Some facts about New Year resolutions

A day ahead of another year and the question is back again! Everyone around me is keen to know the New Year resolution of others, and I cannot but laugh over this  little strange and rather amusing curiosity that people tend to have during New Year eve. For me, a resolution or a promise to oneself, no matter whether it's big or small, has to be kept without compromise, under both worst and best circumstances, and by far, I have hardly met anyone who adheres to the promises or resolutions made before New Year. If this is what the next year too has to witness, I find it ludicrous to see the growing hullaballoo on New Year resolutions.

To be frank, a change for better or a promise to change oneself, I think, needn’t wait till the beginning of another year, and if one genuinely wants to get it done, any day and any moment can help trigger a fresh start. But I believe that many people who boast of New Year resolutions hardly want to keep-up their promises, and are rather keener on creating snooty showiness in a group, thus forcefully demanding praise and appreciation from people around, thus unknowingly making themselves a fool of others. This is not a generalization or a prejudiced inference, and I completely agree with the fact that there can be a few people around, who are very much genuine in their resolutions and decisions, but, a major share of people who brag about their New Year resolutions hardly do justice to them.

So what exactly is a perfect or possible New Year resolution? If you ask me, I would say that it has hardly anything to do with the abrupt changes that you would want in your life or personality, Believe it or not, neither our body nor our mind can take-in any abrupt changes, no matter whether it’s for good or bad. Therefore there is no rational reason to brag about or be persistent on implementing a hard to practice promise, when we ourselves are well aware of the extent to which the so called promise can be kept. In short, instead of taking a sudden and drastic deviation one has to take slower and steadier turns that are practically possible, and thus reach the set goal. Whatever the set New Year resolutions or promises are, possibilities of leaving it half the way are many, and for that reason, one can only take slower routes to get close to the goal, and achieve it hands down. Say for example, if a man who has been a chain-smoker or a drunkard decides to abruptly leave his smoking or drinking habit from the first of January, the chances of making it happen are almost equal to nil, as we all know that vices never leave us one fine day, and will continue to cling on until and unless our body and mind are firmly determined to drive them away. I’ve heard many such bragging and have laughed my lungs off as I very well knew that those blown up resolutions would hardly live till the end of first quarter of the year. As I said before, there would be a handful of people who do have such rock-solid determination, and may perhaps achieve what they have planned for, but there is this vast majority who lacks the willpower to stick-on to what they have decided, thus pathetically going back to their earlier state within a month or two, thus ‘strangling’ their own resolution to death without any embarrassment.

So why exactly are people boasting about New Year resolutions is something that I’ve never figured out yet. If it’s a short-term promise that they would soon fail to keep, New Year resolutions are nothing but eyewash that people intentionally swank shamelessly, only to seek attention of their peers. As I am completely against such snooty and foolish gimmicks to hog the limelight, as always, I continue to stay away from such meaningless conversations, and always end up being the butt of ridicule, for not having any eye-popping resolution to boast about. As they, be it my friends or colleagues, move-on with their intense discussions on New Year resolutions, I walk away and laugh in the heart of hearts, as know very well than hardly any of those promises will remain kept at least until the mid of the year.

2013 to 2014 - Some recaps and hopes

Another year is gearing up to bid goodbye! Looking back at those bygone months, I feel that they have gone way too fast than those in the previous years. This thought of quickly losing a precious year of my life is making me feel a little low, for not being able to achieve some of those must needed changes and diversions in both professional and personal front.

At the outset, after spending almost six years in this city, 2013 is the year when I had so badly and desperately wanted to move to a newer place and enjoy the company newer people. After wanting a refreshing change from the constantly repeating daily routine that has almost made me more than evidently mechanical, and after trying hard to get it, I have been so badly unsuccessful and desolate, which has been draining out my enthusiasm and confidence to keep trying more. If you ask me the reason why I want to move on, I have a couple of reasons to say, of which a better professional life comes first, following by the terrible need to put an end to by incomparably long hostel life. Honing my skills has always been one of my priorities, and I right now, I want to dive in to more prospective arenas on a professional front, to earn for myself a more broad-spectrum knowledge and higher levels of hands-on experiences that help boost my knowledge and at the same time provide me a more better financial backing to survive in this alarmingly costlier world in which everything except human beings are so damn pricey beyond reach. Repeated tries to get this done took lions share of my time this year, and returned nothing but some heavy and saddening thoughts on why I so terribly failed, even after being capable and gifted to a commendable level. Absolutely desolate and badly depressed, I often hold back my tears when I start thinking about this, the reason why I want to purposefully forget my failures and move-on with the hope that if god willing I would achieve it in 2014.

After having lived a good number of years in various hostels, and particularly single and sometimes so lonely, I hoped that 2013 would bring the life partner that I had always dreamed about, so that I could end the year as well as my prolonged hostel life on a positive note. But sadly I could never find someone who can be my truest and trustworthy friend for life. Most of the men whom I met either needed a partner to quench their physical desires or a slave to whom they can keep giving orders whenever and wherever they preferred. I looked around the entire year for that ‘special someone’ and couldn’t find him till now, as the year draws to a close. This hasn’t made me so terribly and visibly upset to the level of tear jerking, but I am feeling sad that I so badly failed on a personal front as well. Like any other woman, I too have always wanted a love-filled life with friend-like partner with whom I could happily grow old, but as I can never compromise on the narrow-minded, heavily egoistic, dictator-like, and bossy attitude of men, I kept refraining from entering in to any relationships till now, and hope I would get to meet that special someone in 2014.

Having said all the failed dreams of mine, I should also mention the bunch of surprising blessings that this year gave me, and most important one among this is my revived and rejuvenated writing style that has helped me jot down a good number of blog posts that one could read here on my blog. 2013 has made me feel more empowered as a writer and look forward to polishing my skills more and more in the coming years. Apart from writing, I also rekindled my love for reading this year, and managed to rebuild that long-lost bondage with books. As I have said many times before, I am not good in making friends, and nor am I interested in those artificially created relationships, the reason why my friends list remains the same like the previous year. Many other changes, both sudden and premeditated, and on-and-off twists and turns have changed my life for good, no matter how they came-in.

As the year winds down, like every one, I too have a bunch of hopes for the coming year, but I am not deeply reliant on them, and do not wish go overboard and over-expect about anything, as I hate myself falling deep down in to the pitfall of being let-down by fate. As always, I do want to save myself from being doomed in the sea of sorrow, in case my hopes and plans turn out fruitless at some point of the year. But I must also admit something here, and that’s I am extremely thankful for whatever I am blessed with right now, and have absolutely no remorse about anything and no hard feelings for anyone, as I believe that forgive and forget is mantra makes me move on, although the first part of it is a bit difficult sometimes.

Scared to age

Although I am not a movie buff, I do watch some of them, depending on my mood and the availability of time. Of-late there have been a lot of releases in all the three regional languages that I choose to watch that I never get ample time to watch them all before they lose their appeal and vanish from the cinema halls. Basically I find it hard to sit continually for about two hours and keep my eyes fixed constantly on the screen, but ask me to read a book or write a blog post, and I can do that in the same two hours, with all the possible perfection that you would look for. But movies are definitely not my cup of tea, although, like I said before, I do watch a few of them, but not all.

Of the many uninteresting factors  about new movies, one of the most pathetic ones that I get to notice, especially in a streamline of movies that have been released these days is the unattractive and unappealing romantic antics of heroes who are way too much older for the heroines in the movies. I always keep thinking about the possible reasons why these middle aged or rather much older heroes are keen to choose heroines as younger as their daughters, but have never been able to draw a reasonable answer that looks convincing and rational. But one of the main reasons that I feel is the unsuccessful effort on the actor’s or director’s side to portray the actor to be much younger than his actual age. I think that many of them do believe too much on this self-drawn conclusion that a heroine who is much younger than the hero may portray him to be as younger as his female lead. If they believe so, I think it’s high time they should come out of that make-belief world and watch the reality in itself, where the hero turns out absolutely weird with his clownish gestures and more than evident heavy make-up, to desperately match with the young looks of the female protagonist.

I happened to watch a movie a couple of day’s back, in which the hero who is as close to sixty years was seen romancing someone in twenties, much younger than his own daughter. I was not taken aback, but was amused by the director’s/actor’s choice of heroine. If they had intended to show the hero as young as the heroine, I have to say that they failed so miserably that each and everyone in the audience could easily trace-out the wrinkles on his face and neck, even after an alleged facelift surgery that he is rumored to have done some time back. I still keep wondering about the possible reasons that make them ashamed to show their real age and come in terms with the fact that they can no more essay the roles of chocolate heroes, the kind of characters that they had successfully portrayed during their much younger days.

Having said this, I think I should also go a bit psychological to dig out the reasons why young heroines, especially in their teens, often become the favorite choices of those much older heroes or the self-confessed superstars of cine industry. Like I said before, most of them hate to admit that they are old enough for the roles that they crave for, and are scared to do so, after their decreasing market value, and the galloping demand for those much younger heroes in the industry. Another reason, I believe, is their fear of entering the club of the ‘retired’, from where they would have no hope to go back to the mainstream of the industry, and have all the fame and luxuries that they had owned once. Equally important is the fan-following that they keep boasting of. Although the so called stars of the industry keep bragging about the difficulties of being mobbed by their fans, I’ve always felt that they love and enjoy it most of the times, and would definitely feel their world falling apart if they don’t get to see a huge crowd of fans greeting and cheering for them, when they are out for a meeting or inside a movie hall. These and many more of such logical reasons when crafted together unveil the illusionary and pretentious world in which our cine stars live, and their immense fear to come close to reality, breaking the nutshell of the utopian world they prefer to live-in.

