The Rebelle blog

Today, I came across this poem written by Laurel Chen after Gwendolyn Brooks. I read it first about a year ago and promptly forgot about it seeing how I was dealing with multiple factions in my life then.  I will briefly write about what the words ignited in me today evening as I read them. It's been quite a few days and someone from my family is angry with me. We cease to talk like we did before because we've decided to not talk about the one topic that was all which was left between us. And, so, here we are. As I read the lines,  Grief is not the only geography I know. I wish I could write in words and speak of the untamed ridges that befall upon me as I take in the hurt, anger, guilt and helplessness within me. I couldn't do enough for you, and it shall remain a deep regret within me. If grief is love with nowhere to go, then  Oh, I've loved so immensely. If only I could let you believe that things happen for a reason and why being like this is better right now for a...

आज रविवार. सकाळी गच्चीवर फिरताना सभोवताली नजर फिरवली आणि गेल्या कित्येक वर्षात ह्या परिसरात रहात असताना झालेल्या बदलांचा मी मागोवा घेतला. पूर्वी सगळीकडे इथे घनदाट झाडांच्या रांगा होत्या, रस्त्याच्या दुतर्फा आणि पार डोंगरापर्यंत. मग हळूहळू मानवी वस्ती वाढायला सुरुवात झाली. आधी छोटी तुरळक घरं दिसायला लागलीत मग तीन मजली इमारती आणि आता तर टोलेजंग दहा ते पंधरा मजली गगनचुंबी इमारती. जणू आकाशाला गवसणी घालण्याकरिता त्यांच्या सगळ्यांमध्ये चढाओढ निर्माण झाली. मला आता दिसताय त्या दूर क्षितिजावर धुरकट पण तरी डौलदार अशा डोंगर रांगा. लांबून त्यांच्या स्थिर दिसणाऱ्या रेघा पाहिल्यावर एखाद्या कुंचल्याने आकाशाच्या पटलावर किती अलगद सहज रंग उमटले असा भास माझ्या मनाला स्पर्शून गेला.   वारा देखील मनातल्या आठवणींना पिंगा घालत होता. मला आठवला पावसाळ्यातला तो दिवस जेव्हा आम्ही पहिल्यांदा या नवीन घरी पाऊल टाकलं होतं. नुकत्याच सरी येऊन गेल्या होत्या आणि सगळा आसमंत मातीच्या घमघमाटात प्रसन्न भरला होता. झाडांवर पावसाचा शिडकावा इतका आल्हाददायी भासला होता. पूर्वी कधीच इतकं जवळून निसर्गाशी एकरूप होण्याची संधी...

We need Change! We need a Revolution! We need to claim our rights! and the lists of 'needs' keeps on increasing. Could we truly be two different entities in a singularly obsessed world of irregularities? You contradict me point blank and I retaliate with equal ferocity. There's a moment in being when the world stops by for a minute and a soul strikes out. Just the two of us, we can make it try. We need more than one for stirring change.   WHAT IS CHANGE? Seeing the world bending to our whims, catering to our arrogance, bowing in front of us- it is more than this- in our understanding of falling down, bruising our egos, faltering in our steps. Learning from these comparative narratives of metamorphosis. I am surrounded by chaos. An unending whirl of noises and voices confused in their paradoxical worlds enwrapped in a neverending trail of sorrows and disappointments. I feel happy when someone else corresponds to my sense of mangled turbulence. It's all chur...

I have never till date felt so defenceless over a headache! In fact, I have never given power to my body to enslave me with sickness. I have always been healthy for years. My last bout of sickness was in 2005 when I was bedridden for a week apparently from the exhaustion of travelling to and fro from college. Architecture as academics was exhausting. Instead of expanding my health issues any further here, I would like to write about my recent disinterest in blogging.  On one hand, I have been reading excessively like a mad(wo)man, devouring a couple of hundred pages every day or so, and yet I find myself bereft of words to write here. I have also met some new people, readers who have turned their passion into a business, which is too cool, I think! The more I look at people who have developed this transgression from reading and owning books and then, selling them, the more subconscious I have become about my books at home. My Dad and I share a common giant wall bookshelf with...

Sometimes I’m afraid I’m happy, but because I expect it to be something else, I question the experience. So now, when in doubt, she shrugged with true bravado, I’ll assume I’m happy.     ― Carrie Fisher, Postcards from the Edge. Something happened and all the happiness and positive spirits I was feeling are drained now. Sometimes my mind scares me with the dire things it thinks. I cannot give up. I don't give up easily. I mustn't now too. It helps to ponder over things that trouble us over a span of couple of hours. A few hours earlier I felt extremely dejected at my failure of attaining something I was confident I had in my kitty. Then, I started talking to myself about the futility of unnecessary freaking over the unoccurred and voila! I feel fit as a fiddle, not drained emotionally nor depressed at all. This only makes my resolve to seek the higher transformative powers of creating change within myself and embracing it too more stronger than ever. It's true th...

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...

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 only way to get rid of temptation,’ Oscar Wilde wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray , ‘is to yield to it.’ I am yet to experience this personally. The temptation to keep buying books when I enter book stores doesn't end even after buying more than I can carry back home. The temptation to eat sweets even though I have had more than my share is difficult to get rid off merely by yielding to it. The temptation of spending time  with my beloved ones  without watching the clock ceases to come to reality. Good things end so early. But then, we need these restrictions. We really do. Our fickle minds need some discipline. It was Ben Franklin who wrote in his Autobiography - ‘I wish’d to live without committing any fault at any time; and to conquer all that either natural inclination, custom, or company might lead me into.’ The virtues he listed were temperance, silence, order, resolution, frugality, industry, sincerity, justice, moderation, cleanliness,  tranquil...

