A Year Wiser?

As I'm adding more years to my life, certain things are becoming clearer and certain others have lost all meaning. Growing up is tricky business and I've realised that what we deem to be our fate or the best that's available out there, may just be a limitation we have set for ourselves fearing the loss of the ever-so-comforting comfort zone. Take my definition of friends, best friends and love interests for example - I know this is a vague example since I'm not presenting any context but hey, you're growing up too, this will surely make sense someday. So yeah, about friends, best friends and lovers. Why do taunts from friends about the way you look or being taken for granted by lovers have to be normalised? Why can't we point out a toxic behaviour as toxic on its face and move ahead? I'm sure the bold readers are shifting in their seats thinking, 'What is with this girl? Why is she generalizing her inability to speak up against misery?'

Well, you see, not everyone possesses the audacity to call a spade a spade. Fortunately, I have a sister who possesses what it takes to confront people and I'm slowly learning from her. I recently told one of my oldest friends (and someone I thought to be a dear friend) to fuck off and stop with her body shaming. I said: look, I'm aware that I'm putting on weight, you don't need to remind me of that every time you see me or a picture of mine. Yayyy. There are no words to describe the joy I felt after finally saying that to her after years of being referred to as a 'hog.'

So, as I was saying, growing up helps us set our priorities right. Over the years I've seen people not so serious about life or with low morality become dedicated professionals and honest comrades and that's because they have had a change of perspective along the way. Not that being impulsive is bad, I am one impulsive kid myself but what I'm hinting at is the inner journey we all embark upon at one point in our lives.

I finally came to the EFLU campus after a year of online classes and I cannot tell you how much learning, unlearning and relearning I do here everyday while communicating with my peers from across the country. This change of place is doing me good and I feel like I'm becoming more appreciative of whatever I've accomplished which is very important to achieve all that I wish to attain. My inner circle here comprises of three very positive people and they have taught me so much along the way. I think its important that we read people just like we read books, so that we can pick lessons from their journey. Doing this has helped me develop an opinion about many things which I earlier passed off as too technical for a mind like mine. I lived in oblivion before and now that I'm letting my guard off, I see that there's an ocean of knowledge that I'd been denying for the last few years. Life is really short to experience and learn about all that this world has endured. But with a little zeal we can cover a significant amount of this and perhaps that's my resolution for 2022 - to keep the thirst for knowledge alive! Here's to bettering ourselves everyday and getting rid of whoever and whatever brings down our morale!

Six Years Later.....

Going through my blog always leaves me with mixed feelings. On one hand, I go on a self-admiration spree and commend some of the lines I wrote years back that still strike a chord in my heart, and on the other hand, I detest my impulsiveness while posting content because in a way, I let the world see my inner-most fears and most vulnerable state by posting everything I write in my personal diary. Continuing with this no-censoring policy, today’s post is in honor of the sixteen-year-old me who began this blog sitting on her staircase one evening, pouring her heart out about her crush! Do you see the difference!? He was the LOVE OF MY LIFE back then and he’s a mere crush now, I have grown! This was something that Mr. Unattainable (the crush) had predicted when I had first confessed to him but it makes sense to me only now, after eight years.

Image Source: Hunker

I have always been into older men, so much so that one of my former love interests is a father of two now (and this while I’m still completing my education). The point isn’t what I have been talking about thus far, the point is, in life, our deepest and earnest wishes always come true. By nature, I am someone who loves the attention of my loved ones and growing up, there was a scarcity of that. My parents were always so occupied with my older siblings that I had to be on my own for most of my years between five to ten. By then, I had mastered the art of not depending on anyone for my well-being. So, as a kid, I used to sit on our terrace and pray that some miraculous character is sent to me, who would love me and never belittle the love I share. Through my adolescent years, when I was making my share of stupid decisions, all of those stupid decisions revolved around finding real friends and love. But today, when I write to the sixteen-year-old unhappy kid who started this blog, I feel content. She yearned for love and today I feel like I have it.

