A home away from home- The Happy Blog

A home away from home,

A life very new from the one I lived

Friends so different from the once I loved

Discovering new people, new roles and strengths,

I am glad I came this far from my mother land.

I never gave a serious thought to living away from home. I never really imagined that that will ever be needed. I am a girl who always prioritized family over friends, and so never really knew how it would be to live so far away from one.

I am writing today not because the life with parents is easy, there were always other things to worry about then. But writing today because living away from home has been a different (and till now cherished) experience altogether.

A bucket of regrets from the past

A string of memories of the bygones

Whole lot of loves that never materialized

Keeping myself strong in those soul crushing nights

All left behind, I am glad I came this far from my beloved land

The city that I am living in is pretty awesome in a lot of senses. Totally scary autowallas, traffic jam packed roads (awfully polluted ones at that). But “Mah LYf MaH RuLezZ” truly makes sense here. People are less judgmental, they are freer, they are “work hard and party harder” kind of people.  Or the fact is that there are just more people of my age category.

Probably it is all of this, or it is that I just became a free bird, with no restriction of timelines whatsoever, because hey “I just discovered the Ola Cab App”. That, and the fact that all the places from the troublesome, full of not so wonderful memories, distracting past are far away. And all the complex equations just dissolved due to the distance. All the “log kya sochenge” after a failed effort, though still are there, are very far away now.

Those strangely comforting words from a loving Dad

Those "I'll slap you if you'll cry again" handholds from a strong mother

Those surprise chocolates from a very thoughtful brother

Those mature lectures from a younger sister (Is she smart or is she smart!)

All of it cherished, I am glad I have them in this faraway land

I am happy, parents are happier that I am getting to work hard. I had counted on few people to be family in a sans family city, but I found the emotional independence before I even got there(I am discovering more of it). I realized a lot of other great strengths

  1. I can shop for Groceries, as perfectly as my parents did.

 2. I can keep a neat home, as meticulously neat as unknown gnomes kept  my          previous one

 3. I can negotiate with maids, and electricians and plumbers and ...

 4. I clean my own laundry, and then iron it.

 5. I can manage mornings without Mom having to bark out my name

 6. I can manage to fall ill without cribbing about it to parents.

 7. I can love my siblings better than when I was with them

 8. I can survive without Maggi and Ma.

 9. I can.

I am sure everybody else can do it too and not feel the need to write about it or feel extremely happy about it. Maybe because either they can’t write, or they don’t feel happy about it, or both (get the pun? No, ok!)

But yay I am happy, and yay that I am writing a happy blog after so long. And yay I have finally learnt to gather good people around me. And yay I have overcome the rotten past. And yay to awesome room-mates (You two make the dinner time a look forward to event) and yay to awesome team-mates (only few of them). Yay to Ola cabs (I wasn’t paid to advertise), and yay to my new company (It feels awesome to work for you AND crib about it to parents) and yay to an extreme satisfaction of finding a home away from home.

Since an year before

You don’t worry my dear Mama,

I’ll rise again,

From the fallen ashes,

I’ll spark again.

I’ll spark to make you proud,

I’ll spark to mend your wounds,

I’ll spark to be in your old age,

I’ll spark again from my ruins.

An year before, I was mentally several years younger and significantly more naive than the woman I am today (an oxymoron, but true). I was in love, a lot, and further put into mess by an emotionally weak heart. Or at least I thought that I was, and I ended up wounded, scarred, financially broke, pathetic and entirely heartbroken.

But haven’t we all atleast once in our life? Haven’t we all atleast once thought that this is the worse it can get, and I don’t know how to get through this extremely exhausting phase of life. Haven’t we all wondered then, that as if we are stuck in this mess since forever and for forever?

Love (arguably) means giving out your best to that love, layer by layer peeling open your cocoon to do so, just because you believe that “love interest” deserves the best. It is the most vulnerable situation you put yourself in. Scary, risky, unknown and unpredictable. And it’s not until we’re truly charred by it that we realize that it was the fragile heart that we risked.

But then why we find ourselves young, suddenly alone, and then in love again. Forgotten about the effort it required to be in that kind of love, the investment required to nurture it, and (forgive the MBA Terms) absolutely zero guaranteed returns. Maybe because, once there, we suddenly notice that vigorously thumping heart. Suddenly, we realize just how much alive that thumping can feel.

In this last year, I have been crazy in love, multiple times, with anything that I could hold onto to let go of the previous love (a vicious cycle). Sometimes romantically, sometimes passionately. And in love… not just with people, I have fallen in love with organizations, with ideas, sometimes with money, once with the idea of being the best daughter, and other times with fame.

