Tag: thoughts

Beauty…

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We all have those unanswered questions we wouldn’t dare ask in fear that someone might call us stupid. Here’s mine : What is beauty? A perfect winged eyeliner? A Picasso painting? A genuine person? A generous heart? Why? Can anybody really explain beauty?

Wikipedia tried : Beauty is a characteristic of a person, animal, place, object, or idea that provides a perceptual experience of pleasure or satisfaction.

Pleasure. Have you read The Fault in our Stars by John Green? That book just about killed me. It was in no way a pleasurable experience. But I thought that book was absolutely beautiful. I cannot explain why.

I decided that the best time to get my question out there without being labelled stupid was now. Hence I started with the closest of friends and family – “I’m doing research for my blog. What, according to you, is beauty?”

I got the typical answers – Beauty is my girlfriend. Beauty is the love of my life. Beauty is a genuine person. Beauty is a loving heart. Beauty is confidence. Beauty is perfection. Beauty is anything that makes you feel good.

Then I asked them “How do you say that? What exactly makes you use the word ‘beauty’ towards those things?”

I got one answer : “I don’t know. I can’t explain.”

That’s the thing. Nobody knows. I was almost on the verge of giving up when someone I know gave me her definition of beauty :

“By the magic of sight , anything which on looking makes me feel fresh.
By the magic of my palette, anything that tastes and gives me the yummy yum yum
By the magic of my nostrils, anything that gives the fragrence which I want to capture”
I didn’t ask her how she came to that conclusion because to me, that answer was beautiful.

She might not have nailed it, but her explanation was something I couldn’t question. Beauty was her accepting the simplicity of the complex things in and around us. Beauty was that she noticed something no other person I know did. Beauty was that she found it magical.

I wish I was someone that could figure it out and give you scientific facts. But I can only talk about what I’ve observed.

When I look at Miranda Kerr, I think she is so cute. When I look at Meryl Streep, I think she is dynamic and utterly gorgeous. But when I look at Angelina Jolie, I think she is beautiful. There was a time when I hated her. But as I realized just how much she gives to the world, I began to love her.

There was an Indian celebrity that I used to love. I thought his talent was unbelievably amazing. His grace so utterly beautiful. A few years ago, his personal life took a hike. His behavior during that period was everything I stand against. From that day, every time I see him do what he does best, I see an asshole. I think to myself “Look at him, trying to cover up his act with grace. He can’t fix what he’s broken.”

I’ve noticed that our perception of a person or a thing changes when the story about them changes. I used to love Romeo and Juliet. It was the most beautiful love story on the planet and an incredible one too. Then I saw the movie Shakespeare in Love. The idea (which I highly doubt is true but is the story of the movie) that Romeo and Juliet was based on an affair that Shakespeare had, ruined the book for me. Ruined the love they shared. Whenever I pick up the book, I no longer feel like I’m reading a beautiful love story. I feel like I’m reading a scandal report of how a man cheated on his wife.

Our emotions define the beauty we see. When the girl we hate looks absolutely perfect, we don’t see beauty. We say “I cannot stand her and her perfection! It’s so fake.” But when the person we love looks like crap, we see a beauty we can’t define.

Beauty is not in the eye of the beholder. It is in his heart. It is in his emotions. It is in his love.

Beauty is the book that makes his heart yearn. Beauty is the song that reminds him of happiness. Beauty is his family and a place he calls ‘home.’ Beauty is the girl he fell head over heels for. Beauty is his first pet. Beauty is the way his mother takes care of him. Beauty is the doll he’s had on his bed since he was two. Beauty is the unforgettable connection he had with the girl he met at a party weeks ago.

It might be painful. It might hurt you. But if you love it, you’ll find beauty in it. We can’t all love the same person, the same book or the same movie. There arises the difference in our ideas of beauty.

John Green had me falling in love with Augustus Waters and Hazel Grace. He had me falling in love with their stories. With their personalities. And no matter how much that book kills me, I will always love it and I will always think it was beautiful.

Because love doesn’t always come from a place of joy or pleasure. Sometimes love comes from pain and hurt.

And hence we call it Beautiful…

Letting go..

