Talking, talking, talking…

Ever since I started reviewing books on my book blog, I’ve been so busy. That blog takes so much of my time it’s like a full-time occupation. The first and last thing I see everyday is my laptop’s (grimy) display. So, whenever I post something to this blog, it’s either to rant or whine. Which is great. I can put anything up here and no one will ask me to shut my trap. It’s also a little consoling to know that no one I know (or perhaps no one at all) is gonna read this. With my book blog, I commented on other blogs, joined some book-ish sites that were meant to bring more followers to my blog and in short, did a lot of things to promote it. With this blog, I’m doing nada. It’s better that way. I’m not going to invite people to view the inner, twisted workings of my mind. If they happen to come across it and like it, well and good. We’ll get along fine. If not, go screw yourself. Writing on this blog is like talking to the wind. If you do that in real life, people tend to label you as insane. Not here. I can be as insane as I want here.

Music Of The Moment

Music of the Moment:  Letterbomb by Green Day

Good Things About Bad Things

One of the things I hate is when people talk about positive thinking. There is nothing wrong with positive thinking, but some people throw that phrase around a lot. I’ve always been of the opinion that unless you really analyze just how deep in shit you’re standing, you can never overcome it. But after analyzing and re-analyzing my shitty life, I became depressed and was in a huge funk for three days. But somehow, after those three days, I succeeded in finding the sparkly bits among the endless swamp of tarry blackness. So, here’s the list of sparkly bits I’ve managed to find.

1. A bad situation gives you complete clarity of thought. Once you get past the OMG-what-the-fuck-have-I-done phase, that is. You start to really see how you’ve led your life so far. The mistakes you’ve done, the right decisions you’ve made, everything.
2. It makes your brain work harder. When you’re in a fucked up situation, you find yourself overcome with lots of ideas you never would have come up with normally.
3. If you’re a creative person, you’ll find creative energy practically bouncing around inside your body when you’re feeling down. During the past three days, I wrote depressing poems, drew depressing sketches and then, I got sick of being depressed and wrote a not very depressing story. It was pure bliss.
4. You start to appreciate even the smallest things you have in your life. You feel blessed to be just alive.
5. It improves your concentration. For example, it took me an immense amount of concentration to NOT think about how I have screwed up my life.
6. It gives you more control over your emotions. Especially if you’re trying not to let others know of your screw up. For example, try smiling and laughing with your friends and family when all you want to do is bawl your eyes out.
7. It makes you less vulnerable. It makes your skin thicker, heart harder and all the other such cliches.
8. I’m not sure if this is a good thing or not, but it makes you a more spiritual person. I’m never been one for religion. Let’s say I’m more of a God person than a religion person. I don’t pray much usually, but during the last three days, I prayed A LOT. I didn’t know if there was a Big Guy up there listening to me, but just in case He was, I wanted to make sure he heard my prayers.
9. Finally, it makes you put your best efforts forward so you don’t screw up another time.

So there you go. My list of good things about bad things.

 

Hugs From Parents

It’s easy to talk philosophically when hardships seem like a distant thing. It’s easy to say “If that happens to me, I’m gonna be strong. I’m gonna show em all what I’m made of.” But when you feel the weight of your loved ones’ hopes crushing your shoulders, when you feel like you just wanna give up, when you just wanna let go, philosophy doesn’t mean shit. But you know what helps during hard times? Company. That is such a cliche but it is also the truth. Hugs and kisses help too. Especially at night when you’re facing your demons alone in the darkness. When the lights are out, every bad thing seems possible. I don’t know when exactly, but at one point in my teenage years, I distanced myself from my parents. I think it happens in every teen’s life. Maybe not, but it did in mine. I hated it when they ruffled my hair or hugged me in public (or in private). I thought my parents needed to treat me like an adult. But now, when I’m 20 and facing a really hard time, I find that I don’t care. So last night, when I was feeling really low and scared of what might happen to my future, I went to Mom’s bed and hugged her. She was in deep sleep, but I woke her up. I thought she would be mad, but she just pulled me closer into the hug. She didn’t ask me why I was suddenly hugging her. She just held me. So now, I’ve come to realize that my teenage self was an idiot. Hugs from parents rock!

Music Of The Moment

Music Of The Moment: Anklebiters by Paramore

Coping With Failure

I think one of the worst things to have to deal with is failure. But it is also one of the necessary things.

