That thing called "Nothing"

Have you ever been in my shoes? Have you felt the way I am feeling now? Oops! I am sorry, The questions should have followed the description of what I am feeling now.

But that's where everything seems a whirlwind ahead. It's like there are plenty of thoughts in my mind, waiting, eagerly for words to describe them. But the words are on a break today. Boggled by too many thoughts in too little time, words have taken a leave today. And what does that leave me with? Skeletons of thoughts haunting my mind, without sparing even a single grain of peace for my soul. The thoughts are wild, or may be mysterious and foggy. I can't see through them. I beg for them to stay quiet until the words resume their work, but the thoughts gag my soul with unrest. They stifle my mind, body and soul. I wish to escape from this suffocating whirlpool of thoughts sans words. 

Now, I ask you again. Have ever been in my shoes? Have you ever felt that your thoughts are driving you insanely numb? 

May be you were lucky enough not to have faced what I am currently facing. There were little moments in the frame of time when you didn't look okay, and people asked you why. You vaguely replied " Nothing". There might have been moments when you had chosen lifestyle of recluse, retreating in your den. Yet your friends tried to reach you out and asked your reason for staying shut. You had replied " It's nothing". If your thoughts or feelings could have been described in words, why did you choose to play the "nothing" card? My friend, you might not have lived exactly at my place, but you have been around in the neighbourhood of nothingness. 

If it hasn't struck you yet, let my words bring you solace once you reach the land of nothingness.

Just breathe and get through the moment. Don't force yourself to rush. Don't poke the life out of the words and stuffs them with your insane thoughts. Let your mind wander, let your thoughts fly free and let your words return from vacation on it own will. 
It's okay not to fit into descriptions at times. Let your mind surpass the empty terrains of nothingsness and reach the oasis - where your words embrace your thoughts and create magic in togetherness. 

I am a storyteller

I woke up to a Sunday morning without the sun. It felt like the rainy days at school when you can wake up late and your mother won't worry about it. I was contended with this feeling up until a thought struck me, It was TTT workshop day. A shiver ran down my spine. I had waited for this day to arrive from past three weeks. And now that it has finally arrived, rain was all set to ruin it for me? My mom, on the other hand, was unusually happy about the fact that I might be forced to ditch my plans, stay back at home and study. I tried to adhere to philosophical beliefs I occasionally feed my mind with. These beliefs stated " If you try to step out and take a step to follow your heart, you will never go to bed with regrets". And I decided to take a stand for my heart, in what seemed like a million years. I got dressed up, packed my notebook , took my umbrella and marched out of the main door with my head held high. I was calm unlike all the moments I have been in past few months where a slight challenge would stir the panic monster in me. May be it was because I was abiding to what my beliefs suggested me to do : follow your heart. As the cab swooshed through the traffic I looked outside the window and for the first time in weeks, I let my mind wander. My mind kissed freedom and cried tears of joy which reflected as raindrops on my window.

Through the looking glass, Rain painted my dreams.

The cab dropped me at the venue. I stood there on the footpath holding my one-leg broken umbrella, searching for similar lost souls. I heard two girls talking about Terribly Tiny Tales workshop. I walked up to them, struck a conversation and was relieved by the fact that I have company amidst the jovial crowd. As we stepped in, my happiness hormones flushed throughout my body. The place was a little wonderland for creative minds. It had a feeling of familiarity yet mystery associated with it. Rooms had corners, painted in different shades of happiness. As I turned towards a wall, my image looked back at me, smiling. The mirror was positioned perfectly.

The Doodle Room - Dreamers march in here!

The herd of lost audiences were directed towards the hall where seating arrangements were being done. And if all this wasn't enough to make you feel high on happiness, we were served hot samosa on a rainy afternoon. Ice-tea, potato chips and "sandesh" were also part of the snacks platter. As we hushed our growling stomach with hot samosas, the workshop began.

Anuj (CEO and Co-founder of Terribly Tiny Tales) took us to the very beginning of TTT, how it came to life, and under what circumstances. He unveiled his inspiration, motivation and vision behind TTT and I sat there captivated. It never occured to me until then this was the moment I had been dreaming about for weeks. I was living that moment and with every story Anuj unveiled about TTT, I dived deeper in love with story-telling. 