And all of the above love(s), unarguably, turned into an ex. I remember that frenzy to attain that love, those tears on failing, that clutching my hair and crying in absolute desperation, to plan again for next move, to rehearse the dialogues, to finally giving up on one love and moving onto another.

In those months of darkness, when I supposed I was at my weakest, I rose stronger. Not to forget the people I clinched onto to make me strong, I had become an emotional fungus, depended emotionally on people other than family for sustenance. God bless them.

But today, suddenly I don’t regret falling and failing repeatedly in love. It taught me what it means to give all of you to somebody, or something, wholeheartedly. I learned how to try, fail, and try again with scratches on your heart.

I learned to appreciate confusion and desperation. Desperation brings out the best in people, makes them comfortable with themselves, their own thoughts. I learnt to appreciate silence, to spend time inside of my own head. I learned how to drink an entire bottle of wine by myself, and I learned how to put the glass of wine down.

I learned how to live my life without regrets, just let everything be on the table of past, and accept that it will be there forever, like some shining old antique. I have learned how to fall graciously after a leap of faith goes wrong.

I might have been given nothing but darkness to start with, But now I realize I was given an opportunity to be a better, stronger person. I was given the opportunity to make myself worthwhile to those who matter to me, I was given a chance to realize what actually mattered to me. I was given the opportunity to mend my own heart back together.

And now I know that life happens, Disappointments burn you, put your world to darkness, but you keep lighting matches anyway. And you got to find the parts of you to put back together from those ashes, and you got to move on and give yourself a second chance, with a heart that is stronger than before.

Hold on your breath oh Universe! Change ahead...

I just got an email from a site, which allows you to write emails to the future you.

In that, I had written a lot of things that I was insecure about 2 years back, when it was my first day in the college. And I was surprised because all of those insecurities have come true. I am wondering if this is an extreme case of intuition gone right, or a case of presumptions beliefs and insecurities that you surround yourself creating a cloud of doubt and suspicion inside you to ruin you to the core, to the extent that your efforts seem dented and half-hearted.

In a book called Harry potter, I remember reading “Harry, never forget that what the prophecy said was only significant because Lord Voldemort made it so.” I can relate to it so much right now. It’s as if I had prophesized for myself, that these adversities will happen, and it’s as if I started acting on that same belief (that they will happen), and that belief ate up all my efforts, restricted my imagination of how not to let the Prophecy come true.

Similar to this, and from a totally unrelated sector, somebody recently told me how whatever you declare to the universe, comes true because universe conspires to make it happen. It’s as if I declared that I would fail, in relationships, in friendship, career-wise, and that insecurity made it happen.

I don’t know if you are able to relate to what I am saying, but I’ll end up on something that you might understand.

Take my advice, and don’t restrict yourself to the boundaries that a certain fear, an inferiority complex creates around you. Declare to the universe what you want, and if not the universe strives to make it happen, that declaration will atleast help you make it happen, to put in whole hearted efforts into that declaration. Pessimism has worked fine for me in the past; I always took the worst case scenario and strived to convert into the best case. But Pessimism could only bring me this far, now it has turned back onto me to leave me with “I am being victimized” attitude. Now it’s time for optimism, hope, passion and determination. I am not telling you to go into the war without a fall-back option, but I think fall-back options only keep you from making full efforts.

How I now wish I hadn’t thought of these adversities, then I wouldn’t have feared them, and I would have lived as a free bird, striving, taking each day as it comes. But I guess it’s never late to start with good habits…

I changed when….

Once upon a time I was a girl, a charming one people say. I changed into a teenager when the air of love flew in. Sweet smelling and strong, it helped me built the castles of dream on it. But those castles were built in the air, they broke.

I changed into a conscious and careful girl when they broke.

The conscious teenager entered into the big bad world outside school, and the air was now that of politics, mistrust and danger. Worries for future and expectations from parents infiltrated it. Along with it I could smell the play of power and the filthy game that it leads to. I was an aware but an insecure just out of my teens girl. I was now rebellious, desperate to make it out of this filth and into a prosperous world. With love-life put on hold, friends gone astray and college coming to an end, the air had become difficult to breathe in.

I changed when God gave me another chance, I changed into an optimistic girl.

 I now smiled, and made friends again. I had now come to trusting people again, sharing feelings was considered to be okay again. An acceptance had come to me that everything that happens is always for the “greater” good.

But change had to come again, I changed when I made a choice to leave that position of comfort.