There are setbacks, there are differences, there are always traitors in the name of friends but there are moments when the goodness in every human shines at its best and it is this goodness in the people I meet and call my family and friends that I choose to focus on. I have learned it the hard way that people aren’t defined by one act of unkindness; they are defined by the countless acts of kindness that we conveniently choose to overlook. Its been six years since that evening when I began this blog, and today I say goodbye to a friend, a soulmate, a partner, and my biggest supporter…not forever, but for long enough to make my heart ache. This person may not return to our hometown again but I’ll surely be in touch and if all goes well, in another ten years I might be posting different things here related to the same person! So here it is:

Dearest Dreamer Hello from the past, if you are reading this, know that you have done well. You have been a good girl and done what you felt was right then. You have made mistakes, you have hurt people, you have refused to apologize but you have also grown. You still are growing. Mistakes or not, you are the same five-year-old kid who sat on her terrace writing in her diary with whatever little knowledge of English she had. Today, you are studying to be an English teacher, isn't this what you wanted back then as well!? Life will not be easy but with good intentions, it won’t be hard for you to make life easy. Keep dreaming. People may have had an impact on your dreams before, but right now you are free. Dream. Let your dreams lead you to your happy place.

 

Yours,

Dreamer Hello from 2021.

Reaching the Finish Line

I was recently asked to contribute to the college magazine of my alma mater – St. Edmund’s College, Shillong. And here’s what I sent in:

When an alumnus is approached to write for the college magazine, it means two things: a deep sense of honor and gratitude for the opportunity and an urge to let your juniors know that their fears are real but there is light at the end of the tunnel. I'm faced with these very emotions as I sit to write for the magazine of my beloved college St. Edmund’s and I can only hope that my words provide the much-needed solace to my young Edmundian friends.

Textbooks seldom leave a mark on our character. But certain lines, quotes, stories, theories, or people from our academic journeys influence us in ways we would have never anticipated. For me, one of the few things I am going to remember from my literature textbooks and undergrad days are these lines by Shakespeare:

Like as the waves make towards the pebbled shore,
So do our minutes hasten to their end;
Each changing place with that which goes before,
In sequent toil, all forwards do contend.

Time is a paradox possessing the power to mean nothing in abundance and everything in scarcity. Taking time for granted is like taking our skills for granted. Taking our skills for granted is leading them to their slow and imminent death. The death of skills implies the demise of passion. In passion's absence, dreams seldom live. Without dreams, our lives become meaningless. And a life without meaning is certainly not what we want for ourselves. Now that may sound too cliched and idealistic but it's only true.

Life happens in unexpected ways. What is glorious today becomes insignificant tomorrow. The ones who mean the world today will become mere contact numbers in a few years. The ones who are mere acquaintances today might open new chapters and avenues tomorrow. The loyal comrade of today might become tomorrow's sworn enemy. What seems like the distant future and something that can wait will soon become the present. So what I'm trying to say here is that our fears will eventually come true, the impossibilities will come back at us and become inevitable.  Inevitability is inevitable and in preparedness lies our biggest defense. 

When our college shut down for the short break in March 2020, we didn't know we were leaving college to become ex-students. We just went home until 31^st March. But things turned topsy turvy, and not just for the Batch of 2020. Time changes for all. So the questions we have about our future are very pertinent. If you envision a life as a musician and feel that you are deferring the creation of that YouTube channel, then it's probably time you start doing that. If you want to clear the civil services and be a govt employee, but feel that there is a lot of competition then you're right in feeling so but it’s probably a sign for you to put in the extra effort. If it’s the camera and the road that keeps you going then you should denounce all shackles and run wild and free, like the unbound spirit you’re supposed to be.

It's a competitive world and there is always someone better. But this doesn't take away the 24 hours we are gifted with every morning. Sure, there is somebody better, somebody who is already ten steps ahead of us, somebody who is persistent and determined, somebody who is way better than us in what we believed to be our expertise but that doesn't mean we have to stop. This realization that the world is competitive and the proliferating self-doubt won't vanish on its own. Such uncertainties become more overpowering when we see those around us attain success, while we are still struggling. Remember that this feeling is temporal. Know it in your heart that the picture of the future you secretly paint for yourself is already manifesting itself and it's going to find you. The universe listens. I say this because it has happened to me; not yesterday or today, but every day, for as long as I’ve lived and known what my heart seeks.

