Missing Convocation…yet again!!!

Three years ago when I wrote this post, I guess I somehow irked the almighty , because He/She didn’t let me attend yet another of my convocation. So, now I am this 24 year old girl who has two degrees but not even one experience of throwing that graduation cap up in the air. Ok, I am making it sound like some kinda achievement but for me, it actually is an achievement. I got two degrees in a career I never really liked in the first place and after all that torture I didn’t get to attend even one of my graduation day. How unfair is it!!!! That bloody college people changed the convocation date from 12^th to 20^th December, that is on the day of an exam which all my classmates were going to write. So, our entire class was indirectly restricted from attending the convocation. I just feel so bad you know. I was so excited about going back to college, meeting everyone and relive old college days but that didn’t happen and I ended up seeing pictures of people dressed in convocation robes exactly like the last time. Now every person on facebook has a convocation DP… except me. Hell, facebook is filled with wedding pictures, and I don’t even have that (OK, I don’t want that, but still they have something to post) then there are job updates, country updates, check ins, dinner pictures, daru pictures, all kind of shit and I have nothing. When is God gonna bless me with something to show off. Yaar, I don’t want that, I just wanted to go back to college, and attend my convocation, but I guess it is just not in my kismat. I am actually not into facebook that much, I had deactivated it for years, and only joined it a year ago. It’s just a place which makes me feel like I am way behind people, like everyone is moving ahead, changing careers, getting married and here I am, still trying to figure out what I want from life. I have engaged myself in this long unpredictable journey of a long lost dream while people are running from one goal to another. But I guess this is who I am, and this is the life I have chosen for myself. Nothing and no one else matters.

Well, you know what I am going to do, I am going to invite all my friends to Delhi, rent those convocation robes and throw a super awesome graduation party for us (Of course with their money), and make it better than a real convocation. Yes, that’s what I am going to do. And I am going to be happy.

P.S. I just realized that it’s actually a very childish post, but I am gonna publish it anyway. Who cares…

Somewhere Over The Rainbow…

A beautiful evening

 

Somewhere over the rainbow,

the sky is blue…

and the dreams you dare to dream,

really do come true…

New Girl In the City

That’s a cliche title but I really wanted to write on it since the time I saw the movie Wake Up Sid. For those of you who haven’t seen the movie, it’s about a young boy who is clueless about his life, has no ambition and just goes on wasting his dad’s money.Later in the movie he fails in his MBA exams and is thrown out of the house by his dad. He goes on to live with his friend, a girl who has always dreamed of being a writer. The first article that she finally gets to publish is named New Girl in the City. And since I saw that movie about five years ago, I have always wanted to live like that girl, alone in a big city, with a cosy room, chasing old dreams and discovering new ones. For her the city was Mumbai, but sadly for me it is Delhi. So, I moved to Delhi a few days ago, the city I have always hated. I have been here countless times but I hardly ever saw anything. The only places I have been to are the airport, New Delhi railway station and Anand Vihar bus stand. And now I am here, living in this tiny little room right in an old and tall building inhabited by many pigeons.

Delhi is chaotic, with its cramped houses, and narrow lanes, with people running all the time abusing every single person that hinder their way, with everyone in the metro hooked onto their phones, with all the loud aunties and their notorious children and sadly with a starless sky. Sometimes, when I look all around the metro I see that I am the only person without a phone in her hand. It is a good place to observe people, to mentally make a note so that you can later write about them on your blog. I have never been to such a crowded place. I mean Bangalore was crowded and had a pretty lousy traffic but I never got a chance to see so many people at the same time, plus I rarely understood Kannada to actually know the happenings there. I was always intimidated by Delhi girls; they all looked so pretty, with perfect hair and makeup, with stylish clothes and shoes, with their different and confident way of walking and I-don’t-give-a-damn attitude. Earlier for me a ride through metro was a sure shot way of losing all the confidence I had, but in a week or so I have gotten used to it. It doesn’t freak me out anymore and I am really surprised that I feel this way.

Moving to Delhi has also brought about another change in my life, my long distance relationship of five years has finally become short distance. Our friends suggested us to actually live together but I would rather kill myself than do that. I mean long distance to live-in, are you kidding me! It is okay the way it is, we get to see each other almost every other day and that is perfectly fine. I can’t lose my independence for a guy. The transition was something I was dreading for a really long time but we are doing okay.

So here I am, in some ways living the life I always wanted to, if only the thing I am here for turns out to be a success. Wish me luck!

