Looking Back

Looking back at it all, everything looks further away.

How the time has flown away, swept away tide after tide, I can never fathom.

My mind is a tornado of thoughts, flinging themselves at me with such random entropy!

Looking back at it all, there are memories so distant and there are feelings so clear.

There are so many tiny specifics tucked away in the deep recesses of my mind.

There are so many thoughts that come alive suddenly, unbidden to my mind.

How sometimes I wish I could reach for an eraser and wipe them away forever, or how I regret not having captured that moment on film!

How sometimes, I begin to cry in the middle of it, and how I cannot stop laughing even before I have begun thinking about it.

Looking back at it all, I fail to remember the face of a certain person I met recently, but marvel at the memory of a face I had not seen in years.

My mind begins to act like a desert, thoughts sifting through it like sand dunes. One moment I have recalled them, the very next gone!

Looking back at it all, I feel my mind is playing tricks. With every passing year, I seem to remember certain things differently. Perhaps I have gotten wiser?

I suppose looking back at it all, makes me nostalgic, but nostalgia is hardly just it!

It is a tempest of emotions and a flurry of seasons, sweeping my heart with endless feelings.

Wild

This definitely is going to be my number one read of 2015 🙂

Inspired by Books

Naive as it sounds, I thought at first that Cheryl Strayed’s memoir Wild was about hiking.

I love hiking.  Introverted at heart, the idea of walking solo for three months on California’s Pacific Crest Trail sounds glorious to me (although I would prefer staying at a cute bed and breakfast to camping in the rain).  Having wandered through over ten countries with my own pair of boots, the ones on the cover seemed to promise great stories of adventure.  Sort of like Into Thin Air, but hotter and less dangerous.

Yet there is more than mere physical danger in this compelling book, which is not really about hiking at all. Though Strayed does give gripping accounts of backpack disasters and wildlife encounters, this book is really about an internal hike we must all take, at some point, through grief and loss.

Strayed’s decision to make the trek “began before I…

View original post 569 more words

The Third

Being the third is so difficult.

You are the least sought after person, but always the first to be blamed. Being the third makes you feel as if you will be the last person to be bothered. Funny, you always end up in the middle. The one called to make choices. The one to give the tie-breaking vote. The one who is always balanced.

The one who gets in the middle of everything. The one who breaks friendships.  The one who is always blamed.

Being the third is so difficult.

Here you thought you could live being detached. The next thing you know, apparently you are the eye of the storm. And it’s going to wreak havoc! Except, of course you are the last person to find out. You’re the third.

Being the third is so difficult.

It’s like you have become this nameless existence. “Oh! Hi there! I know you! Where’s your group? You people are so cool!” All you can go like is “Huh?!” Just when did this happen?

Being the third is so difficult.

So basically now you are typecast. Meet new set of people, and you feel you have finally found your place. Err… Nope. Congratulations! The third. Again.

Didn’t I already tell you, being the third is so difficult.

It is preferred you do not have an opinion. And if you do, shut up! Yet, you’re the one called to make choices. The one to give the tie-breaking vote. The one who is always expected to be balanced.

The one who gets in the middle of everything. The one who breaks friendships.  The one who is always blamed.

Dear, Third. Stop being it. It hurts.

Someone must have told you, you are a hypocrite. You are. Not to them. But to yourself. What on earth happened to equality? Not there? Need no part of this then.

Being the third is foolish,baseless and thankless.

Better run as a lone wolf. You’re your own pack.

STUMBLE

If you stumble, and have no one beside you,

If you stumble, and have people making fun of you,

If you stumble, and have no one to help you up;

Just people passing by,

Turning a deaf ear to your cry:

Always believe that there is someone: even greater than God,

Who will be always beside you

Who will never laugh at you

Who will help you up and not pretend to see you alone, hurt and in despair.

It is yourself, with so much compassion, love and strength,

With so much confidence and courage;

Who can pull you out of the darkest of situations and fix you in one piece,

So that you do not stumble again,

Instead walk with a new found self belief!

