Just another year

This is my second new year after I shifted back here. Last time went in a blur. I sat in a corner, remembered the last new year and cried. I was with my family so when I wasn't alone, I smiled, laughed and pretended that there was nothing wrong and it was just another new year. That was pretty much it. It wasn't too long so even if someone saw me crying, they just left me alone.

This time I was prepared so before new year came, I had my days planned out. I would keep myself busy and distracted. So I met with friends, went for a movie, and so on. And the day was gone. Ah, I should be so proud of myself. But here is the thing, as soon as the day ended my distractions were gone and reality hit me like a big strong wave that was building up for so long

New years are usually reserved for reviewing last year. But like I said last year went in a blur (well, almost) and I really don't have anything to review. Looking back at some of the things that I faced in the last year, I am not even sure how I walked through the storm. It almost feels like I am thinking about a different person.  I don't think if I was given that situation hypothetically and asked if I would be able to go through it, I would have said yes. Even now if I am asked, I would say no. The only difference is that now I have already done it. I don't know if it has made me stronger but I am sure I am not the same person anymore - for better or worse.

I did not read much but there were two books that really helped me - both of them recommended by my friends for which I am really grateful to them. I will confess, at first I wasn't sure I wanted to read them but I am glad I did. They are "Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Train" by Cheryl Strayed and "When Breath Becomes Air" by Paul Kalanithi. Both the books deal with death and grief. They are not my stories, they cannot be but they are still there and perhaps someday I will be able to accept my story like they have been able to. Perhaps.

And this is a new year, as best as any time can be for starting to see that life goes on whether you want it to or not. Free will is overrated and so is fate.

Moving on

This is probably the first and only time that I will say this - listening is overrated.

Sometimes no one needs to listen. You just need to talk. And just so that the world does not question your sanity, you need someone to talk to. At that time it does not matter if the person is listening or not. What matters is that you are talking.

Conversations.

Those are the hardest. The ones that are no longer there  And the ones that still happen. Most of the time, I still talk of him in the present tense as if nothing has changed. When I'm outside, I pretend that I'll come home and we'll talk about the day. And when I'm home, I pretend I'm waiting for him to return.

There is no such thing as moving on. In theory, an year is quite a long time but frankly, I think we have a twisted way of measuring time. It just doesn't feel the same. In a way this was the longest year I had and yet I don't think I am any better than I was before. By now I have already overstayed the warm support that my friends have been giving me and I don't blame them. Frankly a part of me thinks the same thing - isn't it time now? It should be but I am not ready.

Time, is supposed to make things better. But like I said, we have very misguided idea of time. It seems time is a master of its own. it can slow down or quicken its pace as it seems fits. More often than not, in a way that will not be in our favor. We give time too much credit.

Although, come to think of it, moving on is not really a choice. It is like standing in middle of a river. No matter what you want, you will be taken away with the current. Most of the days you will find a boat to ride or you will swim but I just feel so tired. I don't even know where the river is taking me anymore, so why bother!

This is a random blogpost. But perhaps in the future I can be a little more articulate.

Another new year, and some thoughts

Happy New Year.

Last year was a silent year. At least here, in the blog. How will this year be? I don't know. At least there will be one post. This one.

The month of January is the month of beginnings, resolutions, turning a new page, reviewing the past year, and so on. Frankly, I don't know what to review in the past year. I had bad days, and I had good days. I had people who supported during the bad ones and people who celebrated the good ones. So, pretty much like any other year. But the plot of my story hasn't really advanced, except that changed my job. And I am happy with the change. But having said that, I have high hopes for this year. But we wait and hope for better things like any other new year.

I have been thinking of writing this post from the 31st December. Somehow I had the time, like always. So, I have been wondering how do we evolve - it never is a drastic change. It is a slow transformation for our betterment (at least that is what we would like to believe) but we never realize those minute changes until it is too late to turn back.  