Coming back to my interior monologue on time and life’s uncertainty, I’d like to list down the twelve lessons I've learned in the past 3-4 years:

• Have a to-do list every day, and for every year. Visit it often and make sure to tick things off.
• Find ways of freezing moments while they last: be it pictures, diary entries, emails to a friend, emails to yourself, songs, videos, poetry, or art
• Seize the day, even if it makes you look foolish till eternity. Remember that regret is mightier than embarrassment.
• Always pursue degree(s), course(s), interest(s) or passion(s) beyond the existing academic/professional commitments.
• Save one-fourth of your pocket money/income, no matter how little the amount.
• Don't let the money sit idle in your wardrobe, wallet, or account. Start a SIP. Continue saving for the next three decades. Trust me; you’ll be a millionaire when in your late fifties, thanks to compounding!
• Learn to sacrifice, compromise, and take the high road if you're interested in retaining people over vanity
• Saying sorry is hard and may not be our forte but gestures do the work too! Let apologies be seen/heard, or even better, felt.
• Find what you're good at and practice it every day lest you wake up one morning and realize that you no longer have the spark.
• For every mentally exhausting and emotionally draining day, reward yourself with the little pleasures you usually deny yourself. The inner warrior deserves appreciation for making it through the tough times!
• Being an open book gives others the advantage of hurting us. Be as concealed as possible. Choose your inner circle wisely.
• And the last and most important of them all: it's okay to not have a plan or to skip most of the above-stated points as long as you do not ditch the bigger plan – that of being a compassionate human being. Be kind and do not refuse to help others if you know you’re capable of it. Good things come back, especially in our hours of distress.

This is what I meant by the universe listening to our inner thoughts and plans. As Mr. Shakespeare rightly pointed out, our minutes are slipping away but we can hold on to the goodness by sticking to our principles and purpose as mortals. Life has just begun for us, we will mess up and it’s only natural that we do. But being responsible and not succumbing to heartbreaks, setbacks, betrayals, hardships, failure, loss or dejection is what we should seek to achieve. At the end of the day, temporal halts are fine so long as we do not give up before reaching the finish line (read as death).

I Read a Book in Three Days

There have been times in my adolescent years when I avoided all my commitment towards books and got lost in the world of books (the former being school books). Novels occupied more space on my study table than textbooks. Back then, a personal phone was a privilege my parents had deliberately deprived me of. I hated them then for being so inconsiderate as everybody else in my circle already owned a personal cell. But when I look back today, that was perhaps the best deprivation I've ever had. Since I had no phone to engross myself in the virtual world of subtle posts with thoughtful captions, books were my only escape from reality. I read stories and stories read me. That was one happy period of my life. 

And even if I present today's reality quite often, I feel like I don't say it enough that I miss the feeling of imagining characters doing things instead of just watching them do things on Netflix. Now, I'm a binge watcher and hence possess less creativity (not a general remark, just my sad tale), but whenever those rare days of sporadic energy to read a novel or a story present themselves, I do get a sweet taste of nostalgia on my lips when I smile at the characters' joy and grimace at their plight. 

There is this famous writing magazine called The Bombay Review. I had applied for an internship at Bombay Review back in January. Since then, all my hopes are stuck at that teeny tiny possibility of being lucky enough to be selected for the position. I feel this is the upliftment and motivation that my CV and life need right now to find my way back into the creative world of writing. There are just 5 positions and 2 of them are reserved for members of the LGBTQ community, but it's not wrong to hope, right!? EFLU was a far shot but God was kind enough to grant me that. So if He thinks I'm deserving enough and need this gig now (more than some of the other applicants) then I'm sure he'll select me. If not, maybe there was somebody better and more deserving, and guess what, there always is! 

So while attending one of their recent paid writing workshops for short story writers, an author and her famous Pulitzer Prize Winner Book came up in the discussion. I instantly ordered the book. It's called The Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri. When I ordered the book on Amazon, I knew that I was investing 330 bucks to satisfy my vanity, on a paperback that will adorn my desk for a few days, accumulate dust and ultimately go upstairs into my trunk containing other books that have had similar fates. Anyway, the book arrived and I was unoccupied with any writing assignment from my freelancing gig and not in the mood to study (although I had quite a lot to study). It was one of those days when I was trying to immune myself to my boyfriend's ignorance. Every once in a while, the guy makes me feel like I'm as important as trash in his life (not that I don't do the same to him, I think it's more of a process that ensures continued love). Perhaps it was a blessing in disguise that this detestable phase of having an identity crisis in my five-year-old relationship became a reason I tried to stare less at my phone in anticipation of his texts or calls. I'll leave the rant of lack of love in my life for another day but that evening, I started reading. 

