The Boot-Polisher

I saw a boot-polisher on a railway platform yesterday. Not a very weird thing, is it? We see such polishers in every nook and cranny in Mumbai.

But I've seen a polisher very happy! He sat with the stool that he uses to polish other people's boots. Kept a glass of water on it, and opened a pack of biscuits.

Trust me, I've never seen a man this happy in my life! And never seen the pleasure I seen on HIS face last night.

He very slowly dipped his biscuit in the glass of water and ate it, enjoying every bite he took. The satisfaction on his face was remarkable!

May be he likes to eat biscuits with water instead of tea. But he ate biscuits with so much pleasure at an hour when people SWALLOW their BIRYANI in a hurry to go off to sleep to work the next day!

I came back home a satisfied girl, got up this morning with a smile, that no matter what may happen, YOU got to believe you’re happy! And there! You will feel like the happiest person on earth.

My life is perfect with all the little fights I have with my sister every night, but wake up every morning with a tickle and go to work waiting to get back home to watch BigBoss with her.

My life is perfect even though I miss my beautiful family, 'cause I know they are just a Gtalk away from me!

My life is perfect with all my nagging friends, 'cause no matter how perfect you are, you need friends to look for those funny little flaws in you to pull your legs! And you need people who sit on your head and say things like, "Tu movie ke liye kyu nahi aa rahi, aana! Kya bhav kha rahi hai!" :P

My life has become even more perfect after I've started intern-ing. Now I have a responsibility, and I have people who I can ask thousands of questions to! Sometimes they look at me with an expression that scares me off, but most times they are sweet enough to answer them.

So I will enjoy every single bit of my life, just as the shoe polisher enjoyed his biscuit dipped in water!

I'm requesting everyone to do the same :-)

Miss you Bloggy friends! I wish I was more frequent with my blogs, I would've never lost my readers. But I will keep writing, 'cause am sure someone's reading these, or may read some day, sometime! May be after 100 years, and tell their children, "Oh look what we found! These are your great grandmom Khushbu's blogs! It's okay if you don't wanna read them, we don't want to either! No body ever wanted to! See, she's got no comments! Just one good friend named Rayees, seems like a sweet guy!"

You WANT, you THINK, you HAVE!

Well, well, well, the entire collage presented to you above talks about LIFE.

When I tried googling ‘Quotes on life’, I got an un-countable list of quotes.

And whenever I read these ‘inspirational’ quotes, I land up saying, “OH MY GOSH! THESE ARE WONDERFUL!”

And trust me, they solve all your problems in seconds, right? Like, you have the answer for every problem in life.

Are you trying to say your problem is universal? So indirectly, everything that happens in your life is some way or the other similar to something that’s happening in someone else’s life?

Now, let me be frank. I’ve been going through issues, issues that never resolved but left me even more tangled!

I’ve been worried all the time about my career. A few months back, I’d thought I’d become a writer! It’s so exciting when you write a blog or a note on facebook and you get a few sweet comments that encourage you to think that you can practically become a full-fledged writer! But is it that easy when there’s a lot more audience, more readers, and many people depending on what you write and GOSH! The critics!

I’ve been told that, to be a writer, you actually need to mug up Shakespearian quotes and quotes by other famous authors!

Are you serious? I thought the art of expressing your feelings through words was being a writer!

Never mind. May be the above definition that describes a writer does not exist!

And recently, after making a short film for a project in college, I’ve had a thought of joining a film school.

So now, I’m all the more confused.

What am I?

What am I GOING to be?

Where am I going to land up?

These thoughts have constantly been on my mind since almost a year now.

If I try finding an answer to this question, all I’m going to find is the n number of quotes based on life saying, “EVERYTHING WILL FALL IN IT’s PLACE WHEN IT’s THE RIGHT TIME!”

This makes me strong, very strong!

And then there are movies, movies like Seven Pounds. Such movies make me think of joining an NGO. It makes me think I should be lecturing a bunch of underprivileged kids, who are in need of knowledge, but aren’t benefitted with any! But am I smart enough? Their lives would depend on what I say and what I do. Would I be worth that much of trust?

And then my mind tells me, ENOUGH.

Enough with all of these notions, confusions, assumptions, policies and philosophies!

So I walk towards my sister to find an answer... My sister who can talk in a language that seems foreign to any specie on Earth.

She has this one habit of talking while moving her hands in a way that seems very interesting and tells me of how sure she is about her beliefs and notions. She talks with a lot of emphasis!

For example, when I ask her a silly question like, “When am I going to meet the guy of my dreams?”

“Well, (her palms spread out to welcome mine, I hold them tight) He’s somewhere real close, baby! You just need to stop looking for him! The harder you to try looking for him, you’ll land up with all the wrong guys who aren’t worth you, sweetie!”

So much like the quote stuff, isn’t it?

Well, I can’t judge whether she’s right about ‘the perfect guy’, or not, unless I find the answer an to it. Sometimes I do believe what she says is the truth. Sometimes she says things that turns on the switched off bulb in my brain and helps me think.

The other night I argued on how much I need a life that’s more simpler for a teenager like me. I kept telling how things have been difficult. I puked out all the non-sense I had in my brains and she didn’t have an answer to all of that confusion.

So she kept talking.

She kept trying to find the right answer to all my questions.

 It’s difficult for a 21 year old to convince her 18 year old sister, you see.

But that doesn’t mean I’d ever find better answers from somebody else. No, never. Not even my mom and dad could ever be able to help me cool down the way my sister can!

So here’s what she said that night which brought me here to blog, “Look khushi, (her palms spread out to me, but this time, not to welcome mine, but to give a gesture that almost looked like she’s weighing two things in each of her palm) You’re living TWO lives, you see. This one’s the one that you’re living (raising one palm over the other), and this is the one you ‘think’ you’re living (Raising the other palm, both to the same level).”

See? How simple was it? But did I ever think of this? NO!