P.S. If you are wondering what happens to that clueless guy in the movie, well he discovers his passion in photography and ends up publishing a picture in the same magazine where this girl gets to write her article. They both fall in love and the movie ends with the monsoon rains and a really nice song in the background.

P.P.S. So today I was talking to my new flatmate and something about blogging came up. I randomly asked her about blogs and she told me how people write political, social, technical stuff on the internet. I was mentally thinking about how someday she is going to end up on my blog (*evil grin). It is great to be an anonymous blogger. I love it.

Picture from here.

The Tale Of A Broken Dream

As far as I remember I have always seen my mother struggling with a disease or two. Even before I was born, the valves in her heart didn’t work properly. Then there was always the case of hyper acidity and migraine that never let food remain in her stomach (and has been genetically passed onto me). Then came the disastrous paralysis attack which not only left her half dead but significantly changed my life too. Now, there is slip disc, frequent episodes of menopausal hot flashes, constant pain in her legs (reason unknown), and all the side effects of those numerous medicines that keep her alive. I have literally never seen my mom healthy, and I feel in some way because of that I never had a normal life. I know almost every doctor in town, the cute neurologist who looks great in a light green shirt, the I-have-no-time-to-breathe cardiologist, the orthopaedist who talks way too much, the old ENT specialist who has a big white house, you get the picture, I know way too many doctors.

 I stayed in Bangalore for seven years and I visited almost every hospital one could name. Manipal hospital is my favourite because I believe it is where my mother got her second life, even though only half of her body worked but she survived and got better. It was the last year of school and during the last three months I spent numerous evenings at Manipal hospital. I would sit by the stairs and practice mathematics. We would eat dinner from the hospital canteen when my sister didn’t feel like cooking. I skipped school almost every day but my teachers didn’t care much as skipping school was allowed for the “good students” so that they can prepare well at home for the Board examinations. I mostly spent my time watching television because it took my mind away from my dying mother. By the time she became healthy enough to live, I had almost lost everything. I messed up my Boards, all my entrance exams and any chance to have a normal career.

For eleven years from Class 1 to 11^th, one would always see me on stage collecting my report card, prizes, merit scholarships amidst claps and cheers but in that last year, the year that mattered the most, whoosh…. everything was gone…. Just like that…. All my dreams shattered. In a flash …

I missed getting into a medical college by a single mark.

Counselling day. Rank number called. With a smile on my face I go ahead. He asks me to sign. I search frantically for a pen. He says, “sorry, last seat thi,chali gayi”. And I start crying.

Seven years have passed by but I go back to that moment all over again. There are so many what ifs in my mind…

What if the attack hadn’t happened? What if the 17 year old me wasn’t forced into a career she didn’t like? What if they had given me one more chance? What if I wasn’t so arrogant and angry with everything?

He gave me my mother…. He took away my dream.

I need to do something for those eleven years, for those years when I knew what I wanted, when I was determined enough to overcome any obstacle in my way to success. I need to forgive my parents. I need to forgive myself for not trying hard enough. As I sit here and see my mother trying to sleep in spite of a terrible headache I need to find a new dream and let go of the old one. I can’t carry the burden of that broken dream anymore. I can’t let it ruin the rest of my life.

I have to move on.

P.S. Writing is therapy. I feel better.

This Feeling….

“Over the last couple of years, the photos of me when I was a kid… well, they’ve started to give me a little pang or something – not unhappiness, exactly, but some kind of quiet, deep regret… I keep wanting to apologize to the little guy: “I’m sorry, I’ve let you down. I was the person who was supposed to look after you, but I blew it: I made wrong decisions at bad times, and I turned you into me.” 
― Nick Hornby, High Fidelity

This is exactly how I feel today. Sometimes, I feel terrible to see what I’ve become, to be a failure in my own eyes, not that people think of me as one but this feeling of helplessness makes me cringe with a pain in my heart.

Why is that the “could have been, would have been and should have been” hurt so much? Why do I have so many regrets in my life and why can’t I ever overcome them? Why is it so difficult for me to let go off the past and build a new future?

Lately I’ve realized that I’ve too many WHYs in my life…and I’ve answer to none.