This broke my heart. Is there more to say or anything at all after hearing this little girl's cry for peace and the lost childhood for the kids caught in civil wars? My tears won't stop but tears can't knock sense into the heads that possess power, who have inflicted these wars and hatred all over our world.

Here I am, writing the last blog post for 2015. What a wonderful year this has been! It felt like a dream, an adventure and I also had my share of a miserable few hours, but, nothing compares this year to the others. I have felt new, super charged and have had more faith than the last few years put together. 2015 gave me beautiful new people as friends, as family (I became an aunt to a nephew and niece), renewed my interest in a lot of things I had forgotten in the rat race and bought new challenges forward. I eagerly look towards 2016 for new and better opportunities, new experiences and a new me who will be brimming with happiness and enthusiasm and not be afraid of failures. I look forward to new memories and everlasting love for my beloved and good health and kindness among all. Here's to a year of peace for all, happiness, kindness and equal opportunities for the ones who deserve better and a lot more than they had earlier. Hello, 2016!

It's chaos all over in my head. Or wait, why do I feel the need to classify it as chaos? This never ending dimensional crisis to our personalities has put me in a fix- literally. One of my best friends from school, someone I know since I was six years old was going through such a big crisis in his life. He called me a few years ago when my number was the only one he remembered and my advice mattered to him, and I didn't respond then. How guilty do I feel now on learning that he needed my help. A simple gesture of listening to his problem on the phone could have bought him some peace. But I was adamant over something back then. We had had the biggest fight over something that in early 20's felt like it mattered a lot. Friendship is a vague term, a place holder actually. There's nothing like friendship that lasts forever, or a friendship where everything is perfect. No, nothing of this sort exists. We constantly evolve and grow out of our immaturity and keep balancing o...

I have always believed in having a healthy dialogue for resolving issues. Hence, the restlessness that has kept up with me over breaking up with a friend on some misunderstanding is hopefully about to end in a few days. We are slated to meet. I took the initiative, though I had to enlist our common friend to do that. We have such immense potential to be better beings and yet we restrict ourselves with unnecessary squabbles and ego hassles. When I was younger, I remember walking away if anybody ever quarrelled with me. I wasn't good at speaking up for myself. I thought 'less the said' was better. Now, after going through a rigorous world of architecture school and the professional world, and of course, growing up to the point as to clearing up indifferences, it's advisable always to say 'only' things that matter. Mostly, we tend to flow in the stream of past mistakes, which we have analysed a thousand times in our head. It's really beneficial to speak o...

Isn't it an absolute delight when our deeds or thoughts touch or inspire people? I love this feeling. It's a very small achievement on our part as human beings. To bring some happiness in someone's life without changing our attitude, is in itself an act of kindness. Since we've become so self-centered and obsessed with our own individual lives, such little things do bring happiness. I feel immensely good within my heart to hear someone being touched by my small act. One quote that really got my attention today was this- "I think one of the greatest feelings in the world is when someone openly tells you how much you mean to them. Stuff like that is so rare."  This just took me back into so many memories where when I was told this I didn't like it because I didn't trust the people saying that to me. How naive and foolish I was! I loathed their affection with such distrust. I was learning and I would like to believe I learn from my past mistakes. So...

There is so much chaos in and around our lives. Everywhere one looks at, there is noise, outrage, unhappiness, distress and uncertainty. When did this happen? We have become such slaves to lifestyles that chaos has become an essential part of us. Don't we all long for some solitude? That ME time, away from people and places increasingly! There are retreats now customised solely to help us achieve this inner peace and calm that we have been searching for from the vagaries of our busy lives. Nature has become a friend suddenly. So many people go on weekend trails and hikes on mountains, which is absolutely great. It also tests our physical fitness while really getting us acquainted newly with the many facets of nature. We miss out on so many things during the daily chaos. Even children who were thought to live stress-free lives for generations are now found to suffer from depression and anxiety. This is becoming worrisome. In our longing for better lifestyles and living conditi...

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।  ...

I visited Pune last week. My cousin, "P" shifted to her new residence recently and my brother-in-law invited me to stay. How could I refuse?! We are a laugh-o-riot whenever we meet. Since her marriage two years ago, now we only get to meet during summer holidays or Diwali (Winter holidays). She Lives in a quiet housing society with small lanes that are lined with lots of trees. I loved the peace and calm that greeted me every morning and the evening solace, as well. The living room window overlooks Tall Palm trees where some pigeons have made a temporary nest. I loved to sit idle on the sofa, dreaming, sipping cocoa and staring out of the window. Lazy Summer Bliss! Here are a few pictures from my stay, of these trees that include Blue Jacaranda, and White & Pink Bougainvilleas. Those were picture-postcard scenarios.  

I fail to understand why people get angry so often and so quickly? And, why do they scream at the top of their lungs? Do they not realize, they are storing all that hatred in themselves and by screaming at others, it not only affects the other person but themselves most? It disturbs me to a great deal if my inner peace is busted, say early morning, while I am boarding a train and some woman randomly insults me and pulls off a meany comment and keeps on going...or, my younger sibling starts throwing a tantrum if she cannot find her study books (which she was studying from the previous night), or her stack of project papers or even her clothes! Most disgusting is when she starts arguing in loud tones with her mother. At times like these, if I am present in the room where such loud aggression is seen, I try to be calm; or leave the room; or mostly just try to ignore the ongoing hullabaloo. I remember once visiting a family member and as soon as I entered their house, the teen daughte...