Escapism

It's funny how our moods work. Silly things make us sad while huge things may not affect us at all. How we store our faith in all wrong/impossible things and then regret about those things later. Funny thing is, we knew their fate already. But still we sulk. Feel sad. Low. Down. Depressed. Happy. Relaxed. Free. Too many emotions. Too many regrets. Of the past or the present.

And the cycle goes on. How some things make us depressed or even heartless. Anyway I think I have been posting a lot of philosophical blogs. So let me not even start with another one.

In other news, Bombay is no longer hot. Monsoon is here. So is the gloomy weather, traffic, potholes and dirt. Come to think if it, I don't like a single season here. Or anywhere. Winter makes my skin too dry, I sweat like a pig during humid summers of Bombay. Monsoon is too gloomy and depressing. And a huge pain if you have to travel as public transport is not easily available.

But the best thing is that a lot of trips happen during this season. Weekends are seldom spent in Bombay. Well, these days I'm never around on weekends anyway. And this has resulted into many arguments too with people who want to ahem spend time with me. I have been away most of the times. With different set of friends each time. And it's been fun so far. Exploring new places. Meeting new people. It gives you a break from the reality. 

When I discuss it with my close friends, they say that I'm escaping from the reality. My point is, what's wrong with that? Why is escapism bad if it gives me a peace of mind? I don't care how my Monday looks like so far as my weekends are fun. I don't care if you fight with me because I didn't meet you on weekend or didn't spend time with you when you were free. 

I found a picture of a place I was at around this time last year. 

Such a blissful place it was. Someone had given me the best news and had made this trip even more memorable for me only to shatter it after I came back. I remember sitting here alone for hours, smiling to myself and lost in dreams. Some moments are never forgotten. 

But this picture has given me motivation to go for another solo trip. To yet another destination. And it will happen soon.

Happiness

It's amazing how our mind works. How our emotions work. How we react to the same situation differently at different stages. How we look at a relationship differently as time passes by. How new people enter our lives, and in no time they become an integral part of our lives. And some people who swore to be there forever suddenly disappear. Because of you, because of them or because of circumstances - but they are not there with you anymore. They leave behind a void. At times someone else fills it, at times you fill it yourself or maybe it remains like that for forever.

It's like you talk to someone everyday. About every single thing that happens in your life - happy, sad, confusing, funny, awkward - every damn thing. And one day - whoosh. The comfort is not there anymore. You are alone, completely on your own. The moment something happens the next day, you pick your phone, start typing the text and stop. You suddenly realise that you don't have anyone to text or share the news with.

Funny how you don't even remember how this dependency started. Before him or her, you were perfectly happy doing things without anyone knowing. You had a routine life, without anyone paying much attention to your existence. 

One fine day, someone comes into your life, who gives you that special attention you so far never noticed getting from anyone else. You start talking more. You start getting more attention. When you are happy, he/she shares your happiness, when you are sad, he/she makes you smile. It feels great so far as it lasts. 

We don't even realise what we do to ourselves when we store our dependency in someone. What happens to us, our feelings when our happiness changes its meaning and becomes a person instead of things or emotions? Why do we create that space that was not there earlier and that we didn't even need? Now that we have created the space, we need to fill it. With the person. It usually starts when you meet your first guy. Once he leaves, you sulk, you are sad, you feel lonely. You have nobody to share your happiness with, nobody to listen to you crib, no punching bag. If you are good looking, this phase doesn't last too long. You find someone else. Repeat the cycle. It's a loop.

But with time, you slowly realise that you need to break this loop. You need to detach happiness from a particular person. Yes, without that too, a relationship can be strong and healthy. And without relationship too, you can be happy. And like everything else, this too is easy said than done. But one has to start somewhere. Then why not now?

Very strange post I know. I had to write something. My thoughts. I have not been able to write. And that scares me. I have managed one whole post today, that's a huge deal. Hope the block doesn't last long.

Are you a guy? Tough luck bro.

I have seen so many people talking about how difficult it is for a girl to survive in a male dominating society. Well it's true to a greater extent. But that doesn't mean that we girls take the feminism flag every time and abuse guys. They have a difficult life too.

I have seen them suffer so many times just because they are, well, men. No matter what they do in a girl's presence, their intentions are doubted. Well I believe that they should be allowed to think whatever they want to, for you cannot really change that. But we girls do the same too. It's a kind of secret code and thus I won't reveal what we really think in our mind about a guy (or even a girl for that matter in spite of being perfectly straight). When a guy offers to give a lift to a girl, they say "chance maar raha hai". If he doesn't offer, then he is a jerk. Ah poor guys.

Today I was waiting for a cab to go to the class. There was one guy standing right ahead of me. We were waiting for almost 10 minutes before one empty cab finally arrived. The cab guy didn't stop in front of him, but he stopped in front of me. Asked me where I wanted to go. I saw that guy come running to the cab. I let him ask the cab guy first as that was only fair. The cabwala refused him and took me.

Last weekend, I was coming back from some place. There was a guy sitting next to me in the flight. His friends were sitting right behind us. He tried 2-3 times to talk to me, just tried, but didn't succeed as I kind of carry that intimidating look with me wherever I go. Especially when I travel as I don't like to be disturbed. And flight is the only place where I get a peaceful sleep. And I didn't want to compromise on that. It was a two hour flight. After we landed, his friends very bluntly asked him why he didn't talk to me. And I heard it. He was embarrassed. Very embarrassed. 

