The Rebelle blog

....find balance and keep the circle flowing!  I woke up today to find myself entirely unable to cope up with the change in weather after having spent the last few days transitioning between different places. That feeling of being lost, and not able to pin a certain emotion as to how I really felt pushed me into a deeper abyss of chaos. My mind was reeling with a thousand clumsy thoughts of not belonging to anywhere whereas I wanted to, so badly.  Come evening, and I unleashed my chaos on to a paper with a yellow paint. Strangely it felt so calm and familiar as I kept going around in circles with the paint brush. The swirls kept moving around in all directions even as my mind kept wandering between people and their stories and my own unfinished conversations with them. I took to writing in my diary everything that happened over the past few days and yet as I went through some pages, I felt like an outsider getting to know little details from a stranger's life. I have had this ...

It's a cold night. I am sitting by the window, and the house is alive with its sounds and smells. I bought some Champa flowers in the evening, promptly put one in my hair and then forgot about it. Just as I was thinking of putting on some music to relieve the drowsiness from the day, some other work has me distracted.  We are working on some wardrobe changes in the house. I promptly work on design software and show 3D images to my parents. They still trust and go with the word of the good old carpenter (Mestry) as we call him. While rethinking for the wardrobe, I realize the vast amount of old junk me and my Dad have harnessed over the years. His is from the late '70s and mine has been sitting there as beloved childhood treasure that includes books, magazines, toys, memorabilia in the form of medals and trophies. I remember what a source of pride it used to be to collect trophies for various achievements in school. Later as I grew up, during college times the sheen of tro...

हळूहळू मनावरचा ताण सैल झाला. उन्हात बसले, हसले, काही जुन्या गोष्टी आठवल्या. क्षणात सकाळपासून दाटून आलेलं मळभ दूर झालं. आधी छातीत धडधडलं, हात थरथरले, मग काहीतरी माझ्या आत निवळलं. आपल्या मनाला सतत एखाद्या टॉनिकची गरज असते. ते टॉनिक मी बऱ्याच दिवसांत प्यायले नव्हते म्हणून हा सगळा उहापोह. शब्दांमध्ये काय विलक्षण सामर्थ्य असतं! माझ्या मनाला उभारी देणारे, त्याला मोकळं करणाऱ्या मैत्रिणी भेटल्या. क्षणात किती बदल झाले. माझ्या खांद्यांवर एक अनामिक ओझं मी वाहत होते, ते हलकं होत गेलं. आपला आनंद, मनःशांती आपण स्वतः शोधावी लागते. विनाकारण विचारांचं ओझं आपण घेऊन फिरत राहतो.  ऊन जसजसं वाढत गेलं, तसे मनातले दुःख वितळत गेले. आपल्या अवतीभवती किती सुंदर जग आहे. आपण सगळं विसरून केवळ स्वतः मध्ये रममाण होत जातो आणि मग त्या सातत्याचा देखील कंटाळा येत राहतो. नवीन काहीतरी करण्याची उर्मी विरून जाते. जसा आनंद शोधता यायला हवा, तशीच स्वयं- प्रेरणा देखील आपण जागृत करायला हवी. फार गुरफुटून गेलोय आपण एकाच ध्यासाच्या मागे. सगळे करतात, पूर्ण जग तसंच चाललंय म्हणून त्यांच्यासारखे होण्याचा आणि करण्याचा अट्टहास आत...

Early in August this year, I went to a book exhibition with Shree and we spent a delightful four hours amidst all that treasure trove. That day, I had to let go off a few books including Ruskin Bond's The Writer on the Hill and I regretted it for a while.    Last Saturday, while strolling through the familiar lanes of Fort, I found myself walking towards Strand Book Stall and once inside, lost in its charm. To my delight, I saw a lone copy of Ruskin Bond's anthology of selected fiction and non-fiction nestled among Harry Potter's new shiny editions. Mr Bond shines from anywhere. Before anyone else came to claim it, I pounced on it and held it close. Many of the stories are from his books on Dehra and Mussoorie. I have read them all before, have them memorized since my growing years. His charm never fades away. December reads are always special.  This year is coming to an end. I can still recollect the first day of 2017 and how I spent it. Every single detail. Yet it...

