The Rebelle blog

It's a blur since a few days, once again. I am home!  There have been good things and bad, and events that surprised me out of nowhere. I hadn't anticipated knowing and learning so much in the past few days of being back here. Mostly, the realization of being so conversant with my thoughts again has changed how I feel here. All it takes is a slow Sunday to reflect upon everything that's happening.  More than a week ago, time seemed to loom ahead in an expansive quantity. Now that I am writing here, I realise how much of it I have squandered. We always ponder and regret but never enjoy when we are present in the moment. Old habits die hard. As Simone De Beauvoir once wrote:  I'm not tragic these days, I don't weep, but I feel alone, bewildered, far from you, far from everything — nothing has any meaning. I feel this departure from my old self. I am self-reminiscing the old times and me in it but would not like to continue doing so. Yet, I think about it constantly si...

It's been about 20 days that I am here. Every day that I look back on confuses me ever  more. Is everything happening because it was meant to be Or I do possess some hold over events in the manner in which they are happening?! It's been a rigorous few weeks in terms of coping up with people, their expectations and the gradual process of falling into someone else's thinking. I find sanity in moments of happiness that are sporadic. I find myself questioning the reasons of being here and am unable to justify them, even in my own head.  The newness of being has transitioned into numbness of being. I find myself searching for answers that have no questions. My heart is stressed even more than my mind is. There is a vacuum in my thoughts and my ever-so-optimistic self is hiding behind this vacuum. The emptiness that stares at me everyday is drowning me into an abyss of misery and anguish. The days are spiralling into a fall that I  fear is going to impact me far worse than my m...

And, my long absence in March here made me long for April. Because somehow as I always feel and say, April transforms the mood magically. Something beautiful turns over and brings a vitality to the season. I don't mind the heat at all. My first Murakami is from a kind fellow reader with whom I connected after reading his short story revolving a cat. I immediately sensed my friend is a Murakami fan. And thus began my Murakami reading. For years, I have postponed reading Murakami under the pretext of doing it later.  ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~ So, I wrote a year ago here and left the writeup as a draft. I am back now to this post after a year and let me see how I look at what I was writing back then.  I finished a couple more books by Murakami over the past year, indulged in passionate, euphoric talks of his writing style, appreciated his witty and sardonic remarks. Listened to Norwegian Wood more than I had ever...

This is my first post in the new year which has become old now by a month. I can't believe how quickly January went past in a blur. Not really a blur, since I am able to recall each day from it. I started a new job, new work place in a new town, new people and so many new adventures to begin with. I can hardly contain my enthusiasm as I rewind back to exactly thirty days ago. Life is amazing. it always introduces us to something resourceful if not what's necessary. While I am working at a new place, with new colleagues and plenty of new things to teach and learn every day, I am extremely happy to choose this opportunity. My learning graph seems to have expanded and so has my sharing graph. I am happier each day facing a multitude of events, mostly small but impacting in their own nature. I have taken to exploring the environs around my new workplace and to my delight I stumbled upon a beautiful sight one morning. A riverfront with old tall trees lining narrow paths of a m...

I am embarking on a new journey this year. One that takes me through herbs, spices, lots of vegetables and images that satiate my thirst for something I have never attempted wholeheartedly or given any consideration previously. I am going to try my hand at Cooking. I hope I stick to this idea. Never been a big fan of food or kitchen antics despite seeing this passion in my mother and younger sister. Both of them go balsamic(intended with a pun) at the thought of creating new recipes. I have forever been the person who dives her nose deep into books especially when the ladies are on a cooking expedition. Lately though, I feel my senses are stimulating themselves to smells and fragrances drifting from above our kitchen. My Dad recently gifted my Mom a big, heavy set Julia Child-ish book of Indian Recipes. True to her passionate self, we have been eating wonderfully creative dinners and Sunday lunches for the past few weeks. I knew some of my mother's passion must have rubbed off on...

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...

Four months into the year already. How quickly is time running by us! One moment it was the first day of a new year and the next, we are onto the beginning of summer. Each year, I go through the April anxiety I have lived for the past decade. It is a divider between my to-do things in year and the ones I've accomplished. Somehow, the first three months always are terrible. I go through a lot of disappointments till March. Probably it is because I am always unsure of what I am supposed to do and I cannot get out of the 'will fail' mindset. But then April arrives and everything turns over, takes a new leaf over my messed tree of thoughts. Something about time is so colloquially apt in our lives. Our race is not against time, but against ourselves. I don't hint to the past or the future but the present in which we struggle so hard to establish our existence on the timepiece. My Dad always said to me after I failed at something that there's always a next time . I ...