He gave us a magic mantra - the three pillars of writing if you want your audience to appreciate your work. Think about what you want say, write it down and then work on it until you amaze yourself with your work. 

He walked us through the exercise of writing and the ideas and words that came out from everyone in the room was fascinating. I understood what Anuj meant when he said we are all wired up to become storytellers at some point of our lives. And it was true. Right there, in those moments, as the sound of heavy rain drowned all other noises, our souls were finally finding stories to wake up to. We were all giving in to the idea that we are all storytellers in making or may be we were storytellers waiting, for our chance to narrate our stories to the world.

TTT team and organisers

Thank you TTT for making this rainy day worth getting drenched in.

Be it rain or Be it words,When each pours, dreams and memories embrace each other and reincarnate.

Create a Positive Bubble

Two months ago, I was a devastated soul. Every event that was occurring around me told me something was wrong with me. I was unable to figure out what and I sank deeper into the pool of sadness. It was bleak everywhere I looked at. I am a gregarious person by nature. But in those days of low motivation I chose solitude. I needed to reset everything. I needed to work on myself. And that's when I understood what it meant by "Be you own HERO!". 

       I have people around me who constantly strive to keep me happy and carefree. They work their way through my twisted moods just to hear that one cheerful laugh. And I feel blessed by their presence. But they can't help me if I push them away. When you are struck by all bad news around you, that how you start behaving. You start pushing people away for you lose hope and you lose trust. You feel deceived by everyone and everything that you had put your hopes upon. And I can't blame you for that for I know you are doing all that unconsciously. 

It is moments like these when you have to work on yourself. Remind yourself of all the good things you did in your life. Remind yourself all that you are capable of. You are driving on a bumpy road but that is okay. You are just getting some time to slow down. May be you needed this time to relish what you have. You have time. You can work on whatever had been pending while you were busy with your academic deadlines. You wanted to learn something new. Head one girl! Now is the time. And trust me that walk through to dark woods to the beautiful valley of flowers ain't going to be easy. But that shouldn't worry you. You have two feet and a beating heart, You are alive and you choose to keep moving. That's all you need. 

      Optimism is crucial ingredient of success. I always heard people say that. I don't know for myself if that holds true or not, but what good has pessimism ever brought to us? I don't think it's going to harm anyone if you sip a spoonful of optimism everyday when you wake up and every night before you head for your dreams. 

People around you have a role to play in this. They might be carrying a secret needle meant to pop you bubble of positivism. They will come with a face that looks scared, and when you try to empathize with them (which, mind you, they knew you would), they pop your bubble. They tell you how harsh reality is and how difficult drive ahead it is. My friend, you need to take a few step back from them. You need to focus on the good things remember? And you have to be your knight in shining armor. You are your own princess and you have to protect your bubble, sorry I mean, your kingdom of positive thoughts from all external threats.

As long as you believe in yourself, things will fall into place. You will reach where you are destined to be. Just show up when everyone else quits.