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Do you ever have a problem with this? Be it a friend, a crush, a boyfriend, an ex, a family member, a pet or even an object? Do you ever sit in a corner and think of a million reasons that convince you to walk away but hold on to the one thing that makes you stay? Do you ever mentally curse yourself for not having the ability to just say “goodbye” and mean it?

Welcome to my world.

It sounds so simple when people say it. “Let go.” All I can think of replying to them is, “Trust me, if I could I would. But I can’t.” Then my best friend asked me “Why not?”

That’s the million dollar question, isn’t it ? Why not ?!

Why can the father not let go of his 21-year-old daughter? Why can the mother not let go of her toddler’s hand on the first day of pre-school? Why can you not let go of that little dog/cat you’ve had for ten years now? Why can she not let go of the guy who broke her heart? Why can you not let go of your favorite doll you’ve cuddled with since you were a child?

I don’t have answers for this. I don’t even have a  theory. I like knowing that I have an answer, any answer even if it’s not the right one. But I can’t find one for this question.

Now I have this guy. Or rather, had. Actually, scratch that. Let me rephrase that sentence. There was this guy I fell for. He was the most imperfect human being I have ever met. I can find a million things wrong with him, starting with, he made me cry once a week. I know, what was I thinking?! But somehow I couldn’t let go. I’d tell myself, and him, every other week – “I can’t do this anymore. I have to let go. This is killing me. We can’t talk. We can’t be friends.” He eventually stopped caring about it because he knows, the very next morning, I’d call him and tell him I was being stupid. That we should, of course, keep talking. That I’m totally fine. I wasn’t. I still am not. I actually said the exact same thing to him for the hundredth time last night. I’m struggling now.  All I want to do is to pick up the phone and call him. But why?!

Why is it so difficult to let go? I had a chair when I was a kid. A yellow chair. A yellow plastic chair. It was my favorite place to sit for the first eight years of my life and then one fine day, it broke. I duct-taped it. Painted it black (didn’t really look good). I kept it that way for another 6 years before my mom forced me into throwing it away. I cried and cried for days. Made no sense because I hadn’t used it in 4 years. But I couldn’t let go. It was like kissing my childhood goodbye.

That’s why letting go is difficult. When you look at something or someone, it’s not just that person or just that particular thing. It’s not simply a broken chair. It’s a memory. It’s something that’s been a part of our lives and letting go feels like we’re not just saying goodbye to that object or person but to the memory that comes along with them. To that part of our life. It means accepting change.

And change, as we all know, might be inevitable but is possibly the most difficult thing to deal with.

Life Choices : Choose Happiness

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My friend and I were just having a very heated argument about life choices. The guy I have the world’s biggest crush on works at a giant corporate and gets paid a pretty decent amount. He can ask the company to send him a cab every morning to take him to work and back, he gets a bonus for every holiday, health insurance – pretty much the whole package. Here’s the catch : He hates his job ! He always talks about how every minute he spends there he feels like he’s going insane. So why on Earth can he not quit his job and do something he loves? “The money it pays.”

I’m an intern at an advertising agency. I don’t get paid at all. But I find a reason to wake up every morning and show up here because I love what I do. Isn’t that what life is supposed to be like? Doesn’t every person deserve the right to happiness? Should money really dictate his life? That was my side of the argument when my friend fired back at me, “What about his family crisis? What if they need the money he makes?” I did not have an answer to that. So I paused as I ran that idea through my mind. My parents don’t expect my money. So I can make a choice that makes me happy. But can everyone afford to do that? Can everyone choose to be selfish when in fact, maybe his parents have been waiting for him to graduate so he can contribute to the income in his household? How can I suggest that he stop doing that?

Here’s how. Sure, they need the money. But parents who have waited for four years for him to complete his university, can wait a few more for him to make this kind of money again. Except, this time around, he’ll make that money happily. My friend got a job that he loves. But he can’t take it. I asked him why and he told me that his dad had made a comment : “When you’re getting your sister married, you expect the guy to have triple degrees. What’s to say that the girl who marries you won’t expect the same of you? You have to study more.” (This is in accordance to the Indian arranged marriage system) But shouldn’t the girl he’s with care that her husband is someone that is mentally happy and peaceful? Should she just look at his bank account? Should he marry someone like that?

