The Unabridged Version of a Rational Emotional Mind

Tomorrow is the day! Most of us, if not all of us, will attempt the heroic feat of absolutely transforming every aspect of our entire lives. We will wake up early, we will exercise, we will eat healthy, we WILL BE productive! Come end of January, the Cinderalla tale of new year transformation will come to a routine end. Now, why am I writing such a pessimistic narrative to our shared reality on the last day of 2023! Even I don't know, but maybe by the end of my rant, we will know? You see, 2023 has personally been especially kind to me. Maybe it was because this was the year I learned to take things as they are and not as they should be. My greatest wish for 2024 is to continue that streak of realistic expectations so that I am not dissappointed like I used to. I spent the last week reflecting on the year and realised that every month, heck, every day was a new beginning. Every day was a struggle to wake up, a hustle to get to work, a tussle at work, an act of balancing work and l...

A series of conversations and self-reflection has brought me to discuss this today. You see, a colleague of mine in our very mundane lunch-time conversation shared this little story of her friend, how her exposure and fascination for music and art in her formative years (thanks to her parents!) brought her to become one of the stalwarts of a Canadian film festival years from then, having gone through multiple highs and lows in her life. The moral of that story was this – No matter what choices you make in life, you will land exactly where you are meant to be. I had saved this story in the back of my head and went about my day. I came back home and a dear friend of mine in our daily banter observed that I hold a very specific view towards life - that my destiny was a consequence of my actions. That is what spiraled my self-reflection and that is exactly why we are here discussing this today. To explain my viewpoint, I came across this idea, it is more of a question that I have fou...

You are the unicorns of this world  The ones with too much love to give  Too little time  Too many words to say  Not many listeners You are like sponges in a room  Absorbing every emotion  Embodying it as your own  Never letting a sigh out  Of how much it hurts You are the glue that holds the group together Not that it would crumble if you take a step back But being taken for granted... Just what you like your morning coffee with Sometimes all you want is  A listening ear  A recieving end  A relayer for your emotions  A mirror to your soul But all you get is misunderstanding  Shifting priorities  Blank replies  It is soul crunching sometimes  Like someone took your heart  And crushed it between their knuckles Because sometimes  All you have is too much love to give  And not enough people to recieve it

When my dad came to this city, he was a young man in his early twenties trying to navigate the big city that is Delhi. We haven’t spoken much about his bachelor days but I know from the pictures in the old albums kept safely in our metal almirah that he was not alone. A lanky young man with a thick full beard, and with him a bunch of other young men with varying degrees of facial hair. Now, why did I begin with such a crude picture? Well, lately I have been wondering about the wonder that is the chosen family. A bunch of people outside our kinship and blood ties that we develop intense emotional bonds with, the ones that are there for us when we have no one else to turn to. It’s been a little short of three decades since my father moved to Delhi and it is this group of young lanky men who have sustained our family in times of need. We call them the Dilshad Garden gang, all men, now in their late fifties and sixties with their wives and sons and daughters and grandkids, living life ...

11/03/2023 The Word of God. Aha! moments of life. People who love me and show their affection to me. Reading books. Listening to music. Watching movies. Small moments of joy in my life. Blog ideas. Being able to be there for someone. When someone understands what I need without me having to tell them. Hugs. Random words of appreciation. Validation. When my efforts bear fruit. Possibilities. New experiences. Travel. Being able to do things on my own. Learning new things. Podcasts. Talking to people about life. Stars. Reading my old journals. My life journey so far. Stories of people around me. My parents. Prayer. Silent meditation. Sitting still. Staying silent. When I stick to my own decisions in life. Mentors. Work-life that challenges me. Unexpected opportunities. My age.   *This is an excerpt from one of my journal entries earlier this year. It brought me a lot of joy reading it again today. I felt like it was something worth sharing. If you have something to share with your...

Where do lonely hearts go? The ones surrounded by love By nature, and all the care in the world And yet Trapped inside the labyrinth of their own minds They seek not the solitude that finds them And yet No matter how much they try That’s where they are forever stuck   All attempts to break lose feel like Trying to escape from quicksand Every little move drawing one Deeper and deeper into the deep end   The only escape then is silent acceptance Immobility Chaotic Nonchalance An understanding of self That in our solitude there is peace That no one can hurt us in our mind castles But ourselves   But then A thousand self-inflicted whiplashes are better than Paper cuts from the ones we love...   Where do lonely hearts go? But to the labyrinth of their own minds Forever stuck To the symphony of their own sighs

