The Rebelle blog

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...