My crush isn’t the only person I’ve known to complain of these things. My friends who work in similar companies pretty much all hate their jobs. “I have to work weekends.” “I have to work night shifts.” “I don’t get a holiday for New Year.” But why? If majority of the employees feel this way, why can’t the companies make a difference? What are the organizations doing that keeps their employees so mentally depressed and stressed? Why aren’t the employees (who are in majority) taking a stand against it and saying “I CHOOSE TO BE HAPPY !” ?

My dad’s friend was talking about how his son had quit Harvard Law to pursue music, about how much he hated his son for giving up what so many other kids in this world would kill for. But in the end, he understood that his son is now happy. He smiled at his happiness. He said “Isn’t that what we parents want in the end? A happy child?!” I assure you three quarters of the parents in this world are no different to this one. They might be furious in the beginning, but in the end, they’ll be happy that you’re happy. So why is it so difficult for us to make this choice?

Why do we fail to see thirty years into the future? You need the money now. Sure. You’re unhappy now, but you earn enough to save for the future. What future? You’re not going to quit when you’re forty and take a trip around the world. You’re stuck in a job you hate already and thirty years from now, you’re still going to be stuck in a job you hate. Only then, you’ll be taking your stress and depression home and instead of depressing only yourself, you’re going to be depressing your entire family.

So think wisely now. Make life choices not based on financials or current situation, but plan them for what your life would be like ten or fifteen years from now. Choose to be happy rather than rich. When you’re working out of your mind with no time for anyone, you’re not living. But even if you don’t make enough money and don’t live in a fancy beach side duplex, when you’re happy, you’ll attract people and those people will always be there for you. You’ll have all the love in the world. Isn’t that what life’s all about anyway?!

The People Who Change Your Life

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“There will always be a reason why you meet people. Either you need them to change your life or you’re the one that will change theirs.”

– Sushan R. Sharma

I didn’t believe in this statement because I was oblivious to it. I thought the decisions that changed my life were always mine. But it’s incredible how someone who has had minimum to no important role in your life can influence you in a way you can’t define.

When I graduated high school, I was at cross roads. I didn’t know what to do with my life. College? Work? Marriage? I had no clue. Then I befriended someone on Facebook. We’d attended the same school and we knew the same people. So we started “chatting.” He asked me what I did for a living and I said, “Nothing. Still trying to make a life choice.” He then asked me what I’m interested in and what I like doing and I told him I’m very interested in music, movies, writing and so on. We got into a more detailed conversation about it and he said I sounded like a media person – “Mass communication or if you know what you like, a specialization course in film making or audio engineering. Study that. I think you’ll like that. You can even try applying for my university.” It was a passing comment in an unimportant conversation. I didn’t realize it had made an impact. I didn’t realize that he was the reason, two months later, I’d looked at those options. I didn’t choose the university he’d suggested. But I ended up pursuing media in a university of my choice.

Until a few months back, I honestly believed it had been my choice to pursue a degree in media at university. I was the one that wanted to do this. He and I had lost touch and I’d even forgotten all about him. Then one day, a friend of mine mentioned his name and I said “Oh wait ! What about him?” Apparently, he’d had a cardiac arrest and had sunk into coma. His parents were praying for their son’s life. It shook my heart because in that moment I realized, the reason for my happiness, the reason for my new goals and career choices had come from him. When I’d had no idea what to do, he’d given me direction. What he had mentioned as an option in a passing comment, I’d explored and made a life out of. The worst part, I’d never thought of it that way. I had always believed it was all me.

This pushed me to wonder how many more life choices of mine have been influenced by other people. It blew my mind when I realized how my life constantly changed for the better and worse because of the people I met and the things they said. How I’ve made choices based on simple conversations.

