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 ...

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...

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...

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...

I am writing this in response to a very fetching interview I read in one of my email subscriptions today. Just a few days ago, I was moaning about unread emails and yet in the past few days, I've been reading quite a few articles from a mammoth sea of subscriptions I was sure I wanted to unsubscribe. Sometimes, reading too much makes us lose interest in the actual things we ought to read. Like last week, a new friend asked me if I had read Virginia Woolf and how did I find her writing style. To her, Virginia was morose, depressed, boring and confusing. She said she gave up reading her in college. Now, it's completely subjective but I do firmly believe that our reading evolves over time as we grow, particularly more so in phases that we seem to be struggling with educating ourselves, polishing our understanding of the world and stocking up on our views, basically that we have no clue when we would be spouting. So it happens that in trying to cross check our political views wit...

I was hoping to write more consistently when December started but alas, I haven't been able to write as much as I hoped to. Last few weeks have been a blur, mostly, occupied with academics and lots of insignificant stuff I haven't had the opportunity to analyse yet. I have a feeling I will end up over-analysing this state of mind unless I speak with my friend, Shree, first. We share a great telepathic wavelength. We connect so instantly even after a long span of no conversation that sometimes I truly think technology won't be a necessity if either of us were stranded on a desert island. Also, since it's December, it means I will be writing about my unfinished reads and to-reads. Over time I have started recognising the presence of the humongous pile of books I've amassed in these last two months that sit huddled on a sofa chair in the living room. Most of them bear signs of my having handled them, with marked coloured passages that really make me happy when I thin...

I guess a lot of things happening lately have put my mind onto a thinking wheel a bit too much. I have been thinking a lot about the sappiness of everyday life and moments that I reflect upon time to time. Suddenly everything seems to have grown in vision. There are things I wouldn't consciously dwell upon but which are now making their presence felt inside my mind. I have been procrastinating about a new kind of project that is totally to my liking and my gut says I will enjoy doing it but I can't make myself apply to it yet. I have drafted the email and it sits in the draft folder since Monday but I just can't make myself send it yet. I keep thinking of possibilities of doing either this or something else that might come along. 'Might' as I must remind myself. The uncertainty of happenings is weighing a heavy hand on my heart. I keep hoping and dreaming about 'that' something which will satisfy and satiate my passion but I can't seem to pinpoint as t...

I just got some news about something I was eagerly awaiting for since the past few months. I am supposed to be happy but I am not. Clearly the focus and attention from the said news has lost its value for me. Isn't is quite common to find that something we long for loses its prospects after sometime? Especially if these prospects are regarding employment. Career shift. I can't quite fully fathom in what terms this move will reward my future. Will it tie me to a stagnant post or will it truly let some practical issues be sorted out and declutter the existing chaos? I wish I had an idea about everything that happens the way it does. Right now, my brain is in a frenzy. There are times when I wish I had a more diplomatic bone in my body so that I could not let everything get by so easily around me. Once we get comfortable about a position, chances are we rarely lead ourselves to experiment and step up further. It's like the classic life move for women; study, graduate with go...

Something that I started a few days ago, well, actually more than a month ago, it no longer makes me happy. My interest has not totally subsided but I can't find the longing for it in the same intensity when I first started. And who can I put the blame for this? Me, of course, no one else. I don't feel like my former self any more. I don't wish to dwell in too much misery either but the drive to get things done and put my energies into it is increasingly missing. I feel like I am losing a substantial part of my persona which controls me and eggs me to do things. Not just do things, but be alive and active. That go-getter attitude is missing. And it is me alone who realises this, because for others my positive spirits are visible and even an inspiration but my inner me knows what is wrong. It's absurd at times when this realisation sets in that perhaps I am troubling myself unnecessarily, that it's all in my mind except it is not. What is happiness after all? I...

There is simply too much to do. Too much academic strain, too much to stress about life's not-so-good moments, too much sorrow, too much work I would like to accomplish in 24 hours than I usually get done. This 'too much' is creating a big havoc in my brain right now. I find myself in a constant dilemma to wade my way through all this seemingly messy chaos. Is chaos ever organized? As I go through another round of exams and academia, just for a tiny second a thought about whether this is all really worth crosses my mind. But it's best to shove all this unwanted negative thinking under the carpet. Some days are bad, some days are good, but in the end it all comes down to our grit and self- confidence. Yes, yes, I have been falling into a quite persistent cycle of hopelessness, self-trust and misplaced faith. It's a chakra- an endless rabbit hole where I keep tugging towards a spirit that pulls me down at ends and sometimes just lifts and soars my heart to great...

......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...

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...

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...

I am very happy, today. I will be going for a star gazing event this saturday, something that I've been meaning to do ever since I was in school. I am also excited about reading a big, fat book on Planets, Stars and Galaxies. I feel like a small kid. Maybe I am, at heart. Also, got hold of some poems in an old folder and I decided to post them here. These were written in  2010-11, which was a low phase in my life. I had just graduated from Architecture school, and the internship wasn't coming through. I was an unhappy lot during that period, and my words came out in shades of negative mediocrity. I can't believe how unhappy I was that I could ever use words such as 'blades' or 'hope fades', glad now that I made it through all of that. Of course, like it happens with everyone else, I moved on from all the depression and stressed times in my life and won't be going back to that low phase again anymore, ever. I strongly believe now that we must search...

Finally, May is coming to an end. And, I mean this is in a nice way. This year has been so hectic in terms of celebrations- who would believe that family get-togethers', engagements, and weddings could also stress out people! They can be a little too much at times. 2014 started on a very happy note. My grandma's 70th birthday celebration which saw all my aunts/uncles unite together from all over the world, so many cousins met each other after a long time and yes, the excitement had all the younger kids jumping with joy! It didn't matter if one of them had his board exams or the others who are so busy with their careers, took a weekend off to be with everyone. Then came the two engagements- just 3 weeks later! And two months later were these grand weddings. Aah! What fun! It was emotional seeing a younger cousin getting married- it created a vacuum and me who never cries at weddings couldn't stop my tears while she left to be with her in-laws. The other was our e...