There was a reality show yesterday, where one of the male contestants, and a well-known actor, was heard saying that he is 40 years old, whereas umpteen documents that are surfacing on the internet keep echoing her actual age, which is 45.   Why fear age, when you can always age proudly and gracefully, as well as remain strong and noticeable in the cine industry with genuine talent?

How I overcame a baseless fear

A die-heart fan of horror movies and crime stories, both written and visualized, I am one of the craziest aficionados of errie stories that speak about haunted mansions, evil spirits, and gruesome crimes. Due to this weirdest liking of mine, they call me the oddest in the family, thanks to my hard-to-enunciate loyalty and liking towards those chilling and thrilling narratives that instinctively captivates every corner of my mind. Crime stories and horror movies always make me so ecstatic that it goes to the very extent of eye-popping weirdness for at least a few of those people who see me watching ghost stories and brutal crime reports with utmost curiosity and inexpressible interest. Hours together or even an entire day, I wouldn’t think twice to watch or read those nerve-jangling accounts that promise to scare the yell out of readers/viewers and send shivers down the spine. Although many of them come with the tagline of being the most scary and terrifying, I hardly get to see or read anything that truly, absolutely frightens me to death.

When I tell you about my die-heart love for crime and ghost stories, I should also mention that there was a time in my life, when I was absolutely scared movies and stories that spoke about crimes and ghosts. As any normal child would be, I too believed that ghosts do exist and are born right after the death of a person, especially when someone dies untimely, the reason why I never managed to amass the courage to read or watch ghost stories and crime thrillers. My fear was so paramount one day that I kept hugging my mom tightly and kept myself awake one whole night, only because I saw a movie in which one of the characters was shown strangled to death. After seeing her struggling for breath, getting choked to death, with her eyes bulged out, her lips so scarily bluish, and her tongue protruded out of her mouth, I was extremely scared kept seeing her ghostly face practically everywhere inside my house. My belief solidified and became immovable with the kind of blown-up accounts of my cousins’ adventurous experiences of walking alone in the night, as most of them made me believe that white, pale shadowy ghosts and devils do walk around at nights and keep looking for humans. Trembling and shivering in darkness and silence, I couldn't even go to next room alone, and gave my parents absolutely tough time for quite a couple of days. After seeing the kind of paranoia and hysteria that I had been showing for such a silly and foolish reason, my dad had to jump-in and take control of the entire situation. As I am very close to him, he knew that he would be the only person who can uproot the entire root and branches of the gigantically grown fear that had almost taken hold of my entire mind.

At-the-outset, showed immense patience by explaining to me that ghosts never exists, showed me scientific explanations and made me read as many books and journals as possible to make me understand that my fear is totally baseless. But I was unconvinced and still kept clinging on to the thoughts of evil spirits, ghosts, and devils that the stories and movies kept showing. After his long and tiresome effort to make me understand that such things never exist, he shocked me to numbness one day, by taking me to a cemetery compound close to our home. As we both stood outside the compound wall, I still remember how tightly I kept hugging him, and how badly I was shivering out of fear, when he kept asking me what on earth could harm me inside a graveyard. I had nothing to say, but looked around with fear, waiting for pale woman/man dressed in white to walk around slowly and start singing one of those eerie sounding songs. I waited and waited but no one came!

The initial fear surprisingly went-off after a few minutes, and my dad kept explaining to me all the time that ghosts never exist, and no cemeteries have white saree clad women who keep singing at midnight and walk amid darkness and smoke. He kept showing me those marble tombs inside and made me understand that I should never be afraid of them, but instead pray for their souls. So who are those people whom I get scared about? I felt a little embarrassed on getting close to the fact that I feared something that never existed.

After spending about half an hour in front of the graveyard, I came back home with my newfound courage and happiness, vowing to defeat my groundless fear and paranoia. Even after that adventurous day, dad continued to keep helping me get rid of my fear. He made me read ghost stories and watch horror and crime movies in his presence, thus taking away my unnecessary fear in steady and gradual progression. Slowly I started loving those chilling stories immense excitement. I also started walking around alone, without any traces of fear that had gripped me sometime back.

When I look back now, I cannot help but laugh my ass off when I think that I was so dumb and foolish enough to believe something that never existed in this world. But given the mindset that any child would have, I don’t think it was something unusual and odd. Now that I can understand what the state of mind of such a child would be, I make sure to help such kids remove their fear without ado. This doesn't mean that I am daringly confident to walk alone on the road at night. It’s never because of a ghost or an evil spirit that may lurk around, but because of the more dangerous, the more harmful men who are never sane enough to spare women from being harassed.

They change for no reason

What do you do if you find people close to you change their attitude to you overnight, for reasons best known to them? I know it’s a confusing question and a perplexing situation, when you’re dumbfounded on seeing the sudden indifference of a person you’ve known for months or perhaps years together. You may repeatedly ask or may request and plead to know what has actually happened or what exactly sowed the seeds of grave indifference and quietness, and the other person would shrug them all off saying the very usual answer that nothing has happened. After long, fruitless, and tiresome efforts to know his/her mind, you would sulk and rack your brains to figure out what exactly has happened, finally end up nowhere. I don’t know whether this has happened to you all, but I have had a few instances in life when I was left with absolutely no ways to make-out why some of those people who were supposedly close to me turned out so shockingly indifferent one fine day.

Such sudden twists in relationships were straining, confusing, and hurting in the beginning, and often left me in tears. I couldn't know what exactly went wrong and why I was ‘ditched’ for apparently no reason of mine. Created mostly due to silly misunderstandings, most of which were cleared and sorted out in due course, those 'superficial friendships' where never reinstated with the initial liking and dedication, as I never felt I would be able to give my hundred percent to them all, as they lacked the initial trust and understanding that I had nurtured and boasted about. So, after fixing the cracks that had spoiled the relations between us, I have tried to maintain safer distances from the so called ‘friends’ in both professional and personal life. Neither have they asked me why I haven't recreated the bond that we shared before, nor have I found it necessary to explain why I maintain those newly created boundaries in our relationships.

Relationships, no matter whatever you name it, I think, are firmly rooted on trust, understanding, and transparency. These basic pillars not only erect the relationship well, but also give it a firm grounding that has to remain as such for years together. A crack or rupture in any one of these basic pillars would topple down the entire construction, often beyond repair. No matter however hard to try to cement them back to formal shape, there would be that disfigured and distorted look that keeps echoing the fact that relation is no more in proper shape.

I’ve never had a huge circle of friends, as I had always been reserved, and focused more on my reading and writing habits, than making friends. As I have always believed that friendship is way beyond the superficialities that many of us see and accept as true for its hyped emotional essence, I never considered it necessary to go to the so called friends circles and ‘make friends’ artificially. From whatever relationships that evolved naturally, I've had and still have a very few circle of people whom I can call friends, and the others live a fence apart from them. By ‘the others’ I mean all the rest of the people whom I know as well as the ‘once friends’ who had abruptly cut-off their ties with me and later returned with hard to accept explanations to justify what they have done.

Call it doubt, misunderstanding, jealousy or any other name that sounds sensible to justify what you feel, I think they all should be put clearly in words, and should get clarified, right way, so that your relationships never get affected by what you think and feel about the other person. You may be right or completely wrong as well, but that should never be an excuse to hurt someone who has been with you in thick and thin and respected you throughout for the way you are. Make things clear, articulate your feelings sensibly, never take a diplomatic stand, and maintain transparency and trust in every relation that you have, and in spite of all if someone leaves you for baseless reasons, all that I would say from my experience is just FORGET THEM, because, they are absolutely not worth your love and friendship. Keep them at bay and move on, as you have many other better things to do in life.

Learning how not to let food control me

Dieting was never my forte, it was never on the cards at any point of my life, the reason why it was hard to kick-off my food-control challenge. Blame my huge liking to some of those tantalizing spicy foodstuffs that I could never afford to miss for the entire world, it was more than hard to think about living on fruits and lesser quantity of food,  with practically very little oil and spices. But being on a stage where I hardly had any options on my arsenal, to shed those extra pounds on my body, I took to dieting for the first time,  almost like a challenge to myself, and have managed to walk through the initial stage of difficulties and cravings, without cheating much on my plans. As I ride successfully towards the next level, I can proudly say that I have bid goodbye to almost every junk food that had taken prominent places on my daily food chart. After giving me a few days of uncontrollable hunger and insuppressible urge to have those indefinably lip-smacking foodstuffs that I had always loved, my taste-buds had to finally give-up the battle, making me feel better with my newly adopted eating regime.

Although I hate living on such strict diet, I do have something to admit, and that’s nothing but the happiness on seeing my shrinking stomach that has lost oodles of fat, plus the amount of ease that I feel inside my tummy. After lessening the quantity heavy meals and leaving away my fast-food mania, I feel as if my entire stomach has undergone that much needed rejuvenation. It’s a kind of relaxing feeling, almost like soothing cold breeze after  days of scorching and dreadful hotness. I must confess that I have never had this satisfaction in my entire life. The bloat or pot-belly that I was extremely upset about has shrunk to a noticeable level, and so did the extra fat deposits that blew me up. I know very well that one month is hardly any time to judge about my bodily changes, but I can definitely say that I do notice myself on daily basis, and feel extremely good about even the slightest amount of change.