I got acquainted with a young poet blogger recently. She has just appeared for her Class Twelfth board exams. I am so happy to see her innocent and non-judgemental approach to everyday things in life. It feels a very long time to have met a fresh and bright youngster like her who has a way with words. She wrote to me about how she knows her poetry is childish but she is thankful for the encouragement she receives. Made me even more proud of her. It's rare for her age kids to have a sense of self in this increasingly self-obsessed, social media world full of narcissist people. I look back to myself at her age and realise times even then were changing so fast. It's just that we didn't realise they were and we did not get pulled into a bubble as fast as today's children are into a consumerist world. The capital waving, spending teen was yet to be manufactured on a large scale. But I also remember the same uncertainties that teenagers face regarding their careers, edu...

This is what I intend to do on the leap year day, today. Start reading one of these many fine books. There is magic and religion and physics and quantum mechanics, not to forget sociology, feminist studies and the cosmos too. Now where is the conundrum? It is precisely in choosing ONE among these books. I am so crazy that I bought a big, beautiful edition of the collected works of Charlotte and Emily Bronte as a wedding gift for a dear friend. I hope Heathcliff and Catherine don't spook her but instead provide lessons in love and misery of the married life. (The last one is not what I wish for.) Currently, I am totally torn between reading for academic exams which have public administration and sociology among many subjects to study but also reviewing a history primer on Mumbai written in 1883. Isn't it nice? I am giving my grey cells extra running by dabbling in different languages. Just to up the enthusiasm, having my hands full of some good lip-smacking reading pie...

It is completely amusing that I read this following poem in another blogger's Poem-a-day subscribed blog posts. While it does speak of love's longing and yearning, it also essentially sums up that everything we have lost was because its time had come. The purpose in our life was fulfilled and that's why we lost days, love, friendships, dreams, things/people who were closer to us- this is the classic clichéd way of explaining certain events in life. I certainly don't subscribe to them. Yes, we lost things and people. But that's about it. It should not make me cold-hearted to feel that what was gone shall be lost forever. That is why we have memories. This poem however is different. It should be seen as something that laments the going away of events and people, but it also renews hope in a way as you read it. After all, WE live on hope and faith that will surpass all sorrows and pain to lead us towards new beginnings of growth and creation. This is a philosophi...

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 always thought social networking sites don't really show the real faces of people. But as it turns out, they do. I was wrong in my opinion. I have had the good fortune of knowing the TRUE face of friends and their friends who became mine, after a while. It's truly a wonderful world. The more we try to forgive people, the more vile they seem to be in reality. And, isn't it really a good thing that they are exposed, the earlier, the better for us! Trust and Kindness are two good traits we must not seemingly waste on everyone, even the one's we think are close to us. I know this thought sounds unruly and selfish, but believe me, people are always moving around in masks. They have masked their real faces, and personalities, so we unfortunately fall for the sugary, sweet demeanor which really is just a ply on their part. Seriously, just chuck all those self-help books that tell us all the time to be kind, good-natured, trusting souls. Apparently, in this age and day,...

कभी सोचा ना था के यह मेरे साथ भी होगा।  पर मैं तो अक्सर बहुत कुछ सोचती नहीं और वह होते रहता हैं। जब तक उसका एहसास हो, वह बात और समा गुजर चुके होते है। क्या यह मेरी कमजोरी है या मेरा अँधा विश्वास लोगों पर, चीज़ों पर, वक़्त पर? शायद बहुत ज्यादा मासूमियत से बर्ताव करने की आदत हो चुकी है मुझे, इसलिए ऐसे जब कभी मन को ठेस पहुँचती है तो सहा नहीं जाता।  खैर, अब ये उम्र ही क्या और ये ज़िंदगी ही क्या जिसमे गिले- शिक़वे ना हो? अपने आप में रहने का कोई मकसद नहीं ना ही खुद को जलाकर रौशनी फैलाने की चाह रखने की उम्मीद रखे। दुनिया बड़ी जालिम है जनाब, कही हम यहाँ आकर अपने आप को ही ना मिटा दें। बस इतना याद रखें की ज़िंदगी बहुत छोटी है, जो गुजर गयी वह कल की बात थी। आनेवाले सूरज को अपनाओ, इतने से तो लम्हें हात लगें है हमारे। 

Lilting music, violin sounds and a mellow afternoon- my idea of perfect time for a refreshing cup of tea and a good book that's about to end. Having spent three years with such luxury I'm spoilt to the core and often long for these afternoons. I remember my professor's warm conversations during thesis, and lazy walks through Fort. I have spent every waking moment with Orhan Pamuk and his Istanbul. Then there were times spent listening to the great Usha Uthup- she's a delight. Everything is so fresh in my mind, Her feminist decoding of 'Bindiya Chamkegi' is original and important and should be heard by every young impressionable girl. We live in such fractured times. I came across this book of Greek mythology and a dictionary on the same while looking for some other books in my collection. While going through them casually, I came upon markings in my handwriting on comparisons with other book characters and my exasperated comments. I remembered my obsessed tri...