I changed into a business woman when I traded that world of friends for a world of stretched limits, clever businessmen and new opportunities. People say it is a world where, you study the world and you study the self. You accept the weirdest, and question the simplest. I changed myself enough to fit into that world.

I am changing now, again. I am learning to do things for myself rather than to keep others happy. This learning has brought back the long lost sense of security, a sense of pride in self.

This change is the first of its types, which I have welcomed.

It has brought the belief that life was never meant to be fair, but that's why it is beautiful. I have realized that people will leave you heartbroken, not because they are ruthless, but because they never understood what you expected out of them.

Oh what a relief it was to realize that Its okay to cry for the ones gone. Its easy to move on when done so without resentments.

Resentment is good too, only till it doesn’t break you down into pieces. Its okay to be selfish, it’s okay to be weird, and want things that others never dreamt of.

Its okay to let go of the rotten past. I realized, in the 6 years that I have feared my future, the past never mirrored the future, my life has never shown me days I have always been worried of. And my failures of the past have not crept into the present yet.  

I guess there have to be new beginnings every time season changes, there are new friends every time old ones are lost, the heart always finds new loves to toy around when the ex’s break your heart, there are new bosses waiting to dictate new terms when the old one throws you out.

He always has the Plan B for us if one doesn’t work out, or maybe it’s the way we are, that we figure out new ways to make everything right.

I am just looking to making everything "right" now, and writing this has just put everything into perspective.

And hence leave you with this wonderful song.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4VEAh1-kpU

I lost the Kabulliwallah- my story teller.

“Kabulliwalleh…Arrey oh Kabulliwalleh? Where had you gone yesterday? Why didn't you come? I missed you.”

The girl shouted out as she narrated the story to her friends. The story was that of an Afghan trader of dry fruits, who use to visit a colony in India to sell dry fruits. She told them how the Kabulliwallah had made friends with a toddler, chatting with her in his free time, gifting her free cashews and nuts.  Crying, she also narrated how the time did them apart, the kabulliwallah went to the jail. The toddler grew into a beautiful girl. The Kabuliallah never forgot her, while in the lost time she never remembered him. She then narrated the day when Kabulliwallah knocked at that girl’s doorsteps, and how that girl wondered if that starnger ever belonged to her past! And if he did belong to her past, than did she miss the sweet chats that she had with him.

The story finished, the audience applauded. Some were crying, some were still lost in the world of Kabuliwala.

She, the girl narrating the Kabulliwala story, got praises, felt proud, and confidently prepared for the next round of story.  She always knew what she was…

She was a story teller. A story weaver, who along with words weaved lives of fairies and angels, of businessmen and thieves, of wonders and grieve! She touched people when she spoke, bringing them in synch with her thoughts. She spoke with drama and tears, with the voice of both brave hearts and fear!

The world was a big bad place, which she knew she would not have to live in. She was going to change it, make it as wonderful as the world of her stories. She was going to make it worth living for her and her close ones. Her daddy use to be proud. He was proud when she spoke on stage fearlessly, he was prouder when she became the monitor. He was proud when teachers praised her!

But who cared, she knew she was meant to do more. She was meant to be a story teller!

But sadness happened, she grew up. She came in high school and the standards changed. For Dad, his awesome girl became the usual, he wanted more, he wanted good marks! Along with Dad, the world which she had dejected, turned around and bared its teeth. Its High school kiddo! Its not a joke! Just this one year, and your life will all be set. 

Scared, she listened to them. The story telling had to wait. The situation was urgent, demanded immediate attention! The world was big and the time was less, a lot of it had to be conquered! Lot had to be done to prove to the world that she has it in her what it takes to become what she want to be!

10th, then 12th. They passed in a jiffy. Did she get good marks? Yeah, maybe! But you need a degree for survival, just marks don't get you to money! Dad’s of the world boasted of the luxury and life they gave us, and which she and the likes of her might have to arrange for their kids. And she became nervous. She could do as well as her dad did right? No, she would do better! And hence she set upon the task of proving it to herself that she could do better than becoming “just” a story teller!

Engineers became MBA’s, MBA’s would become fathers and mothers. In the meanwhile, there were loves to cry over and friends to fret for. In the midst of all this, the story teller got lost somewhere. It got lost, lost in that same world it once wanted to change. She still wonders if it were her own choices that made her loose that story teller, that story teller in her? Or was it a sensible grown up in her that made that choice, of consciously forgetting the story teller in her? She wondered if the story teller in her was as weird and vague as that “kabulliwallah” or the “Prince Charming” of the childhood stories. She wondered if it was right for her that that story teller had departed.

