Daring, Surprising, Drying

During one chai session with a fellow writer, i was discussing my problem with my dried up emotional quotient and he suggested if that is the thing closest to me right now, why not write something about it only. Sure, but then visiting the demons of our own mind is not easy.
Not impossible either. So attempting the impossible here.

It's been more than 2 years that i wrote something here and almost another 6 months since i started this blog. Seems like a lifetime ago now. A lot has happened since then. I've graduated (infact post graduated) in two more course and feel bit grown up now that am a part of the shining 'working' class brigade of India, Jai Ho!

I've finally become a writer, well so the world says (refer to my previous blog where i'm contemplating a career in writing). It's fun because am living a dual life. A life where i am the writer and another, where self doubts loom so large and leave such long shadows that sometimes running away is the only viable option left and that again puts me in a vicious vircle that is so hard to break. So you see, this dubious career choice has landed me in some sort of concentric vicious circles, a chakraviyuh of sorts and i feel like the brave but dying Abhimanyu........

Well, not literally so.....

Afterall, this is something i chose consciously though i didn't have an iota of idea of what i was getting into. But FTII happened and changed my life forever. Gloomy and beautiful places do that to us i guess.

It's been 9 months since i graduated from FTII also but the hangover still 'hangs' heavy on my head. Hangover of being so away from the real world that the only reality i know is that of within the safe boundaries of the institute. Thanks but hang on, the hangover!

Has that heavenly place made me really immune to everything around me or is it the ruthless life of Mumbai? I think both.
A beautiful institute where you are left to meander with your thoughts and pen down anything that your mind wants to, clashing with a tough competitive industry and a life away from the safe heavens of a home and good food that the uncertainties begin to play with your sensibilities.

That is the worst part.

I've begun to doubt my sensibilities now.

I miss my sensibilities, my sinstivity and feelings that felt for things that mattered to me. Now, nothing matters except for earning enough to be able to sustain myself. This is not what i was to do. I was to observe, feel and write. None of the three i do now because i've stopped feeling, i've stopped empthasing, i've stopped getting surprised. Unfeelingness coupled with weak observation power leaves the writer in me even more doubtful, even more dubious and superficial than ever.

A crying child, a disbled beggar, a hungry dog. Nothing touches me now. Nothing makes me go weak in my heart and catch my attention and hold it for a while. The sweetest of movies and books bore me mid way. To be able to write any kind of emotion, i have to constantly take refernces from secondary sources of inspiration like movies and books, if at all i can sit through them.

Where are my own feelings?

Where are those bitter-sweet memories one always falls back on while watching something similar in real time?

It's not that i don't socialise, not that i don't read books or watch movies but the problem i think is that all of these activities go into the 'me' part of my mind and not the 'writer' part of it.

Phew! That is tiring and leaves me as dried up and forlorn as ever. No amount of sleeping, watching the sunset, eating panipuris and window shopping helps.

What is 'writing' then?

How does it feel to live an experience and then reproduce it on the paper/computer screen?

I don't know.

I'm waiting, waiting that something will again touch my heart, make me feel that it is important to me, corelate to the the concentric circles of my mind and then, together, the whole of me will say,

i am alive.....

Faith and Sensibility....

I have a small statue of baby "Lord Ganesha" and a picture of "Pir Haji Ali" on my study table.2 very contrasting yet amazingly similar potraits.One deludes faith in some Almighty whose love can rid us of all the pain and misery,another,whose street smartness won him the status of GOD.
2 schools of faith.So similar yet so contrastingly different.Somehow,I've always loved renewing my belief and my strength from these two and have found myself to be very happy doing so.There have been instances when one look will make my day and yet sometimes,I can almost look past them, lost.Something wrong with my belief I guess.But what???
I have never been very religious.All I thought I believed in, was my believe in myself.And I have been very happy that way.Well,till today because today I actually gotto question my belief and ask myself;
Am I right???

Am I being true to myself of everybody else on this earth???

Have I been really committed to what I preach???

Have I even tried to live upto my own expectations???