Being someone who has been traversing through the difficult journey from ‘fat to fit’, I can definitely say that the road is not easy, but it’s not too hard either. All that you require is the determination that can make you do even the toughest dieting step with a pleasant smile. Giving up my spicier meals and living on lighter and tasteless food was never on my to-do lists, and I had never dreamt of sacrificing my favourite foodstuffs someday, but had to do it willingly, as I never wanted to compromise on my health. By health, I don’t mean my looks, but my fitness and overall energy. After living on a whole lot of fast-food and other kind of ready-meals and snacks, I had actually gone way ahead from being healthy, and was on the verge to getting severe medical problems which could have affected my health permanently. As I said I had never grown extra huge, but had overlooked so many of bodily changes, considering it with lesser importance. But thankfully, I was stopped at the right time, mainly due to the wise intervention of my dad, who helped me grab hold of a chance to rethink about my eating spree. I should also mention the amount of hurtful comments that were made about my weight issues. I definitely do not want to create bad blood and don’t want to carry any kind of bad feelings for those superficially ‘over concerned’ pals of mine. Although they had meant to poke fun at me, their comments turned out to be blessings in disguise, and helped me start my good eating regimen, right from the scratch.

I don’t know how my eating habits would be in the coming months, but I am completely sure about one thing, and that’s my steady decision about not going to back to the way of eating that I carried throughout these years. I would never do that anymore, and put my body at risk. But I do ease my dieting routine in-between, and reward myself with a limited quantity of any one of those foodstuffs that had been on my day-today list sometime back.

To conclude with, I have just one message to say; eat healthy, eat right! Because, it’s for your health and not for your looks! Looks can always take the backseat, but the impending health risks would never give you a visible warning before attacking your health. So better eat healthy and stay fit!

Healthy eating is never easy

I'm not sure what made me gain weight in a short timespan, but I must agree that I had become so plump by the mid of this year that everyone, both at my home and in the office, couldn't actually stop wondering how I gained so much weight 'in the blink of an eye'. With everyone’s overgrowing concern and some hurting comments that kept pouring in every now and then, poking fun at my sudden weight-gain, I couldn't help but keep a close check on my body as well as the things that eat.  I am definitely not a glutton, and was never one, at any point of my life. So I was really curious to know the reason why I am getting fleshy and too big for my clothes. Although I didn't have any major health problems that could have augmented my weight gain, I decided to 'cut down' a few things that might have become the major reasons behind my sudden weight gain.

Blame my love for junk foods, the whole task was not at all easy. I wanted to start-off in a very simple way, but the sudden dieting plan took a huge toll on my body for awhile in the beginning. From junk food to samsoa chats, I had do cut down everything that belonged to the junk food category, and the second part of my goal was to reduce the quantity of rice that I had been having till then.

I knew very well that the whole amount of calories that have accumulated in my body would never burn-out overnight.  I wanted it to go slowly yet steadily, the reason why I leaned a few exercises from one of my hostel mates who is an avid fitness freak and never skips her gym sessions, no matter how ill or busy she is. So, with some easy to do exercises and some basic diet changes I started off my journey to becoming healthy. But I have to admit something here! No matter how serious you are about your diet, your craving would suddenly arise from nowhere many times each day, and I was no different. Sometimes cravings became too high that I couldn't stop bursting in to tears. But I forcefully stopped myself from becoming vulnerable all the time, but definitely cheated on my diet plans in between or very rarely, and I don’t really regret for that, as I felt I had to be rightly rewarded for the pains that I am taking to get back to shape, and become healthy. By healthy, I don’t want to say that I was unhealthier before, and had a bunch of bodily issues. But I wanted a physically fit body devoid of unnecessary fat deposits.

Snacks time was the favorite part of my day, and I've always wanted something heavy, like a plate of chat, a  vegetable roll or burger, along with tea. I had been so used to having all those delectable rolls and burgers that initially I was finding it so hard to stop that addiction. I knew it was hard for me to stop my evening snacks, but wanted to eat something good, and hence started having 2 dry chappathis or appams with a mix of vegetables. It was totally unappetizing and tasteless. But I had no other option left. Slowly I started getting used to my new set of snacks, which sometimes included fruits and arrowroot biscuits as well, instead of chappathis and appams.

To be continued...

On The Road to Eating Healthy

So it’s been a week since I am on 'rice-free' lunch! I know it’s never a big deal, but for me it actually is, as I am not used to skipping my heavy scrumptious meals that mostly contain a huge amount of rice and equal amount of curries. Whether it’s at home or in the hostel, a lunch devoid of rice is something I could never ever imagine, even in my wildest dreams, and would not have never tried doing that if I have a pretty reasonable sized tummy and a balanced weight. But sadly I don’t have both of them right at the moment, and my only resort to get back to shape is to cut down the amount of rice that I have each day.

So, to start with, I decided to avoid rice filled lunch for a week ans I wanted to see how it works. I had fruits for lunch this entire week, and to my surprise I tried defeating my noon-time hunger by just having fruits alone for lunch. I was never confident that I would be able suppress my mid-day hunger pangs with just fruits alone. It’s because my crazy fondness for rice and spicy curries that I could never avoid from my lunch menu.


Right from the day I remember, lunch was something I've never compromised on. I could never think anything lighter like chappathi or any other low-calorie food in place of rice, as I always needed a whole lots of things for mealtime, literally a plateful. Curries, pickles, pappadams, and rice, I needed them all to that very stomach full level from where I would have no option other than voluntarily get up and leave.

Lunches and dinners used to be that heavy and calorie filled throughout the years, and I hardly paid any attention to the amount of food that I was filling in to my body. No matter how many times my dad tried to make me understand the possible aftermaths of having stomach-full every time, and that too with high calorie filled foodstuffs, I kept brushing them off, because, to my extreme happiness, I never used to put on huge amount weight, no matter whatever I ate, and I considered it as a very generous advantage to have more rice and curries as per the instructions of my ever dominating taste-buds.

But things turned topsy-turvy about two years back, when I suddenly started putting on a huge amount of weighty, and that too within a very short time span.

To be continued...

Flee from negative people!

Last day, I was going through my mails and found this ‘emotion filled’ email from one of my long-term Facebook ‘friend’. I was in touch with him throughout my Facebooking phase, and was always in absolutely good terms. But unfortunately, he has this nastiest nature of being so badly abusive whenever he gets angry. It’s purely unintentional and I know that very well, the reason why I make sure to keep my lips sealed from uttering anything or replying to his rants or leave the conversation and go, whenever the molten lava of his anger and harshness starts overflowing in the form of rude and offensive words. Most of the times, he becomes fine within an hour or so, and will back to me saying a million sorry and begging pardon.

But this happened so badly about a day or two before I deleted my Facebook account, and predictably, he gave vent to his anger on me for no reason of my own. As-usual I ignored it and soon deleted my account, as I had been planned to do that since last month. Now, after a few days, as anticipated, he has forgotten the entire abusive incident, and wants me back on Facebook, to which I said a big blatant NO. I have never intended to pick up a fight with him, and will never do that either, as I know that it would only do harm to my mind, and kill my precious time, but yes, being away from his negative and harsh words, has done a lot for me, as I no more hear his rebukes for no reason. Now that the entire medium of quick contact is completely cut off, I am happy about being less connected with him. Although I don’t have any kind of hatred in mind, and still consider him as one of my closest friends, I don’t want to give him a free passage to reach me and get back to his usual way of shout and howl, whenever he is pissed off.

A bitchy colleague, a trespassing hostel-mate, an annoying bus-mate, I have always ranted about every other species of irritants who nagged and bothered me to death at some point or the other in my life. Yes, they had been nasty to me, and occasionally I have also been equally harsh in replying, as I’ve sometimes fallen prey to impulsive behaviour and have given those ‘befitting’ replies with the very false belief that they would soothe my soul and make me feel at ease after a terrible session of annoyance. But I think I am well past all those spur-of-the-moment behaviours that I’ve had till now. I want to tell you why I am saying this. As I said, I have always had the irresistible urge to reply, whenever I was annoyed of someone. But I have stopped doing that now, and to be frank, I just walk away and perhaps indulge in a hearty laugh wondering at their foolishness. It’s actually doing a lot for my body and mind, by drifting away the impending negativity and replacing it with a bunch of positivity and ease that makes me feel lighter and happier. I am not sure if this ‘tried and tested’ trick works for everyone, but it really works wonders for me, and chases off most of the negativities that lurk around me. It’s never a mammoth task, as all that you have to do is to free yourself from such ambience and people, or have the strong mind to ignore them. Its impulsiveness that often results in discourteous deeds and bad temperament, and all that you need to do is to avoid being impulsive.

I am not saying that I’ve become silent, docile, and submissive, but I just save myself from falling in to the pressure of impulsiveness. I drive myself away from spontaneous words and deeds, and make sure they are miles away from me. It works! It really works as you don’t need to put any huge effort deliberately, but just be cool and move away when you feel that you’re about to bump on to something that may spill negative vibes all around you, and increase your discomfort, or trigger uncontrollable anger.

Anger is humane, and so is impulsive shouting and bitching, but why give ears to them when you’re always free to leave the place, thus saving your mind from becoming a spectator of someone else’s irrational wrath? What matters more is the happiness and peace of your mind, and not giving someone a channel to pour out their frustration and anger. Just flee and save yourself! You needn’t worry about not being a good listener as such conversations, as far as I feel, are absolutely not worth listening, as it will only increase the heaviness and sadness of your mind.

