The Rebelle blog

Today is the kind of Sunday when I am too drunk on happiness and on music! All it takes for the heart to be happy is a memory and a warm embrace of love we feel for people and everything around us. This peppy cheer is keeping my spirits high and there is a kind of मदहोशी all around. How happy do I feel! And, I am not going to worry about it being impermanent. Something has changed inside me.  I feel like flying high and away, over the clouds and see the world beneath my wings over a swooping glance! My mind is lost in thoughts as I look back over the years and yet there are butterflies in my stomach about the future. I feel like my younger self from last decade when life was so full of things to explore, the world around me was huge and the eagerness to see it all made it so exciting. Every day was a new experience and I was lost in it, trying to find ways to go more deeper in and it felt like I was everywhere. I remember the laughter and tears, the madness and crazy adventure...

Okay, I am super happy today. It was the happiest weekend I had in years. The reason being, I met my friend and the family over a function and we all enjoyed and had a lovely, peaceful, memorable time. Nobody and nothing screwed my mood nor were there any unpleasantries that lurked around as they do when the celebrations start coming to an end. Every laughter was so genuine and heartfelt that I never felt like an insider in their family. That is the best part of being well-behaved and popular with your friends and their families.  On a serious note, I had some insightful conversations with people whose opinions matter to me. And they reflected what I understand to be genuine empathy and concern for whatever I am doing these days. It is extremely important to have support systems in life be they in the form of family or friends. Today, as the International Family Day comes to an end in a few hours from now, I would say, be grateful for your family, for the unconditional lov...

I just came back from meeting a friend who is home on a holiday. I was excited about meeting her because she only flies down home once a year and her stay at home lasts exactly a week. So we met and got talking about life, hers and mine, and friends when I told her about my academic plans. Now I regret it. A casual interaction with her has left me feeling depressed about my choices in life. They might not have been as brilliant and bright like hers but they have been my own. I take full responsibility for my life's decisions and how I have handled different things to come so far. It hurt to feel so demeaned by someone I once looked up to. So, while walking back home I kept thinking of ways one could be happy or at least pretend to be to avoid some embarrassment in public or with friends and family. Since I am no Mr. Bean, this post does not display any humour and perhaps the seriousness might not get down well with everyone reading the post. I go ahead with these TEN WAYS ...

My Dad is on a cleaning spree today. So, I joined him too. We started from cleaning the Air Conditioning unit. Much to my Dad's chagrin, a pair of pigeons had set up their luxurious abode behind the unit. I pulled a face at the items we found in the nest; long thin knitting needles, chocolate wrappers, cotton, pigeon poop, yarn threads and pen refills. My Dad meticulously cleaned the area, sprayed a disinfectant over it and dusted the cobwebs off the external walls. It was a lot of work. Dad is like a superman with a vacuum cleaner and I was his glad assistant. It's fun to work with my father. He cracks jokes and tells me his school memories, we often end up laughing for long hours. Tomorrow we are cleaning the old trunks and the books inside them. Since we are running out of space now in our house for stocking newer books, Dad and me have decided to have a look inside the trunks and chuck unnecessary material. Both of us have an undying love for the old. We store magazin...

I love showing people around this city I love so much! Mumbai- city of dreams, hard work, happy spirits and a melting pot of people from all over India. Truly, it gives an opportunity to everyone. So, when a school friend called up one fine sunday morning to give news that he was in town, we quickly arranged a monday meet. Place of meeting- Victoria Terminus- Trust me no one can get lost here. Although it's said that most people get lost at railway stations, not at this terminus. Our wonderful encounter started with walking past Azad Maidan, through khau galli (eatery lane in english, though its not a formal name!), catching up on the last few years. The stroll through leafy enclaves in Marine Lines made us aware we were starving throughout. A sumptuous meal accompanied with Cranberry Juice and buying Tinkle issues for ourselves which we later signed for each other made for a great laughter session. I kept pointing Art Deco structures, and spouting history too. My friend is a pa...

2003! My first year of Junior College. Till that point, I had a very limited world. I knew some selected friends from school and it was usually home to school and back. The junior college acquainted me with vernacular medium students for the first time. It was great fun to try to speak in Marathi because most of them couldn't process English quickly. I got some of my best friendships there. LIVI, my bestie since 2003 now, is one of the nicest persons I've met in my life. I remember when we had just introduced ourselves in class and during the lunch break, she called me to share food. It was my foray into a warm friendship that would last for many more years to come. Our talks revealed our book love and thus we started staying together, leaving by the same train after college hours. One morning, I was late but was so excited to tell her something. I had heard Enrique Iglesias's song "Rhythm Divine" on TV the day before and was so enamoured by it. (Now that I ...

Some days I wonder: 1. How important is happiness to us? 2. How important is it to express our joy? 3. How important is laughter, on a daily basis? 4. How important is it to share our feelings? 5. How important is it to exhibit love? These five questions are essentially what makes life worth living. Our existence irrespective of our monetary possessions, actually revolves only around these five questions. If there are more, I would be happy to know them.

I have been reading a lot of Hindi Poetry lately. My interest sparked after reading a few poems in a book diary. Thereafter, I got hold of hindi magazines like Hans, Dnyanodaya, Pakshadhar, Bahuvachan, Vagarth, Pahal, Udbhawana, Kathadesh, Aahwaan and poetry books on Agyey, Raghuvir Sahay, Chandrakant Devtale. The other day, I was reading an article by Gulzar in a sunday supplement. Therein, he mentioned of what drives him to write poetry. I got influenced by his words and promptly took to penning down mine, Since, I've been reading a lot of poetry these days, my first two poems took shape quite easily. I'm posting a poem here that's essentially memories of my father and me from my childhood. This is my first attempt at hindi poetry. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- बचपन की यादें किताबों में खो जाना पाया विरासत में उनसे मैंने। खो कर ...