There’s this one life I’ve constantly thought I was living.  It’s the life where my problems are universal. It’s the place where everything can be answered with the help of quotes and where my dreams and goals are hard to find.

And the other life, is where I have problems that resolves sooner than I thought it will. Where there are people for rescue. Where my problems are just mine and where I can make my own quote after what I learnt from my experiences!

This life, carves my niche.

This life is where the solution to all my issues are the moral science lessons that I had in my 1^st and 2^nd grade! Here, everything I’ve learnt is from the things that got around me!

This life is my JOURNEY, the reason why I started blogging, the journey that will find it’s own destination!

So both the lives I live are important to me, ‘cause the 1^st life, teaches me to reach things higher than my expectations, and the other tells me to relax, EVERYTHING WILL FALL IN IT’s PLACE WHEN IT’s THE RIGHT TIME!

Here, I, am one single person, connecting to the millions of people all around the world, making everything I say, UNIVERSAL!

Good bye dear friends, hope my blog meant something. Even if it didn’t, be nice, like you’ve always been! J :P

Thanks for the comments on my previous blog! The compliments boosted my self-esteem to a level where I went to college everyday with my spectacles on!

The Versatile Blogger

Hey friends from every where (hope your reading me and I am not addressing this to myself),

I have won the award of The Versatile Blogger! YAY! That's such a cool thing to win right? But I some how feel that I don't really deserve this love and appreciation Sarah has put upon me. I have been so unfaithful to my readers, havn't been posting updates frequently. Well, a college going girl with a house to takecare of and her assignments to complete and friends who keep nagging should be forgiven, shouldn't she? (I know that counts as a lame excuse, bloggy mommys are so fantastic and ON TIME always! They have home assignments, diaper assignments, blogging assignments, and hubby assignments, and many more, don't they? I have always appreciated their efforts on their blogs and I will do it even now! You guys are great).

There are rules for winning this award, and they are as follows:
1) Thank the blogger who awarded you and link back to them.
2) Share 7 things about yourself.
3) Pass the award along to 15 other newly discovered blogs.
Now back to the award. Well, I deserve or I don't, I have the award on my blog, so I WILL make a grateful speech.

Thankyou Sarah from People Don't Eat Enough Fudge, for thinking I am capable of this awesome award you've passed on to me along with other REALLY amazing bloggers, in front of whom I stand like an ant with absolutely no knowledge about what BLOGGING is. I am really grateful to you <3

I am also sorry to have been so late in this 'passing-on-the-award' rule, since i was busy with projects! (Please do understand this little ant).

So I have completed my very first level.

Now comes the time to say 7 things about myself. (This is going to be FUN! 'Cause there are many bloggers I've recently discovered, who know nothing about me and my fellow bloggers, will find a chance to know me even better!)

1) I am an 18 year old, who has started to look like an Cranky Old Woman (No offence to Mr. Cranky Old Man, I think you're handsome even now, and you're at some better 'stuff' than I am, so kudos to you!)

Watch the changes below!

Super terrible right? Well, this is just the physical appereance, you should watch what I do with my brains, and you will be confused of what age I actually should've been. Just 1% percent of it displays on my blogs, LUCKY ME! (Now you know why I don't blog frequently?)

Well, the above transformation is due to the huge amount of pressure I put on my brains, regarding career and 'stuff' like that!

2) I stay away from family, with my sister, the sole partner of my apartment. I miss being with my family. I meet them once every summer and the gaps are filled in by plenty of uncles and aunts, who try hard to make us feel home, but MOM is a MOM and DAD is a DAD and baby brother's shrieks can't be found any where else but only from HIS vocal chords and speaking apparatus!

My family is beautiful, I have mentioned them in almost EVERY blog, would be happy if you could scroll down and read some of those blogs.

3) I have been in a boarding school for 4 years! Yeah, it was really difficult for a kid like me, who was always a mom's tail, her sister's doll and brother's best friend, who he could play with. And dad's MOST delicate darling!

4) I am a quick thinker, which at most times, invites troubles. I am impatient for which I have been given a pearl, to wear as a pendant, by my Tarot-Reader mom. Which I think doesn't work a bit. Yeah, but it does make all the other Indians ask me, "Child, are you very restless and short tempered?". That makes me thank my mom almost a zillion times a day.

5) I can love unconditionally. I can bring a pup home, who may be suffering with cold during rains, blow-dry him with my pink dryer and clean the mess he would make in my house with a funny smile saying, "Oh my Scrappy boy! You really crap!". (I have done that in real, Scrappy blog's coming soon!)

6) I am everything my family's believed I am. I have been a dancer, 'cause my mom thought I am and she would encourage me to participate in all the dance competitions and my sister would be my make-up artist and together they made me the winner of the first price, sometimes second, but a winner!

I feel am beautiful even in the Cranky Old Woman look, 'cause my sister thinks I am. I feel am really strong within, and daintiness is just inside of my heart, only because my dad thinks so. I believe I could make a very good dummy punching bag, only 'cause my baby brother thinks I can!

7) I love every human/animal I meet. I try to find out one good quality in every person I come accross and learn something from them. For me every one and everything's a teacher. And that's why my journey will only end when I die. 'Cause there's LOTS to learn.

There's always a lot we can bitch about everyday, but a very few things that we can actually appreciate, and you practically get nothing out of the former, but a lot from the latter. Don't you think so too?

Well now you know most of me. I enjoyed being the Jenny who praised herself.

Now we move on to our next rule of this award, that is, passing on this award to my favourite 15 blogs, and it's going to be ALL the blogs that I follow. So lucky me, no picking thus no pricking!


Sarah at Ah, the possibilities!

Nita at Artistic Compostition

Glen at Glen's life

Melanie at Livin' the Dream

Maxabella at Maxabella loves...

Aakriti at Yarn of Words

Allison at Life in a pink Fibro

Carol at Naturally Carol

Pink Patent Mary Janes

Lisa at Life as we know it...

Emily at Beetle Shack (I also love the name of the blog!)