The fault finders

They always keep sending those  wrong vibes conspicuously, and keep blabbering pesky words  that keep irking us every now and then. Want to know about whom I am referring to? They are none other than the kind of men folk who are born with annoying talent to find faults, just faults, often fabricated, in whatever we women do. If you’re wondering why I have come up with this topic abruptly, I do meet a good number of such men each day, who keep boasting about their 'superior' brain, at the same time taking digs at the female folks.  Sometimes I feel the desperate urge to yell at each one of them and make them understand the depth of my anger on hearing such false accusations and blown-up imaginations of their fickle mind, but I just keep quiet. It’s because I know very well that it’s hard to make them understand how mean they are. So in order to save my valuable time and precious energy, I just remain silent or rather make them ‘feel better’ by leaving their comments unanswered, as I know that they mostly take my silence as an approval of what they say.
There has never been a day when I haven’t heard from such men, who keep pretending to have seat of supreme intelligence right at the center of their ego-filled heads. Whether they see you doing something or coming up with a clever idea, these so called 'walking encyclopedias' start sending the vibes of negativism right from the very next moment ,often as trashy comments that belittle, degrade, and demote the hearer. Are they jealous? Can’t they stand the success of a woman? Or are they so badly insecure? If you ask me the reason why such men cannot stop grousing ill about whatever women say or do, I am not sure what exactly goes wrong in their mind and what triggers their need to foul mouth women? Perhaps it has some big fat explanation in one of those high-end psychological theories which is not my cup of tea, but I do know that there would be something seriously wrong in the minds of such toffee-nosed men, which makes them get cantankerous on finding that a woman can come up with intelligent ideas.

I’ve started feeling sorry for such men, rather than anger which I used to feel a couple of years back. With age and experience dealing with such people around, I’ve learned that such men would never leave away their boorish and egoistic attitude, the reason why I’ve now started ignoring what they keep blabbering, as I feel bad for their poorly malfunctioning brain that can hardly distinguishing the right and the wrong. I feel pity and I just laugh them off most of the time.
Blind to the core to ignore their own foolishness, such men are often rude and hateful enough to create a pitiful and foolish figure before others because of their ‘we are better than you’ attitude.I am too sure that these men, who have made fault finding their motto in life, will be actually the dirtiest baggage of faults, the reason why they are always keen on finding faults in others, as they are very well aware of their faults and insecurities, and are desperate to hide them by finding faults in others.With such  chauvinistic men around, I can definitely say that constructive criticism is almost extinct.

When I ‘dumped’ Facebook

I deleted my Facebook account! I know it is no big deal, but have to tell you this because of the many benefits that one gets by putting an end to the absolutely worthless social networking spree that most of us are addicted to. Yes, that included me to, until sometime back, when I lived on Facebook, right from dawn to dusk. I posted pictures and messages non-stop, I shared umpteen posts, most of them unread and unheard of, and I kept messaging to every Tom, Dick, and Harry, out of senseless courtesy. But for the office hours( as Facebook is ‘officially banned') I lived in the social networking world throughout most of the bygone days, reading messages and replying to them from every place that you can ever imagine, including my toilet! I know it would sound ridiculous that I ‘Facebooked’ even at those odd places, but I don’t mind admitting it. So there came this particular moment of enlightenment, which happened about a few weeks back, when I felt I am desperately addicted to something that’s of no use, instead is stealthily taking away a lot of my precious time. So I decided to put an end to the whole episode by pulling the plug of my social networking life.



But I must tell you an important thing about this, and that’s about the difficulty of coping up with not having something that I had enjoyed for more than four years. It was not easy, and I had to kind of struggle for more than a week to come in terms with the fact. The truth is, I’ve always wanted to do this since last one year, but kept changing my decision, and made excuses, just because I felt I need to ‘keep up with everything and everyone. But I gathered the courage one day, and went on to delete my account, as I really wanted to get rid of the addiction that I’ve had to Facebook. Does that sound like a bit of exaggeration, a kind of cooked up story? It’s not, and you would know this when you break yourself free of your Facebook obligations. Facebook changes your entire life in the way you will never recognize until you decide to take that crucial step and leave away.

So finally I did it, and I really don’t regret for what I did. I don’t miss anyone either. You know why? Not having Facebook has brought this strong realization that more than half of our Facebook ‘friends’ are ‘real friends’. Since I deleted my account, I’ve started realizing that real friends don’t actually need any of those reminders to keep in touch with us, or to remember us. As long as you have your phone and email, they will definitely reach out to you and extend their love and support, as always. This was almost like rediscovering who my real friends are! In my case, more than three fourth of the so called ‘Facebook friends’ didn’t even turn up to ask me why I deleted my account. This is because Facebook can actually fool you and make you think that you have many good friends around. The occasional comments, pokes, messages, tagging, and shares, are actually misunderstood by many, for the depth of friendship that people have, which is actually wrong. One may realize this only after leaving Facebook.

I am not a Facebook hater, and nor am I planning to foul-mouth about it. I love social media, and am always fascinated by its tremendous growth and outreach. But what surprises me is the amount of time and energy that I save now by not being on Facebook. I spend more time reading and writing, have no more distractions during work, and have stopped spending the lion’s share of my evening time in-front of the laptop, replying, commenting, sharing, liking, and posting endlessly. I spend more time wisely and usefully, rather than worrying about messages and posts that I am ‘obliged’ to answer.

So I am on my road to make days more meaningful, make wise use of each moment, and reduce the number of things that I have to pay attention to each day, so that I can focus on that that are actually ‘beneficial’ for me.

Adieu Facebook! I don't think I will ever miss you!

Some 'loud bells' in real and reel lives

As I am staying in a hostel, I never get to watch television on weekdays, as they often go in supersonic speed, right from waking up at 6.30 am to hitting the bed before 10.30pm. As we are told to embrace darkness by 10.30 (thanks to the skyrocketing electricity bills), I make sure to go to bed at least 10 minutes before the set warning time, in order to save myself from getting caught by the security guards, who keep parading around in search of the inmates who are lavishly using electricity after 10.30.

Although I don’t watch T.V, at times I scan through those YouTube updates of most of the daily T.V programs, just for fun and relaxation. It was during one such moments that I happened to see this program, yesterday, when I saw a man hurling  filthy abuses at a woman and even pushing and threatening her on a reality show. I was absolutely shocked and taken aback by the way he gave vent to his emotions, so openly on national television. Although I couldn’t  understand what actually led to the whole dirty fiasco, but it was appealing to see a man going ahead and verbally abusing a woman, showering all the nastiest words on her. Supposedly one of the much watched programs, I never felt they would telecast such a shocker on television, and horrify entire audience, along with making us wonder if T.R.P is the only factor that every show director keeps in mind during the making. No matter for what reason the fight happened, it was terrible listening to man badmouthing a woman to the and outrageously justifying his act. Whether the entire fight was real, or reel, just to get more viewership, it was more than nasty and ended up on a very violent note, which kept resonating the fact there are still a lot of men in our society who keep believing that woman can be subjected to verbal abuse whenever and wherever required, with no one to question such heinousness.
Even though I stopped watching the show right after the first few minutes, each word that he said kept echoing in my mind, making me wonder how women are perceived, and why men feel that loud and harsh words would make women vulnerable, weak, and submissive. I have no intention to generalize and come to a conclusion that all men are the same, but definitely there are quite a lot of male folks who still believe that ruthless words and loudest voices can hurt women and make them weak and cry. I pity them! I pity them for their narrow-mindedness, for being shamelessly chauvinistic, for being uncouth and dictator-like. Such men, I think, should be deprived of women’s love and care, and should be made to live lonesome throughout their entire  life. I don’t believe that this would make them understand what they've lost due to their egotism, but this would definitely save a woman from being abused.

Having telecasted the entire fight on national television, the makers of the show have in one way highlighted the arrogance of such men, but, on the flipside, they also made the audience watch and listen to all the abusive words and violent reactions that doesn’t befit a primetime show. A television program which is apparently for the audience to relax and unwind turned out to be the outlet of verbal vomit, thus leaving a sickening impact on everyone who watched the show. Was this actually necessary? I don’t think it was, as the editors were free to cut-off the worst part of that nastiest fight. Instead they didn't, and went on to telecast it, even showed a teaser on that!

Scripted or not, the show left a huge shock and nauseating feeling in my mind that I have decided not to watch it again, no matter how good they are going to be in future. Being a woman, I have lots of respect for all the women folk, rich or poor, commoner or famous, the reason why I can’t stand a woman being abused on national television and people watching it with smile. It’s nothing but disgusting, absolutely disgusting!

Accessorizing in the right way

That bright and noticeable diamond studded earring on his left ear was what I noticed first, or rather immensely amused about, while meeting him amid some serious discussions about the new project. A twenty something, spotlessly clean shaven, and conservatively dressed computer programmer with a completely mismatching woman’s accessory, noticeably stapled on his right earlobe, that very funny sight of seeing him wearing a huge womanly earring gave me some moments of absolute hilarity.

It was funny to watch him walk around with an extremely feminine face, and that crystal earrings that augmented his womanly appearance. I had this sudden urge to laugh my lungs off but prevented myself from doing that right in front of him, as I never wanted to hurt his girly choice that completely disfigured his overall appearance. So I left the place soon, but couldn’t forget his new look, which kept me wondering about the reason why a man of his age would need such an out-of-the place accessory, firmly fitted on his ear, only to create some unwanted femininity to mask his raw, sensual, god-gifted masculinity, something that everyone would love and admire. To put it shortly, why on earth should a man wear such huge earrings, and make him look more womanish than manly.