 

 

 

Beyond

Across the oceans and every mountain high,

Over the plains and hills and valleys that you might pass by;

The land ‘beyond’ the horizon lies.

 

The horizon orange during sunrise and red during sunset:

A silvery hue gradually takes over by evening-

The moon (beautiful as ever) appears in her silvery gown at night,

And sings her lullaby.

She sings about the land ‘beyond’: its peaceful and serene days and nights.

 

The orange horizon tells about the pleasant days;

However, the red horizon takes you back to the dark past of bloody wars: no wonder people (like you and me and everyone else), go down the memory lane: some happy, some sad

(Indeed sunsets are beautiful;

But within they hide pain: raw pain…)

 

Nobody knows how the land of beyond looks;

I also do wonder: (again, just like you and everyone else would wonder);

In which dimension is it situated: how does time move- fast or slow,

Is there any life or is it one of those lost lands: lost in the sands of time, in an eternal slumber;

 

Or it could be a mirror, reflecting things we see around us and we all will be there as well: doing what we do here (it’s a mirror of course)!

 

Truly ‘beyond’ is such a land, a land encompassed by mystery…

A deep mystery…a deep secret kept unknown for ages,

And still not known…..

Until Graduation…

I have had an extended weekend of sorts this past week. Courtesy being sick.

And for me extended weekends mean two things: coming home to laze around and losing track of time.Literally. So bad that I refuse to look at the calender even when my laptop is running. Oh, yeah wall and table calenders are an obsolete concept to me.

But mind it , this is only for the extended weekends.

Of course, time catches up with me, or rather I catch up with it. And that’s what happened this time around.

I made the mistake of looking at my phone. Damn it. All my drowsiness from the antibiotics kind of wore off.

March was ending. So was my semester. I mean, of course semesters end. Only that this was the last.

And all this had me thinking of one particular thing. Graduation.

The thought of graduation isn’t a new thing. Four years back I had graduated from school.

As much as I miss school, the realisation that school was over hit me long after I had started college. So much so , I didn’t have time to feel sad over it. College happened and I was swept up in its activities. Something that I had missed in my last two years at school. Fun.

And I met some amazing people. Or rather the incidents related to these people have been nothing short of Legen-wait for it-Dary!

When it comes to opening up to people and choosing friends, I can safely put a tick beside that box. School had done that for me.

But college made me think out of the box, out of my closely guarding principles. And so I ended up being a part of a small family. And my family just keeps growing. even now, when we are down to our last three months !

Constantly staying with so many people from so many places has kind of cured me of my loner disease. Now sometimes I search for the company of people, something that I would not have done four years back.

Truth be told, under any other circumstance perhaps, I would have never chosen to hang around or may be even remotely be acquainted with the people I stay with. But four years is a really long time and sometimes it just takes seconds for one’s perspective to change. I have seen it happen, I have felt it happen.

I have had some share of the bitter taste of this phase of my life and there were moments when I would not accept a fact for what it was. I have been in denial regarding a few, but I guess after sometime I learned to let it go. College has ‘wo-manned’ me up !! Besides what’s life without a few lemons 😀

There are things that I had better at school than here, at college. For instance the awesome rapport and nearly back-slapping relation with my juniors! So much that it filled my entire farewell diary!

Now, I am not sure if I know enough people to fill half of it. Or probably I do. I just don’t want them to write and leave me with a memory (I think I might have a personality disorder).

There is certainly one thing that can’t beat my college experience, and that would be my department. Love it, hate it, it kind of just clings on to you and grows on you. Besides it gives you a sense of belonging, so I guess, all is not lost. Yet.

So when I look back and then I look ahead, if had to choose a single word to describe whatever I have been rambling about for the last 615 words (wow!), I suppose it would be ‘interesting’. But then what do I know, I am still three months away from graduating and I could still end up in knee-deep adventure. Trust me, I have a penchant for last minute stuff.

I had made this mental bucket list of sorts for my final year. And I think I am down to the last of the few left. But then again, I think I am getting ahead of myself and that of time. And I know this time around, time will catch up with me and not the other way round.

But that is all the time I have. Until graduation.