The Rebelle blog

A cancelled lunch date led my feet astray to the book treasures on Flora Fountain. This happened on a busy Monday afternoon. I promised myself I wouldn't engage my eyes on books anymore after I ended up spending a whole lot more than I usually do. It feels like an addiction, something I can't let go off. While I am sure books will and should not be recognised as harmful addiction, I am painfully aware of the fact that splurging money on anything every time we see it is unhealthy. Of course, I know the psychology and the hard facts too, but buying books feels like conquering the access way to treasures of an inexpressible happy state of mind. When I was young, losing myself in the book world was not just for the introduction into the big wide unseen world but also for the love of imagination. I was fascinated with colours and story telling, had a thirst for adventure that seemed strangely missing in my childhood as it was so pronounced in Enid Blyton's books. I could n...

"Let us try to open our minds to a new idea." I met so many amazing women this year and I wish to acknowledge them all. Some younger than me, a few older than my mother; all of them inspired me with their compassionate and kind demeanour. I believe I learned some great life lessons from all of them. I met some in movies and books and for me they are as real as the ones I met in flesh and blood. There are ideas and energies that keep me on the brim of unexplored territories and sharing them with all these encouraging women has resulted in a far better reality than I could have anticipated. Our power lies in our being and radiating that knowing to those beneath us and creating opportunities for their own exaltation. My being sketchy about the year gone by is just another example of how much we share happiness around us. Our constant whirlwind engages us in a stupor far more controlling our life's reins than we ought to permit it.  I became part of some conversatio...

I have over a 1000 unread emails lying still since many months. Most of them are from various groups I've subscribed to on Design, World Affairs, Architecture and such. I don't feel like reading through all that information at all. I can't recollect when that started happening. Today, I miss doing the one thing I loved so ardently as a kid. I loved swimming. I would be stretched for hours in swimming pools. I don't remember when that passion dissolved too. Maybe it was after I left school. One of the fondest memories of my school picnics used to be swimming for hours when we visited Water Resorts. I clearly remember carrying two sets of spare clothes because I knew I could never get enough of water. I enjoyed the ache swimming caused in my arms and the sting on my skin post swim. It never deterred me from exploring speed and that cold rush I felt whenever I was in a pool.  I am reliving my swimming memories because suddenly I realised the unnatural fears I've ...

I was hoping to write more consistently when December started but alas, I haven't been able to write as much as I hoped to. Last few weeks have been a blur, mostly, occupied with academics and lots of insignificant stuff I haven't had the opportunity to analyse yet. I have a feeling I will end up over-analysing this state of mind unless I speak with my friend, Shree, first. We share a great telepathic wavelength. We connect so instantly even after a long span of no conversation that sometimes I truly think technology won't be a necessity if either of us were stranded on a desert island. Also, since it's December, it means I will be writing about my unfinished reads and to-reads. Over time I have started recognising the presence of the humongous pile of books I've amassed in these last two months that sit huddled on a sofa chair in the living room. Most of them bear signs of my having handled them, with marked coloured passages that really make me happy when I thin...

I guess a lot of things happening lately have put my mind onto a thinking wheel a bit too much. I have been thinking a lot about the sappiness of everyday life and moments that I reflect upon time to time. Suddenly everything seems to have grown in vision. There are things I wouldn't consciously dwell upon but which are now making their presence felt inside my mind. I have been procrastinating about a new kind of project that is totally to my liking and my gut says I will enjoy doing it but I can't make myself apply to it yet. I have drafted the email and it sits in the draft folder since Monday but I just can't make myself send it yet. I keep thinking of possibilities of doing either this or something else that might come along. 'Might' as I must remind myself. The uncertainty of happenings is weighing a heavy hand on my heart. I keep hoping and dreaming about 'that' something which will satisfy and satiate my passion but I can't seem to pinpoint as t...

I watched a very insightful movie yesterday titled, People like us . While watching, it dawned upon me how we tend to run away from things when they seem to get a little complicated. Our best mechanism is holding still and then harbouring the hurt. What I most liked from the movie was never giving up this search for our true selves. If we think and believe in something that feels right to us morally, we should do it. And Family always accepts you, no matter what happens.  So there are these rules that an uncle tells his young nephew which were told to him by his now deceased father. I like the interpretation of them in the movie and definitely think they could help us cinema-goers too, outside the cinema house, in our lives. “The six rules of life. 1. Don't like something just because you think other people will like it, because they won't.  2. What you think is important isn't. What you think is unimportant is.  3. Lean into it.  4. Don't shit wh...