I severely despise drama, melodrama, malaise of all kinds. And yet here I am spending an October Saturday in misery over the way people can't deal with their problems. Anger and Anxiety are going to be the death of this world. Just last night the news reported a survey of 31% officegoers suffering from office-related stress in my city. I actually feel that number is at least 91%! If only all of us learnt to live (and, lie alternately) in harmony and in unison, there would be no stress and participation in such grisly surveys. But, this is life and we are the saddest lot in it. Unfortunately, I am not in my very best spirits to write here, but in the hopes that writing shall cure me of my endless suffering, I unleash my fury at the world (and, myself!).  Just today morning, I told a friend that "all conditioned things are impermanent," and while it is true generally, today it doesn't feel so. Somehow, hatred and anger and vile things have become a permanence in o...

There's a LIVE timebomb ticking within all of us. Isn't it slightly infuriating to be at the helm of such anxiety and nervousness? A number of things that could make us miserable, change our cheery demeanour to a sullen state of chaos, unable to comprehend the workings of this complicated system. We are all beings in a fixed mechanism of state and individual power. We are controlled by forces we live with daily. They include our people from our families, workspace, acquainting life sphere. The set of rules bogs me down each time I look at a detached view of this being. Since I am alive in this great era of science, modernity and opportunities, why does it still seem inadequate? Like every other parent-children disagreements, I am seething with one too over the most mundane and silliest of topics. Such is life. I think it was Anais Nin who wrote that "I am a series of moods and sensations. I play a thousand roles...My real self is unknown." How I so appropriately...

Doesn't that happen with all of us? At some point in our lives, there comes a moment when everything seems to dissipate into nothingness, without any meaning and further direction. There are these mocking days and then there are good ones! And sometimes there's a delightful feeling when one thing leads to another... Today evening, I immersed in one such serendipity. It started with Ezra Pound's poem that got me and an acquaintance talking for a long hour and then I got hooked further on Homer's Illiad, Garcia Lorca's verses, Blake's Songs of Innocence and the very surprisingly lyrical Anne Bronte. I have an utterly beautiful hardback copy of Anne Bronte's Agnes Grey, and I haven't read it yet. It sits on a low shelf in my drawing room surrounded by David Copperfield and The Yearling.  Anne Bronte truly took me by surprise. One of her poems, A Reminiscence tugged at my heartstrings. She died very young, aged 29. Somehow I feel a close bond with wri...

If you have the words, there's always a chance that you'll find the way. So wrote Seamus Heaney. This sweltering heat is making me go nuts. I have just come back home today after yet another two days of continuous travelling to a city I love with all my heart except the heat makes me want to slither into a cool cave and wait there until summer ends. I have also been strongly fighting against the urge of not being able to churn out words lately. Seems like my brain has melted all the thinking nerves. Right now, the news on TV is running a reel on water shortage and drought in villages not far from Mumbai's peripheral areas. Water from rivers and dams located in these villages was supplied via pipelines to the Greater Mumbai and Thane suburbs. Now, the residents there travel for miles and often into other villages in search of a pot of water. Borewells and groundwater reserves have long depleted and the only visible proof of an existence of a river are the remnants o...

पुस्तकांच्या आणि निसर्गाच्या साथीत जेवढा वेळ छान जातो आणि सार्थकी लागल्यासारखा वाटतो तितका खचितच कुठेतरी अन्यत्र वाटतो. नवीन वर्षात केलेल्या संकल्पांपैकी एक म्हणजे वाचलेल्या प्रत्येक पुस्तकावर स्वतःचं विवेचन लिहिणं. सुरुवात तर झाली आहे. साहित्य संमेलनाच्या निमित्ताने आणि वर्ष अखेरीच्या पार्श्वभूमीवर मुंबईतल्या बऱ्याच बुक स्टोर्सनी भर भक्कम डिसकाउंट जाहीर केला होता. मी देखील नाही नाही म्हणता लोभाला भुलून पार ATM मध्ये जाऊन पैसे काढून पुस्तकं खरेदी केलीत वर्षाच्या शेवटच्या दिवशी. टिव्ही वरच्या असंख्य कार्यक्रमांवर नजर फिरवल्यास असं चित्र दिसतं कि समाजाच्या नैतिक मूल्यांशी कार्यक्रम बनवणाऱ्यांच काहीच घेणं-देणं दिसत नाही. माणसांची पतच एवढी रसातळाला गेली आहे कि कपोलकल्पित आणि वास्तव जग यांची चांगलीच सरमिसळ आपण करून ठेवली आहे आणि त्यातून बाहेर पडण्याचे आपले काहीच मनसुबे वाटत नाही. आज सकाळी विचार करता करता माझ्या असं लक्षात आलं कि आपण किती उगाच खलबतं करतो, आपला दुरान्वये संबंध नसलेल्या गोष्टींबद्दल. काल रात्री जेवताना मी कुमार केतकरांचं "बदलते विश्व" हे साधारण दहा वर्षांपूर्व...