Well,don't know.
Im very laid back.Very happy with whatever I have and even happier with whatever I dont have.My father once said that I dont have that "killing instinct" in me.And thats true."Chalta hai" attitude is my weakness and mind you,talking about your own weakness is not easy.But its not just weakness in self that troubles my over active (or ahould we say,overly in-active) mind.
The other day, I saw a buffalo being toed away by 3 men.She was tied by rope which was clearly paining her in the neck and jaw and the worst part was that she was very unhappy to be with the people she was walking with.They were pushing her,poking in the back and causing her pain,so much so that I saw her bleeding through her crotch....

How much of pain could that have been???

I don't know and maybe,in all my weaknesses,don't have the courage to know.I wanted to stop and relieve her of her pain,somehow,anyhow.But I didn't do it.
I drove past.
That was height of cowardness.
I cried all the way back home but did not go back to help the animal.
Just the next day,I came across a donkey whose front legs were tied together.This time guilt overcame my sensibility and I called my friend to help me untie the donkey's legs.He did come but we couldn't get the donkey to stand still so that we could untie his legs,because,as we came to realize later,he was scared of us.Someone then came and then told us that maybe his owner had tied his legs so that he could be recognised and he would not hop away too far from home.
Maybe.But why was the donkey scared of me???
I wanted to help him.....
Again I was crying,for the rucus me and my friends created on the road and making a joke of all of us.
My heart still cries for all the animals I see on the road.I have found a mid-way out,I feed all the animals I can.But will this tendency to find a mid-path help me???Will the 2 Gods come to my rescue this time????
NO.
I have to be more sensible.Don't know if that means being more indifferent or just 'sensitive but inactive'.
My pillars of faith stand shaken but they are still standing,tall and away from me.I want them to measure upto me,closely with what I am.But they are running far ahead, taking away with them my sensibilities.......

Ahem......

I have recently started working in an advertising agency.There are variety of people I come across everyday in my office.They are people from client servicing,planning,logistics and the most insane of the lot,the creative ones.I,personally feel that they are the ones who actually have all the fun while rest of the office slogs.I see them having a ball while 'thinking of' or worst still 'working on/developing an idea'.What I completely fail to understand is that how can a human mind think of anything creative admist so much of noise and chatter????
Though I'm no authority on creativity and despite of having sheer respect for their work,I have realized that creativity stems from the trunk of constantly being involved and engrossed in something so much that the environment ceases to exist for you.I came to know that I could write poetry (Yeah!!! That's true....) only when I was really busy talking to my friend on the phone.He is a copywriter and we just started writing our replies in poetry rather than plain text.He was pretty impressed with what I wrote and tell u,even I,myself was.I never believed that I had wriiten all that.2 pages full of poetry on philosophy.More surprise was waiting for me when my mail site's daily horoscope whiz said that I stand good chance of making a career into writing if I did something about it today.Well I know that I can write but a career in writing????Not very easy to digest...
But when I see my creative friends having a ball I seriously do wanna give it a try.After all,I can write,Right???

Is It Really WE?????

Nature began with fauna,the plants and trees.Jungles followed,animals being next.So,literally man was the last and a fearfully astonishing creation of nature/God.But is it really so???I wonder....well,ummm... maybe.He has the brains to make his own creators work according to his wishes.So,conclusively,he IS the greatest of them all.
As the society developed,man gained power and as the technology developed, his powers grew.So much so that he rendered other species of this earth homeless.U guessed it right,its animals that Im talking about.Their problems like extinction threats,homelessness,poaching,reckless hunting for pleasure,etc. are all accredited to man.Therefore when monkeys attack my fridge,hide in my attic or garden,I dont blame them.When street dogs scare away my pet dog from 'their' territory,I dont blame them.When stray cows/boffoloes litter my street,I only manage a smile.Haven't we been doing the same to their habitat???
And when some of them like whales,tigers,lions etc show signs of extinction,I like the kind of panic they create for our environmentalists.People,u get to reap only what u sow.Why blame anyone else???Try and observe youself....
I'll tell u what I do.When I see any cartman beating his oxen,buffalo or horse,I don't stop him but get back home and cuddle my 'snowy' more that evening.....
I shower all the concern and love on my 'little stuffy" rather than doing something for the 'real suffers'.Not really a solution,is it???
The whole point of holding your attention for so long is to make you realize one small fact that lets let them live their life.....
Even they have one life and they have all the right to live it peacefully,just as we intend to(though never can!!!).
Please do not let the children around you tease,beat or irritate the poor beings who have nowhere to go as such...
Please give the leftover food(but not the spoiled) to them,put some clear water in a clean vessel outside your windows and on the corner of the entrance and do NOT overspeed on the road.No one will file an FIR if u kill one of these beings but can't u feel all these requests in their eyes when they walk past u at the traffic signal????
can't u see the condemn they show for the GOD'S greatest creation,we,the humans???
Lets not try to be GODS instead try be humans for a change,no???