A friend met with an accident. She rammed her bike into a car. It was her fault entirely as she lost balance. But onlookers started abusing the guy even though he was being sweet to her and trying to help her. His good gesture was mistaken as his error and poor fellow had to listen to everyone around him. He eventually took my friend to a nearby clinic. Thankfully she was not hurt much, but it was still a good deed. He didn't even take any damages from her. Insured car maybe, but still, WTH.

And every damn time, they are expected to carry heavy bags, or open the car/restaurant door, impress the girl, be funny, can't afford to be boring even a bit, can't praise other girls, have to compliment girls moderately, do hundreds of the things to make her fall in love with them, spend money on them, earn money for everyone - phew!

Poor guys. Thank God I am not a guy. I can be as lazy as I want to be. The biggest advantage of being a girl. Really. There are hardly any guys who are really out of a girl's league. If a guy is single, and a girl is even average looking and she likes him, he will say yes to her in all probabilities. But she won't ask him. Ever. And she gets away with it. If he doesn't have guts to ask her out, someone else will. She will never run out of options, while he gets just a few options in any case. A guy's ugly is a girl's cute.

Dear feminists, please leave them alone. Really. They are mostly cute.

Ranting away

Now when I feel like blogging more regularly, I don't know what to post. Not that I lack subjects to write about, but I somehow don't feel like writing about general topics anymore. They have been written about by so many people and in so many different ways. But writing something is required because you want to write. Rants have all been already written about, so repeating same thing again and again will not help either.

Latest controversy - Sanjay Dutt's conviction. Sanjay Dutt was awarded 5 years of imprisonment for possessing and destroying illegal weapons. There have been mixed reactions about his sentence. People say that he has already suffered enough after the bomb blasts and till now. These 20 years were no less than punishment for him. He has already spent 18 months in jail and remaining sentence shall commence after he surrenders, and he has been given four weeks' time to do so.

Now former Supreme Court Judges are suggesting that he should file a petition to grant him the pardon as his conduct in the last 20 years has been pretty much civil. I remember when the bomb blast happened back in 1993 and when he was arrested, people boycotted him and swore never to watch his movies. I am yet to understand why did he take the illegal weapon from the person who was actively involved in the blasts and even tried to destroy them if he was innocent. 

Plea for granting pardon to the Governor - this right can be exercised when one feels that the court has been too harsh on him while granting him the punishment. But in Sanjay Dutt's case, court convicted him for the period prescribed in the act. Now, if everyone starts filing petition just because one is popular or has always had a good conduct, our Government's entire time will go in reviewing these petitions.

Further, isn't Supreme Court's order final and binding? Why such preferential treatment should be given just because one is a celebrity? According to me, he has committed a crime and he should pay for it. If the Government starts overruling Judiciary's decisions for such celebrities, will people be able to trust the Judiciary in future? High time that we start looking at celebrities as regular citizens so far as law and order is concerned.

I have heard many stories about 1993 bomb blasts and his alleged involvement in the same. They can be wrong stories. And since the Court did not find him guilty under any of those charges, we cannot comment anything about them. But those were some serious accusations. Had there been anyone else in his place, I don't think that person could have even seen the daylight post the blasts and till the judgment day.

But again, we are nobody to decide anything about anyone. Many people who have committed crimes are roaming around freely. Innocent people have lost their lives. Petty criminals have spent five years in jail for stealing 100 Rs. because his case date kept getting postponed, mercy petitions don't get reviewed for decades as the President has other important things to look after. Ministers are busy with the scams and people are posting awareness messages online to show that they are doing their bit even though that won't serve any purpose.

So, how was your weekend?

Comeback, Conversations and Dates

I'm back. From where? Where did I go to? Did I even go anywhere? No place that you know of. Or even I do for that matter. But somehow off late I have been feeling some kind of a disconnect from this place. To be honest, I hated this disconnect. But now I again feel like writing. And reading. I have not been reading any blogs for quite some time. Not that I didn't want to, I just didn't feel like. Especially since the time this blogger interface changed. I stopped connecting with the dashboard. I didn't feel like opening blogger.com.

But now I feel like coming back to this space. I miss blogging dearly. Every time there is a conversation about some topic, I end up saying that I have blogged about it, or I have read about this on someone's blog. There was a time when blogging was allotted specific hours each day. It was a kind of ritual. I bet it is still for some of you. 

Whenever an interesting conversation takes place, I decide to blog about it. But it doesn't materialise. Reasons are few, excuses are plenty. A few days ago my friend asked me what I wanted to do with my life. I work, I earn and I spend. There is no goal as such set for the future. But is it even required? We spoke about my so called future plans. She seemed satisfied with my answer and since then has not nagged me for building up some savings.

Another discussion happened with another friend. It was about remembering dates. I am good at remembering dates I want to remember. Rather, I remember dates associated with people I love. Thus if I love you, I will remember all the dates associated with you - your birthday, when did we meet, when did a particular important incident happened with us etc. I even remember the dates which are important to that person. It sounds too scary to even me. And thus I never tell this to anyone that I remember this date when we did this. It doesn't really matter to me. On that day, it wouldn't even click me that it's an important day. But when I think of an incident, I remember it with a date if it's important enough. Phew! I am complicated. Not much, but a bit. And it's good. Too much of simplicity gets boring. 

In other news, yesterday was blog's birthday. I remembered it, but I was working, thus couldn't find any time to post anything. Earlier, I used to write one whole post on such things. Now I laugh at myself for doing so. But earlier, blogging happened regularly. When I used to go on a vacation, I used to set a date and time and put a post on auto publish mode so that my blog is not neglected in my absence. And now I don't even open it regularly. But I still manage to write something. I still enter some entry here however lame it might be. And I will continue doing so.

PS: Ignore the header.