Call it the newest fashion statement and I would vehemently disagree, as fashion has to always go as per the gender of a person, and for men, such huge and glittery earrings are totally a mismatch, and will look totally 'un-masculine'. I know that an earring is never a benchmark to identify the sexual orientation of a person, but if someone is robbed of his mannish looks, gives him a style statement that disfigures his gender and identity, I don’t think he should take pains to pierce his ears and clip that sparkling accessory on his earlobe, with the very false notion that it would make him more handsome. It won’t, and it would never do that! On the contrary ,it will only adds-in a noticeable amount of feminineness on his face, thus unknowingly making him a hot topic of ridicule before others. It may be a matter of taste, but let me state something plainly before I go further; I really don’t like seeing men in such shiny and earrings. I find it more than disgusting and have always kept wondering why men are so fascinated towards earrings, and if they love that supposedly women’s accessory, they should love our anklets and bangles as well rite? If they trying to make themselves look sexier by attaching those sparkling pieces of jewellery to their earlobes, I would call it downright craziness as a huge earring clipped on to his ear, or sometimes both ears, would never make a man sexier, but will only pronounce his doubts and insecurities about his appearance and sexuality. I know that some people do it as a part of their religious customs, but those are often very small and hard to notice ones, which has nothing to do with changing a man’s looks. I hate those long and bigger ones that today’s metroseexual self-proclaimed fashionistas wear. If they are desperately hoping for an edgier look by doing this, they would get in on most of the occasions, but will be on the wrong way most of the times.

I know that many of you many disagree with my thoughts and to all those women who feel men look good-looking and sexy in earrings, here’s my question: If you feel that men are handsome in earrings, will you feel the same if they wear a pair of bangles or anklets, or even seeing your man dressing up like you? Earrings on men may not matter as long as they are short and barely discernible but when they turn out to be long, shimmering and noticeable, it just rips off one’s entire manly looks that are natural and god-gifted. Because, it’s all about outfitting oneself sensibly and attractively (not in the wrong way), and not just blindly follow a trend, irrespective of what it can do to one’s appearance and personality.

Why I love 'people watching'

It’s yet another weekend and as always I hardly have anything to be excited about, other than the very usual must-do stuffs. So if you ask me about my hopes for the 48 long hours to come, I really won’t be jumping out of joy and giving you long list of weekend excitements that you would love to hear. It’s just not because I am a boring person who keeps aloof from the fun and happiness around, and stays within a self created world. I am very much like you all, but find myself very much uncomfortable amid crowd and noises. So I make sure not to turn up at places that are jam packed or noisy, but love taking long evening walks, and that too quite alone. Does that sound a bit uninteresting?

Actually it is not, because I love those few minutes or sometimes an hour, when I get plentiful of those enjoyable moments to watch people around, without getting noticed. I love watching different people and their activities and find it so enjoyable as long as they don’t notice me staring at them. And yes, I do know a good number of tactics to watch people without getting visible on their radar, to put it shortly, by remaining incognito. Naturalistic observation power, without being intruding and attention-grabbing, it comes out of practice and will stay within you if you have passion to retain those good observing qualities. I am not saying that I am an expert in it, but I am not too bad either. So whether I go for walks or sit in the coffee shop next to my hostel, finding multitudes of multifarious people is the best free time activity that I would love to indulge in, and that too preferably on weekends when I get more diverse people, when compared to weekdays, and can have a location from where I don’t look obtrusive and conspicuous.

If you ask me the reason why I love doing this, I do have a lot of reasons to say, but the most important ones include the opportunity to learn how different people are- sometimes weird and sometimes wonderful, their notoriously different behavior, relationship interactions, body language, as well as their attitude in public. People are sometimes so different that I often get numerous moments of fun and excitement watching them doing some downright crazy things in public, the kind of stuffs that you can’t even dare to imagine even in those wildest dreams of yours. To tell you one such incident, once I was in a restaurant that’s a bit far from my place, close to a lake. I was there to treat myself with a scrumptious lunch, and took a seat close to the window. There was middle aged man sitting on the opposite side, along with three women. It took me a couple of minutes to realize that one among them was his wife, because he was keen on showering his attention and praise on the other two women, while his wife was quiet all the time. It was more than piteous watching her gloomy face, while her husband was literally on cloud nine with the two other women around.

Here’s another incident! Once I was on my way to the hostel, and saw this couple, both teens, so weirdly indulging in PDA as if they are in their bedroom, with no one around. It was one of the trashiest sights that I have ever seen, and preventing myself from witnessing more embarrassments, I just fled the very next moment.
Telling about the weirdest of those doesn't mean I haven’t had the chances to be a part of some priceless moments. Yes I’ve had, not one but several. But as always, the wider ones just come up so quickly, perhaps to keep reminding that some people can be so stupid and strange in public.

This secret little pastime of mine can literally whisk me away for hours together without getting caught and accused for staring at strangers. Because people are just unpredictable, people watching is such a wondrous pastime that one can have, plus a good and FREE learning experience too! All that you need to do is leave your prejudices behind learn how to observe without staring insultingly.

How long does it take to write?

So how long does it take to write a good blog? He asked me this question out of the blue, and kept looking at me curiously to receive some calculations on the time for writing a post. I wasn’t taken aback but rather found myself laughing crazily on hearing this question, as I am so used to this subject, right from the day I started writing. So I don’t find it new or feel amazed when someone is set to count the time period that I would require to get my creative juices flowing. Because, sometimes all it takes is a few minutes, and sometimes it doesn’t come even after a few hours. There is no hard-and-fast rule or pre-written formula which I use to craft each post, the reason why I gave a big smile as an answer.

But to be frank, I had this unexplainable urge to say something puzzling, a bit complicated answer that leaves away a lot more confusions in the mind of the person who inquisitively asked me this question, but stopped me from doing it as I really didn’t want to another bunch of doubts in his mind, as he just couldn’t take-in the fact that I sometimes don’t blog for days and weeks together. For him, a post of 300+ words is a matter of 10 or 15 minutes, the reason why he felt I was more than lazy to jot down even those very few words that hardly need any time. I was not keen on giving him lecture on the necessity of writing a good stuff than putting up random posts, as per a pre-set time-frame. For all those who wish to count the number of hours or minutes that one’s creativity keeps flowing each day, I am left with nothing other than a pitiful smile, as tracking the time-frame of one’s creativeness and genuine writing is not as easy as calculating the time to bake a good cake or prepare a cup of flavoursome coffee.

Writing a couple of posts each week without fail is not my cup of tea as I just can’t scribble everything that comes in to mind, but needs stirring thoughts that arouse the writer in me and entice me to jot them down one by one. Other than for official purposes, I lack the meticulousness in writing, and I am least worried about this, as I don’t think a good piece of writing has anything to do with being meticulous and time-bound. I neither set deadlines nor write just to put up a post within a given time-frame. But I do know a few people who have set per day word goals, and make sure to sincerely adhere to them. Sometimes I do go their way, and write a fixed number of posts, whereas there are times when I step back for days and weeks, just brooding over random thoughts. Forcing myself write, regardless of what comes out, I am sure I would end up with a messy piece, the reason why I never do it.

Quality writings, I think, often don’t originate within a fixed time frame that we set, but rather, come up out of the blue giving that required spark to help scribble a good piece that people would love to read. So when someone asks me the time required to write a good post, I just smile, as that’s all I wish to say about the reason why good blogs don’t come up steadily each week.

Back to the question that I’ve to answer, if someone is really adamant on knowing how long it takes to write a blog post I would say this - “As long as it takes”.

Being unappreciated and unrewarded

I am a firm believer of enjoying every bit of what I do, and always make sure to give in my cent percent in to each and every task that I am entrusted do. Irrespective of being unconditional about what do on professional as well as personal front, I sometimes so badly yearn for a little appreciation for some of the best things that I painstakingly manage to accomplish, and most of the times end up saddened on knowing that I am not even given a hearty smile as a token of appreciation. It hurts; it sometimes hurts so badly beyond words!

They say flattery will get you nowhere, but is that always true? With respect to the circumstances and instances that I've been, I can say that it's not true. In today's world of deceit and thanklessness, flattery and buttering up do matter a lot to climb up the ladder of recognition. On a professional front, I am very much ahead of my peers in my work quality and dedication, but I get hardly noticed, appreciated, or rewarded as I lack the tactics to build up strategies of office politics, to shamelessly butter up , and to puke out flattery unashamedly.

I also lack the quality of shouting out my own praise and going around singing attention seeking sagas of my own works. Even when it comes to my personal blog, I hardly do anything to promote it or to forcefully grab someone’s attention in to the posts that I’ve been penning since the last five years. While other blogs which are not as old as mine gets widely promoted, all that I do is continue writing mine in the same old fashion. In short, I am not good in ‘self marketing’ which I think is the very crucial flaw that has put me on a stagnant professional life from where I don’t find any tempting outlet now, which can give me a complete reincarnation, putting me on an entirely new and inspiring professional front that ‘s encouraging, effervescent and absolutely rewarding. I wish; I wish someone find my capabilities, appreciates my talent, encourages me to do more, and rewards me for all the hard work and toil that I put into my works.

On a personal front, I don’t have any close to heart friends to go gaga about. Yet, I am in good terms with everyone around and always try to as much possible to help them whenever needed. In spite of being a doer more and a taker less, I’ve hardly had any one who took time to say a sincere word of thanks or appreciation from heart. As I said before, I keep making myself understand that I have to be purely unconditional, but yet, I cannot let go of my innately human thoughts and feelings which sometimes makes me upset when I am not even returned a thanks for something that I might have done after long hours of handwork and patience. I make sure not to show my unhappiness, but keep thinking about why this happens to me.

I’ve lived more than half of my life on this earth, but have met only a very few people who can completely understand how important it is to be thankful, to appreciate people, and to be encouraging. My mom keeps telling me to do things without any expectations in mind, but I know that I am not as good as her, and sometimes do expect a little in return, at least in the form of a happy smile or a warm hug. On a professional front too, like everyone, I love being congratulated for an achievement, being appreciated for the hard work and toil, and being motivated and empowered to do more. But to be frank, I haven’t had any such memorable moments yet, which I felt good enough to be cherished for the entire life.