At least, that’s what I’ve heard. But it’s hard to be all philosophical about it when you are you’re experiencing a failure. And it’s even harder when it is not the easy type of failure. Yes, there are two types of failure. The easy one is the “I tried my best but failed” kind of failure. The hard one is “I didn’t try hard enough and have now failed magnificently” kind of failure. With the easy one, you know there’s nothing more you could have done. But with the latter, there is the disappointment of others, shame, guilt at having let them down, self-directed anger and not to mention, disappointment at having let yourself down, which is by far the worst feeling in the world.

I’m going through the hard kind of failure now and it sucks. I wish I could break a few things, bang my head on the wall repeatedly or throw myself off the balcony. But I can do none of those because I haven’t told anyone about my failure. I’m too ashamed. I want to, but I balk at the last minute seeing the hopeful expressions on their faces. What makes it even worse is the fact that we’re all on vacation right now. So, when they’re all getting dressed and being generally hyped up, I don’t want to bring them down with my “Guys, guess what? I just screwed up big-time, but we’ll deal with that later. Let’s go see the Twin Towers now!”

God, my life sucks right now.

Cranky, Angry Music

I’m a cranky person. I’ve tried to change that over the years, but I’ve found that I can never be that girl who always has a smile on her lips. I laugh when I want to and it annoys me when someone laughs at every damn thing that happens around them. People who always want to party annoy me. And you know what else annoys me? Girls who try too hard to be girly. Trust me, I have nothing against puffy skirt wearing, polka dot wearing Zooey Deschanel types. But it’s the girls who act like they’re made of fucking china in order to attract a guy’s attention that drive me mad. When I see them, I’ll be all like “God, it’s just a fucking cut on your finger. Suck it up!”

So.

Anyway. I was going to talk about something else, but got sidetracked. What I wanted to talk about was… music.

Like I said, I’m generally a cranky person. But a couple of days back, I was in a surprisingly good mood. Maybe I owed that to the fact that I had a really good tofu dinner at a Chinese restaurant. Did you read that? I had tofu fish and tofu duck and it didn’t suck. It was healthy as well as delicious, so I guess I was happy. When I came back home, I decided to put on some music like I usually did before bed. And because I was in a happy mood, I didn’t want to listen to the angry music that I normally listen to. I scrolled through my playlist looking for some happy songs. And guess what? The only happy song I found was “Walking On Sunshine” by Katrina and the Waves. It made me realize the epic proportion of crankiness that I am carrying around in my body. I am so cranky that even the music I listen to is cranky. So, after playing Walking On Sunshine a couple of times on repeat, I got sick of it. I got sick of the bouncy beat, the cheerful music and just hearing the word “sunshine” over and over again. My crankiness took over my good mood and I went back to my regular music. I listened to some of my favorite songs by Paramore and went to bed.

I don’t know what the point of this post is. Just wanted to get it off my mind.

And BTW, Paramore’s new self-titled album is super-cool. Maybe I didn’t like all the tracks on it (the much too pop-y ones), but most of the songs kick major ass.

Escape

People say I should be proud to be an Indian. I am. I mean, it’s my country. It’s the only country I’ve lived in and I like it here. The familiar faces. The rows of brick houses that I see everyday as I go to college. The overlapping voices of people around me talking in a million tongues and the blaring horns of cars and buses on the road. It’s nice here. Comforting. But sometimes – no, often, I wish I could escape somewhere else. It’s not the country that I’m trying to run away from. It’s the expectations. Being a girl in India is not an easy task. You have family expectations to live up to, sexist pigs to put up with at work, female-objectifying pricks to put up with everywhere. And you know what the worst among the three is? Family expectations. The other two – you can just shrug it off, but you have to live with your family. When they expect you to give up your dreams, get married and raise a family at twenty three, and that is completely what you don’t want, things can get tough. Maybe times have changed in parts of India, but for me – and I suppose, for other middle-class girls – it’s still the medieval age. So, I’ve been trying to plot my escape route for some time now. I’m going to go abroad in the pretext of studying. Once I’m there, I’m never gonna come back. I know that sounds all kinds of immature, but I’m sick of feeling suffocated all the time. I’m gonna find a guy “I” like and I’m gonna marry him. Or not. I’ll do whatever the heck I want to do. I’m NOT going to agree to an arranged marriage. I’m NOT going to get married at twenty three. I’m NOT going to get preggo until I’m ready to. I am going to live my life. One day.