In vivo. In vitro.
| Sunday, August 10, 2014 |
|
This or that?
|
Have you ever had the feeling of something being real and
possible? Not in the moment where you have known every detail of it, every minutiae
that defines it, all of its existential quirks and manifestations but when you
are being introduced to it for the very first time. A vague, ambiguous description
at best. A moment when the littlest non-detail seems appealing and perfect. Where do you draw the line between this, let's call it die-hard positivity, and wishful thinking? Is there a line? I think we all crave for such clarity; irrational yet so soothing. We yearn for that moment of absolute certainty. We all understand that there are many things beyond our control - even amongst the avowed atheists. Not everything has to be ascribed to a God per se. Different names notwithstanding, there does seem like something or someone exists that/who seems to have things planned. Given the level of chaos that exists around us, I'd hate to believe that there is an uncertain entity oblivious to things around and idling away time by random waves of the wand. It gives me comfort in believing that even if I do not fully understand or know my purpose, someone or something else maybe does. It is in between these moments of not openly acknowledged powerlessness that I would love these tiny actions rooted in absolutely insane certainty! A tiny boost to the ego. So if you ask me, each one of them is possible. All of them will happen.
Someone who read my book of poems told me that it seemed like I was ending each of my poems with a line that subscribed to hope for the future, or in a few cases a solution of some sort to what was written about. I had never thought of my poetry that way for I wrote what I felt. I went back and read through my poems again. He was right. Tonight, as I write this, I realise that I am going to post this on a not-so-hopeful note. If this is how I am - finding hope in everything and believing it all to be possible - am I, in this particular case, latching on to wishful thinking that is pretending to be the embodiment of hope and what's to be? I can tell you how that thought sounds to the optimist - soul crushing!
But then again, everything happens for a reason. :)
|
posted by Ms.V @ 00:21  |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, August 05, 2014 |
|
Beauty of Uncertainty
|
I was going to start this post by saying how I really do dislike starting all of my almost bimonthly posts with the same song and dance about not having written anything here for a while. Well, I just did that, didn't I? Hmm. But then I googled "bimonthly" to double check that it meant once in two months and well, what do you know? It actually means both "once in two months" and "twice in a month". The same ambiguity goes for biweekly and biyearly as well. On that positive trivia-esque note, I inaugurate this bimonthly post!
My obsession with uncertainty is only paralleled by uncertainty's obsession with me. Somehow the state of flux and I have become such inseparable pals that we have begun to enjoy each other's company. Maybe it helps that I am the kind that remains hopelessly hopeful even when the situation could, even in the most hopeful case, be only termed as hopeless. Or maybe it could just be our mutual love for long-winded sentences!
There is beauty in change. Change presents a slight expansion of our canvas and with that comes those tiny unoccupied, untouched bits that can be coloured and done in any way we want. It could come across as a very romantic notion of life. But I've realised that I find it really hard to let go of it. Somehow things make better and of course, more palatable, sense when I can see that eternal silver lining. Well, I do make the change sound more depressing with this seemingly forced sense of optimism, don't I? All I can say to that is that the optimism is incredibly genuine.
Richard Ashcroft (lyrics; A Song for the Lovers) equated falling in love to taking a train to a foreign land without a ticket for the ride. I think that restricting it to just falling in love is a shame!
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 00:00 |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, April 09, 2014 |
|
It is uber easy for each one of us to judge people. We may know them, we may have hardly interacted with them. However, we know exactly who they are. We couch it in the shiny empowering wrapper that says "our opinion", but we know that we know all about the person. It is not a perception. It is that thought that allows us to bask in the glory of understanding someone through and through. But whether we admit it or not, judgments always have a stream of vileness running through them. We see a stranger walking down the street and in a glance we discern the person that he/she is. The dress he wears, the way he walks, the way she twirls her hair, that spring in her step. He is shabby, he is weird, she is too girly, she is too hyper. Every trait is iffy and undesirable. Why can't people be perfect? Darn it! And while we are busy judging them, we fail to recognise the hypocrisy within ourselves. People are ok with being intimate with someone they haven't met before and yet, when a stranger smiles at you out of kindness and respect for you being a person, there is definitely something weird about that. The first is termed as progressive independent behaviour while the latter is definitely the sign of a person out to please everyone. Let's face it. No one likes to hear about their flaws. There are very few who accept their flaws. Some work on them, some think that these make them unique. Irrespective of your way to handle these statements, we all firmly believe that we are entitled to dish them out. However, while airing out our opinions under the comfortable umbrella of "free speech" we fail to recognise how each person is different. The intentions differ, their disposition differs. Some people find the stranger smiling at them weird and creepy. For others, such an act can reinforce the humanness in humanity. For some, an over enthusiastic new acquaintance is just hyper and childish and without a life. For others, the same person can be the understanding empathetic person genuinely trying to distract you, at least for a while, from the rough patch you are going through. Giving everyone a fair chance is not naivety, but the mere acceptance of many many possibilities.