I really yearn for a new phase, a new beginning, a rebirth, a total transformation on both professional and personal front, where I get to work and mingle with better people and better ambiance from where I get at least half of what I had been yearning for throughout these years. Although all my efforts to get this much needed change had been fruitless till now, I still keep trying as I hope I would get that deserving transformation sometime soon.

Do you think I am expecting too much?

Playing it safe

When it comes to relationships, I am a firm believer of playing safe, both on professional and personal front. I never try and go overboard to cling on to any relationship, instead, try my best to maintain it within a safely set distance. If it doesn't work for me and the person on the other end, no matter whoever he/she is; I will make sure to bid adieu on talking terms instead of creating a rough end and rubbing the other person in a wrong way.

So if you ask me whether I have an intimate friend, I would say I don’t. It’s just because I don’t trust anyone completely. I know you would be shocked reading this, and may even presume that I might have had a chain of bad experiences in the past, by trusting the wrong people. You guys are right to an extent. I did have had some heartbreaking moments in life when I naively showered a huge amount of trust on wrong people and ended up getting hurt. But to be frank, I don’t regret what I did, as those incidents have made my heart strong and rock hard. They have also taught me some valuable lessons that have made life worth living. So, having taken the messages from those bitter experiences, now I make sure to keep people a little away from me, but at the same time maintain a cordial relationship with all.

In my opinion, not having someone close to heart is not something as bad as to get worried and cry ones heart out. But many of the girl pals I know keep pressurizing me to find someone with whom I can share my thoughts and feelings. They believe that I get increasingly fearful when it comes to choosing a friend, and am unable to harness enough courage to trust someone completely, and keep telling me that I should stop becoming prejudiced about anyone and everyone whom I meet.

To be frank, I am totally not looking for an ideal person who completely puts oneself in to a friendship, as I know it’s too much a utopian way of thinking. The fact is, I am not completely willing open up to anyone. In other words, I am not feeling the need to expose the entire me to anybody, in any circumstance, as I really don’t have any positive reason to do that.

The same thoughts kept, and still keep, swirling around me whenever I almost bump(ed) in to some pretty good romantic proposals that I politely denied. When it comes to love, I know very well that my playing safe theory would never work, and I am in no mood to surrender my entire mind and thoughts to anyone, and sometimes fear if that would disrupt the freedom and space that I have enjoyed throughout these years. Although I am very much like other women, with all the feminine feelings, and would love to be in a good relationship, my mind often gets overpowered by the possible hurting outcomes about trusting a strange person and letting him know me in and out.
Almost all of my girl pals are either married, engaged, or committed their long-term boyfriends. So they find it really hard to understand the reason why I have ‘failed’ to find someone, even after given the entire freedom. I am not sure if trust issue is what keeps pulling me back from moving in to the so called intimate friendship or relationship, as I have always strongly felt that I've moved on from all those wrong steps that I had taken in the past. But yes, as I said, I want to play safe now and here-on without giving myself yet another chance to falter my steps and fall prey to another distrustful person, no matter whether it’s a girl pal or a guy friend.

Whatever the relationship is, giving-in ones 100%, I think, is nothing but digging one’s own grave. This is because, more often than not, the person on the other end, on knowing us from head to toe, would obviously make good use of our frailties and mold us in the way they want. This, I think, is something common irrespective of gender differences.

Some Noisy 'neighbors'

A week or two has never been a huge time gap in between my blogging journey, as I have taken more than that. But since I am trying to lessen the time gap between my writing accomplishments, here I am with yet another post on something that may sound a little silly to a few of you. But for me, it is more than awful, although I know that I would never get a stable and convincing solution for this worry. It’s nothing but the agony of being in a noisy ambiance, especially in the office. I start pulling my hair out and get cranky when the office surroundings get as noisy as a busy street.

Have a talkative colleague or a co-worker who keeps yipping on his cellphone throughout the day? If the clatter of the keyboard is overpowered by the blabber of a talkative co-worker, what one needs is a quick shift from that workplace, in order to get more concentration and perform better. People have asked me more than a zillion times about the reason behind my hatred towards those abnormally chatty people around my workplace desk. I have many reasons to stay away from such people who cannot stop themselves from being frantically noisy at workplace. The basic reason is my lack of patience to deal with people who create distractingly loud conversations and unpardonable nuisances in the name of vivaciousness. So what I do is just diplomatically stay away from them and thus save my ass. But I do keep wondering why some people talk so incessantly and need more than the required amount of attention and praise at workplaces, the reason why they keep chirruping every second for all the wanted and unwanted reasons.

At the outset, my work demands a good amount of concentration, which can be achieved only if I have a very pleasant and noiseless atmosphere around me. Being a writer I will have to in a totally noiseless and attentive zone. So it’s really hard for me to tolerate loquacious people around, no matter how fewer they are in number. But, being in an office, I can never demand for a comfort zone that I prefer to work in, and hence don’t try asking for a quieter place where noises don’t reach so easily.

But if you ask me about the kind of person I am, I would say I am a talky techie when compared to the nerdy ones that you might have seen around. Yes, I do talk, but not when I am working on something, the reason why I so badly hate people who are extremely noisy at workplaces, thus annoying those who are sitting around. Some of them just absentmindedly talk in almost ear-splitting noise that often gives my tympanum a huge shudder. I think such loudtalkers will be there everywhere and not just in the office. Some others consider it their privilege to have their mobile phones in ring tone mode, and make other forcefully turn around and listen to the low-grade ringtones and supposedly private conversations. There is yet another group of douche-bags who would play songs so loudly with absolutely no regard for people around them.

In short, workplace ethics is books and blogs don’t actually come into practice sometimes, which makes it really hard to be around such people who consider them privileged and elevated when compare to other people around. Having said that, I should not miss the gossip mongerers who are so sick at heart that they just love to spread all those cooked-up stories, irrespective of whether it hurts and badly insults the person they are talking about. I used to believe that women do this more, but have changed my opinion, as I know now that men are the worst gossip mongerers that one can ever find.

What do you do with work jerks of these sorts? How do you manage to avoid a chump who is keen on distracting you from a serious work? The uncontrollable anger that I used to have initially has now gone, as I have always felt that changing such people would be nothing but impossible. So I diplomatically remain tight lipped or try my own ways to put-in more concentration into my work. If “sound masking” is something easily possible I would have done it all over myself long back, in order to save me from the harsh ordeal of being left alone in the noisiest ambience.

A trash disguised as a movie

I’ve always been an avid fan of movies that portray life in the very raw and real way, and have watched a good number of classics that have successfully etched memorable retrospections of reality that we live and breathe in. But this in no way means they lack entertainment, as they were equally entertaining as well, and were absolutely worth the time that I had spend watching them. But, I had this one sudden shock a few days back when I was watching one among the new generation movies penned by a self proclaimed fan of one of the famous directors in the industry who gave us more than a handful of classic movies that have stood the test of time. I cannot cannot help but wonder how he could even think about breathing life in to such a script that has nothing but sex from head to tail. Sex, sex, and only sex! Be it a conversation between the protagonist and his friend or a casual talk between any other characters, what predominated throughout was nothing but the unending lust for female body. This sickening version of the tale of a few men of unquenchable lust, living in a medium sized lodge, was supposedly one of the much hyped and much written about movies of the previous year, and if I guess write, it had even received a pretty average collection in the box office, especially for the vulgarity that it served.

By vulgarity, I don’t mean shedding clothes and indulging in skin tickling sexual acts, but, the kind of gross putrid sexual talks throughout the entire movie, which would make the viewer feel as if the entire clan of men all over the world live their life only to satisfy their physical cravings. The whole plot was just based on the nauseating fantasies of a group of sexually perverted men, and their piggish gluttony for sex, which every character in the movie had in their own way. But for the lead character, all the other women in the movie where portrayed as glorified prostitutes who belong to the high stance in society but desperately look for men who can satisfy their ravenous lust. At one point, a female in the movie is even seen shamelessly asking a stranger for a one night stand.

I am not saying movies makers should stop showing portraying sex and physical gratification, but should never stoop down as mean as this, and make an entire movie that revolves around nothing but sickening sexual urges. Sex is as important as any other basic emotions that a human being has, but should never become the life and breath of an entire movie, as we, human beings do have many more emotions and needs in life other than physical lust.

Thankfully the movie was as short as one hour and few minutes, and I felt a kind of huge relief after the wearisome movie time that I had awaited with sky-high expectations in mind. But sadly, the whole crap did not only thwart my entire hopes and anticipations about the movie and script writer’s talent, but also spoiled my precious one plus hour.

Let the clock keep ticking

“Get married soon as your biological clock is ticking.” Yes, you heard that right, and that was the distasteful comment that I received right in the morning, while talking to someone who was desperately trying to show-off his over pouring concern for me. I was immensely amused by the fact that he was more worried about my ‘impending’ menopause, which is actually way too far from visibility right now, than my happiness and comfort being with a man. I told him that I was 'touched' by his overgrowing concern for my womanhood, and gave him a satisfactory reply that he needn’t rack his brains too much about femininity as I am sufficiently matured and experienced enough to make may own decisions and execute it perfectly.

I was a bit taken aback by the remark, but kept thinking about the reason why an unmarried woman who has crossed her thirties is always the target for such mock and ridicule. If a woman health is what the so called “well wisher” folks are worried about, the same applies to men too, which no one dares to mention. This is nothing but the sickening mentality of the age-old, rotten, male domination, which is yet to be eradicated completely from our superficially modern society. Although I give deaf ears to such gender targeting comments and hollow remarks, sometimes they start getting on my nerves, urging me to shout loud to make them shut their nasty mouth that keeps fouling the ambiance around me with such sickening comments.