The (Almost) Lost Writer

It’s been a really really long time and yes I’ve used “really” two times here to emphasize on the fact that it’s actually been a long time since I wrote anything, be it here, in the new diary I bought after joining college, or in the last pages of my notebooks. I haven’t written anything since I joined college, except of course my class notes. And since the whole point of this blog is to be honest and real, I’ve one confession to make, I didn’t write my last post, the one on my first anniversary. I asked a blogger friend of mine to write it for me. I badly wanted to post something here that day but however hard I tried, I couldn’t find my words. I cheated, and I felt so much guilty about it later. I had to get it out of my system and so I am writing it here today. Sorry folks…I messed it all up. I don’t know if people who used to read and appreciate me like me anymore or not. I still log in everyday, go through your posts, read, like and comment but I don’t feel the urge to write. There are so many things in my mind, old memories, struggles, triumphs, stories of love, loss, school, society, each intermingling with each other, difficult to filter, compress, or forget, each story wandering in my mind, too personal to write, too hurtful to ignore. But I just can’t write anymore.

I think I’ve lost that writer in me, if I ever was one. I remember the time I started this blog, that first (and thankfully the last) post of mine which I wrote in sms lingo. I was so immature and childish back then. I remember my first like, and the first comment, the moment when I realized that some person in this world has actually taken out few seconds of his life to appreciate me, my writing. I remember my enthusiasm and my desire to write more, the time when I would take minutes to finish up one post. I was so good at it. I was this anonymous girl, who had all the time in this world to write, confess, say things I couldn’t say in my real life using a false name here. I didn’t care about my language, my grammar, or the spelling mistakes I made. I was like that over enthusiastic, over imaginative little kid, who had learnt to build blocks, or to hold sketch pens. I wasn’t scared to draw crisscross, meaningless figures. I didn’t care about what people would say about this particular piece of writing, or a rhyming meaningless verse. I was fearless, and that made me a good writer, although not so creative but an honest writer. My own experiences, my own life were my inspiration.

 I think I’ve lost that fearless, childish me, somewhere to acquire praise, fame and respect, I’ve lost that girl who was capable of writing anything and everything. And this is what happens with life in general, in the process of pleasing others, we lose ourselves, we lose the meaning of life. In the process of building a perfect future, we forget to live our present. That’s what I do. That’s what I see people do. We unknowingly force ourselves to be something we never wanted to be. We turn into greedy, selfish individuals and lose our innocence. I don’t want to be that. I was going the same way, but today I’ve understood my real purpose, the original one. I may not be able to write well, to get likes, or comments over the shit I write, but I’ll write, I’ll write whatever comes to my mind, because that was actually the whole point of starting this blog, to just write and let it go. This is what I wanted to do.

This is the ugly truth you know, deep within ourselves we always know what we want in life, we just complicate our needs, and desires with the way other people see the world. We are all just scared to be “ME”.  We must not do that. Life rarely offers us second chances, by the time you realize you are not what you intended to be, it’s too late to go back again.

I don’t want to be a grown up writer, I was good as long as I was childish and foolish. I should better be that.  It’s too stupid to try to be someone else when all you need to be happy is to be YOU.

It’s Been A Year

365…It’s a three-digit number which when kept aloof can’t mean anything. But when brought closer to a word called ‘days’, changes perspective of all sorts. One year is a long time to pass by. How much does one year changes a person? Again the answer depends on the perspective looked from. It is mixture of a lot of feelings. Love, hatred, anxiety, pain, ecstasy, excitement and a million other feelings fighting each other every single moment.

But that’s not the reason I am writing this post today. Today is a day special for me not just because of a date but it’s about celebrating a moment. Exactly on this day I chose blogging as a resort to vent away my sufferings and my feelings. It listened to me patiently when no one else could. I found a route. In this beautiful anonymous route I chose to make a separate identity of myself. A person who could face all the roughness life dared to throw at! A person who could smile, a person who knew she had support through her bad times and people to celebrate when her happy times came round the corner.

Today I can proudly tell that I am a much more confident person in real life than I ever was. Life didn’t stop throwing difficulties with me, but I never stopped to embrace those. I chose to be strong and face them. I did cry, I did whine but I knew I had to move on. I met such amazing persons and heard such beautiful stories that I could never have been able to experience if I didn’t choose to blog. I shared with them and they shared with me. One of the biggest reasons I am happy today is because of this blog. I got a medium through which I could tell people what I really wanted to be.

 I will wrap up this lengthy post. Thank you guys for always being there. I never met you in person but I do know in each of your lives there is a beautiful story hidden. And someday down the lane when you choose to share your story to your loved ones and if somehow I find my mention, Pseudomona will smile as slowly and gradually the real Mona comes to existence.

 You have got only one life. It’s funny how something hidden teaches you how to live. Cheers to life!  😀

Image from here.