Loving a life that sucks!

I am a mid 20 professional, settled with my post graduation, working in a career field of my choice and living an independent life in city of dreams, Mumbai. I look outside the windows of my 13th floor flat, and disappointed, I absolutely not feel any bit of what I had expected this to be. Monica Gellar, in F.R.I.E.N.D.S welcomes the real world with how "it sucks, you are gonna love it", some term it as quarter life crisis, some just call it adulting and growing up.

Essential to adulting, sure come a few lessons and here's my what and why exactly is so wrong about growing up and how some of us can try to make peace with it.

• What next? -  What takes away the peace has nothing to do with the growing up, but probably with the question of what we are growing into. Science Vs Commerce was an easy choice, student ranking decided the stream of study we pursued, and with a little clarity that came with time it wasn't much of a crises choosing between higher education or the other alternative. Last 9 years, I've pretty much been blind folded and yet have always known the road that lay beyond the next milestone I would approach. Even if there would be a few dilemmas of choosing between the options presented to us, we still knew the options that existed. From choosing a road to now having to build your own road, even deciding where to place your next milestone, and then building ahead is an idea that scares me. "Future hi nahi dikh raha", is exactly what am talking about. Where I stand today, had been my future all this while, and now some of us probably need to halt and figure out our new future. We probably are pretty much OKAY, just where we are, and should give time to this crucial cross road we are in, but of course there are more of the toxic expectations we've got ourselves trapped into. 

• Deriving Happiness from our Jobs - Isn't that exactly what we toiled for in the last 6-8 years? Starting from higher secondary school, life has mostly been about building a secure career. Yes, there would be friends and hobbies and vacations, but they've truly always been the peripherals. Having spent 4 years doing engineering, in the back of my mind, I always knew MBA had to be my cup of tea, and so I pursued it, with no hint of doubt. And, so I believe, most of us have followed our calling, so much so that trying to derive contentment and satisfaction from our particular jobs is most natural. Any tiny fly disturbing this cup of tea, that we now own, is a big big disappointment to our idea of living our dream one day. Job is monotonous, unless you are a painter or a dancer, it is simply put a chore of tasks that almost always remains the same for days becoming months and years. There would be highs in between, but very bluntly, they will give you the high in life because they will be rare. The degree of how exciting they would be, will depend on your frame of reference, but all of them will sooner or later become the usual, inevitably. Coming from a place where you've dealt with challenging academic situations, this will seem like a place and life you don't belong or don't deserve. But, you'll need to belong to this new constant in your life, and the best way out would be through acceptance. Some of us would make the best of our weekends, with parties and vacations and good food and clothes, that however would be just 2/7th of your life, and the rest still would remain monotonous. 

• The tireless energy of achieving things -  Another toxic loop we all keep falling for is our need to keep achieving and proving our worth for the simple fact of having turned some big stones until now. I see some of my over achiever friends keep running after the best university for higher education, or the best job in the country. All of this works as long as this ambition gives you the right energy to keep going in life, but for some this could become a bit taxing, especially when failures keep hitting again and again.  Few might even lose sight of what could be well within reach for something that needs must be possessed for the mere purpose of satisfying our self worth. For some it could be cribbing over what you already have achieved simply because you cannot tame your tireless energy of achieving something more. Your ambition, which should be a source of hope will soon start bringing in all the hopelessness and despair. This is a lot of frustration, and a never ending one. 

• Directing our Energies - This monotonicity and frustration builds a stagnant dump of energy in our system. Earlier in our lives, we have had several vents supporting the free flow of negative and positive vibes. These came in the form of family time, student clubs and societies, festivals, also examinations. And they came in such natural forms, most of us never really realized how subconsciously we were all a part of such a critical process that keeps us going. Quite naturally then, we wouldn't know how to channelize this energy when most of the above mentioned factors go missing. This is exactly why we need to find or even create our own new vents. Writing became my way of letting free my built up mental energy, running now makes me confident, music early morning is my new sunshine and visiting a temple gets me peace I had not known before. Some of these may be more obvious to us, but the best will come through searching your new vents. This process of searching will open your eyes to a self you didn't know before. Some will surprise themselves with learning new hobbies and discovering new talents bringing the much needed relief to their monotonous lives. For some it would open doors to life beyond their professional jobs that they have been failing to derive happiness from. Some frustrated souls would go on to run the longest miles or climb the highest peaks and save their depreciating self worth in achieving something they never thought was within their capabilities. And with that one might finally start loving a life that sucks. 

Conversation with a 8 year old~

Recently I have found myself enjoy conversations much more outside my peer group, particularly with kids and oldies. They are less cribbing about life, they talk about things other than web-series, career and love, they mean what they talk and talk what they mean. This one is about my new 8 year old friend, Hea, as she would want me to call her. 