Joeh at Cranky Old man (I have joined him TODAY and read only a few of his blogs, but whatever I read, I loved! Especially the 'Having stuff' blog which apparantly got displayed in my blog too)

Felicity at Gifts of Serendipity (Gosh! Am a new follower of this amazing woman's blogs where their's a new post EVERYDAY of the week about VARIOUS kind of stuff that includes games! YEPPIE!)

Rebekah at A Buddhaful Journey (Well, am new here as well. Am having fun reading her blogs about her life with her two really handsome baby boys!)

Rebecca from Rebecca Loves!

Two Soldiers

Have you ever read the story Two Soldiers, written by William Faulkner?

I just finished reading it. And I am sitting with an empty tissue box, still sobbing. 

I have been studying subjects like 'Creative writing and English Literature' where you have to read different books and short stories and poetries and read about different authors and study and analyse thier work.


I've read many stories. And all in all of them, I have placed myself in the shoes of the characters and the protagonist. This is a very common thing to do. All the readers enjoy reading only if they can actually feel the character and read with empathy.

But today, it was different. This story does NOT put you in the little protagonist's shoes, but also reminds you of the little fears. We often feel over-protected these days. We are so bound to ethics and norms and all the DOs and DONTs, that we often forget what fear and danger is. Infact we even protect our computers with anti-viruses! Therefore; there is no scope for threat. But there are inner threats, for which no software has been created till date.

 

One of these threats is, the threat of losing your loved ones.

We all have cried and weeped when we've been away from our loved ones, even if it were for a few minutes.

I was on a trip to Nasik, when my dad came and anounced that he's taken our admission in a boarding school. It was hard for us to believe this, as we'd never ever even dreamt if living away from family, living away from home.

I cried. Like I usually do. And gave birth to swollen eyes that were convincing enough to let me go back home with my family, leaving my sister alone, all by herself.

We'd played together, shared secrets, fought, hurt and scared each other after watching horror movies.

She dressed me up in all my dance, fancy dress and drama competitions. And let me tell you, she was no make-up artist but she always won me 1st price in EVERYTHING.
Sometimes I was a Barbie, and at times, a snake charmer. But I always looked the character I played. 

My snake charmer-do was her favourite. She got to try all the lip-stick shades of my poor baby skin.

Like I have said earlier in my post Families ARE important, she was the one who introduced me to Cinderella, Snowhite and the long haired Rapunzel.
She would go complian about my little mischiefs and most times, 'cause of her, I was beaten to a red bottom. 

But there was also a time, when she would become a savior instead.

She would polish my little shoes, carry my school bag, make place for me in the school bus, hit big girls with her water bottle if they wouldn't let me sit or would try to harrass me.

She met me in the intervals, bought me lunch from the school canteen where she had to barge into the group of hulky bulky people who would THROW their hands out for food. These kids made gluttons look thinner. She would place the plate of Samosas and Donuts in my tiny hands and would rush to her class. Most times, without eating anything.

She stood there inside the gate, while we kept waving our hands outside the car's windows. She smiled as though she was very happy.

Just waved back and smiled.

Smiled as we went further.

Like we didn't know she was shedding big tears that rolled down her cheeks continuously.

She was there all by herself. No maa, frying french fries for that fat-so. No daddy, yelling at her for misplacing her stuff. No little sister who would run around troubling and irritating her. No baby brother who would stop crying when in her arms.

It was difficult for her. And so it was for me. I wanted to run to my sister, and get her home with me!

I was strong, strong in my heart. I wanted her any how. But I used that strength against my emotions. I'd promised my sister I will takecare of maa and never let her cry. I'd promised I will buy my baby brother lunch, just as she bought me. I'd promised I will help daddy filing his important documents,  job she'd been doing uptill now. I HAD to keep my promise. I had to grow up to her age quicker than I thought I would have to. 

After a few years, she came back home and now I was the right age, according to my dad, to be a boarder.

Staying there, I learnt to be more practical. I stopped feeling home-sick in few years. I got strong enough to face the bullies, and strong, very strong, like a concrete wall was my heart, which seldom cried.  

Now that we have each other, we understand one another. We think about practical things alongside emotional. We are mature children, who don't play, but often tickle each other while laying on the bed at nights and laugh while watching movies and go out shopping together. These are the special moments now. She still brings back chocolates home from office. Just as she brought them whenever she had a class-mates birthday in school.

Things haven't chnged alot. Somethings have. But love doesnt change.

She always loved her privacy. Shes been reserved all her life. She always kept secrets. She wrote her diary which I longed to read. And I did. I confess. It's terrible to accept I read it. But I did. And those weren't secrets. WE lived in there. And ofcourse, the little things that happend to her everyday.

But some how accepting her change of attitude and the trial of reaching her after crossing the huge space she's created between herself and all the others around her, seems really difficult. She aint selfish and neither is she arrogant.

She's just grown up!

We HAVE to understand that her priorities have changed. She may still act like a 5 year old when in a swimming pool, acting foolish, pretending shes drowning. But she's NOT a 5 year old anymore.

Last night she and I fought over her laptop. I'd forgotten to shut it down for more than 48 hours. 

I cried (again).
She yelled (again).
Then maa had to scream louder than both of us to reach our ear drums and beat them till they managed to hear just her voice.
And then we slept.

I woke up with swollen eyes. She woke up and put on her invisible armour, ready to face another day, another battle. I thought she did not care of how I felt that morning after the ill night.

I read Two Soldiers immediately after she left. Cried and cried. Missed her. And then I heard my phone beeping;
                                                       
                                                        "Have you eaten baby doll?"
                     

See? She's just learnt to put petty things behind! She knows this little fight would not ruin our relationship. She wants me to learn to take care of things. What's wrong in that? If I keep thinking of how she yelled at me, instead of understanding the feelings behind this little message, I would be mis-understanding her and ruining our bond. She may be having her lunch break, and she's missed me.