I am a woman from the modern era. I had the privilege to get good education, and the opportunity to apply my knowledge in a role of my choice and then continue to do so even after my marriage. Not to mention that I also skipped the elaborate ritual of arranged marriage and married for love. It might not be something to boast about in the western world but very few women in my country fall in this category. Many don't do it by choice, others never had the opportunity. I could consider myself lucky or be grateful to the people around me. I could also give the credit to my stubbornness but that will be too inconsiderate. I think it is a mix of everything. How many girls drop out of school because, they don't have the opportunity or because there is no school around? How many fathers fight with the government to get a school opened for the education of their daughters? How many students give up after their first failure in the entrance exams? How many mothers let their girls leave home for studies or work? There is more and I could go on and on but the point that I am trying to make is that it is not a one sided story. It never is. None of our stories are monologues. And while you should take your due credit, you should never forget all those people who have been responsible for your success in one way other.

So well, this post was not about this. At least not when I had thought of writing this. But I haven't written for so long that there are too many things to write. I am stopping here but I hope I will blog again soon.

As the night comes

Tonight is one of those times when I have no idea why I am up so late. So what do you do when you realize that you are awake even though you have to wake up early next morning. I could go lie down and keep wondering what would make me fall asleep or I could just stop wondering and use the extra hours that have been given to me. Tomorrow is not going to change. I might not wake up early or I might still manage to do so. But that is something that I can care about only when it happens.

There are a couple things that I could do now -

• I could read the book that I picked up two days back - Shantaram. It is a lengthy book that is going to take some time to finish and I haven't been reading much these days.
• I could arrange my wardrobe. I have been meaning to do that for the last two weeks. It would have been more but I wasn't home for the last three months.
• I could finish the entry I started on my Australia trip. No, it is not in the blog. No, it will not be. 
• I could read a few more poems. I started it a couple of days back when a friend asked me to read her a poem. I haven't stopped reading yet. I am sure if this continues, she will regret that she asked me to read her a poem.
• I could finish the leftover work from today morning. Nah! I will do that tomorrow. I will have to wake up early.
• I could blog. So I am blogging. 

I do not have much to blog actually. These days thoughts are too superficial. They just don't form words that I can pen down. The thoughts, they feel like distant whispers, too loud to ignore but too soft to capture. So I have learned to ignore them over time. It is like you get used to the rumbling sound of train if you live near the train tracks or the sound of rain if you stay in a tin roofed house. It is not pleasant, really. It is sad. I wake up in the morning with a hundred things in my mind. Most of them arrange themselves to become to-do lists. Lists that I have to check off before the night comes down. And I still miss quite a few of them. The others that couldn't make into the lists, stay there for days, sometimes months and are not heard until a day like today comes. And then I pick up one of them and pen down a blog or read a poem or talk to someone. And then they are forgotten for another month. A month is too long. But I seem to notice it only after it has passed.

They all say that we are given all equal time. I must keep losing those somewhere. Perhaps I have just misplaced them somewhere and there will come a day when I will have so much time that I wouldn't know what to do with them.

Not that I sleepy, yet. But the fact that I have to wake up early tomorrow is nagging me somewhere in my mind so I will take leave. Just in case you want to listen to my poetry reading, you can click here. And by any chance if you happen to like it and have any request, leave me a comment.

Good night. 

On the journeys of my life

I remember travelling a lot. Every two or three years, we would pack our bags and set off for a new destination. Not all of them have been awesome but I grew to love them nevertheless. I loved the places and more than that I loved the preparation, the journey, the anticipation before knowing where I will be next.  I have never stopped boasting about it. Even today if I get a chance, I do that. I tell people that the number of states that I lived in is more than I can count on my fingers, I tell them that I have lived the life of the drought prone villages as well as the national capital of the country. I tell them I had travelled in trains, buses, flights, jeeps, and even trucks before I was even 10. I never, never regret those journeys or places. I am not in touch with any of the people from there. I don't think I will recognise them if I ever come across any of them. I don't think I remember the places much either but only in bits and pieces, the amazing journeys and the feelings that came with it. 