You Make my soul clear as Sapphire

The dawn breaks. Warm sun rays playfully sneak in through the gaps between the curtains and falls on the bed where four arms held each other. Unlike weekdays which usually started with screeching sound of the alarm clock, their Sunday started with the chirp of sparrows in the balcony. Zara was awake. She slowly sneaked out of the bed without waking up Kabir. He was having late nights at work as deadline of the new project was around the corner and he was project executive manager, which meant he was responsible for everything that turns out in the end, good or bad. Zara made herself a cup of coffee, a habit she had quickly picked up after her two year stay in Hyderabad. She walked out of the bedroom door tiptoed and stepped out in the balcony, her favorite place of the apartment. The only reason she had said yes to this apartment when the broker brought them here was the balcony view. You can view the whole colony, the creak and the hills from here. It was her little heaven in midst of the busy city, Mumbai. Usually in the weekdays the park was overcrowded in the early morning, with joggers and bikers, beginning their day. The scene seemed quite different today as it was the weekend. There was a calmness that was tuning Zara’s mind. And as she stood there sipping coffee from her “My foodie-buddy n wifey” mug, her mind was running after her thoughts. There was more than one feeling her heart felt at that very moment and it was too much to limit all of them inside her mind’s contour. She had to pen them down. She peeked through the curtains. The clock struck 5:45am. She had at least 5 hours until Kabir would wake up. And that was all the time she needed with her diary.
Zara quickly washed her mug, dried her hands on the towel and sat on her table. She loved her table for it had everything she needed to save her soul. As Zara unlocked a little compartment below the table, tiny velvet covered, handmade paper notebook smiled at her as if it knew she would take her out today. Zara took it and locked the compartment again. “Hello diary” she whispered as she held it in her hand, with a curve on her lips. As the nib of her ball-pen met the page of her diary, she felt her heart beating after a long time. Blood was flushing out in her veins and she felt alive. This feeling was the magic that happened every time she sat to write something. So what would it be today? Politics, religion, elections, wars, environment- what could possibly be the idea her mind is going to unfurl onto these pages? That was a mystery even for Zara herself. But she had to start, the clock was ticking. She started with the date. 9th March 2027. There was a shine in her eyes. “There you are! Gotcha” and she led out a quick laugh. The sparrows on the window seal were startled and flew away. It was on this day ten years back she had embraced her freedom after being jobless at home for about 10 months. It was a new beginning for her. That’s what this day was all about? “Umm… No!”Zara shook her head and wrote “ All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am.”
Zara wasn’t always like this. She thought of all those times she had heard people asking her to stop being so lost. She would either get lost in the past or procrastinate about the future. But either way she was never happy. Both the phenomena of using her mind as the time machine and rewinding or forwarding through the moments hit her hard. One day she realized her exercise had robbed her. She had lost moments she actually got to live in. She is not sure when the realization struck her, but it did strike her hard for sure, for the next thing everyone noted about her was her “happy face”. Of course, she had bad and rough days that made her mad and tired. But she tried to walk past them all and move on. One night at the dinner table for the first time, Kabir was looking at her and not focusing on the food on his plate. After he gazed for more than five minutes, Zara looked up, tilted her face, raised her brows and smiled, ‘What’s up with you? Not hungry today?” He took a moment, smiled, shook his head and went back to eating his food. But his gaze had stirred Zara’s curiosity and she wasn’t going to leave this mystery remain unsolved. “Why were you looking at me that way? Am I looking weird or something? May be my hair is messed up. I knew I needed hair straightening done again. Sorry if I am ruining this date, but I can fix it if you tell me what’s on your mind” and she reached out for his hand. Kabir kept his fork aside and looked at her. “I always thought you are my work under progress. It’s like you were the Cinderella, lost behind the dusty kitchen whom I found and made my princess. I always felt you changed for better ever since you met me. But in past few weeks I realized I was wrong. You are your own project, not mine. You have worked on yourself in every possible way to let the circumstances sculpt you inside out. You have become a woman who lives in a moment. I never thought that was possible for anyone to do. Today you look so beautiful and charming and confident, I feel I am blessed to be your man”. Zara blushed and smiled wider than before “God! You scared the hell out of me! You owe me a drink now!” And their laughter filled the restaurant with a happy tune.

