted back at all.

Over 3 years, my reaction to this whole new system of thought kept changing.

It began with me trying to prove the validity of my thoughts on how the world functioned. Fail.

Confusion and anger replaced conviction.

Over time I learned the importance of questioning. The importance of not just accepting what you're told. The importance of shedding the "aye aye!".

Curiosity replaced confusion. The anger disappeared.

I was introduced to the concept of perception and how nothing we perceive is ever what is really is. It can't be. We see the world through lenses that are tinted with biases of language and culture and religion and society. Lenses that we cannot seem to shed.

Anger and helplessness crept back in. The curiosity, however, was here to stay.

Socialization.
Propaganda.
The Subliminal.
Colonization.

Colonization of my mind.
Colonization by those in power.
Colonization by those with means.
Colonization by those who don't care.
Colonization of MY life world.

Apparently, my thoughts were never mine to begin with. Not a good feeling.

The anger gave rise to rebellion. Questioning authority. Defying authority. Rejecting authority.

My train of thought had changed tracks completely. The world was a whole different place to me. The world inside my head and out.

Now, standing at the threshold of a new outside world, a world where all this theory is in practice, I see a fork in the road. One lane will lead me to peace and satisfaction. It'll let me do all the things I am passionate about. It'll let me live in what some call my "idealism". It'll be a tough trek, but it'll keep me happy. The other, will be the more luxurious one. It'll bring me money. It'll help me travel to places far and wide. It'll help me realize dreams I never thought could come true. It'll keep me happy. But it' may mean selling my soul. Bit by bit by bit...

I'm confused. I'm looking for a convenient middle path. I'm trying to finally, actually, make my own decisions. I'm looking for a direction to steer my life in.

I turn to the person sitting in the front seat.
I turn for guidance.
I turn for advice.
I turn for help.
I turn for an escape.
I turn for my decision to be made for me.

And just like that, I'm back to square one.

Braving the new world.

( Photograph : Kala Ghoda, 2010)

From the moment we open our eyes into this bewildering world, and realize that it’s larger than the walls of the womb that we’ve been used to since the beginning of our existence, we are on a relentless mission to take it all in, to understand how this new place functions and more importantly, how we figure into this functioning.

As new entrants to the planet, it is our aim to work over-time and try and catch up with the rest of the world that seems to have a head start. We’re in an instant phase of overdrive.

We see things.
We touch things.
We hear things.
We feel things.
We experience things.
We begin to relate experiences to people and emotions.
We begin to form opinions about these people and emotions and begin to find our own ways of expressing them to our then, fairly tiny, social circle.

The doors of our perception are flung right open. We see the world, maybe the only time in our entire lifetime, as it really is. The way we see it for ourselves, without being told how to.
No right.
No wrong.
No should.
No shouldn’t.
No decent.
No indecent.
No masks.
No rules.
No manipulation.
No images to uphold or hide behind.
No this way, or that.
Just pure unadulterated being.

If infants could talk, or if there was any other way of finding out what goes on in that baby mind, the revelations, I’m sure, would be mind boggling! The things an innocent mind is capable of, while still free from the filth that the world deals out to all of us eventually, are unbelievable!

When every thought is a good thought.
When every ‘Why’ has an answer (even if we make one up ourselves)
When Love is a given.
When ambition is anything! (And ‘anything’ is acceptable)
When the imagination is allowed to soar high enough to prove the infinity of space.

That’s when you know what the human intellect is actually capable of.
That’s when you know what an individual, as an individual, is actually capable of.
That there’s no real need for the paraphernalia we surround ourselves with:
The people we round up so that we’re not ‘alone’.
The objects we surround ourselves with so that we always have things to keep us busy.
The work that we make sure engulfs us so that we don’t have the time to deal with ourselves.
The money that we hoard so that immediate gratification of endless needs is never a problem.
The fast paced life we lead because patience is never something we learnt.

If only we could spend all our years like we spent our first few…
Family, food, sleep and our imagination.
That’s all we needed.
We found comfort in the loving arms of family.
Our hunger pangs were satiated with all kinds of food, over the years, albeit after some melodramatic howling, but that’s one of the few birth rights the infant knows of.
That, and sleep!
And finally, there’s the imagination that introduces us to people and places and animals, to this world and to others, to our own realities and to realities we cant even dream of when we’re older!