But I was young then, intrigued by the idea of new people, new places, new stories, new friends. Later in life, I have wondered how different would I have been if there were no journeys. I have wondered how is it to grow up rooted in a single place with same neighbours, with friends whom you know from childhood throughout your life. I have wondered if it would have been much the same. Perhaps not. Today I know that transfers are different from travels. That it is possible to travel and still be rooted to a place. I don't know how different that would have been or how similar. I know that if I have to choose for today, I will choose travel over transfer but not for yesterday. 

The yesterday's journeys have given me a thirst for novelty, curiosity to know more, travel (a little), to try and know people, to be a little more sensitive to differences, to be open to ideas, to be comfortable with solitude and more than that to love books. But perhaps it is also because of travels, that the idea of settling down unsettles me.To be in a place with no thoughts of ever leaving it, frightens me. The journeys have also made me detest cities. I like the calmness of towns and villages better. I probably miss out the fact that there are less luxuries and opportunities there, that my line of work allows me to stay only in big cities (That's not true at all. Never believe that no matter what your line of work is!). But the cities scare me and I continue to live there. (Such is life!) 

They say the towns are no better these days. But how can they say, when they don't know what is it that I am scared of, when I have no idea what is it that I scared of. We are shaped by the journeys we have taken and also the ones that we have missed. A person can be known better by the things he or she evades than the ones he or she is ready to confront. How much do I know myself?

Guest Post - Behind the Magnifying Glass

Here is the good news. I am blogging again. I will be more realistic this time and keep my blogging to weekends only. As a commitment to my blogging effort, here is a guest post from IndiaBookStore. Thank you IndiaBookStore for this beautiful article. :)

Behind the Magnifying Glass- A List of Favourite Fictional Detectives

Hello from IndiaBookStore! We are book lovers ourselves, so we decided to start a service that helps everyone find books at the best prices online (so that you can get more books for your buck!) We also blog about books: reviews, interviews, articles, news, we try to have it all. Thank you, Ankita, for featuring us here!

Favourite fictional detectives are not unlike old friends- you know their quirks, you are familiar with their methods and yet, so often, they show a dazzling display of brilliance and a capability to surprise you which reminds you all over again why you love them so much. While fiction has had its share of brilliant detectives, here is an extremely subjective list of my favourite detectives, whose stories I can always re-read with relish, no matter how well-remembered the culprit and the plot, just for the sheer joy of reading them. 