"Obhilasha", she said, in her Bengali accent, as she offered to walk me to a play ground near by. She was a quick and confident conversationist, as if to make me comfortable in her company she started with my favorites, from fruits to vegetables she would want to know everything that doesn't concern me even a bit, but surprisingly and honestly immersing me remembering forgotten facts about self. Her favorite fruit was strawberry, she said, which she had eaten only once, one that her friend her gotten her, she quickly described it's taste, translating to whatever Hindi she could. There's a thing about us since childhood, fancy things are almost always our favorite. We walked through the hardly four feet wide lane that could give way to nothing except a bicycle, yet, she commanded that I kept to the left of the lane, and she would take my right. I wanted to recheck where all this confidence was coming from, some kids in my previous encounters had taken me to be a student. Very unlikely, she was a perfect judge to my age, 24, she said, and yet continued to hold my hand in the most protective manner when a bicycle would take us by surprise from the back.

My mother had mentioned how Abhilasha had recently lost her father in a heart attack, and all this while I couldn't be more amazed by her spirit. But, what she did next, was least expected. Just when we reached the playground, she started narrating me memories of her father, of how they would spend time playing on the ground. I think I just couldn't concentrate on what she was speaking anymore, her expressions did not have a taint of loss, there was this smile, I imagined, she would have had with her father in those moments she was narrating. She mentioned her father a couple of times more with that same oblivion, leaving me perplexed as to how kids receive loss. Had she accepted so well of her father's loss or was she still unaware of what had happened? Was that courage on her face or was that innocence?

Coming back to the responsible kid she was, she reminded me how it was almost sunset and we should be heading back. She asked where I came from, "Mumbai", and there came that big smile this place brings to a million faces. I asked what brought that smile on her face, it lit her up even more with that innocent answer of how she had never been to Mumbai, but she would want to. The biggest town she had been to, was Malda, but she had dreams of living in Delhi. That did take me back a few years down, and wonder what precisely I should be a little thankful in life about. Village or a city life, flowers or trees, discussing about things lesser important, or how they appear to be, we parted ways for the evening.

She quickly agreed to get clicked, when I asked her to (I knew I wanted to remember her for long), and, did not  for once bother to look at how she looked in the picture.

x

Spines & Petals

The rush of the start, or the calm of forever? 

 The healing touch; a mend to the broken? Or forgotten stories that die unspoken?

An escape to your dream, or beating in the heart of reality?

 The one you know, or the one you've known? 

To the time that's never enough, or the time that always was? 

That creeping need of constant protection? Or the innocence of times with no expectation? 

Reema Kagti & Zoya Akhtar are giving a whole new reason to watch their content!

In her movie “Talaash”, she created a victim who hoped for justice, refreshingly devoid of self pity and the conventional raging vengeance, a dead character that intricately delved into human emotions, and contrasted this with a police officer, who, on the other hand was merely passing by a hopeless life. But, a couple of hours was too unfair to these characters, who we’d want to spend more time with.
Writer-director, Reema Kagti recently spoke of how a web series gives her the welcoming air time, space and freedom to build characters, and what remarkable pieces she did come up with in “Made in Heaven”, her co-created venture with 4 other directors, including her co-writer Zoya Akhtar. Couldn’t get enough of all the drama the 9 episodes (and gladly a complete 9 hours) brought in, with some meticulously thought about and well written characters.
What new could they have spoken of Indian weddings that others have previously not, it’s the idea of using each individual wedding setting for building the psyche of their characters. Intertwined with modern day Indian wedding societal drama, the script episodically uncovers the layers of the leads, like peeling off their skin, exposing the depth of human vulnerabilities (Faiza), dark spaces (Tara) and unspoken silences (Karan). The other lead, Adil, will leave you as clueless as he has been projected in the series. He puts his head down only once on the show, on being questioned “what he actually wants”, mockery of the business tycoon his character is. Tara, an otherwise sophisticated and neat freak is frequently seen overdoing her lipstick, and you’d wonder what the writers are hinting at, until of course the story subtly reveals that. Faiza, who is cheating her best friend, still convincingly chooses to address and believe her as her best friend. There were others too who, in spite of not getting much air time, were portrayed as comprehensively using other tools. A transforming dressing style constructing the flavor of ambition in “Jazz”, while “Kabir”, the videographer, who was practically given no dialogue, spoke the most about the underlying theme of each wedding through his video blogs.
What Reema and Zoya have smartly done is created some wonderful flawed characters that mirror real people around us, with that big difference of leaving us with no scope or even want of judging them, that one could otherwise be tempted to in real life. This is a must watch for those who love Drama. Reema Kagti and Zoya Akhtar are giving me a whole new reason to watch their flicks – their characters, and looking forward to more mentally stimulating content from them.