as things crash down on me,
i feel bereft...the loss is unbearable..
all i had was trust, all it was was faith...
was it that easy to break?
was it that easy to take for granted?
was that all my feelings meant to you?

Religion---one of the most controversial subjects that has been subjected to heated debates over and over the years…

There are god-fearing people, there are atheists, and then there are agnostics. I wouldn’t know which category I come under, but I sure do know what I feel about religion. Religion, to me, is personal, intimate. It’s a one-to-one relationship with God. It’s more intimate than the love for your partner or for your child. It’s an unwavering faith in the Almighty, the shoulder to lean on when in need, the one to look up to when lost, and the one to rejoice with and thank when satisfied.

Many a word has been said about religion and about the various religions that the population of the world shares. Despite being one of the most controversial and, albeit, touchy topics ever discussed, I shall nonetheless exercise my right of speech to express my feelings and maybe a dash of cynicism toward religion.

God, for me, is ONE…Although by religion I am a Hindu, I have no qualms in entering a church, a mosque, a dargah, or a temple, be it Jain or otherwise. For me, to be one with God is to be able to connect with Him one a one-on-one basis. As for the rites and rituals that are associated with this entity, I believe that they are mere formalities. However, I do feel that the various rules imposed on us, don’t lie, don’t drink, don’t murder, don’t steal falana falana, are imposed to protect us from the worst sides of ourselves. But not everyone follows this; that doesn’t mean that they are condemned to hell. I’m sure they are, but the worst hell is your conscience or, worse, karma, or the fruits that it begets. And such hell is deserved only by those who in a conscious frame of mind indulge in acts that harm others. What you do to urself, is your problem.

I would like to call myself a person free from the hackles of religion, but I know that somewhere I am bound…bound by my upbringing, that has been instilled and laced with religion and the dependency, less the fear, on God. As a child, I was enchanted with tales of Krishna, the Mahabharatha is one of my favorite epics. I used to light God’s lamp every day. When I came to Mumbai, Ganapati, being by “favorite” god, I used to visit the Siddhivinayak temple on a regular basis. However, somewhere down the line, life got busy and I stopped going. But, does that mean I lost my faith in god? I have made so many mistakes in life, which one of us hasn’t, but never have I felt lost simply because despite my unfortunate circumstances or bad luck with certain situations, I have managed to come out of it.

The same was with churches. One of my favorite churches is the Convent of Jesus and Mary. Its one of the most beautiful churches ive been to and the peace that it gives me is indescribable.

Religion, since time immemorial, has tried to hold on to its devotees, whether it’s the fanatics, the fundamentalists, or the passivists. However, in the bargain it has ensured that its subjects have become so insecure such that for them to accept someone else without the tag of religion is impossible. To do that, would be to go against their religion, their god. But which god, assuming that there is more than one god, has propagated violence through religion? It is the religious heads that encourage this more often than not, using subtle means of blackmail. It’s possible that the sense of power that goes with the job is reiterated and fed at every instance that an individual follows or obeys.

Where does all this stop? It stops when we use the brains that god has endowed us with, the intelligence that we have striven to sharpen. It stops when we stop trying to connect with god through another person and look inside our heart.

.....

i wished for u upon a shooting star,
knelt at the aisle and there u are....

sometimes i wondered what you did to deserve me,
sometimes it seemed we were tad too early...

there have been times i've felt all wrong
and u've come and put me all right

and when i felt ur all but gone
and cried myself to sleep at night

u came along and proved us wrong,
things were as they'd been all along

and now its just u and me,
sitting together probably under a tree

watching a sunset at the beach,
never too far, never out of reach

the bonds all strong
as we move along

through ten million days
of the future we make

and all i can think of is that shooting star
and the aisle that I knelt in those days so far

confusion

Ever since I was old enough to understand what I really wanted to become in life, I remember having wanted to be a psychologist. Contrary to the "I want to be a doctor/teacher when I grow up" dreams, I knew that talking to people, helping people was what I wanted. I was in the eighth standard, with no knowledge whatsoever about psychology, its status in India, etc, etc. I got into Speech and Hearing Therapy thinking that I would make do with even a smattering of psychology. But, for a gamut of reasons, that didn’t work out, and I got the biggest opportunity to pursue my dream. This time, I wasn’t going to screw up. After dragging Amma through all the possible colleges (or rather Amma dragging me), I got into JaiHind College, one of the reputed South Mumbai colleges.

