She - The unknown

It’s a chilly night. Though there’s no wind, the air is cool. I am sitting on a knee, there are two friends of mine who are accompanying me in the work I am currently engaged in. It has something to do with arranging lights, and I am uncoiling the entangled threads of lights. Both of them enjoy their work and often crack jokes which they roll up laughing while I am on my work with a straight face. I assure them with a small smile when they see me. They ask sometimes what’s wrong and later continue their work when I tell them nothing. All of a sudden, I feel excitingly strange like the way you feel when caught a glimpse of something magnificently stunning. I calm myself and turn around and there she is. She is walking towards me and my heartbeat resonates her footsteps. Adrenaline rushes in, my head feels heavy, my eyes without a blink. She passes me and the scent that I had always loved fills me, deep down. I notice she is wearing something green, her eyes had always been this shiny. I gaze and she smiles, not at me but my friends, her friends but I cherish it, I capture her smile for the many times I would see it again in my thoughts. She asks the boys how all the work is going, I don’t know what they said. She smiles again and my heart smiles. I am still on a knee with eyes hitting her, I notice nothing but how nicely she smiles. She readies to go and waves them bye, I wish I could scream not to go but this is how I am, silent. Her pretty face replaces her glossy hair while I am still amused at the sight between both, the paced reaction viewed in the slowest possible motion in my mind. She goes and I still stare at her moving stance until what remains is the consolidation of stars, fragrant air and the bare land on which she walked. She neither looked into my eyes nor did she utter any word for me. I blink and tears fill my eyes as I close them. I look down and continue to uncoil the entangled threads of light.

She - A glimpse
Posted by Aditya

Lonely

There is everything I can get, I can pursue, and I can have except the reason of my loneliness. I’ve known that loneliness differs from being alone. You can only be alone when there’s no one with you or for you. But you can be lonely in a crowd of millions. Being alone has no expectations but being lonely has desires of someone or some people to be with you because you cherish their presence, you love them but what strikes hard is they don’t. It’s not like they purposely don’t but there are reasons to it which you’ll only know when you come into consciousness. Being in love is being unconscious. Your moods become the driving force, they act on you than you act on them. You mould yourself as they demand, you don’t see what’s right but you just go the way they lead you which you feel as in a utopian path until they vanish, they shatter you in a moment. You try to search them but you don’t see them. Suddenly you feel, you didn’t deserve them or there are people better than you and these are the reasons the person who led you this far left you. So you move on, with a hope to get them back, with a past that would haunt you many insomniac nights, with a faith in something magical you don’t understand. You hate yourself and love them more, for they are a boat who left your shore. Oh! How nice they were, you feel. If only they were with you, you feel. Oh! How much you loved them, you feel. If only they loved you back, you feel. These feelings neither consume you nor set you free, they make you suffer and ruin your being. Feeling all these all at once is being lonely.

Posted by Aditya

Take Me Home

I was always fascinated to know how businesses work, how do you build a company earning hundreds and thousands of crores in revenues, the way they start building one thing at a time, the way they manage it. I was in Std. 9^th when I knew there happens to be an author who writes such stuff, about the building of an empire which would stand strong for days to come and how do they do it. Her name was Rashmi Bansal. I went to the closest Crossword and searched for her books there, I found a recent launch titled ‘I have a dream’. I flipped through the pages and understood nothing, maybe I was too young to read her books or maybe I had less intellect than students of my age are supposed to have. Whatever, I bought a novel instead. Three years past then, I bought a book called ‘Take Me Home’, by the same author. And I must say, there are stories unsaid, there are heroes unsung and there is so much to learn from them, to get inspired from them and make a difference. 20 real life stories, all set in India, in places so remote, still so impactful. Each story promises to give you a brief of their lives, about their hardships, about their character and of course about the businesses they handle. It feels so proud to know that these people made it happen despite the odds they faced. Some of them barely know English and they handle businesses of over 1000 crores, it is not the ability of not knowing something and still doing something out of it, it is the ability of not letting that hamper your dreams. And that resonates with ever story she (Rashmi Bansal) perfectly tells. Stories are categorized in three sections based on the similarities they pose and it serves its purpose best – to make you realize which category you belong to. Your thinking changes after you complete the book, after the stories that you read made you feel they did it so why can’t I. There is a section called ‘Advice to young entrepreneurs’ after each story by the same person whose story it was which summarizes the whole wisdom of their lives in few simple powerful paragraphs. The author too adds lines which kindles that small hidden spark in you. Flip through the book and you’ll find quotations in bold, even that makes you re-read the whole story again. By the time you end the book, you’ll feel as nice as the people in twenty stories combined. Do read it, all her books. And give your feedbacks direct to the author, she is so kind she’ll reply. I myself got three lovely replies from her, on twitter. Yaay!

