The Rebelle blog

There is this thing about reading that is unique and personal to each. It awakens feelings and thoughts that one could not have conjured while sitting idly. Although that is too much of an overstatement to be true. But whenever I share my reads on a public platform like Goodreads or Instagram where book stories are put under the hashtag of bookstagram , I feel the result is pretty much the same as sharing them with someone in person. There are so many amazing people who are bold, uninhibited and clear while speaking their mind, especially on the internet. Some of them have become such good friends of mine even though we haven't met or have no possibility of meeting in the near future. I am sounding more like the pessimist but it is true, sadly.  One can't live on books and thus is effectively proved in a book I read two days ago. It's called, The House of Paper written by Carlos Dominguez . It came as a very timely shocker and a reminder to me since I was drifting in...

I wrote a short story and shared it with a friend for his reviews. Now, I am unable to improve upon on the suggested changes. I am stuck. I now understand what a writer's bloc is. It feels like I can't progress beyond what I had originally penned down. Sometimes, it becomes so important to change the course of things in our own way. My friend's suggestions are excellent and all are completely relevant, I still, however can't come to terms with an alternate solution for replacing situations in the story. Partly because, I was the character who lived through every word and moment of the story.  Suddenly it feels like I am being thwarted from my seat by a force that wants me to be more angry and powerful than I am in the story. My emotions need to be more raw and hard than I let them to be. It is difficult for me to transgress into an unknown territory of emotional upheavals particularly when I lived through the characters' persona. Nevertheless, I keep reminding...

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,...

I've been talking to a lot of people these days. This is for one of them. While interacting with different age groups, I've realised how much I get to learn from them. Sometimes I've felt too stagnated and opinionated on certain issues, these people help clear the fog instantly. Also it's a great idea to put forth our views without feeling repressed or judgemental about them too. I believe when such freedom of thought is accorded, people open up more comfortably and the conversation gets a direction. In this age of instant communication mediums, we've lost that subtle art of expressing our feelings. There are a hundred messages from our coworkers and friends and acquaintances all that begin and stop within two sentences usually: "Hi. What's up? Been long." Not that I wouldn't be happy when someone I haven't spoken to in ages greets me first, but the happiness is really short lived when I discover we don't have anything to carry further ou...

Now that there are a ton of exams that I'm preparing for this year, and one of them happens to have a compulsory paper on my mother tongue. It suddenly seems daunting to take on a language I've loved since my childhood. And, not just loved, I was (am?) very good at it. How did I assess myself to be good? Because I read a lot of Marathi books, children's magazines, newspapers. These days, and ever since I started Architecture school, the only language that I've conversed, breathed, thought and read is English. It's the universal language. Everybody in India understands English these days. Speak of Globalization. So, Marathi is where I am a bit nervous. Not that I don't speak the language anymore or I've any trouble with it, but increasingly over the years the relation and affinity have spiralled downwards. Not that I had many friends who spoke the language and the few that did, were speaking a horrible mix of English, Hindi and Marathi. Nothing gets mor...