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 14:34 |
|
|
|
| Saturday, April 05, 2014 |
|
Fun and me, really! :)
|
I wrote this around 2 years ago. I watched the movie "Queen" today and somehow it reminded me of this post. Reliving it through the blog as well!
When I was doing my
graduation, I was given a nickname by a couple of my classmates. I was called
‘baby’. The events that led to my re-christening were a few movie invites which
were turned down by me. Every invitation would elicit the following response from
me: “I’ve to ask my folks.” I guess the only conclusion that people drew from
the ‘no’ that followed this was that my parents did not allow me to go. I just
wasn’t keen enough to push my case. There were times when I never even bothered
to tell them about the invite. There was one particular classmate who hated me
with a passion. It seems that her mother told her that she could go on a trip
only if I was going too. And her mother hadn’t even met me. I did not do much
over the course of my graduation to change my reputation. Hindi movies did not
interest me much. My parents were still paying for everything and I couldn’t
justify to myself the cost of a ticket for a movie I wasn’t myself too eager to
watch. But then, I wasn’t having fun the conventional way. So that meant I
wasn’t having fun at all. The idea lived on. During my Masters, I was with a
less ‘happening’ crowd and our university campus was too far away from any
civilisation. We had classes 6 days of the week from 10 in the morning to 3 in
the afternoon. It would take us a little more than an hour to reach the city
and the curfew was at 7 pm. So that would mean enduring 2 hours of painfully
tiring bus ride to walk around the city for 2 hrs. Not really a tempting
proposition. These were the days before the laptop (for me at least). So it
meant reading, writing, taking a walk around the beautiful campus, or just
chatting with friends. Otherwise, the most wonderful option of all – sleeping
or the worst of all – doing laundry (we did not have a washing machine in our
hostel). I had my music for company and that made my day, every day. 2 years
just went by in a hurry and no one had the time to really bother giving anybody
a nickname. When I came to IIM, I figured I should at least give things a shot.
This may lead you to believe that I went wild and did everything I thought I
had missed out on. Well, then I have led you the wrong way. I just went for a
couple of shopping trips only to realise that I will never be able to go
shopping without a list or indulge in window shopping. I still did not venture
out much. My scooter, which I have owned for 8 years, has run a little above
4000 kms. I thought I liked L^2. Not really. The songs suck. I cannot dance.
And I am painfully shy and conscious to even try. I cannot stand smoke. And
drinking is definitely not something that’s up my alley. A couple of sips of
beer and I realised that it tastes like something that I can do without tasting
ever again. Impromptu trips are fun if undertaken with people I’d enjoy going
out with. For people with drastically different tastes and ideas of how to have
fun, this can be a disastrous endeavour. In a lot of ways, I think I’ve done
everything in my power, quite inadvertently, to hold on to my tag of being a
“baby”. Just that when the context changed from a local Mangalorean college to
the Indian Institute of Management, country’s top ranked B-school, the term
changed to “goody two shoes”. I’ve been mocked (as a joke or otherwise; I
wouldn’t really know) about how I do not go out and ‘live life’, and how I back
out of plans, for having a self-imposed curfew of 9pm and such. I think ‘fun’
is a state of mind. I like travelling but I prefer doing it with a few select
people. Fortunately or unfortunately, I am very picky when it comes to people I
choose to travel with and because of that I end up traveling mostly with my
family. I like writing, even random gibberish. I love music. I could listen to
it 24x7. I was gifted an iPod by my Uncle when I was doing my Masters. Each
time I went home I would charge it to the fullest. It took me 4 hrs to reach
University from home (a train and a bus ride). The iPod battery would last 2
full journeys. This meant that I couldn’t listen to it while I was in my hostel
since I did not have a system for charging it back to full power. So I turned
to FM radio for my daily dose of music. It did not matter that they were
playing Kannada songs, it was music. So you could lock me in a room with just
music for company and trust me, I would be having ‘fun’! I love the company of
like-minded people filled with intelligent humour or let’s not sound
pretentious and go with ‘a sense of humour that I’d enjoy’ instead, and
friendly non-controversial banter. I love listening to people who know much
more than me and can speak about things with a passion that inspires me in
return. I enjoy the solitude that comes with a sense of contentment and peace.