                 “Stop! What am I doing? Why I am walking back in the past moments? I am not that girl anymore. Damn!” And her nib broke splashing blue ink everywhere on the table. “Oh no! I have to clean up this mess now!” She reached for the drawers in her table in search of a piece of tissue paper or a piece of cloth. As her hand went in the drawer, reaching out for the tissue paper something rolled out of the drawer. Zara looked and everything that happened a moment ago washed out of her mind. It was a blue sapphire stone. It was beautiful and precious. Sapphire is often termed as the king of all gems for it stands for wisdom, royalty, hope, faith, as well as spirituality. Amma had insisted her to take it when they had gone for shopping together a few years back. Zara picked up the stone and wiped it with a cloth. She held it in her hand, between her thumb, index finger and middle finger and lifted it up to look through it. The gem was beautiful for sure. The light passing through it seemed to be breaking into several tiny images and again becoming one as it reached her eyes. She had refused to buy this beautiful stone for she felt it was too extravagant to become her possession. But at this moment she said a silent thank you to Amma for making her buy this one. Carefully keeping the stone aside, Zara picked up a new pen from the pen-stand, and restarted. Zara had once been a perfectly talented girl. She was on the top at everything she did in school- let it be academics, extra curriculars, anything… you name it and she would nail it. Then she got over that phase. She got into the “still popular but not so perfect” group of her school. She wasn’t the topper anymore but she was still in the neighborhood of winners. She got over that phase and moved onto the average phase. This according to Zara was more of a low-confidence –self-criticism period of her life. At the end of this phase she got back to the neighborhood of winners again and it felt good. But fate has a wicked way of changing everything just when you start liking it. As that happened, she started slipping into deep tunnel of solitude. She wished to go out nowhere until she had an answer to their questions “Hey Zara, now that you are done with your post graduation, what is your next plan? PhD or job? You have qualified your PhD entrances? Or you are going to take a year break?” All these questions made Zara doubt her fate but never her choices. Life was not fair to her. And as years rolled by and she met people, she realized not everyone gets the easy way out. And even for the one who does get out feeling lucky runs out of luck somewhere down the road and have to pay the price to refill their luck tank. As she lifted her head to look at the wall clock that struck 7:30, her eyes fell on the wall writing. She had insisted Kabir to get this quote written down on the wall above her table. He wasn’t much in favor of wall writings but had to give in. The quote read “We’re known by the choices we make and the chances we take”. She is not sure if the original quote matched with this one or she had mixed up two entirely different quotes into one. Whatever it may, the quote was making sense in that dreamy Sunday summer morning. “I have mastered the art to shrug off the past”. Zara often told this to herself when she was alone at home or workplace. This made her feel confident. But in this morning as she sat there walking back and forth old conversations and moments, she was on the verge of a whole new revelation of human nature. When we cut down a tree, the rings in the bark tell us the age of the tree. Those rings are like the experiences that we gather as we grow older. We make mistakes as we step in and out of different phases of our lives. But we learn as we make our way through those moments. With every moment that we live, we turn into a different being. Little by little we become better versions of ourselves. At every moment, we are met by two choices, both equally tempting. We make our choices and we reach our destinies. At the mountain top, we plan our next milestone. That’s how our choices and chances make us who we are. There are people who spend a lot of time trying hard not to repeat their mistakes. Then there are people who have accepted their past, made peace it with it and have focused on their future. But a group of people, may be small or large group, believe that they have mastered the art to shrug off their past. But is that really true? Even if the snake shreds off its skin and moves on, does it become younger? If we peel off the bark of the tree layer by layer, do we succeed in turning the clock back for the tree? Experience is a stubborn fellow. If it gets to know you it stays with you. You may not visit your past, and may be you are actually living in the moment but that doesn’t mean you have shrugged off your past experiences. Without the past, we all would have been hollow souls with no story. “I guess we all started from once upon a time even if we don’t reach our happily ever after”. “Hon, are you talking to yourself again?” Kabir’s voice startled Zara as she jumped on her chair. As she breathed a sigh of relief seeing it’s Kabir, she looked up from her desk and said “God! You made me skip a heartbeat!” “HAHA did I? Good to know I can still make your heart skip a beat,” said Kabir winking at his wife. He held out her coffee mug. She kept the pen down and took the mug from him while Kabir lifted her diary and asked “May I?” They have been best friends for 14 years, including 5 years of their marriage. There was individual spaces for each of them but they were allowed to cross the lines with due permission. Zara nodded and sipped her coffee.

