Happy Weekend!

I have always been the kind of person who associates things with things. I am sure there must be a technical term for it but lets just say that its because I had a huge huge crush on Ansel Elgort that I found a senior from school really really cute cause to my eyes, he resembled Ansel. That senior is now my boyfriend. And its because of my boyfriend's appearence that I now find a college classmate extremely cute cause everything bout him reminds me of my boyfriend. One time, I was volunteering with a friend of mine at the kindergarten section of our school and I saw this kid who looked exactly like a junior of mine. I said this to my friend and she informed me that indeed that kiddo was the younger sister of the junior I was associating her with. There are a thousand other instances that have happened over the years that I can cite now to express the idea that I so desperately want to get out of my head. But no point beating about the bush!

Its almost year end. Winter is here already. I am an outstation student at Shillong, Meghalaya and its pretty cold here around this time of the year. But somehow the breezy winter mornings here make me go back in time to the days when I wore that maroon V-neck sweater over a clean, ironed, white shirt with a grey pleated short skirt, white socks and a red hairband and waited outside my house for the school van to come pick me up. Thats the best memory of childhood I carry in my heart. I have always been a morning person. Everything about mornings enliven me: from the clear blue skies, to the chirping of birds to the unusually green leafy trees to those first rays of the strong morning sun! I somehow associate mornings to my childhood and poetically speaking, that aint a bad logic! That way you can say that noon is man's youth and night signifies oldage. But that's not where I am getting at.

I dont know what my mind perceives of noon and night yet but perhaps in my head nights are more like the rich dad's spoilt kids who go out clubbing all the time and noons look better as middle aged idealistic lady teachers clad in crisp Banarasi Sarees with matching blouses and brooch pins!

Coming back to my description of mornings. As I climbed the uphill leading to my hostel yesterday morning, I felt the cold winter breeze enter my nostrils and make me feel like sneezing. That feeling is what I felt when I waited for my school van as a kid of maybe nine or ten. I am a Gemini and my breed is known for thinking and over thinking! All sorts of random thoughts streaming through my head even as a kid and perhaps that kid was imagining a grown up complicated adult version of me writing bout all of this a decade later! Who knows!? Our mind functions in amusing ways! Mornings in my head are synonymous to clouds and I relate clouds to the deserts in Rajasthan. Weird huh!? Well  I have never personally been to Rajasthan but I've seen movies and pictures of other people showing the deserts there and that in inexplicable ways resembles the vast expanse of limitless sky above our heads!

Its 7:11 am, Sunday, here at Shillong. I am at the so-called prime of my youth and lame captions like "Twenty one & having fun" are pretty much what my life revolves around right now. But for this minute, as I wake up and stare out of my window into the untrimmed bushes of the neighbours', everything seems beautiful. The child that eagerly waited to go to school and begin an exciting day of learning seems to be back. That child is me. That child is each one of us. That's morning: the child of the setting sun and rising hopes. Morning shows the day; childhood shapes the person you become as an adult and if the mornings are so bright, sunny, warmly cold, breezy, positive and vibrant as this one I am enjoying right now then I dont see why the rest of the day won't be an amazing one! I might not be making sense to you right now but my heart sure feels lighter after this vague attempt of expressing the scattered thoughts of my mind.

All I wanted to say via all these lines is that sunny mornings are a great way to start a weekend! Happy weekend dear readers! Until next time...

The voice

It took me twenty years to realise that perfection is a myth. A zillion expectations shattered to pieces and dreams gone down the drain were what convinced me that life is all about flaws and the art of embracing them.

As I write this, certain realisations take a firm position in my head. The girl who believed in fairy tales and perfect romances talked about in books and shown in movies now realises that your partner may barely surprise you with unannounced visits, gifts, chocolates or flowers after the initial months have passed and still be as much in love with you as he was at the beginning. The kid at heart who has outgrown physically finally understands that home,at one point, is not the abode of warmth you believed it to be when away but the reason behind all stress when returned to and yet somehow the most happy place. The believer now acknowledges that lives around are not so colorful as portrayed to be in social media posts but contain as many sad stories as her own. As maturity hits this wanderer, she becomes more tolerant and reclusive. And in her conversations with herself, she even realises that people often assume themselves to be something they never were or could possibly be. You might believe yourself to be the Ranbir Kapoor of Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani but might actually grow up to be similar to Deepika's character in the movie. How then do you deal with it? Do you push yourself so hard on becoming the person who always believed you were or do you accept yourself as you are or do you dangle in between the two keeping one leg on either side and lead a discontent life? I know I do the last thing and hence that anxiety when put amidst party enthusiasts... that feeling of being unwanted and in a totally wrong place and time that has been ever so present wins over my otherwise present confidence and makes me this timid, awkward person with a furious face amidst faces that only smile.

The best reflection of our true self comes to us not when we stand in front of a mirror or pose for a picture, the best reflection is found when we take a little time off the things that we engage in on a daily basis or the worries that haunt us perennially and spend some time with the voice that comes from within...the voice that knows it all.