Come the final exams of my second year at college and Annu passed away. I was jerked out of my complacency overnight and thrown into the real world; I became responsible; no more could I have fun and not give a damn about anything even fairly important. Amma and I stayed together and I was in the Third year—juggling cooking, studying, taking tuitions. In the summer, I got the opportunity to work at an esteemed psychiatric clinic, and one of the clinical psychologists there became my role model. Soon, I knew that this was what I wanted to do—clinical psychology. I put in all my efforts into studying for my finals, while battling with typhoid and chicken pox, and I survived. The next step was to get into university and Mumbai University was my goal, but I had no guarantee of getting into Clinical and opted for SNDT University in the bargain.

To support myself, I started working part-time as a copyeditor at a company and attended college, took tuitions and went nuts, in every sense. Anyway, my MA has been more of a joke than a Master’s degree, and I’m now so disillusioned with the field that I cannot consider working here. With half-baked knowledge, not an ounce of skill, I’m expected to go out into that world and influence the life of another individual. I had built a rosy picture of the psychiatric world on the basis of my internship placement, and boy, am I glad that I got to see the real world.

So, now it’s a tug of war between psychology and editing—a field in which I have found that I have a fair amount of talent—where I’m getting the opportunity to establish myself into the editing world. I’m on either side of the rope, or maybe, I am the rope that’s being tugged…

I’m lost, I don’t know whether I should be something within the field I chose and which is my passion—oh, yes! I still love psychology but something for the subject has died ever since I’ve seen its status in India and how backward and unethical we are—or to get into the publishing world and if all goes well, make a name for myself and a different career. 

failure

I've had my share of failure. Not one but many. And as i failed each time, i would withdraw further, cringe and give up. Life had become a constant...my thoughts justified each other. Id lay in bed at night, thinking, wondering, cursing myself for not having the guts to face failure, for not having the guts to be who i was, to be ME.

For me, escapism was the way out...
the door was open, the feet ready to walk out. but the mind was fickle, diffident, changing the moment it was made up....

those days were agony, that time was tortuous and not because of my experiences--those paled in comparison to my thoughts.
I was faithless. I dint have faith in God, in my family, in myself...

The mind is a funny entity. it can torture u no end, but can fool u into believing that all is well....

slowly and steadily i picked up the pieces, learnt from my mistakes, reined my mind in.
gradually i grew out of the shell i had hidden inside, broke open barriers and as i lifted my face up to the sky and the sun's rays shone down on me...i was a new person

I cant say that i left that failure behind, but i kept it in mind, it was always my driving force...to succeed to not be who i used to be. to remain ME.

trapped

The view was obscured by bars
His little fists held on for dear life
The free bird was caged again

As he looked out, he could hear the laughter and sound of children playing
Tears streaming down his cheeks, he wondered why he was here,
Why was he trapped again?
All he wanted was to go, fly away
Away from the life he was born with

Tear-streaked, his sobs were relentless
He trudged slowly back to his iron bed,
Head bowed, feet dragging, a look of defeat
The very image of hopelessness

full circle

she was alone, side tracked...

they were at it like cats and dogs...

always shouting, crying, being stubborn

all of them.

things changed, they washed their hands off each other

she grew up, apparently the "angel"

timid, restrained, subdued...

refused to come out of her shell,

never knowing there was one!

time passed, the hatred, the anger increased.

the few moments of peace and love gave her relief.

sometimes reality was too hard to digest

so she stayed away.

somewhere inside she believed that only one was right...

time passed, she changed, became a person of her own

formed her own identity, carved her own niche

away from them, she saw them for who they were

just wounded human beings, having gotten into something vicious,

being unable to get out of it.

and all she could be was a silent spectator

accepting that it was all she could do...

watch them....tears dropping silently

onto her folded hands

in a prayer for peace, normalcy...

a tribute to home...

What is it about this place we call home? What is it that a mere slur against the very name makes our blood boil… The place where many of us were born and many of us spent more than half our lives….what is it that a mere song or a tale brings back rushing moments of the joys and sorrows we felt?

