It takes a lot of talent to be old, without being adults

It takes a lot of talent to be old, without being adults

It takes a lot of courage to kill yourself, but still stay alive.

It is not easy to die every day, and still try every day.

When I fall, fall in love, it hurts, but I still fall.

I know I'm falling, it takes a lot of strength, to fall, but still stand.

You tell me every single day you don't love me,

I tell you every single day I still love you.

It takes a lot of self-deprecation to say it all the time, when you don't.

It takes a lot of nerve to want love, but still say no.

It takes a lot of valour to have so many things, but still not speak of them.

It takes a lot of talent to be old, without being adults.

The Rise Of The Rebellious Soul

“You’re not going to that College.” “Do what we tell you.” “We know this world more than you do.” “That dress doesn’t suit you.” “Girls don’t cut their hair short.” “Her husband is so dark.” “How can you be happy working as a waiter in the restaurant?” “Pink? Why don’t you wear a guys’ colour?” “I don’t think you should go to that trip all alone.” “Wake up! Dancing is not a guy’s profession.”

Oh, these stereotypes, these opinions so strongly implanted, so deeply rooted within us that our thinking has gone stale, this judgemental attitude. You know while we complain of being judged by our “society”, we do the same thing with others? We think everything we do is right, and when we do something that we want to, we call it coming out of the box. But when someone else does it, we call them ‘Rebels’. Yeah, so we’re all rebels, I’m a rebel, you’re a rebel, our neighbours, our friends, that girl who broke up with you because you’re not man enough, that guy who married another guy, they’re all living out of the box, doing what they want. Just as you do, just in their own way. Is that what bothers us? That people are not behaving in a way that we think is right?

All our lives we kept fighting our parents, the society, everyone, for doing what we wanted to, and when our children told us they wanted to do their own thing, yeah that’s when our bubble burst. That’s when we thought going out of the box is not such a good idea.

You say love should be an unconditional feeling, it must have no lust. But you know what? Let me just sadden you a little bit more, all love arises out of lust, even yours, the so called purest form of love. Even a mother’s love is not unconditional, not completely selfless. When she wants her child to be happy, it is her way to be happy, seeing the one she loves happy, is it selfless? I fear, it’s not. But what’s wrong with it? What’s wrong in being selfish? Who doesn’t want to be happy? We’re all here for that, we grow, we learn, we earn for that. We eat, we laugh, we smile for that.

If you’re longing for freedom, you should get it, anyhow. If you love your independence, be independent. If you want to be single, don’t get married at all. And if you do, don’t do it because “What people will say”. Because THAT, my friend, is the death of your soul. And that’s not what we’re here for. We took birth to live, not to figuratively stab ourselves to death, not breathing, not smiling, not living our life fully. Just get out of your box, open your wings, walk, run, learn to get up, fly! No one can stop you, not even you. End your sentences. Don’t keep them caged with semicolons. Full stops, are what you need, all you have to do is gather the courage and fly.

The Glory Of Win, The Gloom Of Loss

We’ve always been taught by our elders to put our best effort in everything we do, and try our best to win everything we venture into. We’ve always been asked to try our best to win, and we do it, naturally, because who likes to lose, right?

But if you’ve been a spoiled sport like I was, or let’s say I ‘am’, you spent most of your childhood listening to your parents’ instructions of accepting ‘losing’ in a good spirit. And if you’re one of those, you must be well-acquainted with the worst feeling in the entire world, the feeling of losing!

The thing is that there are two important virtues that one must possess – Losing gracefully, and Winning gracefully. Yes, losing needs more courage than you think. And yes, it is as important to win gracefully as it is to lose with dignity. Do you know why? Let’s see it this way – Have you ever lost in a game of Ludo? Remember how bad it felt when your opponent was dancing like mad in front of you, provoking you and constantly making you feel bad because you lost? Even though the game was all about your luck with the dice, the winner reacted as if they won the world, as if they had won because of something they had in control! I know Ludo was a small game, but you know what I mean, right? The bottom-line is – One must learn to keep calm in situations where extreme emotions can overshadow the spirit of the game.

Similarly when you’re losing, you must not react in a way that spoils the spirit of the game, or life, for that matter. The thing that your mother constantly kept telling you – “Practise to accept failure and loss”, really meant something. You will find that this one line helps you deal gracefully with quite a lot of situations in life! It’s not just about that game of ludo, it’s not just about that badminton tournament that you lost, and it’s not just about those little childhood things. It’s about all that important stuff that you go through in your everyday life, and about the big situations that come to you in your professional life as well.

There’ll be times when you’ll study hard, day and night, but someone else will top the exams. There’ll be times when you’ll be good to everyone around you, but you’ll still be called selfish. There’ll be times when you’ll do your best at a project and the project, along with all credit, will still go to your colleague who did practically nothing. These are things that are out of our control, their results are not within our reach. Do you think reacting to them the way we do will help? Do you think the way you used to throw away the carom men when you lost helped you in any way? I think all it did was scare your friends away from you. And a similar reaction will serve the same purpose today.