After finishing their coffee, Kabir and Zara were sitting in their balcony as Shahbaz finally finished up reading Zara’s morning note. They were quiet for a moment or two. Or, may be more than that. Zara broke the silence “So what do you think?” “I don’t know. I mean you got me thinking. It’s like you are saying our past is our root. We wouldn’t be where we are if not for the past we came through. Is that what you meant to say?” Kabir looked at Zara, still trying to figure out why she wrote such a soul revealing piece on a beautiful Sunday morning. “Umm” Zara opened her mouth to say something but before she could start, she got up and went inside. She came after few moments and held her hand out to Shahbaz. “The Sapphire! You could have made this a pendent”, Kabir exclaimed as he picked up the gem from her hand. “Can you see through it?” Zara asked. “Of course I can! Its transparent crystal, Hon. Why do you ask?”, Kabir thought it was a trick question.
“I realized my soul is like this gem. It’s transparent and crystal clear. There is no dust of regrets clogging its transparency. I feel once we accept our past, learn from it and keep moving without worrying how much we are changing in other’s perspectives, we can be happy. We all can have a soul like my sapphire- clear and blue.” She was smiling now. “You know your words, creativity and spirituality made their way into my heart even before your beauty did?” said Kabir as he returned her the diary saying “Write down the last part you just said. You won’t always have days when your thoughts get the wing of words.”
Zara took the diary and got up to get back to her desk. “And after you are done, can we go out for a lunch date? I know you are not in a mood to cook today.” Kabir asked with a playful smile. “Yes. Sure.” Zara replied with a smile as she knew, of all the choices she had made to keep her sapphire crystal-clear, being with Kabir was the best one. This was the happily ever after for Zara’s once upon a time.

Disclaimer: This piece is original except the following two sentences where original written by Anita Nair, author, as a prompt for writing contest for which I initially wrote this piece:

All of us live with our past. All of us allow it to shape our future. But some of us know how to shrug the past. I think that is who I am.

Build a wall..

A bird sits on the branch, chirping and singing. It is a beautiful day or that's what the bird thought until the sun disappeared behind the clouds. Clouds were dark as soot. The wind started to blow. It was a mild breeze at first. The bird saw two kids giggling, sitting on the window of their house beside the tree. Their giggle eased her muscles. But the pretty scenes started to disappear. What seemed a cool breeze turned into a storm, rising from the dust. The storm was galloping towards the little bird from all the four sides. She was scared. There were no more giggles anywhere near. The children where behind the closed windows now, equally terrified like the little bird to see the storm approaching. A swoosh from the side, a tweak of the branch, and "thud" the nest fell on the ground. Hurt and unable to move her wings, the bird tried hiding under the remaining pieces of her nest. The hours were long and dark, and the whistling sound of the wind didn't let sleep seep in through the breaks of the nest upon the bird's eyes. Teary eyed, shaking with fear, she lay there, all alone in the storm. Her mind wasn't ready to give up, even when her body did. "This too shall pass",thought the little bird until she passed away into a sleep. 

Raindrops brought the bird back to her senses. She looked around. The storm had passed. It's evening and the kids have come out of their houses to play in the field. They looked happy. They were safe and happy. The bird realised why her mom used to tell her "always build a nest, deep in the woods or atleast in the tree where the branches are dense". Mom meant build a wall around you, that will protect you from the storms and keep you safe. 

When we are in difficult phases of our lives, and peers, family , relatives encroach in our space, the pressure starts building up. Its like the moments before the storm when the clouds hide the sun and turn themselves into dark soot-ed clouds. We begin to tremble in the pressure. The stress enervates our confidence from our heart and mind and we start giving up. Stop! stop your fears and the stress it brings along right at the bay and start building a wall. The wall to protect you from getting shattered in the storm. And how do you do that? How do you build a wall around yourself not physically but mentally to protect your body and mind? Well, there is no fixed recipe to this. Everyone needs to figure this out on their own for the magnitude of stress from the peers and outside world are different in different people. 

Another way of looking at this situation is either you can build a wall or you can build yourself stronger. A little sparrow needs a strong nest to survive the storm, but an eagle flies high through the storm. 

May be we can take one step at a time. Step out in the world. And survive. Try to train your mind to filter the negative thoughts and keep them at bay. People are worried for you it seems. Some of them are genuinely worried for you and some of them shall never really mean what they are saying. So in these fragile moments take care of yourself. Live for yourself. Make deadlines, aim high, dream big - but all for yourself. Protect yourself until you are strong enough, confident to spread wings, and fly high. And who knows. you might not be a little bird after all.. you might be an eagle in making..

We are never on the same page....

It has been more than a month since I closed a chapter of my life and came home. A lot of other people did the same. And I thought we are all on the same page. We were being part of the "transformation phase". And I thought we will together cross the bridges. Some did cross the bridges and some took other turns down the road. And I have realized now, we are never on the same page. And how does that make me feel? I don't really know. It's like you are standing on the bank of a river, waiting for your ferry, but you realize you missed the last one that went across. And you find your friends on the other side of the river, waving at you. You are happy to see them but a part of you wishes you were there by their side instead of where you are now. The sun sets, your friends walk away from the bank off to their destinations, and you try walking back home or someplace that brings peace to your mind. 

