Sunday, 14 May 2017

What does mother mean?



What does mother mean?

Most would decorate her as an epitome of sacrifice. Many others would use alluring attributes and relate her with unconditional care, unfailing kindness and undying love.
My bad, I don’t have such holistic and evolved perspective. My meaning of her is a simple and mundane one.
To me, she’s my 3 a.m. dinner chef. And not just serving packaged food or preparing some instant snack—a wholesome and nutritious dinner with proper rice and vegetable, even pickle at the side for she knows how often my appetite would cheat with natural biological clock.

And as I, in this epic act of life changed various roles, she did too.
For the capricious and distracted teenager I was, she became my guide and mentor. And now when I suddenly play someone on the brink of youth, contemplating internal emotions and battling love life, I’m sure she would’ve become my closest friend.
And only she could understand that scoring only 90 is reason valid enough for me to flood tears out, because not only was she acquainted with my innate competitiveness but also with my anxiety.
Because the demons that now resides in my head, once rested inside her too.
Perhaps that’s why she never forced me to attend my friend’s parties rather she would become my wingman and help me avoid them in the pretence of going to some family function.

Ask my friends, and to them she was much needed drinks break in between our evening cricket matches, for she would happily serve cold drink along with dry fruits. For her relatives, she was party animal dancing fanatically in marriage procession and other functions.
My father, well, he won’t have such kind words for her though she was love of his love I still think he would best illustrate her as Sunday spoiler.

Although I don’t believe in measuring motherhood in terms of righteous traits and competencies mothers possess and exhibits, defining her won’t be any trouble at all. In fact in a single word, I can very well describe them in detail—mothers are superwoman.

They have telepathic powers; they read exactly what runs inside their children’s minds. Their embrace possesses healing powers no meditation or medication in the world does.
And especially the shield of motherhood is mighty impregnable, no misery, no misfortune can break through it. As long as mother lives, a child remains miles away from danger.
She protects her own world, and for that she is a superwoman.

But still, for me, she was someone who would cry after beating me up for she couldn’t tolerate watching me hurt, ever.

Spiritualists complement them in their own way, placing worship of mother before worship of God. Quite frankly I don’t think their lies much difference between the two.

But what do I know?
 All I know is that for me she was the best place to sleep-- in her lap listening to those melodious lullabies.
That’s all she was. Nothing less, nothing more. 

Tuesday, 2 May 2017

Need of happiness!




How many times have we been told not to cry because that is something negative people do; to remain positive, to be always happy?
 You get one life and you need to live it to fullest.
Agreed, but disagreed.

Happiness is a choice but isn’t a compulsion. It is overwhelmingly insensitive to be biased towards one set of emotions and slander the other.
Life isn’t always the joyful ride we desire it to be. Nothing better than to challenge the struggles with a positive attitude but how rational is it to demand a person to react in the same manner in every situation.

Sometimes things do get out of control, we get screwed up and tougher times take a toll over our mental state. And it is only human for us to kneel down, to crave for few moments of peace.
But it can’t be attained so as long as we are striving to score a perfect day. Right in the morning, our head is poured with deluge of positive quotes telling us that a miracle is waiting right around the corner.  By raising our expectations, we set ourselves up for disappointment.

Our culture is all about acquiring new competencies; the mentality of ‘we’re never good enough’ is very powerful. But absence of perfection doesn’t constitute failure.
We’re being told to be curious, energetic and positive; to constantly strive forward. There’s nothing wrong in that, but what irks me is the way society patronizes the complacency and patience and contentment.

The constant pressure to remain positive has an underlying negative impact. Psychologically, we are tuned to be satisfied when we’re doing the right things, and now as society has declared being happy as to be the correct thing to do, on days we end up feeling like a failure only because we’re not happy.
It is completely fine to be sad sometimes.
We’ve been instilled with illusionary images of a complete life. It doesn’t involve being always happy and at no cost it involves being perfect. You can be flawed and definitely need not acquire all righteous traits. In times of despair, you have every right to feel sad just don’t let it become an excuse to halt you growth.
Improve yourself, try to be a better version but not with anxiety or pressure instead with a friendly curiosity.

Do develop fondness for sunshine, but learn to accept, even enjoy the darkness of nights. Life’s incomplete without both, together they complete the cycle of day.

Sunday, 9 April 2017

Finding no medicine, I made disease my cure!



Even when screaming at top of my voice,
Why isn’t anyone listening to my noxious noise?
Why won’t anyone believe?
The crazy stuff I confess are not lies
Or will it take eternal silence for my scars to catch their eyes?