You know what distracted minds do? I will tell you. They pay bills twice like I did. I am so off my element that I have been paying electricity bills twice a month and this is not just the first time. I have done it at least twice before. Today was a jolt though. Why is this happening to me? Everything feels so disarrayed and disturbed that I dare not nail another coffin as it is with my current state of mind. A very sympathetic friend has unusual kind words for me. He says, "Not everyone and everything is for everyone. Different keys fit different locks." Isn't that an amazing thing to say to somebody who is wrecked severely or so they think themselves to be? My friend also said that life will take care of us, one way or the other. Don't I like his optimism!  I know things will eventually get better but my helplessness over the situation is constantly pushing me over the edge and dangerously making me sway to its unpredictability. I know this is not going to la...

Here I am, sitting by my window, basking in the late afternoon sunlight. My books are blinded by the light, throwing back the rays on their glossy covers, my neck feels baked but so good and I clunk my fingers feverishly on the keyboard hoping to put everything from my mind onto this screen. I went to the sea last night with my friend. We sat there for an hour, talking to our heart's content by the chilly sea breeze wishing there were more nights like these, more leisurely meets by the sea. The night didn't seem daunting, nor did the presence of the many love-stuck privacy seeking couples facing the sea. Something about waves is charming during the day but more resigned at night times. We spoke of love's lost chances, the ones that never came, the ones that could come and the ones we fear to embrace. It's always a wonderful feeling meeting this girl who has and I keep telling her this, a very understated elegance about her. Grace is not just personified by physical be...

I had been meaning to read this book ever since I graduated from Architecture School. Years ago, I fell in love with the cover art of this book, so flaming red and inviting with its delicate yellow flowery design and font. Any book that puts so much effort into its cover page illustration is worth giving it a try, is something I always believe. Prior to reading this book, for about six years I've heard numerous reviews and recommendations from friends and fellow readers but never the actual gist or theme it represents. I always thought it is like a guidebook to finding love in about forty steps or rules that will guarantee a brushing with this exquisite emotion. Since I'm not a spiritual nor a religious person, the ideas explored about Rumi and Sufism evolved into their present fame and global recognition did not occur to me earlier (because I never consciously thought upon these two in religious overtones). When one of my friends from college met me at a bookstore sh...

I can't stop laughing over a little joke between my mother and me. I just cannot. She's giving me a bad glare, even reprimanding me for my non-stop laughter. Suddenly I feel so light headed and free of any burden. I haven't laughed this crazy in a long time, not especially along with my mother. It's amazing how these little things add up so much energy into everyday living. I am always taken by surprise by my mother's wit. She has a lively very hilarious sense of humour, one which she uses far less frequently because of us. I believe we are the reason she has turned into this worrying warrior. Well, all of us are warriors, fighters with seriousness hanging dead pan around our persona. But when the laughter hits our home, we are uncontrollable. And I am truly happy to feel this happy zing. All the worrying and misery that we (me, that is) seem to be carrying within us disappeared for a while. I love it when home turns out to be more than its expected share of miser...

I just got some news about something I was eagerly awaiting for since the past few months. I am supposed to be happy but I am not. Clearly the focus and attention from the said news has lost its value for me. Isn't is quite common to find that something we long for loses its prospects after sometime? Especially if these prospects are regarding employment. Career shift. I can't quite fully fathom in what terms this move will reward my future. Will it tie me to a stagnant post or will it truly let some practical issues be sorted out and declutter the existing chaos? I wish I had an idea about everything that happens the way it does. Right now, my brain is in a frenzy. There are times when I wish I had a more diplomatic bone in my body so that I could not let everything get by so easily around me. Once we get comfortable about a position, chances are we rarely lead ourselves to experiment and step up further. It's like the classic life move for women; study, graduate with go...