Follow Rashmi Bansal on twitter

Posted by Aditya

The Yes OR No dilemma

We are slaves to the people we love. They’ll ask something to be done and it gets done. Even if it means our project getting delayed. Of course, relations are much more important than our jobs, work, studies and it poses as a great excuse not to do what we are meant to do. Your friends ask you out for a movie and you can’t deny them. The reason not being you don’t want to disappoint them but you are more desperate to catch that flick. You’ve simply got few extremely lovable people to blame when asked about the incomplete work. You lie to yourself and convince your mind that it would break your friend’s heart and you’ll sacrifice your work for the same. But the real hidden truth is you just needed a good reason to back off your work and guess what you just got an amazing opportunity. Instead a person of good knowledge about both – his friends and work, would simply apologize for his inability to accompany them and will tell them he’ll be the first one to join the next time they hang out. If you are not wrong with choosing your friends, they’ll understand you. And in that case, you win. You keep that bond strong and get praised by your high-ers too. Happiness and money, what a satisfying combination. Of course there’d be much fun in that movie whose trailers and songs had amazed you but your time is far more important and knowing to do right things on the right time, I must say is a praise-worthy quality of everyone I admire. Everyone the world admires. Others are skipped a look, who are only sympathized over lost opportunities. So, choose your fates by overcoming the YES or NO dilemma. Yes to the ‘now’ boring things and No to the ‘now’ fun things. And you’ll yield a Yes to happiness and a No to regrets. 

Posted by Aditya

Of uselessness and realizations..

It was one past midnight. Usually I never woke up at this time of the night or didn’t actually sleep before I feel the morning would be harsh if I didn’t. I went and sat on my sofa thinking about the uselessly rapidly passing time (in context with the life as a whole) and the utterly slowly passing time (regarding the present time) which made me think of doing something useful, something materially useful rather than only ‘imagining’ brilliant ideas. I thought some more about the people whom I see have made it big in life, all those who are admired by (only) thoughtful people like me and who inspire me to do something like them which lasts only a few seconds of infatuation. Then I got super excited thinking about this could be the night where I am struck with some earth shattering idea that could be the next world changer and I would talk about how I got this idea 20 years from now egotistically with a grin of pride. I waited for that idea to strike me hard and break this soothing yet annoying silence of the night. A part of me also giggled about how I handsomely manage to waste the whole day and return to think life changing ideas when what you are meant to do is get some sleep. But people sleep to regain the energy that is lost, to rest so they can live tomorrow with greater zeal, so basically I had no reason to sleep. And it gave some good sense about comparing myself to successful ones who also happen to remain wide awake late at night (the only difference is they work over the day too). But then, no such ideas seem to come and I curse myself for not thinking hard enough. No worry, I am really good at this waste your days and think at nights thing and I am really consistent at this, mind you! Dude we are the people who do things only when there is no reason left not to do it and actually feel cool about it. And also I have this amazing acting ability when under peer pressure to meet deadlines to show that I don’t really care about it. When underneath I am struggling as hard as any of them, burning ass and iced mouth sort of thing. And suddenly I realize that I am struck with a voice, a voice so loud in my head that I feel it is being said by someone whose voice I nicely recognize thinking is it God speaking to me because of my perseverance of being awake for so long just for an idea to strike? Later I realize it is my mother yelling sleep or not to complain when she spills cold water over my face tomorrow morning. And again I realize another thing that today happens to be Mother’s day. It's already 2.30 in the morning. So I go and wish her. I say that I won’t yell at her when she throws cold water on me tomorrow and that’s my gift for her. I laugh. She laughs. I hug. She kisses me. I say I love her. She says she loves me too. 

Happy Mother's Day.

Posted by Aditya

Is it the only way?