The last time I saw my grandmother, I was in a hurry to catch a train. Meeting her was a quick detour, unplanned, swiftly executed. I was returning from a wedding. I had come home just for that. I was with her two weeks before. Mum and I had come from different corners of the country to reunite with her, the final Kaakurumbil women’s reunion, as destiny, would have it. The visit before was easy-going. I had the time in the world to sit and chat with her, which I did. But I also remember whiling away time looking at my phone, mindlessly scrolling through social media. Blissfully unaware that precious time was passing by. One of the last core memories I have with ammachi was her secretly coming to my room, as I went through my phone. She handed me a hefty bundle of crumpled notes. They would add up to a couple thousand. She has always done this, secretly giving money to her first granddaughter. This time it was different. She was giving me more money than usual. She knew my uncle had...

I am a firm believer in receiving blessings beyond one’s dreams. My life is a testimony of that. But often it is in the wait for these miracles that I fall short. That is until last week when I went for my field visit and came across something ostensibly so simple but that taught me a very important life lesson. And that is the lesson I want to share with you today. You see, I was gallivanting in the sun on a bike, peak afternoon time, trying to get from the town to the remote villages where the communities we work with stay. For those who know small towns and their general structure, there is almost always a railway crossing somewhere in its boundaries. I have only experienced a railway crossing sitting in a train, never from the road…until that day. We reached the crossing, both metal gates shut, and people on both sides of the track, waiting for the train to pass. Two minutes turned to twelve, no sign of the train yet. The signal turned amber to red and then I heard, the distant...

In life sometimes We meet people Who catch our eyes Meet our gaze And yet Feel incredibly out of reach All we can do then Is look at them With awe and wonder   I had a boy like this in my life I was twelve back then Summer camp of ‘11   There are only glimpses of him  Left in my mind He used to sing incredibly well I think he was older too We never spoke To each other   I do not know If I wanted to be friends with him Or if I wanted to be like him Is this what... Longing for companionship feels like? Or did I just want to emulate Everything that twelve-year-old me Fathomed that unattainable boy to be?   It has been a decade since…   I saw him again today Memories faded The fascination remains   We did not speak…yet again But somehow, I felt giddy Familiar feelings resurfaced again Starry-eyed twelve-year-old Returning Fathoming...the unattainable Wondering Why?

I keep wondering  What we are? You are more than a friend  Short of a scar  Etched deep into my heart  One step further  Shards... One step away  Emptiness I want you to be in my life  But I can't make you stay  I want you out of my life  But I can't make you leave  I am attached Detached  Loved  Pained  Hurt  Relieved Broken...still You came like a thunderstorm  Went like the rain  I need you  Please stay  Don't go away I have asked  I won't again  I need love I really need love I don't want to be alone  I want you to stay I am in pain  I need love  I can't give it to myself  I want company Mine alone is not enough I am done  I am tired  I am torn  I am sorry  I shouldn't have let go  And now you won't come back  I am impatient  I can't wait  I have to move on  There is no one to move to  I feel alone  Betrayed...

Miley Cyrus released her new single titled ‘Flowers’ the other day. While we rave about its musicality and all the records it broke, what that song inspired me to look at, was the way people love and feel loved. I was talking to my best friend about how singleness can really get to people in their 20s. And I said, “I want to be loved the way I love people”. Cue this song, and it hit me...I have never gotten flowers! Yes, I can buy myself flowers, but what does it feel like to receive flowers? I really don’t know. This realization that I may have never received love the way I wanted to be loved (especially in romantic relationships) made me think about this fundamental question ‘What makes us feel loved?’ In my attempt to understand what makes me feel the most loved and validated, I thought of an idea that might help you, if you are someone like me, looking for love or in love. Let’s go the good-old route, shall we? Step 1: Read I have spoken about the five love languages b...

It’s been roughly four months since I started working and in my perpetual search to have the perfect work-life balance, I realised that I had discovered something new. Let’s call it work-life boundaries wherein we do not let our work commitments, emails and everything in between flow into the time reserved for everything else that we define as our life. Now how is this exactly different from having a work-life balance? See, balancing is an act that requires us to have a fairly equal distribution of time required and commitments on both ends of the scale. But like it or not, most of us nine-to-fivers tend to have a majority of our day and brain space perpetually occupied by our work. And let me not even begin to describe the ridiculousness that is the work hours of people in the healthcare, tech and hospitality sectors. There is effectively no balance as is. Does that mean there is no solution to the treadmill we run every day between work and life? No! And this is why I wanted to t...