The Rebelle blog

Such a calm, contented day today. Like every year, when this day comes there is an excitement, barrage of good wishes from friends and family and the quiet celebration with my loved ones. Last year was a lockdown birthday and so is this year. I am full of gratitude for good health, and peace of mind. I have had the means to indulge my spirits in Art and Poetry, conversations with some of my constant friends since forever. What more could I ask?  And, yet like every year, I think of my ambitions, my desires and goals and everything that I wish to accomplish with the same fervour. April comes and goes too soon. It marks a time that gives me reason to go ahead, something about the excruciating long lazy hot days puts everything else in perspective. I wouldn't have pegged myself a seasonal person, but I am. My moods aggravate and elevate with the change in seasons. Perhaps I am so since childhood but only understanding being like this in my adulthood. Funny and amusing that as I go bac...

Once more, I look at the light and cherish the cool wintry and frosty dreamlike feelings that engulf me. Such a boon to be able to feel and withdraw into this imaginary abyss of warmth with the longing one always lives with. Tonight is no different. I am surrounded with art, books, a state of mind that hovers and lingers leaving a warm effusion of belonging. The cold has a quality that bites into mushier memories leaving a song, some lyrics, music, a tear long dried, smiles and warm tones, poetry that drives me back to a time and era I hadn't been into. Just because I sense and remain in the moment to experience this December chill. And, Norah Jones croons for December, once again! Won't you come back with snow, and pine cones, sun and shades of white for me to paint? I am of course, romanticizing the idea of December, hoping to go beyond this year and begin afresh with new dreams, feeling bright, feeling kind the way a new start makes me do! Being here, warm with skies the sha...

We are all where we should be!  Read this in a book today and as if on autopilot mode, my mind went back through days and months and years from my recent past. Are we all really where we should be or where we ought to belong? A Saturday as today where I have only popped medicines in my mouth and slept to my weak body's content, makes me insightful at this evening hour. All of us are together and yet drowned in our individual worlds. There's much to the situation. Unstable outside and seething inside about it.  Today morning started with a strange dream where I thought I was seeing myself because I could hear my voice except the face wasn't mine. Nor was the house where I saw myself moving about in the dream. Then I woke up and all memory and context of it is gone. I can scarcely remember any other detail although I heard my voice. It is not my nature to dwell too much upon dreams but this definitely got me intrigued until now. Then there are things that we lose...

Why do Yesterdays seem better than Todays?  Just when I was pondering over this thought, I came across a British Adventurer, Tom Morgan going on a trip  Around the World flying with helium balloons .  He seemed inspired by the 2009 movie, Up  where a seventy-eight-year-old man goes on an adventure in his flying house carried by balloons. It was such a visually beautiful imagery to see those colourful balloons tied up to the house through its chimney stack lifting the house and then soaring high in the skies.  Photograph: Pixar/Sportsphoto Ltd/Allstar These two images conjured up beautiful emotions within my heart. Human lives are full of adventure and the endless possibilities of finding magic in the most bizarre situations. The various factors that bring in all this happiness and love for new are possible only when people take an initiative on their own. The treasures of this life are left hidden for us to discover and find ourselves in ...

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...

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...

The house feels cold. Bereft of the familiar I sit on the chair, waiting... Wanting to feel the surge of creativity but, everything is a blank canvas. My head hurts even more than the heart aches at this loss of opportunities of things gone by grudgingly, some that make me repent endlessly. The moaning the anger that spits in my throat unable to find a voice. Wrong choices haunt so long, so far the wait turns the dead clock hands into a vintage archive waiting to be discovered by another dreamer and jughead.

All writers are a sum of their experiences. Heard this in an independent movie I saw on a dreary rainy morning. It might be a little delusional to write about seeing the starry night before it started raining so hard that it was impossible not to curse the fat raindrops for blocking my glasses. I ate a giant scoop of cold ice-cream that cut harshly through my teeth and sent shivering down my entire body. I walked in the rain, aware of the water gushing through the streets and through my summer sandals. I don't know why I wear them usually in the rains. Something about splashing water around the ankles makes disliking the rains a little bit more acceptable. Last night, I had strange dreams about my friends who are readers. I met them in my dream while they were tying their shoelaces, ready to spring through glass doors with yellow walls. Amusing how I can recollect these little details but not the actual conversation from the dream. One of them was crying over something and I h...