The book contained nine short stories of very ordinary people doing very ordinary things but Lahiri's narration made all the difference! It was as if I was there in the picture as if I was Bibi Halder with an incurable disease or the wife who birthed a dead child in Chapter 1. I was Mrs. Sen with her problems with driving and I was Mrs. Das with an unhappy marriage and the deep dark secret of raising an illegitimate child. I was Twinkle with her childlike spirit and I was the sexy and tall Miranda that Dev had an extramarital affair with! I was all of these characters, living their life and finding resemblance with my own in the lines and images in my head. It felt amazing, this feeling of belonging somewhere without having to acknowledge anyone or anything. I missed this feeling for these past four years that I've been dispassionate about reading. 

I know it will be hard to find this kind of energy again, to go back to books by keeping aside the phone. I'm so addicted to scrolling through my social media feed and checking out clothes online that nothing else seems to satisfy me. There is a void, a self created void that is oddly comforting. It pinches and yet feels warm. Everyday is a struggle to keep away from the this miraculous device developed by man, that solves as well as creates all his problems. 

However, I want to preserve this contentment I feel at this moment. This joy of having finished a book like old times and smiling through the pages where every word that the author has painstakingly put forth paints a vivid picture for lost, demotivated and unhappy readers like me. I feel triumphant. 

Reflections on the Revolutionary Year 2020

I still remember how it all started...

The year began with the first rays of dawn at the viewpoint in my first ever solo trek to a hill range called Kunti Betta, in Bangalore. I had made this plan with complete discretion. My family couldn't know about this lest they make me feel guilty and cancel the one adventurous thing I was about to do in two decades of my existence. Anyhow, the mild rays of the morning sun, the subtly warm bonfire and the group of strangers accompanying me on the trek sure made me feel like I am starring in a movie like Yeh Jawaani Hai Dewaani, except that this Naina had her Bunny sitting miles away in another state. Naina and Bunny had a big fight on the first day of the year because Naina wasn't honest enough to acquaint Bunny with her impromptu plans in a city she had been in for just ten days. But fights or not, Naina had no regrets about coming on the trek and this dawn here at Kunti Betta gave her hopes of a year full of possibilities. Graduation was just three months away and she couldn't wait for what was next. 

Soon, the visit to Bangalore was cut short by an unprecedented return to Guwahati, only to head immediately to Shillong. Apparently, I needed to get a scanned copy of my Passport uploaded with my Masters’s Application at the dream university- The English and Foreign Languages University. The last date was due and I had no choice but to return to my hostel and fetch that damned passport that I should've ideally carried with me. 

With this passport collecting ordeal done, I headed back to my hometown, Duliajan, to spend the last fortnight of my last winter break at Edmunds with the family before I finally head out to Silchar for the District Conference of Rotaract 3240. The year was as eventful as it could be, article deadlines from my content-writing gig, secret rendezvous with whom we shall henceforth refer to as Bunny, impulsive shopping sprees on Myntra, College assignments, Rotaract responsibilities, and everything else that a twenty-year-old college kid engages in. 

Soon after returning from the conference at Silchar, I got busy applying for the post of Joint General Animator for the famous College Week of St. Edmunds College. Obsession strikes me as pervasively as it struck Naina in YJHD and it’s an honest confession when I say that days and nights had been spent in extending prayers and summoning the Goddess of Good Luck to come and bless me. Luckily, the universe granted me my wish and I did secure the post of my dreams. The last few days of February were crazy. The 24 hours of a day were just not enough to accommodate all my commitments - the department magazine had to go out on time, the literary activities had to be planned well, the weekly freelancing articles had to meet the deadline. Oh, it was a mad mad month in more ways than these but what was causing a general commotion in the state around the time was the communal riots. There was hatred manifesting itself in the form of violence, injuries, protests, and deaths. To stop the spread of misinformation, the internet connection across the state was suspended for around two weeks. With the internet gone and the load of the many responsibilities I listed above, I couldn't prepare for the entrance exam of the one place I really wanted to get into for my masters. 