I believe life is a game of carom. The way you react after losing a tournament is very important. But the way you react after winning is even more important! Show off is never loved by anyone, in any situation, not in a small game, not in real-life, never. Nor is overreaction to a loss taken very well either. The words “Accept losing gracefully”, “Smile when you lose”, and “Deal strongly with your failures” really meant a lot, and now, after learning so much in life, I know what’s the value of being that person who is untouched by the glory of a win, and by the gloom of a loss! “Gum aur khushi mein fark na mehsoos ho jahaan, main dil ko us mukaam pe laata chala gaya...” The biggest win in your life will be when you reach THAT level, where you feel the same in moments of happiness and in sadness, win and loss, where you can control extreme emotions. Wish you luck! Have a happy Monday. Bonne Journée! J

Some Birds Can Simply Never Be Caged

Their feathers are just too restless, and their songs too impatient and wild to stay suppressed. And if you confine them, they will find their way, someday, when you open them for fresh air. They will fly away, and this time it won’t be close enough, it will be far, far away. Because the taste of freedom is something you cannot simply forget even if you lose it.

Leonardo Da Vinci has always affected me a lot, by the things he has said and done. He is one of those few people who will say things that make you feel like “Oh, oh…He stole my words!” And he did the same with me when he said, “Once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been, and there you will always long to return.” You know how you never want to ride to office by a scooter once you've bought a car? And you never want to go back to that little person who you were, once you've become a big person? You will never like that stale bread if a pizza is kept beside it. You will always try to reach the higher level of happiness once you've tasted it. No one wants to climb down one step on the ladder while they can see how nice it is up there.

But when do we fly? Do humans have wings? Invisible ones? Birds fly when they’re not caged, when they’re able to freely flutter their wings and have no boundaries. Humans fly when they can be who they are, without any limitations, without rules, without conditions, without intrusion. They are in cage when they cannot speak up, not that someone puts a tape on their mouth and doesn't let them speak. They simply do not have the kind of heart that lets them take a free flight. One cannot fly until they allow themselves to.

One must forget all the limitations if they wish to fly. They must flutter their wings, they must have faith. For birds and humans are no different, the only difference is the faith. We must believe that we can fly, that we are free, and that we won’t fall once we fly. We will be able to fly only till the time we have faith in the strength of our wings. And will lose them once we lose the faith. Everyone on this planet is completely equal to each other, and no one can stop anyone else from doing what they want to do. God has given the same amount of strength to everyone, some have accumulated it in their brains, some in their bodies, and some in their hearts.

And the strongest ones are those who have it all in their hearts. They have those invisible, big, white wings all the time. You just can’t see it, but they’re as big and strong as an Albatross. You can get them too, once you gather all your strength and accumulate it in your hearts, making your will strong and bold, and shooing away your fears. You just need to spread the wings, and flap them. And they will fly so high, so fast, and so strong no one will ever be able to cage them. Forget about the cage. The cage doesn't even exist. The cage is just your fear. The cage is just a figment of your imagination. You need to break the cage, spread your wings, smile, and fly. Because some birds can simply never be caged.

Visiting a Historical Monument? Get cheap graffiti art for free!

“Rajesh weds Meena”, “Mannu was here”, or simply “I love you”. If you see these beautiful words inscribed all over a ‘could-have-been-better-off-blank’ wall you see while exploring an age-old historical monument in India, don’t be surprised. It is very normal for us Indians to drink down the bitter truth of our “Heritage” being loaded with people’s names, addresses, phone numbers, and even long overdue emotions and feelings of love, hatred, and religion.

Some lovely people from India are obsessed with the idea of telling the world that they visited a monument, and they fulfil this compulsive disorder of theirs by ruining the walls of that monument. Or may be "Manoj" just thinks someday "Pinky" will come to this exact same place at this exact same monument and know that he loves her. How romantic! Have they lost their paper and pen? Or brain…

Being a writer I obviously think writing is a good thing, it is an art. Yes it is, but not when you’re ruining the only remains of someone else’s art created thousands of years ago. Or for that matter, even if the building has been built yesterday itself, nobody has the right to scribe their initials on it other than the creator. But NO!!!! We are here to create a history of our names and of those we love., on all monuments, buildings, temples, doors, toilet walls, trains, hospitals, the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the moon, the trees, the newborn baby’s left hand’s little finger, and everywhere we go. We must leave our mark on anything we see. We don’t even leave the people’s plastered hands and legs. Wait, those people want us to write messages on their plasters…that’s another story.