Men we Trust.....

From the time we are born,we are subjected to a plethora of relations (coz friends come much later...).For us, the first insight into the world of opposite sex starts as we interact with our parents,grand parents and other uncles,aunts,brothers and sisters.As a girl,my first introduction to the men's world came when I started interacting and understanding my dad and grandad.They were the first men I could trust without having to think twice.I did that and I'm not sorry for it...
As I grew up,I started making friends and naturally,by the virtue of my liberal upbringing,I have a lot of male friends.Infact,I have more male friends than female friends though I'd love to have some more of 'girlie' types coz I realize that there is something that GIRLS will understand about me and my behaviour that men can never,no matter how hard they try or how understanding they are...
But lets not get into something thats not the agenda.So,as I grew up making friends with all types of boys in my school and college,I realized that they can be both,good and bad (I know thats obvious,but read on.....).
They could be trust worthy and total bastards....
I somehow have always believed in trusting people I've befriended though am always advised against it(but who cares about the advice that comes free of cost???).In the course,I've been betrayed,taken for a ride and made to feel very bad about myself.I've fallen in love,seen people fall in love with me and come across guys who think I'm just another doable babe....
Just as I thought about the men this evening,what I could not help but wonder was
why cant we trust all the men we meet in our lives?
why cant all the men atleast try and be a little mentally stable or not let sex drive them crazy like a drunkard on the loose?
I saw a couple fighting on the road this evening.As luck would have had it,I got to stand right next to them at the next traffic signal.All I could make out was that the girl was upset coz she heard rumours about "her' man going around with another girl.Phew.........Nothing new I thought and although it was just a rumour,all I could think was that why can't this guy accept if he's going around with another woman??
Why cant he accept that all women can be stupid,unreasonable,emotional and/or total bitches when it comes to gossiping and backstabbing but never WRONG.......
I know why,its just because when we are in love,we 'loose control'!!!!!!!!
And that is majorly because,WE TRUST THE MEN WE LOVE AND IT HURTS LIKE HELL WHEN THE TRUST AND LOVE IS NOT RECIPROCATED..........

Flavours of Favours

Recently a friend asked me to arrange some passes for the upcoming india fashion weeek.I,in turn asked another friend, who was working with the publicity managers of fashion week organisers, to oblige.As expected,he said he will try.
Just as i lay in my bed that night,I wondered what a flavoured favour had travelled from my friend to me and then to my another friend and then to his boss(if at all he would muster the courage to do so!).
What I could not help but think was, what was there in these shows except for some hot pair of legs that everybody wanted to get crushed between (or some bolder ones to sail their way through).
Was it really the garments and the designs and the fabric that was on display??
As much as I know,my friend and hundreds of people like him were unlikely to understand the art that designing was(if at all someone can call it an art!).All everybody wanted to know was;
How well a particular choreographer managed his/her models for a particular show
How much of cleavage would be on display and, ofcourse,
How obnoxious and wierd some fresh pass-outs from all the designing institutes could be in the name of creativity...
The chain of favours had some flavour to it.Flavour of fun,sex,colour and some expected dating....
How much of it would be accomplished is not important,what is important is why do our fashion exhibitions are never able to accomplish anything more than all this?
The money,energy and resources that go into organising all these shows generally go down the drain as business acumen on the part of our designers and organisers is not up to the mark or atleast not even half of what it should be.
Their energy goes into making page 3 contacts rather than making international and
other business related contacts.And then, there are conflicts over trademark designs and piracy of them!
What are these designers gonna do with their designs if they are not able to sell them??After all,how much can someone go on storing in their respective warehouses???
With such noble thoughts i went to sleep that particular night with a mental note to follow up on my friend to arrange 2 passes for me....