If I stop seeing what she fights with me for, and notice that she still FIGHTS, I will see my fat-so, cribbity, orgress sister who I've loved the most in this world!

If my dad can put her in a boarding, try to act stronger than he actually is, at his heart. Thinking she needs to be strong and independent, he SHOULD understand, shes become that strong and independent, like he always wanted her to be and can very well manage herself with her desicions. He cannot expect her to be sensitive and practical both at the same time.

Life moves on, just like in the end of the story, where the author is on his way home. We donot know what happend then, whether he ever got the chance to meet his elder brother whose got into the army again. We donot know whether he took care of his mom and dad, just as brother asked him to. But we know, he will sooner or later accept the fact that he aint with his brother anymore.

Our life will keep rolling, like a wheel with no breaks. But if we remember there's something bigger than any materialistic property we own, there's something we can always count on, no matter what! We will know there's love.
Lots of it!
Waiting to be touched.
Waiting to be felt.

After all of the fights, and all of the arguments and all of the practical issues that needs to be brushed every minute, there is a soft corner in all our hearts that needs love. People dont HAVE to say they love you. You got to feel it yourself. You got to look over the petty things.

Maybe this is what you call 'Growing-up'. Where priorities change, ways of expressing love changes, behaviour in public changes. But LOVE, my friends, remains the same.

My journey continues.... 

Poor Mr. Old

Am I a killer?

YES I AM. Do you know why I say this? I say this ‘cause of what happened a while back.

Accidents do take place. Many times.  In many places.  They are called ‘accidents’ because they aren’t done deliberately. But what if you miss killing’ someone whose going to complete a century in a few more years in not a very ‘accidental’ manner? Would you call that ‘an attempt to murder’ case?

 I think I would YET like to call it an accident, ‘cause wait! Why would I wanna kill an already withered man?!

Now before I write about the CRIME I just committed a while back, I’ll give you a slight description of Mr. Old.

We met in a long distance train, an Indian train to be specific. Where you find little rats moving swiftly and nimbly, freely around all the places without any fear. Maybe we Indians are quiet inspired by the rats we ‘pet’.  The smaller and browner we are, the more are we fat and strong. And not just fat and strong, smart and quick!

Now coming back to the ‘Curious case of an 18 year old who AMOST killed Mr. Old.’

I was running inside of the train with my four other Domadia’s behind me. Mom, Dad, monster sister and stupid little brother. With TWO huge bags in each of my hands, barging inside the train as though the train’s gonna to leave the very second it lands on the platform!

Now even though the train left almost after 45 minutes from the platform, we were happy we managed to get in on time. So what if we look like crazy people, right? Was anybody else, ANY different?! When too many similar people get together, they make a CROWD. Leaving NO space for embarrassment or feeling abashed of yourself.

Now I very swiftly and quickly, like the rats in our train, threw all the bags on the seats that ‘hung’ on the top (never been a basketball player, but always a good aimer when it comes to throwing stuff into the ‘basket’!).

So fast we placed all the other bags under the seats, unknowingly that we are accidently destroying the Rats villa, or rather the Rat dynasty!

I yelled out our seat numbers standing right in front of our seats and a bunch of people flew from our seats and landed onto the others that were yet unclaimed, or maybe yet un-yelled.

We were then introduced to this little family whose head was not a very ‘head’ anymore.  He was almost like the new-born in the family. Well taken care of, carefully fed, etc etc. And he also happens to be my Mr. Victim of the day! 

So fragile that body is I tell you! As he now lays peacefully, protected, much more than before, as his family knew, there’s someone EVIL enough to kill that little-old creature, who can barely hit a fly!

Now the very ‘smart, quick, furious’ me, wanted to make some space for the fat me on the ‘hanging beds’. So I picked up all the huge water bottles and tried placing them on the steel holder, that again, ‘hung’ in the middle of the cubicle.

WAIT! Before you start imagining everything hanging, let me describe how the placements in an Indian 2 tier AC compartment usually are.

A rectangular cubicle, with two beds in either length. 1 on the bottom, and the other on the top, ‘hanging’. One breadth’s open to the rest of the train, and the other’s got a window and some holders.

Now since the holders were quiet high, or maybe I was too short for them, I ‘accidently’ THREW one of the TWO litre water bottles on the holder that ‘coincidently’ tumbled down STRAIGHT on Mr. Old!

Lucky him, he swiftly moved like a rat to the corner of his bed even though he couldn’t move an inch by himself until then!  (Indian he is. Indian he proved.) Maybe it was just the human stimuli that made that quick move.

But he made it that night.

And he stayed awake that night then after, until morning, and left us no peaceful sleep.

But he saved me from guilt for all my life!

I blamed myself for his unpleasant sleep, that also caused him falling from his not-so-hanging bed later in the night and also for the unpleasant sleep everyone in our coach suffered from ‘cause of Mr. Old’s VERY disturbing cries.

He would act as though there was someone holding a TWO litre water bottle in her hand,  aiming RIGHT on his puny bobble-head and in a way that she would aim on the bull’s eye, without missing on her target. Somehow, SHE resembled ME quiet a lot.

Every time I got up in the night, and that was when my baby brother woke me up (for reasons you may understand without me mentioning them),  I had to slide into the different hanging beds, where even an infant can hardly move his baby legs when he wants to cry (excuse my exaggerations, it’s nothing but my frustration. WOW, I just made a rhyme!). I almost felt like Mrs. Incredible, the one with an EXTRA flexible body. And every time I did those stunts, Mr. Old would open his puny-wrinkled eyes and look at me with fear. SO MUCH FEAR.

I tried my best to show the best of my sympathising expressions. But I guess those were even more scarier. Remember Lady Macbeth being the serpent behind a flower?

His family was nice enough to understand the ‘accident’. Well now that we’ve got down the train, carried on our own paths, I just hope and pray he doesn’t meet a co-traveller like me again.