This is how I felt day and night- trapped, not only by the disease but also by the scurvy stigma attached to it.  Its inexplicability proved to be an affliction just as equal as the trauma brought forth by illness itself.
I panicked, I cried, my nails drew scars both on the paper of skin and canvas of walls, yet those remained unobtrusive. People did notice the dark shades, but instead of painting it bright, they demanded a logical reason for it to be flawed in first place.
And frankly I didn’t have one. I won’t slander my struggles or accuse my past for the reckless reality I face today; people have suffered worse fire of hell and came out transformed into gold.
Yet I found myself ashes on the ground.
Advices agonized me and perceptions pestered my mood. I wasn’t just sad and I couldn’t just snap out of it. No, I didn’t lock myself up in some dark room. Hell, I even slept profusely, but deeper into my dreams, demons would come dancing, wreaking their havoc and the restless thoughts would jolt me awake.
It was tough to accept, even tougher to sympathize. It requires calmness of mind and up over in my head, I was smothered by never ending anxiety. Yet I kept running; worried, I’d be left far behind but when façade of smile got too tiresome, I decided to better pour out the flood of tears restrained since long.
When glum clouds would gobble me in their shadow, I’d battle hard just to survive but the tornado would wreck the soul, and I would find my spirit on knees laid over ruins of dreams.
Finding myself isolated, helpless I began to heal myself up, to be my own help. Now that I have learnt that climbing steep slope is too big a weight on depressed shoulders, I now take small steps, feeling grateful for each of them for once I had almost quit on life.

And strangely I found darkness to be contenting. Now I celebrate even the trivial of adventures.
Because even walk in a park isn’t just walk in a park; and there lies the peculiarity, I feel wretched to find it intimidating but once I end up doing it, it also makes me blissfully happy.

Saturday, 1 April 2017

BE A FOOL


Days I know my worth, I feel egoistic
Knowing seething talent will take me places far
Days I know my limitations, I feel inferior
Getting aware I am too limited to ever reach the stars
And I feel anxious, that I have boundaries too,
My feet feel shackled; probably I was better off naïve
Knowledge did no good, apart from killing hope
Where practicality lives, how can possibly optimism survive?
Now that I know the misfortunes and failures too well
I now find the destiny less beautiful
Even today I look back to days, when sky was my limit
And sometimes wish I had remained a fool….

“Don’t be a fool; very few are blessed to achieve that glory. Just take the secure path of stability”-you go seeking an advice from elders, and this is the line they smother you with. And it’s not because they don’t have faith on your abilities, it’s just that, they have learnt from their experiences how wrong things can go when you take the risk of heading into less traveled paths. With experience comes wisdom, TRUE, but then again what worth is wisdom if it does no good to the wise?
Getting imparted with too much knowledge is just as dangerous as having no wisdom at all. We deludes ourselves into believing that after a certain point we lose control over what’s happening to us and that it is controlled by fate. We think that we know everything; our potential, our strength, our weakness, our limitations and be assured that there is no bigger fool than one who thinks he knows it all.

Following the dreams require touch of madness. But what they call foolishness is actually undying passion, perseverance, relentless pursuit but most of all the obstinacy to not give up despite constant failures. Surely world will question your sanity, only to threaten your spirit.
Remember what intellectuals thought of to be impossible, was later on achieved by ‘fools’, not because they had more potential but simply because they didn’t know it can’t be done.
Don’t be too certain about your boundaries, give it a try, even if you fail you’ll be far ahead than you’ve ever been. In case you succeed, it’s not the end, there’s always something new to learn.
Ending this blog with a trite yet apt cliché from Steve Jobs; Stay hungry, stay foolish.

P.S.- If you liked this blog, (poem in particular), do visit my page on FB for more poetry and quotes.
https://m.facebook.com/depthsofpoetry/

Sunday, 26 March 2017

Top Universities: Hyped or worth the reputation?

My recent article on all the fuss associated with getting admissions in top colleges. I am sure you all will relate to it. Take a look.

If you like it, please share it with your friends, show your supports guys. Link is shared below. Thanks.

https://edugorilla.com/top-universities-hyped-worth-reputation/

Monday, 6 February 2017

'THE ONE'