The other day I went to our temple, which is a stone throw away from my home. Till recently, I was regular with temple visits and prayers, but slowly had to reduce the numbers, as I started getting suffocated amid the presence of women who couldn’t spare themselves from showing-off their nauseating sympathy towards the “single, unmarried, and lonely” me. So of them even showed their generosity by bringing me marriage proposals from widowers who are double my age, and are on the verge of losing the so called “reproductive capability” that these women keep reminding me, and other women, who live life on their own terms. Even yesterday was no different, as I soon met a few sympathizers right at the temple door, even before getting in. My tongue, although kept reciting hymns, took a break and started chanting “s**** and f****”, to get rid of the anger that was building-up inside me. I soon left the place saying hurriedly, saying an averagely sensible excuse.

Marriage, I think, is not just about conceiving or getting a licenced agreement to enjoy the physical pleasures that every human being craves for. I am not saying that they are unimportant in life, as I know very well that they do matter, or rather have pivotal roles. But above them is necessity of having a “real” man in life, an honest and well behaved person with commendable self esteem, and immense respect for women, and all those must needed qualities that would make life worth living. If men lack such basic qualities that make them worth calling “men”, I don’t think there is any need to fall for such deformed guys who may only need a person who pamper their manly ego, and satisfy their needs in bed. Just to tell you an example of this; I was talking to a friend of mine, who was so interestingly talking about the extramarital affairs that are happening these days. When I called them the most sinful, the lust, he ferociously disagreed with me saying it is never a crime, but rather a basic bodily need, and the need of the hour. I was shocked to hear him say this. Here is a man who recently married his girl friend of twelve years is talking about the so called ‘advantages’ extra marital relations. I left the place soon, while he kept wondering what made me irritated. Such sick men who live only for bodily happiness should in fact never be blessed with loving wives, who are unaware of their husbands’ lustful thoughts. Such sick men not only ruin themselves, but even mess up the lives of many others around them.

I am not unhappy that I am not married, and I would never ever regret for not making a less than average choice of man. I am not confined to any biological predestination, but look more in to those many sublime qualities that a man “must” have, because I am not just looking for someone to deflower me and remain as my boss throughout my life, but, I need a “real man” to love and respect me the way I am, and if I don’t get any one, I would prefer remaining single and happy, rather than frantically trying to get hooked for the sake of it, just because my biological clock is ticking, or the so called fake well-wishers keep showering their unending sympathy, or because I would never be able find the 'complete gratification' as a woman. So, let the clock keep ticking, as I strongly feel that I will meet ‘him’ very much before the time ends. Will be happy if I can, but will never regret if I can’t!

Why people fear ageing?

Is old-age a dreadful dream?

More than any of those fearsome diseases, dreadful nightmares, monstrous animals and equally dangerous humans that lurk around, what people fear most these days is their age, the innate fear of growing old and getting wrinkles all over their body. I have more than a handful reasons to say this, as I’ve witnessed many incidents where people speak of their age with immense agony and tremble that are often clearly visible. Their heart skips a beat when they are asked about their age, and that’s more than funny to watch. Does that sound a bit cruel? But, I do find it funny to see how people who frantically try their best to hide their age, or put up the mask of false youthfulness that would flake off any moment. But yet they cling on to those fragile masks and cover themselves, in their anxious effort to hide their real age. Be it man or woman, a person who crosses thirty finds it a bit hard to disclose their age, or to reveal that nature is slowly draining off the youthfulness and vigor from their body.

When looked upon carefully, I think men are equally, perhaps more scared of getting aged, and not only women, but men too equally lean-on to the costly artificialities, in order to fake youthfulness. When women fear of losing their looks, I keep wondering about the fears that men have, when wrinkles start showing up and when grey hairs heartlessly dominate the luscious black ones. I think they would have insecurities about their manliness, I mean by all means, as men would be more than scared about the loss of their libido and virility; rather than the flawless looks that adorned them during their youth. Sometimes I keep wondering whether they are scared of the fact that they are nearing death. But that’s just stupidity, as death has hardly anything to do with age. Death is inevitable, but can happen to anyone at any point of time, no matter whether that person is young or old. So it should not trigger a sense of fear or insecurity in one’s mind, and initiate the fear of getting aged. Like women, growing older may also make men worry about an uncertain future filled with endless list of ailments and bodily worries. Another factor that they would be scared about will be their financial stability. I would call this lack of planning and meticulousness in life. If a person lives fifty years in ultimate luxury and spend the rest of the life in pennilessness, I would call him a fool, as he had enough to save for his old age, but carelessly splurged it without any planning.

Is balding a nightmare that scares men from getting old? I don’t think hair loss would be a matter of fear these days, as more than a couple of our iconic male film stars , who are in their twenties and thirties, are almost bald, and yet have a huge fan following. Going grey or baldness should not scare one anymore, as both start showing up much early these days, perhaps due to the unhealthy lifestyle and food habits that we are forced to follow. To be frank, I find men with a little of grey hair attractive and seductive. Such men, although very rare in number, are the testimonies of the fact that cosmetic fears have hardly anything to do with personality.

The muscle sag, or pot belly in plain language, that visibly shows off its arrival, is not just the sign of old age, as I have seen many young men, especially those nerdy techies, with more than pot sized bellies. Pot belly is never inevitable, as long as one is ready to work out regularly and maintain a fit and healthy body, and for this reason belly size would never become the trademark of old age.

But not very man is bald, impotent, or penniless, which means if you life carefully planned, and look after yourself, while continuing to have fun, you can definitely age gracefully and not scarily.

Anti aging creams, scrubs, and other beauty products that guarantee to fight the natural aging process have almost monopolized the market these days, and both men and women are so crazily addicted to them, thus living under the false notion that they would hinder the natural process of growth and ageing. What are they really up to? Are they really foolish enough to believe the promises of the cosmetic companies, or are they trying to remain so, forcefully forgetting the fact that ageing can never be stopped, no matter whatever they try and do. Why do they do it? Is it just because of the fear that they would soon be deprived of the luminous youth that they've been proud of all these years? The thought of finding one selves with wrinkles, in grey hair, is very evident in such people, as they desperately lean on cosmetics, surgeries, and whatever possible to retain the luminosity of their skin.

Ageing is a natural process, and will keep happening, no matter however hard we try to avoid it. So why not age gracefully, rather than being frantic, depressed, and worried about it?Ageing also means clearing out all the mess and messy people and chiseling down to the very few that you really need in your life, that are important, that really matter.

Age is what you want it to be. It’s not just a number that should keep scaring you. It should be the satisfaction that you've lived every moment of life to the fullest, and are happy walking forward in life. The desperateness to walk backwards only shows the lack of courage and strength of will.

Mealtime entertainments that I cannot avoid

I am not much sure about the number of people who can relate themselves to this bizarre habit of mine, but I am sure there will be at least a handful of likeminded people who can relate to me and my habit of seeking those few minutes of entertainment during meal times, be it on T.V or on those random YouTube videos. In the absence of T.V in my hostel room, the only the option that I can lean on to is my laptop, so that I can pick one of those mindless YouTube videos to compensate for the lack of television. There is absolutely no coherence in choosing programmes or videos, and I don’t really watch them all completely. What I choose most of the times will be the previous episodes of some of my favourite crime shows or those less than ten minutes long Tom and Jerry cartoons, as I need it only for just less than twenty minutes till I finish munching on my meal. So if you ask me the logic behind watching the same episodes over and over again, I have nothing to say, other than the fact that I need a meal time entertainment, no matter whether I’ve seen it once, twice, thrice, or more than a dozen of times. I don’t watch it entirely, but shut it off the moment I finish my food.

Once dad was so pissed off with this obscure addiction of mine and forcefully made me stop watching television and YouTube videos while having food. More than his fear of seeing me glued to them, it was his concern about my health that made him take a stubborn decision of taking away perhaps the most delicious ‘dish’ that cherished during my entire meal time. I was more than sad to hear his sudden serious decision, and pleaded many times to reconsider it. But dad was so serious like never before and he gave deaf years to my almost tearful words. It was hard, but I had to do it.

I started becoming g unusually quiet during meal times, and my entire family knew what the reason is. However they wanted me to get rid of something that was a part of my life since childhood, and hence paid no attention to the outpour of melancholy that visibly reflected on my face.

But I saw dad becoming a little lenient after a few days, and granted me the permission to watch T.V. during mealtime, but only in his presence, and made sure that I switch the T.V off and get up immediately after having food. Yes, my dad can never see me walking around with that sad face! I was overjoyed to know that my parents are ready to give me access to the ‘tastiest curry’ that makes my mealtime extra special.

Now that I am in hostel most of the time, I can easily make use of mealtimes and enjoy watching random videos on YouTube and enjoy my food. Even though I always make sure to stop them right the very next moment I finish my meals, I am yet to try and get rid of this addition of watching something or the other while having food. Dad keeps reminding me about the possible chances of over eating, but I don’t think I eat more than what my stomach can contain. So the possibility of overeating hardly scares me as much as it scares him.

More than this weird habit of mine, what may perhaps surprise him and others who know me will be uncompromised willingness to eat whatever I am provide with, if have the TV or laptop switched on and kept right next to me. It makes me “obedient”, “passive”, and “non complaining”, and I easily accept whatever I am given to eat. Both my mind and my taste buds are more than happy with having something to watch, and this may perhaps be the reason why I get distracted from the not so likable food that I am served.