Four months into the year already. How quickly is time running by us! One moment it was the first day of a new year and the next, we are onto the beginning of summer. Each year, I go through the April anxiety I have lived for the past decade. It is a divider between my to-do things in year and the ones I've accomplished. Somehow, the first three months always are terrible. I go through a lot of disappointments till March. Probably it is because I am always unsure of what I am supposed to do and I cannot get out of the 'will fail' mindset. But then April arrives and everything turns over, takes a new leaf over my messed tree of thoughts. Something about time is so colloquially apt in our lives. Our race is not against time, but against ourselves. I don't hint to the past or the future but the present in which we struggle so hard to establish our existence on the timepiece. My Dad always said to me after I failed at something that there's always a next time . I ...

I am happy and I feel guilty about it. There's so much grief and sadness and tragedy taking place around us everyday and that makes me question if my happiness really deserves a mention here. Let me express it here though. I have exams coming up in the next ten days and I've been quite stressed over all the academic work. But I have found a great source to relieve all this stress. It's called Sketchbook Express. It is an Autodesk digital painting software. I have always been wary of using software. I love handmade stuff, designs, cards everything. I just took to using it and created something from my childhood. It's a very special dream sequence.  As a kid, I dreamt of oceans and undersea kingdoms a lot besides dreaming of aeroplanes and skies. So, here I was recreating my childhood fantasy world. I was a huge believer and admirer of Mermaids and Magic. Just the other day my younger sister asked me if I ever felt disappointed by the fact that magic was not real,...

And the storm rages on! There is a big one inside me, right now. I don't quite know how to contain it. It's a very confusing thought to ponder upon because everything is so hazy and blurry and I can't see clear through anything. I have always had a strong clarity of thought since I know how to express and articulate the happenings in my life. But I just don't feel so confident or self-assured about my strong convictions these days. It's like a bizarre dream I am in, only I can't see what it ends in and where it leads me ahead. I have always, always had a very clear journey chartered in front of me, I have visualised the paths that lead me to my goals. I have been headstrong about having a desire, a dream and a vision and the fiercest of beliefs that I am going to make this all come true. Down these years, sometimes my focus has loosened its hold upon the dreams and the passion too, so I feel haywire now. I am constantly looking for inspiration from outside...

Some books never leave us. They remain fixed in our minds and psyche. One such that remains in mine is A Tree grows in Brooklyn by Betty Smith.  The title of this novel refers to a tree that grows persistently up through the concrete and harsh conditions of a poor tenement neighbourhood in early 1900's Brooklyn. It also symbolises Francie Nolan's struggle through her life. When I first read it in 2010, I was going through a very important academic submission- an Architecture  thesis. As I read through the pages, I looked at Francie as myself. I grew up with her along the pages. She lived in me. I remember sobbing, and crying while reading her plight but she also gave me tremendous courage and filled me with an undying fighter spirit. The book was written in 1943 and describes a turn of the century story of the Nolans from 1900-1919. I recall reading and visualising Francie sitting in the Fire Escape harbouring dreams of an education and better life for her family and herself...