काही व्यक्तिरेखा चिरतरुण असतात आणि त्या सदैव जिवंत राहतात. माझ्या मनात चिरंतर घर करून राहिलेल्या काहींविषयी मी आज इथे लिहिणार आहे. साधारण अकरा वर्षांची असताना मी पहिल्यांदा चार्ल्स डिकन्स लिखित 'ऑलिव्हर ट्विस्ट' हि कादंबरी वाचली. माझ्याच वयाच्या असणाऱ्या एका अनाथ मुलाची ती कथा वाचताना नुसतेच माझे डोळे भरून आले नव्हते तर मी ढसाढसा रडले होते. त्याचे करुण डोळे मला सारखे माझ्या नजरेसमोर दिसायचे. जगात आपल्यासोबत आपली काळजी घेणारं कुणी नसलं कि किती हाल होतात आणि त्यातल्यात्यात एका धोकादायक वास्तविक जगात आपण एकटे असतो हि नुसती कल्पनाच किती भीतीदायक आहे. त्यामुळे ऑलिव्हर बद्दल वाचताना मी खूप संवेदनशील आणि हळवी झाले होते. मी किती सुखासीन आणि सुरक्षित आयुष्य जगत होते याचं मला भान आलं. माझ्या कोवळ्या मनाला अतिशय छेदून काढणारा तो क्षण होता. त्याच दरम्यान व्हिक्टर ह्युगो लिखित आणि साने गुरुजी अनुवादित 'ल मिझराब' हि कादंबरी 'दुःखी' ह्या नावाने मराठीत मी वाचली. लहान असताना आपले भावविश्व किती स्तिमित असते. हि कादंबरी १८६२ मध्ये प्रकाशित झाली होती. साने गुरुजी यांनी लहान म...

Snakes! I dreamt of snakes last night. One of the many incoherent dreams I have had recently. My hatred for gliding reptiles goes way back to my childhood when I remember seeing one of my Dad's relatives have a fit after being chased by a snake through cotton fields. He had almost died from the shock and poor man lived with mental imbalance for a few years. My Dad's mother used to jump and be afraid of Discovery TV channel each time us kids tuned in for watching shows like Deadliest Catch or Survivor man. She couldn't bear looking at snakes, tigers, lions- the fierce species. It didn't help that she had spent all her life in a farm house surrounded by tall crop fields. She was even wary of light. Darkness had been part of her most adult life. She found that change difficult to embrace. As a child, I remember seeing small field snakes during monsoons around the quiet bungalow we lived in, surrounded by a large plot of uncut wild grass and trees. The terrace provide...

Fever and cold has me stomping with a rave rage crushing my healthy and happy spirits I've been carrying for some time. A mad cold fury tears my insides trying to understand why a minor sickness drives me to the wall with such misery. I feel terrible about lugging behind deadlines, though people can be really nice about it sometimes. Melancholy and sleep engulfs me in its embrace spiralling me into an endless slumber, with vivid dreams manifesting into my fears thus projected clearly. It's a wonder that our nerves do hold us steady otherwise the chaos that would rule our psyche would destroy people. I realise how November makes me feel all responsible and accountable for the year so bygone. In good ways, nowadays I have accepted peace as a long term reign in my life. I would rather be surrounded in a clear calm mist than be pinned to unclear intentions.  Alas, we will come across events and people that shatter our peace and aggravate us to the point of feeling utterly inc...

While synchronising a book catalogue application with Goodreads today, I realised the huge number of unread books I possess in my collection. Why I never got around to reading them or why I left them unfinished will truly take a large share of my memory to remember! Some days I feel the fire burned & extinguished out of me, while some days it is so fierce that I feel a strong unstoppable force within me. These moments of introspection come not without their terrifying implications on my psyche. Even the festive season is not uplifting my mood. There is just so much going around us at the moment. I am at a cross section of journeys that I feel too stifled to endeavour upon. One would think ageing gives us enough power to confront our demons and demolish them. Not always happening. I am reading a lot of diverse material from Gender Studies to Polity and Social Structure of Economies but it leaves a gaping hole each time I dwell upon this utilitarian arrangement we are part of, ...

I just returned from a weekend trip to a city I've been frequently travelling to in this year. This trip was special. It was a grand get-together of my extended family for celebrating my Grandpa's 75th birthday. The moment I entered the venue, I was greeted with the warmest hugs and affectionate smiles by my grandmothers, aunts and cousins I typically meet only during Diwali due to our hectic schedules now. The party venue was an air-conditioned banquet hall and I started feeling cold in the very first few minutes of being there when my grandma embraced me in her super warm and cosy arms. I instantly got transported back to my childhood. She is one of the nicest persons who also possesses a calm aura around herself that she radiates with a brilliant abundance. I took my grandpa's cold hands in my own and wished him a happy 75th. He immediately remarked how grown up I looked. I had to tell him it was because of my hair, all messy and tangled from the travel when he let out...