I also pray for that poor withered man’s soul to find peace soon! This life was only making it worse for him. But if he wishes to do anything more, any undone work he has to finish or a wish that needs to be granted on him,  may god help him finish it soon and grant all his wishes.

I better go now, got to rush quickly into my bed like a rat!

‘Through time things change’, a long-held axiom, which I believe is true. Life is changing so fast that I cannot cope up with the pace at which it is changing.
Time is running faster than Dash (I hope you know Dash,  Mr. Incredible’s son!)

I am learning.
I am forgetting.

I am learning more things that I didn’t know as a child, for eg: fairy tales merely remain fairy tales, but you CAN always get to run for your life just like Cinderella! (Though Cinderella actually ran to be safe from her step-mom’s beating, WE usually run away from our prince charming. Maybe because after loving and kissing him, he turns into an ugly frog!)

I am forgetting a few little but important things my parents and my elder sister have thought me.

I was always a very caring and a thoughtful child. But lately I have lost the little gem I carried in my heart. I now carry a rock in there! I hardly care about people, sometimes I also tend to mistreat my family.

I hurt them!

May not be doing it deliberately, obviously I don’t do it on a purpose! It’s axiomatic!
But I am doing it. So I am the one to be blamed and held responsible.

I was never rebellious. Maybe I was a fighter cock all my life. But never rebellious!

It seems I am growing into a person, a person who has a life of its own, thoughts, feelings, desires, worries, aims and goals. Earlier my life, thoughts, feelings, desires, worries, aims and goals were all that of my parents, family and friends.

Now it’s always ME.

While writing this, there are a few things that are now flashing in my puny head. Maybe it's true when people say, everything is planned for our lives, our destiny, our future. We can only make it better or worse.

Maybe I am forming an individual personality of my own. A new person.

This person is forming from inside and around me.

My inner feelings and the outer environment, the way I am being treated, nurtured, taken care of, loved etc, it is all creating a new ME.

And I am just letting me grow. I am letting a new person build.

But why am I ‘letting me grow’?
Do I not have an option to ‘form’ the person I want to be?
Can’t I mend ME?
Can’t I build ME?

If I am letting myself grow into an irritated-uncontrollable-angry woman, I can try to make myself a calm-very much controllable-pleasant woman!

It all depends on me now.

I love the humour I hold and have improved on. Maybe I will carry it as an extra ingredient to my very own delicacy!

The first thing I need to learn, to be avuncular (obviously for my brother, who irritates me, and walks with his chest out when i get irritated) and avow to STOP being SO over reactive and hype, for eg: I need to act like I seen a cockroach when I see one, and not act like I seen an unknown specie. Or stop screaming when the water on the beach touches my feet like boiling hot lava touched it instead!

‘Creating ME’ project begins!

Hope I stick with the first assignment.

P.S- Sorry to be absent for SO long. I missed everyone and all of your blogs, which I will be reading soon! Keep reading me.

I am wearing three crowns on my half bald head!

Such alot happening these days.
Lectures, house-keeping, fun with freinds, reading and so busy that I couldn't be very active on Blogger. I apologise for that.
I have realised my previous blog was filled with alot of gibberish. Though it was about my 'Powerpuff moment', but my language wasn't that great.
So I am planning to work on my grammar and writing skills. I have to learn to be crisp and clear, and stop running around the mulberry, strawberry, blueberry and blackberry bushes.
I also have put 'reading' in my daily priority, as it is said, the more you read, the more you write well.
Blogging has already helped me work on my writing alot. Thankyou Blogger.

Now's my time to write about my crowing moment this week.
The very first crowning moment is right now, at this very moment. I have managed to spare some time from the busy schedule and  have tried been very loyal to Melanie and her new 'crowning moment' blog-hop, cause she has made this for all of us here, inspite of being WAY more busier than me (obviously. 6 kids! My mom finds it difficult to handle 3!) Haha!

My second crowning moment this week was in the train on my way to college, and I got up to make space for an old lady to sit. She was standing since a long time and was looking for a place to sit. There were many young girls like me, sitting, but all were busy, either listening to their i-pods or reading novels.
I smiled at the lady when I got up, and asked her to sit. She was carrying a heavy bag.
She never smiled back.
I don't know if she was grateful to my little act of kindness. But I am sure all the girls around me learnt something that day. I wouldn't expect the lady to be grateful, sometimes you're just happy doing something for some-one even without expecting an appreciation. Or who knows, she may have uploaded 'I am grateful to the kind girl in the train' at Maxabella's 'I am grateful for blog-hop' Hehe.

Am the stupid girl in red and my pretty freind in pink!
And the paddle-pop umbrella!

I am grateful to the old news-paper man who kept my umbrella safe with him after I forgot it in his stall while buying the daily newspaper and a good magazine with 'How to catch a guys attention in 10 days' on its cover. Luckily I did not give up on finding it and went looking for it (maybe another crowning moment) when I actually found this man smiling at me from a distance and I was sure it said, "Haha, careless little girl! It's with me, but am not going to tell you unless you remember you left it here with me". So I ran upto him and asked him for it.
My beautiful paddle-pop umbrella was back in hands.
Here's the picture of it. And that's my freind, Dipti. Just as short as I am, just as fat as I am, just as sweet as I am (so we flock together!)

The last and the best thing that became my crowning moment was when I wished a bus driver a very good morning with a huge smile and very sweetly he dropped me closer to my college, to make it simpler for me. Am sure after my sugar coated "good morning" I deserved it!

Have a great weekend!

P.S - I am not bald. Just suffering through hair-loss. Going to try Loreal shampoo and conditioner. Hope it works. If it does, I promise to be grateful for it in the coming week!

Power puff moment!