Should I keep a curb on this habit of mine? I am not sure whether I should, as it doesn’t in any way harm my health or well being. I don’t indulge in mindless eating, paying zero attention to what I am putting in to my mount. But, taking my dad’s advice a bit more seriously than before, now a days I am trying my best to avoid the habit of watching and eating or choose healthy and portioned meals.

But if someone tells me that TV programs or commercials would encourage me to eat more, I would just laugh it off.

Weekend is here again!

It’s Friday and I am more than excited for Fridays from now on, as I am now blessed with 48 hours long weekends, a miracle that I had always wished for. Since moving in to this city and joining for work, I never had the kind of worth mentioning excitements and anticipations about weekends, as it was often as short as less than 24 hours of relief from work and tensions. The only luxury that I had was those very rarely happening Second Saturdays, those much anticipated days of the month. But after compensating for  the weekdays that were lost due to those unanticipated hartals and strikes, what's left would be less than 24 hours, and a long list of things to do, plus up and down travel to my home town. Time used to fly like a jet plane and in no time I would be back in office with piles of tasks to do.

But now that my weekends have become more than longer, happiness have grown manifolds, much more than what words can describe. The hours of silence that I craved for, the moments of calmness that I looked for, those relaxed afternoons that I wished for, those beautiful evenings when I wanted to take a stroll towards the park; finally they are all happening, though a little late in my life.

I’ve all these wonderful noisy girl pals in the hostel who go out together and make the whole city know that they’re out for fun and excitement. Whereas there would be this very calm and silent me who loves walks alone most of the times, enjoys watching people around, savour those much loved chaats and vada pavs from the close by eatery, find myself a calm and quit restaurant to sit and relax sipping a cup of filter coffee watching the massive downpour outside, curl up on my bed reading a good novel, spend some time in the library looking for worth reading book, sit on those wooden park benches and watch children playing in the park, enjoy the beauty of those reddish sunsets and cosy nights.

With no more addition for social networking, I am off the phase of being an internet junkie, and have started taking weekend time for many other worth doing things. So this week just want to rush home and be there for two days. It’s been two weeks since i haven’t been to my native place, and now, every nerve of my body is craving for the home ambience and comfortless that I haven’t had since the last two weeks. My home; a blissful house amid the busting town, a sanctified ambience with a temple, a church and a mosque on all the three sides, presence of my parents, the most wonderful human beings on earth – what more do I need to have a great weekend? The only person whom I keep missing is my sister who busy shaping her career in the garden city.

So if you ask me my plans for the weekend, after reaching home, I have nothing much to excite you, as I am mostly an indoor animal at home, and hardly goes out to sunlight. But this week I have an interesting book to read. A quick visit to the library yesterday and I managed to grab Shalimar The Clown by Salman Rushdie. Being an average reader, I was not sure how palatable the book is going to be, but after reading a few initial pages, I had to change my opinion, as it has completely gripped me with the great narration. So I may prefer staying indoors reading the book, with no one to interrupt, but for the smell of luscious cuisines from the kitchen. All the chit chats happen breakfast and lunch, and as usual I would be watched for being an avid foodie, as I’ve put on oodles of weight in the last two years.

Evenings are meant to indulge in my passion for crime serials, which has ‘matured’ itself from a habit to an addiction. Thanks to C.I.D and Sony T.V, which I’ve been watching since school time! The very stern A.C.P and his team has almost become the part and parcel of my life now, and so is Adalat and Ronit K.D.Pathak Roy, the clever lawyer protagonist. Then came Arjun, the super cop on Star Plus, and my joy knew no bounds. So I have more than a handful for the evening time. A plate full of hot Maggie noodles and I will be off to watch those crime stories unfold, along with munching lip-smacking Maggie noodles.

When some relationships take the wrong turn

After pondering my thoughts over this weird question that has been loitering around my mind for years together, and still keep lingering somewhere in the back of my heart, I am trying to put it down for the first time on my blog, just hoping to find a sensible answer to those years of back to back thoughts on this more than bizzare phenomenon. To be frank, it sometimes makes me wonder, sometimes gives me more than a few moments of nonstop laughter , and at times makes me sympathize, but all these don’t give me the satisfying answer that I've been looking since last couple of years. I know what you all are thinking about right now, and so let me tell you straight away what my confusion is! Why are there a lot of people, married men and women to put it specifically, failing to find solace and happiness in their partners whom they know for years, and run towards those ‘just recently met’ ‘friends’, looking for understanding, consolation, contentment, and peace of mind?

At times I keep drawing this weird conclusion that such people would be prone to some kind of physical attraction which makes them gel themselves to the less known strangers, drifting themselves apart from their long-term, faithful partners who had always been with them, in thick and thin, without any complaints and qualms. But at times I think there is something more than a mere physical attraction that makes them get attracted to the unknown, after forcefully separating themselves from the known, and finally ending up nowhere. After having witnessed one such couple recently, this thought has been pestering my mind almost every day, making me wonder about the strength and stability of relationships, no matter whether it’s between lovers or friends. There is this guy and a girl I know, both married to two wonderful people, yet shares more than an intimate relationship with each other; I mean by all means. Call it a healthy friendship and I beg to differ, as friends don’t get this physically intimate and show PDAs like these two. Jump in to a conclusion that they may be in love each other, and I will come up with a counter question –what they hell did they find in each other, which they couldn't find in their respective partners?

I am not trying draw a prejudiced conclusion that all relationships can be fragile and ill healthy, but nowadays there are more than a major share of men and women, who find happiness in such new-found ‘nameless’ relationships, lingering on to them crazily, in whatever ways possible, assuring their mind and people around that they are living in their happiest space. If you ask me, I wouldn't even take a second to say that they are living in fool’s paradise.

If people start driving themselves away from years long-term commitments, under the false and unjustifiable notion that their partners have failed to understand them even after years of togetherness, I don’t think such people have any right to expect anything  from the new-found relationships, which they think can bring them the happiness and peacefulness that they think they haven’t received for years. There is no one, not even one person, in this world, who is blessed with the magical power to understand someone within days or weeks after meeting. So I think it would be the most foolish decision in life decision if a man or a woman does that to their long-term partner, after justifying themselves as desperate souls in search of understanding, contentment and comfort.

Or aren't such decisions a kind of escapism? I sometimes think it is, and the justifications that they keep ranting about are just to get themselves a safer mask to escape from the realities that they fear about in life, or may be like I said before, some weird moments of enticing physical attraction that draws them to the ‘so called’ ‘significant other’, the kind of illegitimate relation that they want to cover-up with some legitimate-looking excuses.

But the sad part is that there is someone in all these cases who is left alone to suffer and cry, who keeps lamenting for not being able to ‘understand’ the partner, who keeps cursing themselves for not being able to meet their duties in the relation that they are/were in to. It’s here that the sadness likes, and it’s here that the unanswered part lies!

So what really goes wrong with people? When years long partner becomes less important, taking  the backseat, and when the ‘not so known’ ‘friend’ takes charge, many people get doomed in the momentary happiness but often fail to hear the alarm of the forthcoming loneliness and pain that they would endure. Do you know why? The hurt that they knowingly or unknowingly create in their years long relationship, the sorrow that they give to the person who trusted them the most, they all would bounce back one day, bounce back to them so badly that they won’t even have even the faintest chances to get back in to the safer hands of the loved ones, those people who had loved them endlessly and unconditionally throughout their life.

When I look for silence and solitude

It doesn't happen all the time, but yes, there are times when I just don't feel like talking to anyone, when I want to remain silent and completely detached from all the people and things around me. Some people mistake my silence for arrogance, but those who know me closely are well aware of this alter-ego of mine, which keeps appearing in between, making me feel desperate to remain silent and unconnected for sometime.

Sometimes I badly need those silent moments; those detached times when I can be within myself and spend some time in solitary confinement. By solitary confinement I don’t mean those melancholic and retrospective moments that are powerful enough to thwart even the highest level of positivism. It's about those moments of disconnection that can help me clean my mind and take some deep breaths before coming back to the hustle and bustle of life. It’s not a mental illness, like how most of the people out there feel, but just a method of cleansing my mind.

Be it in mine or someone else’s case, people are often prejudiced about the reason for quietness of a person. They do have this very bad notion that all the quiet people are alike, and have more or less the same reasons for being quiet. So people who don't know me much always come up with their own ridiculous assumptions my quietness and I remain stubbornly tight-lipped and ignore their “What’s wrong?”s and “Are you Ok?”s because I hate giving replies and justifications about why I am silent, although I am grateful for all those ‘kind hearts’ for being visibly concerned about my abrupt silence.

I keep wondering why people just make this wrong note of my need and likeness for solitude. I am not an introvert, but not an extrovert either, and speak just the average amount of words that I would need to survive. But there are certain moments when I am totally blank, when all that I want is a few moments of soothing silence, and I just go on a compulsory silence and come back to ‘normalcy’ in perhaps a few hours. But those few hours are very important for me to bring my mind back on track and take time to figure out things that might have run messy and out of order. So even if I don’t have anything to brood or fret about, I do take a few hours of detachment from the world and go on sitting silently for a couple of hours as it gives a completely fresh aura to come back and start things with more energy and enthusiasm. I am not quite sure about the number of people who can relate themselves to this, to the desperate need to cut off themselves from the world and live a few hours in silence.

This obscure 'fetishness'  for enforced silence has been with me since childhood. No matter how long a person keeps tempting me to start talking or share some of my slightly above average jokes I will keep my mouth shut like a stubborn little girl. Thankfully some of my friends know that I go on such hibernations on and off, the reason why they hardly bother to call me or text me during those moments of self imposed silence.