If only we could spend all our years like we spent our first few!

(Yes.. This is also apparently my little Huxley tribute :p)

With or without you playing in the background.

You’re swaying in your lover’s arms.

He’s holding you close.

He’s holding you tight.

You know no harm can reach you.

You’re safe.

Forever.

Forever seems to be more short-lived than you had imagined.

The hold loosens as the days go by.

Soon, it’s lost,

Though only to be replaced by another firm hand.

Once again, you know no harm can reach you.

You’re safe.

For another ever.

Years go by.

Many hands have come and gone,

Each making you feel like they have been tailor made to fit yours.

Each giving you the ‘forever’ feeling.

You rollercoaster through emotions you didn’t know you were capable of.

You shuttle between zeniths of exhilaration and nadirs of despair.

As soon as you fall into the seemingly bottomless pit of sorrow,

Positive that you don’t deserve that ‘happily ever after’,

There he is.

He’s lying there to cushion your fall.

There to make you believe again.

But now there you are.

There you are, in that ‘forever’ embrace.

There you are,

With him,

In the house that you made a home together.

There you are,

Looking on as your children play ,

The sound of their laughter filling the air

With the kind of joy only your own child can bring you.

In that moment you know.

(And I see it in your smile, that grows wider and wider)

There will be no more nadirs.

There will be no more searches.

This was it.

Your eyes had found the perfect eyes to look into,

That look back at you the same way.

Your arms were now for more than just a lover’s embrace.

They were now home to your family.

That firm hand,

The one that fit best into yours,

Was now holding other hands as well,

And each fit perfectly.

The forever you were waiting for, all your life, was here.

That one moment and you say “Thank you”

That one moment and it was all worthwhile.

That one moment and you give yourself away..

(Photograph : Bournemouth, 2009)

Homecoming..

There she was…

She stood and she watched.

She looked down at the swarm of people.

There was head after head as far as her vision could take her.

Person after person

Chanting her name.

Person after person

Screaming their lungs out.

Person after person

Waiting…

Waiting for her!

Her dream was now reality.

It was finally time for her to take centre stage and lose herself in her music…

Again…

Only this time she’s not alone.

It’s not just her and her mirror.

It’s not just her mum and dad who’re listening.

It’s not just another dream.

There she was…

She stood and she sang.

She sang with all she had.

Every crack in her voice was a window to her soul.

Her every word resounded with the seeming millions that joint it…

The waves of adulation hit her hard and strong.

The winds of love and emulation almost knocked her over.

The storm wasn’t too far!

It scared her…

It gave her the kind of power she didn’t know she was capable of.

She was the storm!

There she was…

She stood and she soaked it in!

The lights began to fade…

Images were blurred.

The noise began to fade…

Voices were hazy.

All that was left

Was her and her adrenalin.

She had arrived!

My Blog 101

This is not my first attempt at blogging. I tried this a couple of years ago. I posted things fairly often for a while. Over time, though, I seemed to have nothing much to say anymore and the blog entries got more and more inane as you scrolled from one to another. So I stopped. (More out of laziness and lack of interest, surprisingly, than not really having anything to say)

Months later, a reminiscent conversation with a friend led me to dig my, now forgotten, blog up. Bad idea! I felt like quite an idiot. How could I have written those things? How could I be that “lame”? Not realising that my thoughts, opinions and writing style could have changed and that such a harsh value judgment wasn’t really called for, I resisted the urge to dig a hole in the ground and bury my head in it, in shame, and deleted my blog instead.

In retrospect, that may actually have been a really stupid thing to have done. Poor 16 yr. old me wasn’t given a fair chance! Who says I’m any better now? Who says I’m not lame now? Who says she was?

So this time around, I’ll cut myself some slack and hopefully, so will you (Yes you.. You, who are probably just reading this because I called you like an excited child on a sugar rush and forced you to come see what the fuss was all about!)

So read on.. .. Be nice.. Have fun :o)