Today was my FIRST day of my SECOND year in college.
I woke up with “All the single ladies” alarm, may be just because it’s the loudest song I got in my phone.
I got all dressed, met up with a friend and carried a short journey to college.
It was nice going to college after many days, especially travelling in the local trains and rickshaws but somehow something HAS to go wrong, could there ever be a perfect day? In fact the most im-perfect days become your ‘fantastic-perfectly-awesome’ days, for e.g.: I had mine when I spent my ‘crowning moment’ (as Melanie my blogger-friend calls it) with my sister.
So the little bad thing that happened was that I got into wrong bus. It isn’t that simple as it may sound, I literally had to walk my way to college. And that’s not good J especially if it happens on your very first day!
Anyways, through-out the lectures, it was FUN. I was once again the joke-cracker of my class, who got people (friends, class-mates, teachers, obviously these are the people expected in a class! Silly me) into a kind of laugh that makes your stomach sour and your cheek pain.
I was enjoying all of this after a damn long time.
BUT
BUT
BUT

I also put an end to the ‘ill-treatment’ I was given in the class. Oh yes! There are these evil guys of my class who tend to annoy a girl to make fun out of it and have a great laughter troubling her and you just stand there thinking they just want to be friends with you, NO! They are just being there to have fun, so get out and tell them, “THAT’s ENOUGH”.
And that’s what I did!
My crowning moment!
 I was 1^st attacked by this very leader of the ‘gang’ of troublesome guys. He pulled off my hair bow!
 I mean WHY?
Can’t you just stand like 2 feet away from me and still crack a joke and make others laugh?
Not that I am a stupid kind of a girl who thinks it aint right for a  guy to get touchy and stuff, obviously it’s wrong, but I am friendly, I don’t think that’s a bad thing to do, but there’s a difference between ‘humour’ and ‘bullying’.
If you’re a humorous person you may just laugh in a manner that may make plenty others hold their tummies, but if you’re a bully, you’re going to make a bunch of people laugh, a few other think you’re absolutely un-civilised and some people cry, of-course the VICTIM in this case.
So I decided to put a stop to this non-sense. I gave a dead stare to ‘leader’ of the ‘gang’ and there, my hair bow was in my hair again and not in his filthy hands. J
So all the little girls like me who are reading me, or all the mommies or daddies of girlies reading me in here make sure your daughter isn’t getting bullied by such bunch of awfully-use for nothing-boys. But there aint no need to take care, they will themselves, as they grow up.
But a few need your hand and help.
So to the girls, don’t be the victim (not that am advising you to be the bully instead, but be the one people would never dare to bully!)
And when they say, “don’t tell mom about this little issue, they get worried for no reason”, that’s when you need to go back home and tell your mom about what went wrong.
You never know, this was a little case of hair band, but there are BAD situations when you NEED to speak to your parents.  I have faced these kind off little issues all the time with the same guys. So I had to do something about it.
And parents reading me please don’t make your baby talk to your hand!
You will never make them comfortable if you tell them, “Go away, and don’t get these little issues to me!”
I am sure not many do this, lucky my parents never made these evil statements to me, but I know my friends who have never been able to be friends with their parents for this very reason.

So I got my ‘crowning moment’ today, felt like a Power puff girl, with no extra ingredient like chemical X!
I hope some other girls anywhere and every-where in this world too gets the same chance, but even if you don’t, you always have your ‘The Incredible’ family along!

That’s all for today. Goodnight dear world, I am still on my way reaching you. The journey is going to be never ending. Yet I will travel. You MAKE me travel!

And thank you Mel for the ‘Crowning moment’ blog hop <3


 

Meet Mr. Happy and Mr. Positive.

This week it rained.

I am sure you must be thinking what a big deal it would be if it rained huh?
It rains cats and dogs in most places this season. So what’s the need to think over it an entire week? Or why do I need to be grateful about any of it?

What do you do when it rains heavily when you’re outside? Open your umbrellas and protect yourself.
But I am sure you still get drenched.
Isn’t it beautiful?

What do you do when it rains heavily when you’re INSIDE the house? Open all your curtains and enjoy the scenery. Right? (Or am I talking to the aliens who love to shut the windows and curtains and hate that view?! )

Even in the darkest of the nights or days (when the rain- clouds have conquered the sky), you stay warm and protected in your house.

What do you think I am grateful for? Is it the rains?

Yes, I am grateful to rains.

But I am even more grateful to the house that has protected me. 

I don't know whose house is this. If any-one saying, "MINE!", nice house!

All of us have beautiful houses where we live.  Do not include mine in those. Mine WAS beautiful and WILL BE beautiful when mommy comes to rescue it. Right now, it’s a junkyardJ. 

Yet it’s warm and it’s MY place of messing up things and MY secret place of hiding out of rains. I am grateful because I wondered how it would be if it rained and I had to take cover in a cave like Tom Hanks had to in ‘Cast away’.

I walked home this week every-day from college in a hurry to get home.

I saw people running and taking cover under little shops. I noticed not the ones who had forgotten their umbrellas at home, but those who actually didn’t have anywhere else to go.

I feel too young, power-less and help-less when I think there are people who don’t have a house to live in.
But do you know what makes them stronger than me?  Their power of positive thinking.
Some vegetable sellers in the market sit with their umbrellas. Lucky them! They got an umbrella to sit under. Their one and only blanket to cover their wives’, kids and their own bodies. Right?

 I know a man who lives in this ‘style’.
When-ever I go to buy vegetables from him, he looks at me and gives me a very cute smile and always tells me to teach him how to speak in English. He tells me he wants to become a teacher when he goes back to his village when he’s sold enough vegetables. He wants to teach the children maths and some basics of English. (Maybe he just wants to show-off amongst the people there! He laughed when I asked him if he wants to show-off, I take it as a YES!)

I don’t know his name. But I call him ‘Bhaiya’ (Brother). And you can call him Mr. Happy J (he has a beautiful smile)

I am also grateful to something else this week.

When you open your window, you sense the breeze touch your body and feel the cold little droplets on your skin and the amazing smell of the wet sand! Don’t you?
Isn’t it amazing the way you feel the rain touch your hands when you put them out of the window?

I know a man who may not get to enjoy these feelings, but he’s way more happier than what any of us could be.