एक सपने सा लगता है वो दिन। पहाड़ों में घूमने का मेरा हमेशा से ही अरमान रहा था। वो ऊँचे देवदार के वृक्ष, पाईन के कोनो को ज़मींन पर पाना और सफ़ेद रंग का हर तरफ दिखना। ऐसे दृश्य देखकर मुझे अक्सर हिंदी फिल्मों के गाने याद आते है। इतना फिल्मों से लगाव नहीं है जितना गानों से है, खासकर वो गानें जो मूलतः कविता के रूप में लिखी गई थी और उसे संगीत का साज चढ़ाकर फिल्मों में पेश किया गया। मेरे पिताजी ने उनके शिमला के वास्तव दौरान की कई सारी Black & White तस्वीरें  आज तक सहेज कर रखी है। जब कभी मेरा मन होता है, मैं उन्हें देख लेती हूँ। रंगीन तस्वीरों की भी अलग ही बात होती है। रंग जैसे आज का दौर दिखलाती है, वहीं B&W रंगीन शीशों को पार कर गुजरे जमाने में ले जाती है। मानो हम इतिहास में यात्रा कर रहे हों। मसुरी, देहरादून, अल्मोड़ा - ये सारी जगहें बचपन में किसी जादुई नगरी सी लगती थी। आज भी लगती है, किंतु बचपन में हमारी कल्पनाशक्ति जैसे होती है, जिस निरागस भाव से बच्चें दुनिया निहारते है, वो नज़रिया बड़े होकर लुप्त हो जाता हैं। अपनी मासूमियत को जीवित रखने का हम सब प्रयास तो कर ही सकते है।  ...

April's coming to an end. So quick. On my birthday, while waiting for a dear friend's call I thought about life's bittersweet moments. The ones where I dreamt big, where I accomplished some task that my heart had written off as unachievable, when I genuinely felt happy and felt alive. After talking to my friend, I realised how our lives seem sprinkled with oddities and yet we sieve our ways through them?! What is that fuel that rockets our dreams? And, will I ever get to realize my dream? Actually, what is my biggest dream? I haven't thought about it; I only see fragments and bits of light in my mind, fluttering through pages and freshly dried ink. I smell words hanging in the air, and my eyes piece stories and ideas somewhere on an invisible canvas. Is writing deceitful? Do I write the truest things? Do I mean what I always write? Or my ideas find mere allegiance to words and they dissolve in the mind itself? What is it to be in love with life? Why am I asking so ma...

Sometimes, my dreams are so incoherent.. not that I would like them to be rational always, but when they make sense, it feels great! Last night, I had a long conversation with one of my best friends, and such good talk always leaves me in a very happy spirit. Because I was happy when I went to sleep, I had a really happy yet weird dream today morning. It has been raining continuously throughout the night and the sound of rain partially awoke me, so that I was still half- asleep yet could sense the movements and chaos in the house. Here's what I dreamt of! I am walking on the road with my younger sister, and we stop by a stationery shop when I see some Inland letters and Envelopes on display. I ask the shopkeeper for them, and he promptly hands them over to me, when to my surprise I see my name on the envelop. Its addressed to me, complete with my name and an affixed stamp. I read it and its from one of my lost mails. (Since a few months now, my mail is not reaching my address- ...

Sometimes I wish I didn't think in words  and that instead for each thought I thought I drew upon an image,  and that I was able to organize each image in a linear way that would be like sort of like reading  and that instead of trying to describe the edges around something  I could just think the color around the edges of the image to be darker,  that the detail on the image could become more or less detailed depending on how much clarity I believe I needed to disclose at the time  For instance, instead of saying love, I could just think watermelon  I could just think of a watermelon cut in half, laying open on a picnic table  The inside would be just as moist as it was pink  I could picture cutting up pieces and giving them out to my friends.  It wouldn't have to be sunny  It wouldn't have to be anything else then just that  It would really simplify my walk home at night,  where every thought ...

This is an interesting read! When I studied Hagia Sophia in school, its beauty imprinted my heart! Turkey has always been a mystical land of the Great Eastern Culture and symbolized to me Constantinople's conquests and Constantine's architectural vision that made Istanbul one of the best cities during the Roman/Ottoman Empire.   The cover art is sheer beauty! The warm, fuzzy yellow catches the eye first and immediately touches the heart. This is my first Orhan Pamuk book and I am in total awe of this wonderful writer. His melancholic verses on his city and childhood, dreams and magic, walks through the city made me peep into my childhood memories and all those fascinating walks through the by-lanes of Mumbai. Every word of his resonated with my memories of Mumbai- the city I love so much. Perhaps, sometimes its difficult to understand how people fall in love with cultures or cities or Urban Spaces(such an architectural term I use here!), however, people with pa...