Rut Of Nothingness

Sometimes we all need incentive to continue what we have been doing. I found that in knowing that my writing has touched people, knowing it has influenced them or even made them think differently.

When all around me people are in a rut (and by this I mean television shows, specifically Carrie, Miranda and Charlotte), I too have found myself in a rut - a writing rut, or lack thereof. Inspiration has come slow, and it saddens me. Having just watched an episode where Carrie had nothing but a blank sheet for her column, I too felt the frustrations of having nothing but a blank page staring back at me. I remember I've spoken about this in one of my earlier blogs - writer's block I called it.

My cousin told me yesterday that I express myself well. But if I really do so, why has it been so difficult for me to put the multitude of thoughts I have had into concrete words?

I stare outside my cousin's window, at the tall tree with bright green leaves, at the old building across with dirt stained windows, and I feel the nothingness of the gray sky above, extending endlessly...

Love & Laughter

Love is an attachment to another self. Humour is a form of self-detachment - a way of looking at one's existence, one's misfortune, or one's discomfort. If you really love, if you really know how to laugh, the result is the same: you forget yourself.
-- Claude Roy

Desirelessness Is Strength

True strength comes only when we are rid of all desires and attachments...Strength is not an object we possess; it is a relationship between us and the world. If we desire something from the world, we are weak; if we do not, we are strong. To be truly strong requires nothing of the world. Desirelessness is a state of tremendous power.
-- Swami Parthasarathy

Love is an attachment to another self.
-- Claude Roy

I enjoyed the link between the two quotes placed together in the Sacred Space in this morning’s Times of India.

Strength is derived from independence and detachment. Yet love implies attachment to another person. And what I found so humourous? That, in accordance to these two quotes, loving someone makes you weak, because you become dependent on the person.

I wish to be independent and I wish to be strong.

Simply India: Insects

Often, as we sit idly, we get that little tingly feeling on a part of our body, where the imaginary insect crawls up our leg or tickles the back of our neck.
We brush our hand to swat away that imaginary insect.

Here in India, I feel these tickles once again. Yet this time, as I brush my hand against my skin, I gasp with the realisation that there is indeed as insect trotting along my skin.

What can I say?

...simply India.

Fighting For Flawlessness

At what point did we all start looking into the mirror and seeing ourselves etched with a million flaws?

It's absolutely amusing that we all strive everyday to fit into this mould of perfection - whether to please someone else, or just to nullify our own dissatisfaction. Yet I can't remember the day when I started looking at myself and pointing out my flaws. And I especially can't remember the day before that - when the world was so much simpler.

It's a seemingly endless battle and I wonder if we are ever satisfied. I wonder about people who undergo great pains to 'fix' themselves. An episode of Sex And The City inspired this thought, where Samantha undergoes some reconstructive surgery. It only opened doors to future 'improvements' - lipo, augmentation, the works! Closing the door on one flaw opens the door to another. And man is never satisfied.

The humour in the situation? To some people you are a portrait of beauty but to others you are an object to be veiled, hidden from gawking eyes of their worlds. More like irony than humour. The humour is found in the fact that no matter how many people describe you as that portrait of beauty, the tendency is to believe that you deserve to be veiled. Or is that irony once again?

The battle continues as I try to fight the rising apprehensions. I fight every day to shed myself of these questions and those eyes that see only the worst. I'm only trying, poorly I must say, to follow advice. These words of wisdom were offered by a faculty member during a speech at my college orientation program: to look into the mirror and be happy with what you see. At the moment I thought perhaps he was trying to be metaphorical. Yet his preceding statement cleared any such doubt. It was meant to be taken in the most literal sense. So much easier said than done though, don't you think?

In an age where external flawlessness is given just as much importance as internal flawlessness, I wonder, how many of us will really survive?

Do you have what it takes to walk down the runway, answer the questions that need to be answered and flaunt your beauty? And how many of us will be crowned at end of this beauty pageant that is our life? Or will there be only one crowing glory?

So tell me.. can you handle it?

Socialising.. Baby Steps

I feel like I've been dropped from the sky into a world that is alien to me.

Adjusting to culture is a much harder task that I had previously fathomed. Having friends rooted in the Indian culture also didn't make the transition smooth. Best to take it one step at a time?

A step towards the final goal - attaining a good set of friends - is to socialise.

Meeting friends of your friends, going for movies with people you barely know, going to a club to hear an acquaintance of your friend perform.. baby steps towards the light at the end of this very dark tunnel.