The link to the summary of 'The Kabulliwall' in case you might want to know. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0055039/plotsummary

The Kickass Mornings

Oh Lord! Let today be an easy one,

Let there be a helping hand hidden somewhere

Let there be no tears in my eyes

Let there be some peace in my life,

And let there be some sleep in class!                                                                                   

Last night was that restless one, in which let alone reading, even facebooking seemed like hell of a task. With the beginning of another year, my approaching 23^rd birthday seemed nothing less than a doomsday. There would be added responsibilities, added expectations and added questions. And I confess I am as clueless about life as I was when I was 13.

Add to this the sorrow and twisted emotions for friends who have left us behind and gone on exchange, a fight with sister, bad grades, even worse profile and fear of placement.

Chucking everything, I put some music on and crept inside the quilt. And giving due regards to the fact that there are only two bliss in life in winter (one being the “Gajar ka halwa” and other being the warmth of the quilt) I slept.

As expected, morning happened.

The point here is, that whatever it was that seemed impossible at night, suddenly turned into most silly of my worries. Boys were no more dogs, mother wasn’t difficult, brother was a sweetheart, heights were not too far to reach, karma wasn’t a bitch and life though was difficult to live, but wasn’t clueless to start.

Hasn’t it ever happened to you when you just can’t understand why you were crying last night. The reason for all confusion and a sad heart just vanish. The cob webs of suspicion and resentment clear away. Suddenly there is a solid reason that you understand for why a friend didn’t reply to your repeated calls. And everything, even a maze like career sorts itself out. Just like that!

And just like a warrior wears his armor (and boys take bath) I wore my best clothes and thought

“ Yeah baby!! This is what mornings are about..

About new beginnings

About “ek garam chai ki pyali”

About going for that kill

About renewed passions,

About healed feeling,

And obviously about neat clothes” :D

The day I failed to pray

If only I had a mole here,

If only I had that flick more like that,

If only I could have him in my New Year theme party,

If only I could be amongst those people,

If only I had little of this and little of that and more of everything else.

I have literally summarized all that we girls wish for, all that we pray to god for. Now if you won’t please jump to the conclusion that we are always this mundane (I have to get defensive, don’t I?), but then, analogous to the way in which guys wish for more of sex, we wish for more of these mundane things.

Coming to the point, so one fine day, suppose I have all that I have wished for, will I be better person than I am now? Will just one flick of hair twisting the way I want in morning, that one mole shifting its place by few inches, that one guy’s attention that I wanted to draw, that group that I wanted to be included in, invitation to that party that I wasn’t invited in, will they make me in any way, more happier that I am now?

We girls say yes, definitely it would! :P

So that day, there I was, on the Insti’s roof. Sat there chatting with a friend, and constantly staring at the sky, just in case I get to see a shooting star. I would then ask for the world from it!!! And I had not an iorta of doubt that it will fulfill all my wishes, It was “The Shooting Star” after all + I was an aquarian+ A girl! And not just our professors, but even Gods favor girls. :P

And there it was, then n there! I couldn’t believe I had found it that day, FINALLY! C’mon wish for the world Gunjan, wish for your world, that guy. “That Guy”? No, he won’t still be my world after few months! Wish for that awefuckingsome career. That success story, in which everybody looks upto you for decisions and is intimidated by your success. But fuck! Oh wait! You crazy?  If that’s what I want, I’ll get it myself, why ask the star for it. Then if nothing else Oh star! Give me those “cool” people as my friends. I’ll be happiest then. But wait! Fuck them? No, they aren’t worth wasting a Star on them.

That’s it, The star then gave me an epiphany, well, kind of.

It was just not me that was looking for that “shooting Star”. It was everyone around me. While I was in bed crying for a broken heart or a being ditched by a friend, others too were sitting on the beach and talking to the sea about it. When I was worrying about being independent and earning money, other were too struggling to pay their loans back. Those moments in which I felt I was alone, scared and confused, I was actually sharing them with every other person of my age! Those people that I thought are selfish, were actually confused if they were too generous in this cruel world, and trying to become smarter for their own good!

Oh Fish! How come I never realized that this was it. I am as awkward as every “Just out of teens” in this world. I have as many bumps in career, as many broken hearts and as many emo problems as any other person.

This is that time to be happy, when I have no else’s profit margins to worry about, when I don’t have to worry about my next meal, my place of stay, my bunk,  no worries about other people’s (read a  husband’s) dinner!

And stating Bryan Adams with just a change of tense “These ARE the best days of my life!”