1. Sherlock Holmes- How does one not begin with Sherlock Holmes? A character so beloved that generation after generation tries to replicate him in books, TV series and films. Arthur Conan Doyle’s sleuth was so iconic that Doyle was forced to bring him back from dead, eight years after he had killed him off, due to sheer public pressure. Sherlock’s strength lies in the fact that the stories are both character and plot driven. Hence, readers not only remember the fascinating details of the Red-Headed league or the chilly atmosphere of the moors in The Hound of the Baskervilles, they also remember the easy camaraderie of Holmes and Watson with the same fondness and delight. Holmes remains a cultural icon even today and recent adaptations merely add to the greatness of the original detective.
2. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple- This remains a cheat since Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London (first seen in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920), and amateur detective Jane Marple, an elderly spinster living in St. Mary Mead (first seen in The Murder at the Vicarage, 1930) are unique detectives who would probably have balked if they ever had had to solve a mystery together. Agatha Christie’s iconic characters, whose stories are the third most widely published books in the world, are brilliant, observant and polar opposites of each other. However, the main essence of their books lies not in their well crafted mysteries, but in the human interest present in the books. Christie spends pages devoted to developing characters so that by the end, we not only want the culprit caught; we want the rest to be proven innocent. The characters, the banters, the humour, the tragic touch, the inevitable romantic end- hers is not a murder alone, hers is a whole by-play of human life. Hercule Poirot proudly proclaims, “Journeys end in lovers’ meeting” while Miss Marple smiles knowingly as they happily match make and fix futures of people while fighting for justice in their own way, making them the world’s foremost meddling and heartwarming detectives
3. Father Brown- G.K. Chesterton’s Father Brown, first seen in the short story ‘The Blue Cross’, 1910, is an old favourite. Despite the rather Gothic atmosphere, the scholarly outlook of the author, and the incongruous mildness of the detective (for detectives, even Miss Marple, are usually very agitated by the evil in men. Father Brown, invariably, chooses Christian forgiveness), Father Brown remains a brilliant if surprising detective. To the reformed criminal and then his friend, Flambeau, Father Brown is introduced as a mild, comical clergyman. The same man becomes a resounding power of good and mercy who changes the lives of the desperate with his love. Whether we see the books as an allegory of Christian forgiveness or a detective series with a religious undercurrent, the books, and the man himself are fascinating and worth a discovery. 
4. Flavia de Luce- A snooty, precocious, eleven year old genius solves mysteries in England in the late 1940s. If that is not fascinating enough, she is also a budding chemist, has a habit of being where she is not supposed to be and happens to live in a village which appears to be haunted by an astounding number of murders. Miss Marple would have felt right at home at Bishop’s Lacey. While her first book, Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, has admittedly some weaknesses, the next books go from strength to strength with author Alan Bradley’s awareness of his characters flaws and strengths showing up more vividly in the narration. For fans of cozy drawing room mysteries, Flavia de Luce will be a surprise packaged in the comfort of old-world British murders.
5. Feluda- When it comes to favourite detectives, it is hard to be objective with our very own Bengali detective Feluda. Thanks to English translations of one of the most famous creations of Satyajit Ray’s, Feluda has suddenly become accessible to the rest of the English speaking country and no more remains just a treasured childhood memory of Bengali denizens of the world. Helped with his nephew Topshe and his friend Jatayu, Feluda has a unique contribution to detective literature in India. Not only are the sensibilities of his plots very strictly maintained for a young audience, he shows a fascinating side of India in the 1970s, becoming a living social and historical study. While easy to dismiss as literature for children, it is Satyajit Ray’s genius which makes the detective so relevant, entertaining and plain, old good fiction.

                                                                                                                                - written by Ritika Palit

Of dreamers and dreams

I can't be a dancer if I don't dance. On an outset, this statement is so simple that nobody will disagree. It like wanting to count the stars without looking at the night sky. Yet the truth is is that most of us do so. We all dream and that is what sets us apart from all others. If you are lucky, you haven't forgotten your dream yet. And if you have, may be it is time you took a break to dream

The other day I was talking to a friend who tells me, "... so if we all want to be that writer, why don't we just write the book? " Yes, why exactly? Where is that book I want to write, the song I want to sing, the journey I want to take and so on and so forth? It is there of course, in our mind. When I was in Varanasi, one of my wishes (that was never fulfilled) was to watch the sunrise in the Ganges ghats. The first step to realizing that wish was to wake up before the sun rose, which I did a few times but on those days the clouds beat me to watching the sunrise. At least you can't say that I did not attempt it but I still failed.

We all are afraid of failures and a distant dream is easier to nurture than a broken dream. So the book is never written in fear of rejection, the song never sung in fear of ridicule and the trip never made in fear of cancellation.

For some things, we can attempt and attempt and attempt and for some things, there is a deadline so they are attempted either to be completed, or to be given up. But most of our dreams require a lot of effort (sometimes just a little that is exaggerated by our devilish minds) and can be pushed to the tomorrow that never really arrives and hence we look at that treasured dream in the distant horizon and hope that we will reach there, one day.

And so this post is to remind me that dream, or no dream, I can't be a blogger if I don't blog. The actual dream of course, comes a little later.