I don't know if what I am currently feeling is a human feeling already acknowledged or is it just my exemplified anxiety and exhausted hopes that makes me vent these feelings out on this page. 

Recently, I was preparing for an exam where I had to study about plants. There i read something termed as "photo period". The authors of the book wrote that even though photoperiodism was thought of as a light dependent response of plants in the form of developmental changes, it wasn't the length of the day that mattered. What really made one flowering plant different from other was the period of night or darkness it needed before it could bloom. Suddenly at that moment I realized nature's rules never change. The conditions that serve as factors of importance in flowering event of a plant is the same as our growth and development. It is not how many easy work hours you experienced that decide how much you learned. The judge is always the tough times. You never learn an experiment or an application, if you haven't aced your troubleshooting skills. How do you know the level of your patience, if you haven't really been on the wait-list for a long long time? So what if some people got the ferry and reached the other side, if you really wish to go on the other side, you might as well work it out. Don't just sigh about the chances you lost, don't crush your dreams as you hold them tight as you sleep, you need to get your feet ahead. Move your feet and take a step. You might not have the strength to take a leap, but you can still breathe. To keep yourself floating and to save yourself from hitting the bottom of the river, you need to keep paddling your feet. A ferry might not come for you, but if you really wish to be on the other side, what's the last thing you can do? Swim across may be? Darkness might scare you, or the water inhabitants might not be welcoming, but jumping into that river, taking the risks shall be much better than going home and letting your tears lull you to sleep as you sigh with all the breathe you have inside you. You need to take the risk. You need to put your hopes, and anxiety out there and keep working. The result might not be quick but as long as you are staying afloat, you shall survive your battle. Nature shall select you among the people who gave up their battles.

A week back I was still fighting the tears and thinking hard if there is someone really up there who is listening, who will just hold my hand and drag me out of this mess. But then I realized, everyone of us is buried in a heap. May be one part of their life has crossed the river, but the other is still stuck under the heap at the bank of the river. God might keep us afloat while we are in the river, but that can happen only when we get the heap off us, lose burden of negativity, believe and take the leap of faith and jump into the river...and keep paddling. You shall live. You shall reach the other bank, drenched in experiences but you will cross the river. 

So may be we are all not on the same page but we are all part of the book ruled by Mother nature. Every flower needs a specific number of dark hours, that pushes them to grow as they step out into the world to taste the light. Take a sip of the courage you have been storing for a long time and get through the days, one day at a time. Keep your head help up, your crowns need to stay at the right place. :)

The wait

It's a familiar word - wait. Not just for me. I guess all of us have been accustomed to this word once in their lives at least. I feel there is a sweet pain that comeS along with this word. I hear people say that waiting made them test their level of patience. I hear people rejoice the fact that they were able to wait until the good news arrived. For different people this word has a different feeling attached with it. When a woman is expecting a baby and goes through months of tremendous change of her body and mind, the wait is part of the sweet pain. There is a certain level of anticipation and anxiety along with excitement of embracing motherhood that surrounds her. On the other hand, there is a wife, waiting for her husband to come home. Her husband is a soldier, guards the border,keeps the enemies at bay. At home the women alone plays the role of a father and a mother for their kids. She is a sincere daughter in law who takes care of her old and feeble mother in law. There is a wait in those eyes .. The mother waits for her son, the wife waits for her husband, the children still trying to picture their father from the memory of their last holiday together. The wait is their way of life and not just a mere word for them. When I compare my wait with these instances, It feels so meagre that I assume I can sleep over it. But mind understands, heart doesn't. What is it that I am waiting for, you may ask. I am waiting for the rain to  drench The soul of earth. I am waiting for the moment when my life will finally bring a joyous exclamation on my face and not just a mere sigh. I am waiting To become the alchemist of my own life and turn it into gold-turn into a precious lot of celebrations. I am waiting and as I look around, there are many in the queue with me. I guess we are all hanging for the sake of sweetness in this pain of waiting...