She wasn't love at first sight, neither breath of fresh air nor breathtaking shining star of my life, the moment she stepped in I knew she was trouble. Her pretty face, her infectious smile, her cute pullover- almost picture perfect, I was meant to fall for her. And I did, happily, helplessly. Each day my heart witnessed her over gracious nature, sugar coated with sweetness and unconditional care, it started craving for her, as if she's one controlling its beats.
I thought I'd be able to restrain myself from getting emotionally invested. But the worst happened, I made her my dream; she captured it. My mistake, I let her wander there, hypnotised by her cures, her support, so crippled I was for her help.
It wasn't the moment she stepped inside my darkness and promised me light, that I called it love. It was when I trapped her there, stealing her radiance, and she didn't flail, just surreptitiously succumb to my abyss. She got herself acquainted to very nature of mine, the extreme worst of me. She offered me bits of her heart to complete my shallow one, and I took chunks out of it. I blamed her, tore her apart, tamed her with my atrocity like a savaged animal and she witnessed the cruel brutality a man possess, and I never left a chance to unleash it on her.
When I was all thorns, and she was happily bleeding I knew she is the one. She reached inside, venturing through my past and dug out the secrets hidden since long, dark and horrid. She heard the toxic in my words, she tasted the venom in my blood. She touched my naked soul besmirched with sins, but didn't run away,  stupidly believing that her presence could cleanse the stains.
 When all her friends were busy discovering new horizons, breaking out into new worlds, she felt gratified being a part of mine, rephrasing- defining mine. And now she is stranded there, so obliviously lost that her existence is now squeezed to fitting together the pieces of this broken mess. I know it isn't so pure, that there can't be a match between heaven and hell. The imbecile is still busy searching for the good inside me, which simply doesn't exist but I keep her unaware lest she should know, the devil would lose the angel he lost her heart to.


Monday, 23 January 2017

Losing you

I'm losing you, and I can feel it; in my bones spraining with pain, in my garbled words reminiscing past but mostly inside my heart where I had conjured countless imaginations, crafted a picture of 'our' future and now the picture is going far away, the dream is slipping from my reach. And I am frantically trying to grasp it, clutching nothing but darkness. There's nothing to hold onto, no sweet talks or indelible memories just ferocious and brutal accusations, and  insensitive fights, and many more such rueful events, all more reasons to flee from this mess.
No abject promises, no contrite apologies, not even your unfailing kindness or innocuous sweetness can hold me back. I am determined to run, with all my might to fly away from this chaos.
I'd stagger, tremble, fall down but not stop. Each day I will put up an audacious struggle, battling your inevitable thoughts, you will be hard to resist, impossible to forget. And one of these days, the helplessness will gobble my puny efforts, when I would be haunted by your smile, whispers of past will bellow through my soul, and I will wander, madly searching for pieces which I gave, which I would need to regain in order to survive. With faint hopes, I'd look back, only to find out that you're long gone. The picture will be stark empty and it will hurt my ego bad, that you wouldn't even miss me at the time when I will be going through hell. I will be startled, becoming aware that my heart still had some spare left to be crushed and I'd experience the same pain I feel right now.
But before this wave of misery engulf me, I want to live my dream once. I want to hold you close, clutch your hand, embrace and kiss your smile just so you could know what you do to me. But I won't, I am oblivious but not foolish.
Confession would bring me closer to reality, which as always will ruin my life. My fantasies will efface, truth will shuck my dreams. Holding you in my arms, the realisation will hit me like a wallop that after all this time, you're still a stranger, that for so long I had been in love with an apparition sculpted inside my head. And it'll destroy me to know that it's impossible to lose you, because you were never even here, that since the begging I am the one who has been lost.

Sunday, 15 January 2017

Darkness

Why is darkness so frowned upon? Has no one seen the beauty it beholds in its depth? It is utterly soothing and deeply palatable. Why do we keep battling it? Every one has a dark side that is strong, powerful and all our life we keep fighting to put monster on abeyance, but bits and pieces we keep losing to it anyway. Why not succumb to its majestic power? Why can't we be more open minded towards it? Yes, darkness defines my reality which at its best would definitely make you suffer your worst.
We put up a charade of being normal, because we want to keep our hearts safe, cozy warm in the light, but what's light anyway? Just a softer shade of darkness. And then we suffer trying to convince ourselves that lie told is indeed truth.
There is nothing more comforting and relaxing than darkness. Once you've befriended it, it does miracles. It puts a stop on my constant anxiety to be something more, a halt on my nervousness about not living my life to full.
It flares positivity, by inducing negativity in my perspective. Ever wonder, why can't be at our worst behaviour, when it comes so naturally to us? We are all capable of terrible things. Ever smelled the ashes of burned souls? Ever witnessed the ruins after whirlwind of destruction? Frightening at first, but eventually fills up with an odd sadist satisfaction.
Knowing that I am at my worst, convincing myself it's all I will ever be good for, makes me feel numb, which on days is really blissful. It feels weirdly contented because darkness shucks off unrealistic desires, wishes, hopes, expectations, love- all traumatic traits which has done mankind no good.
Amongst all sorrow, I wander in desperate search for reasons to be gratified about. And that's the only moment I am in present, actually grateful for my existence. I step out in the wind, feel the soil under my feet, the sparkling sunlight on my face, count my breaths and I smile, knowing I am just fine.
Darkness doesn't turn anyone blind, rather it gives new eyes. Some genius rightly said that one needs darkness to look at the stars. Darkness consumed in regrets, stinking of guilt saves you from efforts of stealing other's light knowing it'd be futile, it propels you to ignite it within and that's the real beauty of it.