Our escapades, our near scrapes with the authorities…the overnights, the walks along the airport road…the memories of meeting in Lulu centre…Annual day and Khareef festival—the highlights of the year…the numerous picnics, the field trips….the Jabals, the camels…bus rides…sports day… the choir!!

Yet, we yearned for our freedom, from the oppressive environment, and yet the heart craves to go back to the place where we once “were.”

A photograph, a place, a person brings back so many memories that tears well up and we ache to return home, return to the place where we first learnt to walk, where we made our first friends, where we made our best friends, where we discovered our talents, a place where we lost the people dearest to us, where we found the people dearest to us….

The bonds we created there were the strongest ever…people who dint matter then have become so much more important to us today…a random person from school adds us on FB and we immediately accept, an attempt to move closer to where our heart is…

Salalah, the heart of Oman, the oasis in the desert, our home… has become our haven, a place to heal, to recuperate, to bask in the memories of our childhood, to go back to the time when life was innocent and childlike, when we dreamt of bigger things, bigger places….we’ve reached where we wanted to…but our heart is still stuck where it was…

Some may call it a fool’s paradise, which practically speaking, it may be, but I’d (and many of us) rather be a fool than let go of my home…

Catharsis...Part 2

I'm so bored... m home alone...and normally I'm most comfortable being with myself .... but i guess the only thing i can blame this restlessness on is the fact that I'm no more used to being alone for so long, and its getting to me.. to top it all, all my friends are busy and m not keeping too well... so now I've become bitchy and cranky and taking it out on people who cant help it... Im not liking my self right now :(

there is so much i can do but Im either too tired or too lazy... feeling sick being home all day... not used to it.. its high time i went out... not now obviously given that its 1230 am. this has to be one of the most boring Sundays of my life for sure.....

Catharsis...Part 1

There are times when I just feel like writing whatever comes to my mind….I mean if I actually record whatever I think in the entire day, each day would fill a book. Sometimes I wonder at the capacity of my mind to think so much. There are times when the feelings, so closely connected with my thought stream, overwhelm me to such an extent that I actually want to vent out. I feel like writing, verbatim, what I’m thinking, but it just never comes out right. So frustrating

We’ve been having continuous counseling lectures ever since our third semester ended. In a way they’ve been a learning experience, especially as far as the practical aspect is concerned. And I realized that somewhere just talking to a third person about any problem in life, and being accepted and attended to wholly, makes me feel so much lighter. I don’t remember when introspection became a big part of my life, but I know that there are times when I’m feeling very uncomfortable and wonder why, and then I introspect, peer into my mind and try to detect whatever is disturbing me. Off late, I’ve come to realize that I haven’t really had a very happy childhood. Somewhere I feel I just “was.” If you ask me what I remember most vividly about childhood, I wouldn’t have a thing to say. Coz somewhere I really don’t remember anything significant. As I’m writing this, a million memories come to mind, but somewhere I don’t feel satisfied that any of these are THE one.

I’ve realized that I tend to be extremely self critical. I feel that most things I think or feel aren’t right, but then it’s ok as long as I don’t act upon or express those feelings. But somewhere, another chord strikes in my mind, where I feel that maybe its normal to feel this way, maybe others think in the same manner, and like me, don’t express it. Its weird, but its true.

If I were to describe myself, I’d say I’m a person who seems very cool, calm, and confident on the outside, but somewhere inside, I’m a lost little girl. I’m not perfect, nor am I a very imperfect person. There are extremely nasty sides to me that I always curb because I know that thinking or acting in those ways are not correct. Somehow I feel that I have begun to analyze myself and discover my true self more, and u know what?? I’m not liking it. I don’t like who I am on the inside. Hey, I’m not ALL bad. I do have good qualities: I can love and give and care, I am a loyal friend, helpful, Independent, responsible… I have talents, I’m fairly intelligent.

Somewhere it crosses my mind that maybe, just maybe, I expect too much from myself. That I’m so intent on being the perfect person that I expect to be, that I forget to concentrate on the real me. There is a therapy in psychology wherein it is important to be able to strike a balance between the real and the ideal self. Somewhere I think that I need to do that. Bring what I am to people closer to what I feel I actually am….