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...

I started reading The Outsider by Albert Camus last night after a not-so-great reading week. It dawned upon me as I started going further in the book that this was about a man, a young bloke who is seemingly unambitious about his life. I instantly wanted to shut the book and stack it away from my reach. While we all know that Camus's writing is depressing as hell, this book particularly came as a surprise to me. The young man who perhaps mirrors a life most of the people live, subconsciously, mostly to just fill their stomachs, work the grind of eat, sleep, earn money, raise families and then die, here this young man doesn't seem to have a purpose in living. He works at a small office, is unresponsive to work in the manner that when his boss asks him about shifting to and working in Paris to head operations of their office, he declines the opportunity. The woman who he is friends with asks him if he'll marry her and he replies saying if she wants marriage he'll marry...

I wish there were a way to deal with uncertainty. I know I have reiterated about it a thousand times here, but I haven't exactly figured out a way to deal with it effectively and steadily. All that uncertainty does to me is spirals me into an endless abyss of self-doubt and negativity about my capabilities. Why does this happen so often, is beyond my understanding?! These self-inflicted judgements aren't helping one bit to help me come out of this misery. Worse that happens is I get deviated and disturbed from my path of work. I must find an effective and long-term solution for this problem post in my life. No matter however much I am trying, it sometimes feels that my efforts are way too less and half-hearted. I still have the fear of failure but it doesn't stem from lacking confidence or less preparation; it's more about letting myself and the people who have supreme faith in me down. This has made me so anti-social as well. Of course, I can't go back in time an...

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.

This story was an entry for a nation wide short story contest organised by Times of India as part of their Write India Campaign. Acclaimed authors in India gave a passage prompt and readers had to incorporate it in their stories. The story that I wrote was to have an intonation of loss in it. Since the competition is over now and the winners have also been declared, I can publish it here. I wrote it in April and the results were announced in last week of May. This was my very first attempt at writing a short story based on an outline. Here's hoping I did a fair job at it. The author prompt is the first paragraph of this story. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ It was the first thought that came to her as she woke up. He was gone. And, soon, this bedroom, the house in whose eastern corner it sat, and the tiny garden outside with its gnarle...

I don't know what made me come up with this title but there's something that's going on in the back of my mind that I haven't given enough thought. I read about being two people at once in our brain while we are really struggling to emote ourselves into the world to other people and perhaps, to ourselves too. I have been visiting a place that has a lot of full-length floor-to-ceiling mirrors and I think they are making me very conscious of the images that keep relayed on all walls because everywhere I look, I see myself looking back with different eyes. It's very creepy to feel my own eyes on myself through these mirrors. I don't know how and when mirrors became an integral part of our human existence since I cannot recollect what our ancestors did without mirrors back then. But then we forget that the standards of beauty were yet to be defined back then. This post is not about body images/ beauty/ physical perfection or the likes but more about delving into t...