But I digress. What is more important right now to see that some of us are standing up against this stupidity in a very subtle and gentle way, like Facebook recently did. Something similar to what was done at the Great Wall of China. Last year, Facebook created separate walls at some monuments for people to freely write whatever they wish to. Looks like they understood that our cute people can’t control the urge to write something as soon as they visit any historical monument, somewhat similar to what we feel like after logging in to Facebook. So they gave us a separate wall at monuments to register our gracious presence and write P luv K in cute hearts with arrow, without defacing the monument. The idea is to put boards close to the Facebook walls at the monument telling people not to write on them, which will encourage them to write on them.

My first instinct at this was to laugh out LOUD! Those people have got the brains, and totally understand human mentality of tending to do what is forbidden. I have never seen those Facebook walls and I know not what happened of those, but simply wish this wouldn’t be the case. Why can’t we be sensible and grown-up enough to understand such simple things by ourselves? Why can’t we take care of pieces of art that have been left for us with love, to look at with love, years after they were created? Why can’t we do good things and stop deviating without being told? To me, it only remains a question mark. Do you have an answer?

Want to value something? Try losing it!

Yes it’s true. We don’t realize the importance of something until we are on the verge of losing it. This is one of the most easily observable and widely established human tendencies and no one can challenge it, no matter how good a person they are. Just like being inclined to do or have something forbidden. If not all of us, most of us are always tempted to do things that aren't meant to do, or have things that we’re told to stay away from. Or just like our tendency to hate people who hate the ones we love and get along good with people who are enemies with our enemies. We are humans and have many tendencies. But a true human ‘being’ is someone who can come out of difficult situations without being paralyzed by these tendencies. Everyone has a heart, but a true heart is one that is strong enough to not fall into the traps of things that normally anyone would fall into.

It starts with very small things that can’t attract our attention. Like throwing our mobile cell phone here and there and then getting all haywire when finally one day we forget it in some mall and lose all hopes of getting it back. Or like getting upset with our siblings or family members on little things and telling them to go away, realizing their value only when they have finally gone away never to come back. These small things become a habit, a tendency that we tend to show later in our life irrespective of what or who we are dealing with.

But why should we not handle it sooner? Why should we always give so much pain to our heart just in order to realize the value of something? If you have the chance and can give someone the right treatment in time so as to not make them feel unimportant, why let time teach you a lesson by losing that chance and the person? If you can study now and make your life a success, why wait for the result to come with a red mark and then learn the importance of studying after losing a year? If a relationship can be saved be telling a truth, and if telling the truth makes your heart skip a beat, let it be. Why wait for the time till the truth comes out by itself and your poor heart keeps skipping beats for a lifetime with the fear of losing the relationship? Why don’t we start valuing things already, rather than waiting for time to teach us their value? Why do we wait for our most beloved people to go away and then run after them to stop them from going, rather than giving them their part of love in time and having them for keeps all our lives? Keep your loved ones close, keep things clear, and love unconditionally. Love. Value. Trust. Faith. Value these words and be happy.

Be Judgmental, Judge Yourself!

Being judgmental and being judged, two situations that are completely opposite to each other and that involve very different feelings. Have you ever seen someone judging someone else? You must have. The one who judges will always be hard nosed and extreme. Look at yourself when you judge someone the next time. How unsympathetic and callous we become when the mistake is someone else’s and how kind and forgiving we become when the mistake is ours!

We all are guilty of judging others and at the same time forgetting to be empathetic, while being forgiving when we are being judged. This is human tendency and I don’t think you will be able to say no when I ask if you have ever done this.  And whenever it comes to someone who is our own, we tend to become protective about them and limit our vision to whatever looks positive about them and never want to see the negatives in them. And that’s what our sub conscious does for us. It helps us ignore the bad points of those we like and embosses the bad points of those we do not like.

For instance, a close one of yours is very particular with everything and wants everything specifically according to her taste in her food and doesn’t tolerate any deviation in it. You proudly tell this to others as a quality. To you, it is just another ‘good quality’ they have. But if you find the same ‘quality’ in someone else, you find it ‘attitude’ or ‘just another tantrum’. You won’t understand this example until you think about someone other than you who does this. Because this is probably one of those things that everybody is guilty of but doesn’t actually believe they do. Just like telling lies. Most people would do that without realizing, some would say “Oh that! That wasn’t a lie! That was just hiding the truth!” Yeah! Just hiding the truth! As if hiding the truth is as beneficial as telling it! This is an amazingly awesome phrase that I’ve found many people saying and not realizing that hiding the truth is even more harmful and hurtful than telling a lie.

Ultimately what I mean is simply this one line: whenever we’re judged, ‘they’re being unkind and judgmental’, and whenever we are being judgmental, ‘right is right and wrong is wrong’. The only thing that comes out of this blabber is that we must realize when we judge someone that we might as well be in their place some day and that day, others will be the judges. So be compassionate. Be empathetic. Be judgmental but only when judging yourself. Because there is no one other than ourselves on this earth who we can or should change, and no one on this earth other than ourselves who can or should change us. So be happy. Be wise. Be empathetic. Be judgmental, but judge none other than yourself.