My lack of preparation wasn’t going to stop the entrance from happening and so I did sit for the entrance on 29th February 2020. The city was under night curfew, the exam center was at a place I hadn't heard of or been to in my three years at Shillong and obviously, it being month-end didn't leave me with much money to book a cab and go - public transport or shared-taxi was the best deal I could possibly have. But where would I find a taxi when the curfew was yet to be called off!? I walked a significant portion of the distance before God finally sent an angelic taxi. I hopped on and reached my center, gave the exam, and somehow got back to the hostel before it was curfew again. 

College Week began in three days. A crazy week went by…with all the themed days, activities, and a festive spirit. Our roles as Animators barely left us a moment to spare. But despite the busy schedule, it’s only fair to say that the entire week was magical. I didn't make as many acquaintances in three years as I made in that one week. I never dressed up as much in my entire life as I did for this last college week. And all this because a part of me knew that I will never have it in me to put so much effort into things ever again. I tried to make the best memories in the limited time I had in my hand. Because in our part of the country, the end of college week was the cue for juniors to plan for the farewell. I hated that part. I didn't want to leave Shillong just yet, it was only now that I fell in love with the city, how can I leave already? 

Anyhow, the one beautiful memory from the rotten year that 2020 turned out to be was the last night of College Week, the Prom Day (as we call it in Edmunds). Prom Day ended with me going out for dinner with my English department friends. That shit is rare because we never had any unity or interest in befriending anyone outside the circle we chose for ourselves. We were classmates, never friends, but that night, each of us felt that perhaps we should have let our guard off a little earlier. We realized that we missed out on some wonderful friendships solely because of our inhibitions. I have grown to treasure that night for several reasons - many of which revolve around a particular someone I have secretly admired for all my time at College. Going into the intricacies of this memory would make me answerable to a lot of people so I'd like my imagination to weave stories about this evening while choosing to censor it in this particular 2020 piece. 

College Week ended on March 7th and the time between then to 18th is hazy in my head because it was barely significant academically. All I remember doing is packing my small Duffle and smallest trolley bag with the bare minimum belongings and leaving the hostel hastily because college was shut down until March 31st and everyone was instructed to head home ASAP. Now, I am someone who travels with a HUGE bag containing all semester books in it because I believe that motivation might kick in any day and I might finish the entire syllabus overnight with that kind of sporadic energy. But over a span of three years, when you constantly carry heavy luggage on your solo trips home (and the 'home' being 600 km away) only to realize later that the books weren’t needed in a leisure trip, and that motivation is hard to come, you kind of make a compromise and bring the tiniest bag possible. I'm just sad that I chose to apply this otherwise-sound logic in this particular trip home because I wasn't going back to Shillong for eight months after that. 

A nationwide lockdown, online classes, online exams, no farewell, and no scope of ever saying goodbye to my friends and the city that has my heart was the last thing on my mind. But it happened anyway, and not just for me, for everybody in every part of the world. While I am grateful for this life, food on my table, good health, and the healing of the planet this pandemic has brought, I can't possibly overlook the damage the year has done to the people around me. I'll skip the figures or economic aspects of it, but the year had caused much harm to the wellbeing of a lot of people's mental health. 

I for one, have always been a victim of my unpredictable mood swings. I almost hate myself for being me. And the lockdown just made it worse. I went from being cheered by my girl gang to being betrayed by the one closest to me, from being healthy to being an impulsive eater, from taking evening walks in the streets of Laitumkhrah to digging a hole in the mattress at home with my constant sitting, attending classes and writing. Life went haywire. While I was earning, I was spending even more, and I got no pocket money from my parents for sitting at home, which just made everything worse. But keeping aside these lows, there were my highs too. I finally started saving up for a mobile phone I needed for a long time now, I started helping with the house chores, I began buying things for the house, I got back all the time I missed with my mother. Life happened in patches while I remained 'locked in' till May. Gradually, the lockdown was lifted and life showed chances of reverting to its original state. Online shopping was reinstated which believe me, was a big relief to my aching heart. Going out for walks with a mask was normalized which increased my chances of meeting Bunny. 