Dylan Thomas wrote this and I am merely reiterating his words. How difficult it has become to be gentle! Or must I put it this way, how difficult is it to be gentle? I write here thinking about how cruelty often marks our hold on compassion. I feel too terrible about unleashing my fury on an innocent person, somebody I care for and would not like to put down with meanness. I wish I could just turn skip that moment in time and then behave calmly as I usually do. I cannot bear this guilt. How many times have I acted like this? The more I think of it, the more it kills me. I ought to reprimand myself. Everyone is trying their best. We cannot fight our battles with someone else just because we are not done with fighting with ourselves. It indeed is very exasperating to carry such a burden in our hearts when we could be doing so much more with a clean conscience. The more I write here, calm washes ashore all over me. This has been a lesson. Sometimes in my overstretched reverie, I see...

One of my quieter friends, while on a trip to a beach standing on the ferry showed me some seagulls flying above the muddy waters. He said, look above you and stretch your vision as far as you may so that you remember this moment and me. I was so overwhelmed with the surroundings and his words, considering I was very young then, that I kept my eyes focused on the flying seagulls for a long time until our other friends dragged us out of the ferry. Such a sweet, passing moment but one that still finds me in the grip of memories till date whenever I think of that trip. My friend reiterated how he found melancholy in the flight of the seagulls and because I was a tad too softhearted back then I saw myself searching for the sorrow and misery of their flight. It didn't help that we both spoke about the passage of time and our tirade through the bouncing college life that we were supposed to leave in another year or two for our graduation. I kept the conversation in my head for a long t...

All my resistance to buying monsoon footwear landed me in a soup a few times in September. I ended up sitting through an entire day in wet sports shoes that made my skin itch horribly not to mention red rashes that made me throw away the shoes for good. So last Sunday upon my Mother's umpteenth persuasion to buy new shoes I landed up at a local shoe store to buy some workable comfortable monsoon footwear. I thought I was clear when I told the salesman to show me comfortable non-slid grip sole shoes or sandals when he kept showing me all the fancy strapped slick sandals that all the women were wearing and are popular in the market. Finally to get rid of all the glitter and strap, I chose ballerina flat sole shoes that I thought would be comfortable for walking and some running too. Imagine my horror when I wore the shoes for some 8 hours straight and nearly killed my feet from swelling. These are the worst kind of shoes designed for women-kind, I wonder why women tend to harm ...

I joined Instagram one fine day in June after deactivating all other social networking platforms. I used to be cynical about Instagram, labelling it as narcissistic people's socialising but after becoming yet another member, I realised there are two sides to everything. Instagram quickly became my favourite virtual hangout for looking at photographic skills of people from around the globe. There's so much quirkiness and lively spirit there. There are some crazy bibliophiles who update such beautifully composed images of their book reads and I am absolutely transfixed by their creative efforts and genius in doing so consistently. One thing that I have learned after being on Instagram is that it runs on dedication of its members. If people weren't so keen on uploading and updating their travel, food, book images, it wouldn't interest cynics like me to actually get up and check what all the hype is all about. I now understand what it is like breaking my own prejudice...

Yes, amidst every single manageable piece of news published in our world is the left out unmanageable piece that did not become the ink in print. Why do we project our unhappiness unto others? There are some questions that make their way into my head quite often. One of the many such is finding ways to rediscovering my potential and being content to the point of happy. I know there are a thousand theories about how being content is the real happiness and that happiness is only real when shared, which I also hugely believe in but at times my cynical side refuses to focus upon. So how did we really learn to manage things? Is this one of those vague terms that haunts people after a certain age? Most importantly, has age got anything to do with the frequent occurrence of such questions? I hope not. Just last week, while being on a site visit, I was supposed to climb a very steep stairway that led to the occupied terrace portion of a skyscraper. My initial first few seconds reaction w...

Sometimes I feel like a lamb. Mostly, I try to be a lioness! This is so strange that we keep up pretences to convince ourselves and maybe, others too, that EVERYTHING IS ALRIGHT! But is it? What is it that makes us become these different individuals than who we really are? Because we are all searching ourselves in this big crowd of a world. A lot has happened in the past few weeks. I think I have just fallen in love with who I am as a person. Do I sound narcissistic? I mean, there are times when we don't like ourselves. I was probably dwelling on the same feelings. I no longer do. The events that changed this thinking are fairly normal, everything that happens with a regular person. I met new people because of work, got out of my shell, realised the love that lies outside in the world and here I am, all new and fresh as a dew! It's wonderful, like an elixir that's working on me right now. Good people always bring the best in us! I also saw a movie I had been told abou...