“Dear friends,

I take this opportunity to introduce myself; my name is Girish Gogia, I am an interior designer by profession, still continuing with my projects with a GREATER ZEAL, now on a mission to spread the Magic of “POSITIVE THINKING”.

In the year 2000, I was at a beach in Goa to usher in the millennium. A confident ocean swimmer that I was, one miscalculated dive, changed my life completely. I am completely paralyzed neck downwards due to a cervical spinal cord injury. I wondered why I was chosen for such a fate. WHY ME??

In spite of all the adversities and the trying times, I didn’t allow hope to cease.

I realized that “nothing was impossible” it was all about the indomitable spirit & mind over matter.

Every person in this world is sent with a MOTIVE. My motive is to spread “the magic of positive thinking and happiness.” Life is God’s wonderful creation. It’s all about learning and moving on. We all should promise to live life to the fullest. With POSITIVE THINKING I regained my confidence and learned “to look life in the face.” Life is like a LAMP, & POSITIVE THINKING is the OIL. If the oil gets exhausted, the lamp goes off.!!”

I do not know him personally. But all I know about him is that, he is a very positive man. And it shows in his efforts he has made to create ‘positive thinking’ in the minds of people. One of his videos have been made by his favorite young guy and girl who helps him collect his thoughts and put them into words and makes movies. They also happen to be my class-mates, and very good friends, Bhavya and Ayesha. Through whom I got to know Mr. Gogia better. It is right here. Watch the video to know more about what he thinks about positive thinking.

He calls himself THE POSITIVE MAN OF INDIA. And we can call him Mr. Positive J

so are you going to sit and nag about the rain on your shoes or the dripping clothes that you need to wash? Or the fungus that's growing on your un-washed pile of clothes? (not that I have a pile of clothes that needs to be washed as soon as possible, am just saying, casually!)
Or are you not going to enjoy these monsoons from in AND out of your house?
Did you understand what Mr. Happy and Mr. Positive has told you?
I did.
So I will NOT crib on the little issues that happen in my life. Instead I will go and enjoy the life that I am living in and encourage Mr. Happy and Mr. Positive J
 

 

Grateful to heart-breaks!

Heart-break. Sounds like a destructive, devastating, shattering etc. etc. word in itself right?
Feels like your standing on a cliff watching yourself falling from high above puncturing your puny body and no-one cares to save you, isn’t it?
But what if you find a way to build a bridge to the other mountain ranges that could help you? What if this bridge was the only way to reach there? Would you thank yourself to be standing on this cliff? Would you still be hurt and fallen apart when you know there’s still a way?
Well I would opt to climb on the bridge and discover if I have a way out of the maze of mountains. I would risk walking on the broken bridge. Risk if even I see logs of wood from the bridge falling deep in the rocks below! I may fall down, but at least my heart would know I tried, instead of sitting on a cliff crying.
If I reach to the other side, I wouldn’t give up on trying to find my way out, or fund my way to a new beginning.
 I may land up standing on a cliff again!
But wait. There may be another bridge.
Every broken-heart calls for a bridge, and every bridge leads to the other side of the problem or the obstacle. The more bridges on your heart, the more you are capable of finding solutions to your problems.
I have taken up heart breaks as a challenge, a beginning, and a small gap in my journey of life. If I will sit and wait for help, I may waste off my entire life, but if opt to use the bridge, I may reach closer to my destination, but at least I would be closer, and won’t be regretting.

So heart-breaks are my bridges to the other beautiful lane of my journey. They give me strength and make me wiser. So I will welcome them, just as I welcome love!
Love will find me someday, or I may find love, when I will cross the bridge, waiting will only show my sunsets and sunrises. A heart-break will help me through my journey.

The Journey continues...

Girl or a woman?

What am I a girl or a woman?! I NEED to go out with my friends a bit. I know this sounds weird, but I am stuck in the house alone for HOURS and I am only spending time with myself, myself and myself!
Cause of this, I am building a very dangerous disease called 'lonelyzania' that’s making me love and enjoy my loneliness. And that’s not good. NO-NO.  For eg:

My friends came over to meet me after a long time. I spent around 2 hours with them.
For the first 30 minutes, I was absolutely normal.
The next quarter, my friends asked me to dress up so that we could go for a ‘fun walk’ (laughing-giggling-smiling-and cracking dumb jokes while walking). So I put on my jeans and a nice casual top and was all ready.

My friends waited at the door, for another quarter while I ran around the house, putting off all the lights and fans, the T.V switches, closing all the windows, checking if I have not let the gas on in a hurry, put some perfume and there! I was ready atlast!
 My friends signed with relief, we stepped in the lift and WAIT!   I still have to lock the door. So I lock the door, check twice if it’s locked properly.
And then we all got in the lift.
And suddenly WAIT!
I rushed back to my floor, opened the door again, got my wallet out and said, "What if I need to buy some vegetables when I am back!"

Oh.My.God.
Can you believe that?
Am I turning into a woman? At the age of 18?!

In the next hour we were under our building standing and talking to other friends who met us on the way.
 

I greeted them very sweetly, spoke to each one for about 5-10 seconds and then I was watching the birds, and the garden, and when I was done watching and admiring the garden, checked out how weirdly some girls were dressed (I know thats mean, am just being frank!) and thats it, after the long hour, we ATLAST began the 'fun walk'.
For about 15 minutes I survived the jokes-hitting each other-giggles-and laughter, the next entire hour I was slogging behind everyone, trying to cope up with them using my tiny-short legs.
'Trying' my best to be in the conversation that included what the girl on the 8th floor had done when she was caught with her boyfriend, and how she was tormented to surrender her mobile phone to her parents (isn't that extremely stupid? I mean, if you have caught your daughter dating some guy, you already know she was dating, why would you want to read her messages?! I agree shes 18, but come-on shes 18! If she's making a wrong choice, you’re supposed to be explaining stuff to her, and not torchuring her and reading her personal messages, that is SICK).