One day that tops the list of 'Nastiest Days of 2020' was most certainly my birthday. Nothing felt right that day. I was in my lowest lows and the deepest state of despair. With two months of cold war with my father over him being a chauvinist and me being a girl wanting to attain liberation from toxic masculinity, I was exhausted beyond what's explicable. Anyhow, after every fifth of June comes the sixth of August (just an over-dramatic way of mentioning Bunny’s birthday) and I had a lot of plans for the big day. I finally took on the seemingly taxing task of making a journal. Only, it wasn't for me, it was for him. I invested around 3-4 hours a day, every day, in planning the birthday gifts and that phase was really enjoyable. I was constructively engaged and nothing keeps a mind saner than creative pursuits. 

With that done came the exam fear and I hastily got back to my ebooks and cliff notes for the most unconventional exam of my life. Online exams were our only window to graduation and as much as we hoped the protests for 'no exam for final semester students' would turn out in our favor, we knew they wouldn't. So studying was the only option I had and that's what I did. September-end saw me and my mother go to Guwahati after what seemed like an era. I had an entrance at Guwahati, after appearing for which, we planned to go to Shillong for the last time, to get all my luggage. It's funny how what's your 'room', 'space' and 'belongings' one day becomes plain emotionless 'luggage' the next day. What was my happy place till March was suddenly an unnecessary expense (room rent), that needed to be dealt with at the earliest to save some money. 

Knowing how emotional I can get, I mentally warned myself to not spare a single second for contemplation while at Shillong. Because gazing at it's clear blue sky, or feeling the fresh breeze on my cheeks in the perennially cold city of Shillong would fill my heart with pain when it would be time to leave. I went, began packing, and in two hours of constantly putting things into my bags, I was done converting my 'happy place' into a 'seat' of a room at a PG in Lower Motinagar. The car was overloaded with my belongings - there was nothing I left behind in my hometown when I came to Shillong, I carried everything with me and hence this vast expanse of bags and boxes of stuff. The Shillong chapter ended this way and my heart still aches when I think of that day. 

A week after getting home, my end-sem exams commenced. I tried as hard as my estranged-from-books-for-six-months heart let me study and gave the virtual exams. The months of October and November were all about evening dates and morning cycle rides with Bunny, spending time writing articles, and paying for that mobile phone I got myself. December was bound to be a happy month, for my elder sister was coming home after one-and-a-half years. The broken pieces of the family somehow find a way back to fit into the picture every once in a while and this was that time of the year for us. We took a trip to Kaziranga and she bought a lot of necessary stuff for the household. Being the sole earner gives her the power to materialize the dreams, wishes, and desires of the other four and that's exactly what she does. Life seemed wholesome with her around, I felt like I was reliving my pre-lockdown life. 

At midnight of 31st December 2020, as I sat down with my laptop, desperately trying to reach my article deadline, I thought about this day a year ago. On this day, last year, I was on a bus to Kunti Betta sitting beside a stranger and talking to him about all sorts of things. I remember feeling grateful then for such an adventurous year-end and year-beginning and God was kind to bless me with the same feeling again in 2020. The year-end was unusual this time too. For years, I have not been a part of any festivities and suddenly this change felt overwhelming. I felt lucky that the mundane schedule of life before college wasn't repeating itself. 

Looking back at the roller coaster ride that 2020 has been, I mostly see an abrupt end to my carefree life, cruel pangs of depression, frustration, heartbreaks, deaths of renowned figures, forests burning, floods, and everything else that accompanied COVID 19 but despite everything here, are my Top Twelve Words in 2020. I'm sure some (most) of them would resonate with your life as well!

 

For the record, each of these words echoes the emotions felt during each month of the remarkable year that 2020 has been.

December: Longing

November: Hope

October: Graduation

 September: Topsy Turvy

August: Home

July: Sunsets

June: Introspection

May: Dejection

April: Hopelessness

March: Abrupt

February: Impulsiveness

January: Poetry

It has been an extremely unusual year and I'm sure we have all grown in some way and learned lessons that were needed. I have my list of lessons too, but I'll leave that for another day! Take care folks!

P.S. I know I'm not a great photographer (or subject of photography) but pictures capture emotions better than the words of an aspiring writer, hence the photo display!