I don’t know how many of you remember Orkut – A social media website created by Google. It was India’s biggest “It” site before Facebook. In 8th grade, a girl in my class suddenly turned to me as I was leaving and asked, “Do you have an Orkut account?” I had no idea what it was. I’d never even heard of it. If she hadn’t mentioned it, I probably never would have. But that day, I ran home and figured it out. I even opened an Orkut account. An account that has changed my life in such an incredibly massive way. It has given me the worst memories I can imagine. But it has also given me someone I call my best friend today. Orkut was the reason I wanted to study abroad. Studying abroad, I met different people. I learnt new cultures. I explored boundaries. I set my own limitations. I also met a girl who later on moved to the country my dad lived in. So we hung out every time I visited my father. That girl started dating a really friendly guy and he introduced us to his friends. With one of his friends, I ended up having my first serious relationship. The worst and the best man I’ve met so far. That guy became the reason I picked a university in that part of the world. The course, however, influenced by a man now in coma on a hospital bed.

I met a girl at that university. She helped me through my break up and we became best friends. She cared for me, loved me and today, she’s like a sister to me. She made me want to be a better version of myself. She always told me, “Stand tall. You’re worth it.” With her words, my family’s support and an accepting society, I figured myself out. I took pride in who I was.

Accepting myself, I also learnt my likes and dislikes. This helped me find other people who were like-minded to me. I dated one of them who introduced me to his friend. That friend and I became pretty close as we both volunteered at a film festival. He taught me about his culture and the customs in his religion which made me curious and I figured out my dream job. After travelling innumerous hours across the globe and learning so many new things, I know now, I want to travel and live in different places and learn new cultures and languages and write about them. Something so very different from my former dream job as a “House wife,” modernly known as “Home-maker.”

Funny, to think, it all started with a casual “Do you have an Orkut account?” !

Honestly, take a second. Think back. You’ll realize just how none of your choices actually really came from you. Your worst enemy will start feeling like the best thing that ever happened to you.

I call my friend every other day and ask him, “How’s he doing? Is he awake from the coma?” My friend always wants to know why I’m so interested. I never tell him the story. The story of the guy that changed my life.

It’s a story I will keep to myself. When he wakes up, which I honestly hope he does, I will find an opportunity to thank him. For giving me a choice. For giving me a dream. For giving me a life. Until then…

 

Update : The guy passed away on the 22nd of June 2014. His mother was by his side and his close friends and family went to the funeral and paid their respect.

The People Around You

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When we’re walking on the streets, wrapped up in our thoughts, we forget that there’s a world that’s buzzing with life around us.. Have you ever stopped and looked at someone and wondered? Have you ever looked at a teenager and wondered what kind of home they go back to? Have you ever stopped and stared at a person in a suit and wondered what kind of pathetic boss they work for? Have you ever smiled at a kid that is enjoying whatever little time he/she has left as an innocent before the big bad world corrupts their brain? Do you ever take a moment of your journey to look at someone’s life other than yours? I did once and it changed every journey I ever took from that day on..

It was a regular day back from university to my apartment and I was so wrapped up with music and social networking that I almost didn’t notice.. You know how we have friends? We laugh, we fight, we giggle, we tease and we make the lamest jokes in the world? I saw a gang of seven people, in an MRT, do that.. through sign language. I might not have understood everything they signed, but I understood that laughter, I understood what it meant when one of those guys shook his head and closed his eyes while laughing uncontrollably.. I looked around me and saw every person around them stare at them in awe and they didn’t even know about it.. I will never forget the tiny tear a woman wiped from her eyes as she looked at these people who have so much more to whine about than you and I do, but yet they were so happy, so filled with joy..

Somehow, since then, I always look around, I always notice.. Those old aunties who laughed so much they had tears coming from their eyes, that cute couple that would not stop staring into each other’s eyes so so lovingly that it started to annoy the shit out of me, that little kid that dangled her legs because her feet wouldn’t touch the ground, that random kid who smiled at me for no reason when standing in line at Starbucks, that girl at the market that always gives me and my mum some extra vegetables out of kindness, that mother who was texting her husband about their divorce while still cooing at her daughter in the pink tutu, the mentally ill homeless guy that wandered near my old house and always had a smile to give, that old woman selling bananas who probably went back to a small house with barely any food to eat and yet asks you how you’re doing..

Take a moment, look around you.. Look at every life around you.. At all the happiness around you.. At all the people that are probably in way more shit than you’re in right now.. And give them a smile, just because.

For all you know, that’s probably the best thing that happened to them all day..