But when I said this, all the girls looked at me as if I said something so damn weird.

Why such taboos that could spoil a girl's life? I mean If atall shes caught, and yelled at, the next time she does it, she’s going to do it alone, and in a way no-one ever catches her. What are you going to do then? Attach a CCTV camera in her room?

Anyways, to get back to the topic, while I was 'trying' to catch up with them, I seen some amazingly beautiful vegetables with a vege guy, so I happily walked to him, bought some fresh nice green vegetables and fruits, a moment of joy, the guy smiled at me in a very sweet way, he had seen me after a long time.

I asked him , ”Kaise ho bhaiya?” (How are you brother?),

Vege man, " Hum thik hai beta, aap kidhar the? Bohot dino ke baad dikhe."

(Where were you child? Haven't seen you around from a long time.)

Me- Bahar Gaon gayi thi  (Had been out of town).

I walked back home with my friends, sad and depressed. I just could not stay in the conversation!
Maybe it’s because I have just got back from a 2 month holiday, so most probably I have missed on a lot of conversations.To get into the talks again may take some time.
Maybe I am grown more mature. I am just worried about myself.
 I just find my friends different now. They are so totally different.
 They make friends SO fast.
 And I think almost 100 times before I do that.
They are out most times.
And I am just inside my house.
Not that I don’t like to go out. I just prefer staying home.
 I like to stay home, read and write blogs, read articles, watch T.V, clean up the mess, do the laundry, and spend time with my sister when she gets home.
But  this is a very bad way of living.
I am an 18 year old and I need to behave and think like one!
So I am just waiting for my college to start.
With that my socialising would start again. And I may get cured from lonelyzania. J 

Families ARE important.

We always meet different beautiful people in our lives. Helpers, teachers, friends, neighbours, baby sitters, gardeners, garbage man, post-man, or even a stranger who passes by you and leaves a smile that will help you throughout an entire hard working day!But there is one group of people you can't stand, your family. Oh yes! Thats true! We may smile at a stranger and help him out or even hear him out carefully even if he doesnot have anything to do with us, but we often miss out to give a simple smile, or help or hear the ones we are the closest to!
We get so busy in our schedules and jobs and friends and mobiles, that we miss those people that make our identity.
On 1-06-2011 4:00 a.m, I realised how important a smile and little memorable moments with family are improtant. 
My sister and I drowned into our bed after the long, tiring and stressful day we both had.
She had her own office worries and I had my career tensions. She had spent her day in her office slogging her arse and I had spent my day hunting for the right job and putting in my resumes in all the possible sites to help others find me. She had got back home tired (brain-tired, sitting in an office for 10 hours aint that easy as it sounds, I now understand that). I had gotten away from the P.C with not a single mail with a good opening. We were sad and worried.
But when we laid there in the bed besides each other, a thought made us both smile, we had each other, we have mom and dad and a little baby brother. I turned and cuddled in my sister's back, she always made me warm and comfortable. She turned and hugged me back, that she rarely does. She hates me cuddling into her back, she says she cannot turn sides and that I kick her off the bed! I am sure she aint lying, there are many days I have got up and found myself conquered the entire bed and seen my sister lay on the ground as though she just fell!
The question here is why did she hug me back that night?
She had missed me.
She had missed me even though we stay together!
She knows she may have troubles with her colleagues or fights with her friends for not adjusting, but her little sister is always there, always there to hug her. She may nagg, but never leave her alone!
We spoke about our childhood that night, how we would fight and trouble mom and then steal hajmola candy (an Indian spicy candy, mostly consumed to digest food) in our night suit pockets and chew them while sleeping (I don't understand WHY we liked those?).
I heard holy stories from mom, my sister was the one who introduced me to Cinderella, Snowhite and the long haired Rapunzel.
As we spoke, she touched my hands and kept holding them, and watching them, I wondered what she thought, her eyes all teary, I asked her, "Didu what are you looking at?"
"I am looking at my little baby's hands, they are so tiny and soft, feels just like they were when you were two! I loved to put mehendi in your hands, I only had to draw a small flower, cause that was the only thing that would fit in those tiny hands, now I can add a leaf to it"
And she kissed me on my cheek, and suddenly I was all fresh and happy, I had nothing to worry about!
We missed our parents and our little baby brother alot that night.
And then to change the emotional aura that had spread around us, she picked up my new phone and started watching the amazing applications I had! She opened the calendar. I told her we could go to any date of any year and check what day it would be then. So to check if my phone followed the Mayan's calendar or not, we jumped on 1-01-2012, and YES! My phone aint the Mayan follower. So we decided to travel a bit more ahead. She entered 14/12/2019, her birthday in the year 2019!
We seen it was a Saturday.
Then what she did was hard to believe, difficult to accept and impossible to expect!
She made a note on that date, with a heading "Guess what?"
And the note said: "Dad 55 years old. Mum 50 years old. Di turns 30 today, with a kid of 2 years. kshi is 20 years old and me...(I can't believe she knew exactly what I would want to see myself doing 8 years down the line!)"
It was a beautiful way of preseving that moment. I don't know if that phone's going to last till then, especially if I use it, but I will try to takecare of it now, I have a reason :-) Even if this doesn't stay, I know what we have marked on that date, I have it here on my blog too, so I am sure this memory will never be erased.
We may grow up, get busy, fall in love, start our own family, make friends or whatever, we will always have a connection with our family. We may give up the fear of losing our parents like we have in our childhood,  the way we have woken up at the middle of the night and cried and looked around for our moms, we slowly learn how life starts and how it ends.
But believe me, somewhere in our hearts we still fear being away from our loved ones, no matter what, but we just try to sweep this feeling away behind in a corner of our heart to be strong.
Goodluck readers, I know I have a very few, but I hope I was able to convey my message to a little bunch of people in this world. So go back home and smile at your mom, dad, daughter, brother, sister son, wife or husband. Families ARE important.