How easy it is to get lost among the millions like us. The ones better than us, they forge their way ahead pushing us into obscurity of nothing. We try to build a life like the ones we wish for. We try again because it is never the first time we make it. We try again because the second time we are suppressed by the ones who notice our goodwill and seek advantage of it and see it as a threat to their making it big in life. But we happily get out of their ways because we doubt in our own selves and confide in them. Because they sweat confidence, so much confidence that we think they are better than us and we would anyway ruin our opportunity if given one. We think we are born to be kind, to be generous, and to be nice even to the ones who stab us, not in the back but right in the heart. So we bear the pain, we mourn for ourselves, we cry but stay silent because we believe complaining for it will make us look weak. We get up, smile in the mirror and get back to what we think we are meant to do – be slaves to the people superior to us or to everyone because we think everyone is better than us. In midst of all the randomness in life, we fall in love, we fall in love with someone so much that the way it should be loved feels no bound. We put ourselves in the soul of our beloved. We live for them, we seek pleasure and pride for the very first time in our lives, thanking God because being able to love is a merit in itself.  They’ll say get me this and we’ll get it, they’ll say get me that and we’ll get that. Lastly, they’ll say get out of my life and we’ll do that too because we again feel their happiness is something more valuable than ours. Our naivety made us believe that the one we love will love us too. For that little part in our lives we believe we can fly without wings, breathe without air and more stupidly that this will continue forever only till all it becomes at the end is some harsh memory, vaguely the same memory that our life is. And then, we think it is better to live as a backdrop of happy happenings and start seeing everything from a distance, a safe one, because getting close will ruin things up. We are too afraid to live life because we are shattered and broke and don’t want it anymore. We find comfort in our own sadness and soon that is the only comforting thing in the world. We live until the years complete themselves, the breath becomes old and our skin wrinkled, then we cease to exist. We think is it with every life or did it happen only with us, is there any other way or is it the only way? Suddenly we realize an eternal truth which revolved our whole life that no one ever knew we existed and no one ever will.  

Posted by Aditya

Wake up!

Ever searched about how to be successful, or how to be more effective or how to be better than every single person in this world? You surely must have done if you believe in those things. However, we just skim through the self-help text, or zoom past that motivational video without actually gaining anything from it. We do the same with the promises we make to ourselves, even the small ones which we think we shall do but don’t because of their frivolous masters – We ourselves. We don’t get into the seriousness of the goal which we set, because we know no one’s goin’ to kick our asses if we don’t accomplish that, we ourselves are responsible for it and we know we lack the gut to punish ourselves. Getting back to what I started, according to me what gives an edge over the world and to really have what you need is waking up early. Of course you need to have various other habits inoculated in your character to win over this world and to lead a life you desire, but for every single thing you need time and time is what you get when you wake up early as simple as that. Don’t you feel crazy enough about the thought itself to be awake and doing things while the world sleeps? Yes you do, but you feel much lazier than that crazier feeling because… what I earlier told, that no one will ask you to wake up early to get that extra nudge of time over your peers and we are on our own guidance. And we are lazy enough not to wake up early because we see more reasons why not to than to the benefits of why we should. It is difficult to have that will to make yourself learn a habit without the urgency in demand for that habit. But everything that is amazing is difficult and so is waking up early. Aristotle once said that, “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then, is not an act, but a habit”. So you know what I mean, it is as easy after becoming a habit as it is difficult while you started. And more than that, how you use your time is of utmost important. It shouldn’t happen like you wake up early and end up on social networks and do the things you so nicely manage to do – passing your time. Earn that time to do something meaningful and for what you shall thank yourself some time later in life. It helps, it surely does but what you shouldn’t is waste that time you woke up early in wasting it again in your sleep later in that day. 


This one shall help you understand better.