I love talking to my family on the phone and updating them on everything, I
mean everything, that I have been up to. I cannot lie to them. They are as much
a part of my conscience as the little voice in my head. There are many things
that I love that don’t require me to go to the far end of the city to achieve.
I prefer ordering food in and eating with as much greed as I would like to
display than sitting in a restaurant and eating neatly with a knife and a fork.
These are a few things that I love doing. Maybe these don’t include the top 3
from your list. But I guess, we can all just agree to disagree on this one and
have the times of our lives, separately.
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 21:53 |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, March 18, 2014 |
|
What is and What will be.
|
My favourite lyricist is Richard Ashcroft. He weaves together words so beautifully. There are the cryptic and the subliminal. Then there are ones which are so poetic and simple and elegant, that you wonder how you couldn't think such a simple thought, why you couldn't string together such a matter of fact line. One of my favourites (there are too many) is this:
"The beginning of understanding is just knowing that there is no end
The door that stands before you is waiting to be your friend."
I guess this couldn't ring more true to me than in this moment when I can see a definitive end to what seemed like an era. Finally, I will be through with one of the toughest, most challenging, most rewarding, and equally frustrating part of my life. At this threshold, I can only know that there is so much more to go through. This was just such a small fraction of my life. That there is another lifetime for me to travel through. More importantly, I cannot but relate to the second line. Maybe it is the die hard Sagittarian optimism, but somehow I have never been able to not give into the insane amounts of hope that I manage to find everywhere. I whine, and boy do I!?! But irrespective of that, there is also this strong feeling that things are always for the best. Everything happens for a reason. And in the long run, one can only feel richer, happier, more content, and grateful for everything that has happened and find solace in the fact that time is never ending and there's more to come. I know that I've to open this door and get to the other side to completely finish this chapter. However, despite the monumental uncertainty that seems to be waiting for me on the other side, there is also the excitement about the unexplored, the new, and the inevitable goodness that exists in every milieu. This could all just be naivety. However, one thing that I've learnt from my time here is that it is all about perspective. It is easy to be deluded by everything happening around. Nevertheless, no one can stop you from popping on those rose coloured spectacles and enjoying life. It is that simple. I cannot wait to meet my friend!
PS: Unedited version
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 23:44 |
|
|
|
| Wednesday, March 05, 2014 |
|
I am part of that weird world
|
in which the book on the journeys of a narcissistic, foul-mouthed, hypocritical producer of a reality show which pretends to respect women while, in the same breath, abuses everyone using words derogatory to women is one of the bestsellers and is priced higher than the book on the journeys of a visionary.
Sigh.
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 21:17 |
|
|
|
| Tuesday, March 04, 2014 |
|
"I demand euphoria" - Calvin
|
It has been a while since I've written a poem. Here goes the latest one.
The anticipation gnaws at the time
Eroding away the seconds left
The moment will arrive soon
A sense of euphoria, or maybe
it will just crash and burn
A weird mix of possibilities
where only extremes exist.
A sense of relief washes over
Oh, it is done and the ticking clock
does not sound deafening anymore
Suddenly you're introduced to the in-betweens
Where was the euphoria?
But I should be happy it survived.
Time now finds itself in another day
Retrospection brings clarity they say
Is this it? As clear as a cloudless sky?
It has begun, a path still untrodden and unmarked
The wheels are whirring in silence
Time holds my euphoria, in time...in time...
|
| posted by Ms.V @ 20:04 |
|
|
|
Breeding Lucidity | Blogger Templates by Gecko & Fly.
No part of the content or the blog may be reproduced without permission.
Learn how to Make Money Online at GeckoandFly
|