काही लोकांना वेंधळेपणा करण्याची एवढी सवय जडली असते कि कितीही त्यांनी काळजीने काम करण्याचा प्रयत्नापुर्वक निश्चय केला तरीही तो कधी तडीस जात नाही. मला माहित असलेल्या काही वेंधळ्या माणसांबद्दल सांगायचं झालं तर त्याचं प्रत्येक काम किंवा कृती हि इतरांसाठी तापदायकच ठरते बहुतेक वेळा. म्हणजे विद्यार्थ्यांच्या बाबतीत म्हणायचं झालं तर त्यांना परीक्षेत अभ्यास आठवेल का याचं टेन्शन असतं पण तरीही त्यातल्यात्यात त्यांच्या वेंधळेपणात कुठेही कसूर रहात नाही. अगदी परीक्षेची सामग्री नीट घेण्यापासून ते ओळखपत्र, परीक्षेत व्यवस्थित पेपर लिहिण्यापर्यंत सगळ्या गोष्टींमध्ये यांचा धांदरटपणा दिसून येतो. अशा लोकांच्या बेजबाबदार वागण्याची किंमत त्यांच्या परीजनांना भोगावी लागते याचं त्यांना सोयरसुतक देखील नाही. शेवटी काय तर माणूस स्वतःच्या स्वार्थाचाच विचार करतो. मला तर अतिशय राग आहे अशा लोकांच्या आप्पल्पोटेपणाची. त्यांच्या जगाचे ते राजे, सगळं भूमंडल फक्त यांच्या अवतीभवतीच फिरत असल्याचा यांचा फाजील गोड गैरसमज. आपल्यामुळे समोरच्याला केवढा मानसिक त्रास सोसावा लागत असेल याचा थांगपत्तासुद्धा अशा लोकांना नसतो मु...

......Books, quotes, poetry, words, images, music, conversations, people, laughter, sorrow, belonging-- things that I discover fresh from my memories. Umberto Eco makes me want to dwell into the many confines of events that now lay bundled together in my brain. Sometimes, rain does this- invokes a melancholy of people and bygone events. Music also makes me wander into the deep recesses of my dreams and nostalgia stored away. I remember a time when I thought travel was the ultimate way of getting away from stress and the mundane chaos of everyday life. But even this illusion broke its wings quickly. I realised and understood that travel couldn't substitute for the longing I felt in my heart for things unknown. It was just another route on the way to discovering ourselves, a means to say. Sometimes after reading auto-biographies I fall in awe of all these greats who could remember great details from their early lives or perhaps, they had made notes of it. What an absurd thought...

Love words, agonize over sentences. And pay attention to the world. - Susan Sontag. Time is stronger than sorrow. - Mahashweta Devi. Two of my favourite writers teach me about love, sorrow and its gradual burial by time. How I wish life were not 'this' complicated. For every written word, there's a wrong interpretation and a big misunderstanding. Guess we earn all the sorrow and misery that love and words bring with them. If only, human mind and tongues were not twisted in such a vile way that we destroy hearts and people and take pride in doing so. Here's wishing Gabriel Garcia Marquez a very happy birthday and my deepest respects. Had it not been for reading his Colombian journalistic articles, I would have remained gravely unaware of the political and social unrest brewing there for decades. Reading Gabo's (as he was fondly called) accounts of the everyday militant brutality in Latin America in the 60's acquainted me with civil society's worst...

Just when I think happiness is here to stay, something unpleasant happens. Shit happens. Not even the Buddha could help peace to extend its stay in my abode. Anger is very dangerous. But I am so disappointed, so heart broken. How pathetic that just today I was reading Russell quote- Man has the springs of action within him for he is born with certain tendencies to act. External circumstances do not induce activity. They merely re-direct it. Who would've thought? I am reminded of those days when this instability and uncertainty instilled fear in me. It shattered my belief and trust at an age when perhaps I could not fully apprehend the anger and the hurt and the reasons behind them. It's a wonder that I could transport back to those days of sorrow and feel remorseful at my inability to help calm the storm. Children are very sensitive to violence and domestic squabbles especially if they see that their happy abode is actually a can of worms, waiting to come out. It's...

Some people have the amazing power to play with our minds. Perhaps, we ourselves give them that key to messing with our heads. Howsoever much I try to move on from the hurt, betrayal and disappointment, she comes to haunt me again! Indeed, this must be re-playing with top speed inside my brain. And out of decency and respect, when I haven't even disclosed our problems to anyone, she questions me about it. Is this being straightforward or people have no shame? I dislike venting and harsh words, because I believe in forgiving and forgetting. This, however, is stuck to me like an ancient ghost. I have decided to stop responding. Enough now. If it's affecting me so much why should I give it so much importance? Detachment from all evils and sins, is the mantra. A cup of green tea should do some wonders. And, the only solution to this is immersing myself in work. In fact, all broken hearted, jilted people must adopt this! Drown in good things- work, studies, reading, an hobby, ...