Posted by Aditya

The small little gap

The world constantly changes by changing the people who live within. Unfortunately, there are phases, gaps and varied generations that it fails to change. It serves both as the virtues and vices of the modern or the world that lies ahead. Virtue as in history repeats itself, what happened shall happen again, and the experienced people shall guide our way forward. Vice as in it stunts the growth, the minds, and the ideas that can change the world when the same people remain adamant to the temporary principles that once helped them. No doubt, some principles are timeless and eternal because of their varied applicability time and again. It requires an extremely high innate understanding between the people of different generations – veterans and novices, classics and modern, accomplished and the prodigy only then can we prosper with the same harmony which we were meant to. Mistakes happen, by them and by us but it only can benefice us if we can, without any ego or blames, accept those and add those small learnings into the reality of life. The liveliest example is the gap between your parents and you. Whilst taking a decision or just trying to make them understand something, we often try to impose our learnings and way of living on them and they do the same with us. I’ve seen people who almost get sentimental when there are certain opportunities and choices for them but their parents forcibly make them follow what they believe. They do the same with their kids what their fathers did to them, snatch their child’s freedom. And then there are parents who understand how they weren’t able to be their best because they were left with no choice and grant their children that space and freedom they lacked in their life. Mine lie in the latter. Unfortunately, such people are scarce, they need to understand that the conditions have changed now and is a lot more complex than the way they had experienced it 20 years back. They need to understand that new ideas brew in the minds of the young and should harbor them instead of claiming it non sense. They should believe in their own sons and daughters and guide them at the same time. They should know the difference between guidance and obligation, so that the child feels that he is not controlled and at the same time being backed by their parents in case they lose the path or choose the wrong ones. In return we should respect our parent’s opinions and try to explain the genuine things which we think they should know. At the end, give them love, they always love you back, so that slowly and steadily we shall end the small little gap.            

Posted by Aditya

A girl once said..

Sitting in midst of the cool evening last monsoon with friends, I came across a conversation that would change the way I think about women, the way I love, respect and feel about them. And it came off from a girl, a female friend of mine who I think of as one of the few persons I’ve ever come across or will ever can, who thinks not like everyone thinks. There were other friends and all of them guys, she always felt comfortable among us and we all daily met. As we discussed various topics over the evening, someone made a joke that didn't go well with her and it was with regard to what happens to men after they get married and the way wives torcher them and that kind of jokes, which was made with an only intention for some light hearted humor.

“It is not we who torcher, but you guys torcher us after marriage, we serve you food, we raise up your kids, we even leave our parents and take care of your family as if our own, we sacrifice our whole lives in the well being of the people who we have just met and what do you guys sacrifice for us?”

A silence. Everyone were shaken up enough to keep their mouths shut and she knew she was making a point. From the short laughter of that joke to the silence of that answer, everything seemed sudden.

“You know what men give us. They harm our modesty. They molest us. They abuse us. They think we are things to be played. They think we are a source to an entertainment that they shittily enjoy. And what we think you know that we are born to be this way. To be thought of as a minority among you people. To be servants in life with a bond named marriage. That stunts us as humans, the dreams we dream for ourselves, the desires we have that no one gives a shit to.”

“But you know nowadays even women are given equal freedom,” one guy said.

“What do you know about freedom? The way we feel when someone stares us at a bus stop or when they pass abusive comments that we could never think of. It scares us deep inside, it makes us shiver thinking what would happen if no people were around. If he would ra.. Leave it, what would you understand about freedom, security and about fear of being alone, the fear of helplessness because you are a boy and someday you will marry and bring in a wife who’d maybe give you a daughter and only then will you little understand the freedom you can provide your daughter because much of it would harm her security and you’ll be as helpless as your sweet daughter would be because you know this world isn't a fair place for girls as it for boys.”

“And then when you don’t allow your daughter to wear clothes that you find disapproving and allow your son to roam in knee-torn jeans, when your son calls in and says that he’ll be late tonight you’ll allow and when your angel says hey dad can I come little after ten it’s my bestie’s bday then you’ll shout and ask her to come home immediately because she’s a girl, how can she be out of home late night. Only then would you understand the way she buries her desires, dreams and pleasures happily just because she knows she is a good daughter and then marries an idiot whom you say she would, she happily does so and then she goes through all that her mother went through in her marital life without a voice because she then realizes that she doesn’t even have a voice, you’ll fulfil all the needs of her in-laws and give in whatever they ask you for because you want your daughter to live happy and also because you know you have a son who'd marry a girl of her choice and even her parents would suffice your needs because even they want their daughter to live happily. And this will continue with your grand-daughter too because the same happened with your mother. Because we all are born for this.”

She stopped there. Neither everyone’s moistened eyes nor the way everyone clapped but her courage and the audaciousness with which she spoke the things that every girl, every women feels among the few boys is what amazed me. And what made me share this is all of what she said was truth.

Because girls, this is not what you are born for, you are born to be loved, to leave us guys behind in everything that you can think of with the same passion we do. Because you can dream the way we do, even better.

Posted by Aditya