The Unboxing.

I'm the biggest paradox I've ever known. Insecure about almost all the things I do, but still a total narcissist. I try to tell other people, who I am in a million different ways. Some are subtle, whereas some are not.
But no matter what, they have got you all pegged. Those cardboard boxes, with bright little labels!

But there's a part of me, that has never found a home, rattling around in categories that never really did justice.
I look around at other people, trying to judge how loosely they fit into theirs, sensing a turmoil, a knot of confusion hidden beneath the name tag.
And I realize that we're still only strangers who assume we already know what the other is going to say.
Shouldn't we be writing our identities by hand? And speak only for ourselves, in our own words. So that we can meet each other as we are. And most importantly ask :
"What is it like being you? " , and be brave enough to admit that we don't already know the answer.

I thought I was following the arc of the story, but I find myself in passages, I don't understand.
Either everything feels important or nothing does.
It's just a mess of moments that don't even seem to belong to the same genre.
What kind of story is this?
I keep thinking that I'm on the cusp of some heartbreaking twist and  this is the best of what it's ever gonna be.
The only thing I know  is that, there's more to this story. Maybe I should re-read all those pages I had skipped earlier to get to the good parts. And maybe I'll realize that it was all about choosing my own adventure.

©Roshni Ravindran
@of.both.worlds

The Sunny Days N' More. -1

I did not find any particular reason to remember my childhood.Not any when sitting on a railway platform under a huge banyan tree.
Yet,my mind walked slowly towards the old blue-walled,simple moss-greenturned brown tile-roofed house.
There wasn't any proper gate as I could recollect.
I found myself struggling to open the wooden planks ,which were supposed to serve as the entrance to the compound.My tiny hands as a 4 year old pushing against the hard wood immersed in mud. I can see my grandmother behind me, my blue school bag in one hand,in a stiff orange Bengal cotton sari,her hair jet black, her skin glowing in the afternoon sun.She helps me get in by pushing the planks hard..the gold bangles jingling on her wrists.
Rushing down the slope,past my swing,past the giant mango tree,past the two year old jackfruit tree I'd planted along with my uncle,past the  2 feet high bushes my mother tends so fondly, I step into the coolness of the 'old house' as i call it.
The drawing room (as it was supposed to be) had grills on three sides, with exactly three plastic chairs and one fancy teapoy carved out of teak root by a maternal uncle.
I quickly went into one of the  two bedrooms the house had. It had the T.V  kept on top a wooden table to which i fancied sticking all of the free Big-Babul stickers my dad gets for me.
The upstairs had a dusty dim-lit room with an ancient double-bed coat of my grandfather's. This particular room was a magical one in my memories..with its triangular slits in walls..and glass ceiling between the roof-tile. The floor had always  funny  triangular patterns of sunlight on it.
To be continued..

A Midnight Dream

Where do you wanna go?
How much do you wanna risk?
Will the wind breathe in our secrets..
Or, will these sands etch away our footprints..
We're only getting older.
Been thinking about it lately.
Does it ever drive you crazy?
Just how fast the night changes !

Random Musings !

We human beings have always been into classifying things..It seems that this irresistible urge to categorize , to divide, to sub divide.. comes with our natural instinct to understand complex things.Or is it our inability to understand certain things, that are yet to be interpreted  or that which never has been ..?

                              And so this applies to human relationships too. We categorize , as fathers mothers uncles, aunts brothers, sisters, friends,lovers etc.It is an unsaid rule that every single one you encounter must fall into  any of these baskets.What if it doesn't ?Why do we always have to choose between the options ? Why are there "options" are the first place ? For example can and does one faithfully embody one's gender? Does the body yield to a singular definition ? Why are we 'ashamed' to address this plurality in us?Why do we always need  to silence those myriad contradictions of  our own thoughts ?I am  not just talking of gender alone. but it applies to many things we come across daily.
    
                             Unfortunately it is those little things that has fostered   a culture.-A generation and generations to come... We live in a society were the norms are less challenged and more strengthened day by day.Renaissance and reforms are confined and are of weaker voice.But as Tharoor remarked.in his epic novel "The Great Indian Novel" we Indians are open about our own differences.We do not attempt to subdue into the homogeneous crowd.Being a nation with both desert and snow ,of sea coast and hilly tracts.the Indian crowd has always welcomed differences. whether it was forced upon. or that which casually sunk in ,like a passenger who gets on the bus and nonchalantly occupies the empty seat next to us.We don't stop our thoughts to make room for him, we just accept his presence and carry on.. This has been the same with society apart from certain exemptions of ruptures and explosions that has arisen due to the differences in opinions    
                           Yet here we are ,living our own lives trying to make sense out of it .To find meaning if any .. Another untold tale written down in the big book of history , and soon to be worn out by time. But why am i being so cynical ?  if you ask be Then voila c'est la vie !!

The Art of Dwelling on The Past

Your life is written in indelible ink. There's no going back to erase the past, tweak your mistakes, or fill in missed opportunities. When the moment’s over, your fate is sealed. But if look closer, you notice the ink never really dries on any our experiences. They can change their meaning the longer you look at them.There are ways of thinking about the past that aren't just nostalgia or regret. A kind of questioning that enriches an experience after the fact. To dwell on the past is to allow fresh context to trickle in over the years, and fill out the picture; to keep the memory alive, and not just as a caricature of itself. So you can look fairly at a painful experience, and call it by its name.
Time is the most powerful force in the universe. It can turn a giant into someone utterly human, just trying to make their way through. Or tell you how you really felt about someone, even if you couldn't at the time. It can put your childhood dreams in context with adult burdens or turn a universal consensus into an embarrassing fad. It can expose cracks in a relationship that once seemed perfect. Or keep a friendship going by thoughts alone, even if you'll never see them again. It can flip your greatest shame into the source of your greatest power, or turn a jolt of pride into something petty, done for the wrong reasons, or make what felt like the end of the world look like a natural part of life.
The past is still mostly a blank page, so we may be doomed to repeat it. But it's still worth looking into if it brings you closer to the truth.
Maybe it's not so bad to dwell in the past, and muddle in the memories, to stem the simplification of time, and put some craft back into it. Maybe we should think of memory itself as an art form, in which the real work begins as soon as the paint hits the canvas. And remember that a work of art is never finished, only abandoned

Begin Again

After a long time .. !
It feels good to be back here again..
jotting down all those thoughts .. in this unseen corner of the web .
like footprints in sands .. that .. gets washed away.. with the rush of water .. i am trying to mark my thoughts.

That says!