Lessons from a train journey..

A college student I was, until the last year. The point behind me revealing my personal info is nothing more than to let you know that, ‘I managed to get into a general compartment’ is a cliched statement that one gets to hear from us, the college students, especially when it is a spontaneous weekend escape plan. Well, my escape was nothing like a Goa trip or to attend a rave party, but only to go to a place I call my nearest home, far away from my home. Yes, I had gone to my aunt’s place during a 3 day holiday that my college had suddenly declared. Well, I am not getting into details of how it was at home, as home is home and everything ought to be perfect. The story is about my 2 hr train travel back to my college from my aunt’s place.

Now, to support my former statement, let me begin the story with, ‘I managed to get into a general compartment’. It was not the monsoon shower’s time, but let’s just say that the sun was having a gleeful time contrary to the frustration we experienced. I never liked the Ladies’ general compartment for some reason, especially when it was crowded. Unfortunately, I had no choice than to squeeze myself silently and make my way through the ladies/girls pushing and yelling at each other. Now, people have asked me why I have never booked my ticket atleast while I was travelling back , as it is always pre-planned when to leave. Well, can’t I just not travel with the economically challenged people of our country despite being able to afford a stress-free journey? I just like simple things and I don’t think I need a reason for it, right? And, if you really desperately need a reason, it is that this is the best way to know how it feels to be in their shoes and also to acknowledge the luxuries you have in your life and be grateful about it. Try it once and you will get to know!

Okay, getting back to my story. I’m amongst a compartment full of women of different age, culture and back-ground stories. You don’t need to ask them the story particularly, as majority of my kind is blessed with the interest to gossip about anything and everything and especially when one gets people of their own kind around them, then we just can’t avoid bonding over interfering with other people’s lives! So, the usual chitter-chatter was going on and me just being me, just plugged in to my world of music, as my intention was not to indulge into the negativity of gossips and only to be a silent spectator who didn’t mind travelling with them. Now, here are two of the peculiar observations I had and like to share, my dear readers :

There was an elderly lady wailing over the respect she never got from her only son and his family. She was travelling to the city where they resided, from her village where she stayed alone. As she was knitting a cute frock for her new-born grand-daughter, the fellow passengers sympathized over her plight and began to criticize the new stranger, they just had heard about, enthusiastically. (My mind: Acknowledge your parent’s sacrifice and presence until it is too late.)
There was a group of folk people, approx. 3-4 ladies and their total 8 kids. They didn’t have a phone nor did they know the station they had to get down at. They were sitting with hope and waiting for their men companions to rush to the compartment and get them out in a span of 2 minutes, considering the halt time. Their station arrived and a group of men barged into the ladies compartment and dragged the heavy sacks (10-12 of them) in a haste and asked the ladies to rush out with their kids. One particular child caught my attention due to her handicap. It will be difficult for me to explain in words about the sight I had as she smiled so sweetly, looked at me with sparkly eyes and tried to hold me with her “half” hand for support as her mother tried to make way amid the chaos. I didn’t want to convey the bizarre emotions behind my pale smile I casted back at her, seeing just the tiny half of her once entire hand. The other passengers just wanted to talk as I mentioned earlier, so they inquired from the mother what had happened to her and tried to evoke the feelings that she tried to control until then, just so that they could empathize. Phew! (My mind: Thank God for keeping you safe and value the only life you are gifted with. Also, never ever bring back the sad history of a person just for your entertainment!)

There were many others too but only these were worth mentioning as I felt a tug in my heart seeing them. Anyways, the gossip continued until THE tragedy happened. The train came to a halt midway and we didn’t get to know what had happened as we were at the other end of the train. But, gossip/news travel faster than the train itself these days. One of the water-bottle sellers you find in the train was trying to hop from the compartment he was in, on to the platform so as to run and enter the next compartment, while the train was in motion. Seeing him take his life so carelessly, fate thought of going for a stroll too and his body fell right into the tiny gap between the train and the platform. The train came to a halt but the damage was done anyways. As I witnessed such a tragedy from so near for the first time or atleast heard about it while being at the place of incidence, I felt shivers throughout my body. I didn’t want to look at the shattered, life-less body of his lie on the platform , which the people had managed to pull out. But yes, the women travelling along with me were excited to some different level as they got a bigger topic to talk about. They started discussing and describing what they saw and started talking about life again! My earphones couldn’t help me escape this time as my mind was stuck at the tragedy that just happened and wondering how people value their life so less. Yes, risks are necessary and Darr ke aage jeet hai (If you overcome your fear, you get success), but you only live once too!

As many as traumatic experiences I encountered in a 2 hr journey, that many lessons I did learn as well. Sometimes, you need to step into a world that is different from yours, only to learn many things more and have a moment of self-realization.

An Open Letter…

Dear Barbarian,

People do tend to forget the million good things we do, and search for a single reason to point fingers at us (P.S. Not gender specific over here). Well, I have decided not to give you any such reason at least at the beginning of my letter. I definitely don’t want you to retaliate on the part where I address this open letter to the men out there so that’s pretty much the reason why I endorse the gentlemen of the society and address this letter to the aforementioned. Because, that’s not the point and the whole essence of this letter will just go down the drain. Behind a man’s success there is a woman but will a day come where we could tell the same with the genders interchanged? Chuck success even, can you just let us live the way we want, without fearing any preying eyes? That is a message to the hypocritical women of the society too who judge us for the jeans we wear while they drape their rather revealing sarees in a carefree manner.

March 8, International Women’s Day. One day to live our life in a pompous manner. A day to put on our best outfit, embrace and brace ourselves, hold our heads high, attend women empowerment seminars and maybe have a day off from the routine kitchen work (if we are lucky enough to be a member of a family that appreciates our work for them). But hold on! Just a day, out of all the 365 days, to live the way we want?

What if we feel like dressing up on any other normal day? Will you just stare down at us until we find it uncomfortable to even step off our house or will you punish us by ripping our clothes off only to leave a scar on our soul and body, which will never heal with time? Rather will you let us wear anything that we want and roam around the streets with no fear for the rest of the days too. All we are asking from you is ‘Why should boys have all the fun?’ Yes, we admit that we too gawk at you when you are dressed at your best or have a charm that could get our heartbeats race. But do we possess the power to instil the fear in you to get out of your homes or rather make you check a thousand times if your outfit is appropriate for the world out there? Well, I guess we just discern the thin line between making you feel comfortable and uncomfortable.

Well moving to the ‘embracing ourselves’ part of the celebration day. Let’s take a look at the literal meaning of the two strong words. To embrace oneself means to let go of harsh recrimination and happily accept our own identity and uniqueness. Every person send to this universe is unique in his/ her own way. Do we still face discrimination on the basis of strength or ability to sustain in a chemical plant with just men around? Well, ladies it is not the doubt on our strengths rather it is the safety concern because men doubt men just like how we don’t trust our kind with gossips. That’s when people tell us to brace ourselves which means to prepare ourselves for something difficult or unpleasant. But, wait again, just for a day? Are we to stay mum about the domestic violence that happen to us quite often or the verbal abuse we face while speaking for ourselves, all the other days? Rather are we to vent it out on the day dedicated to us just so, you, the society can forget it in the coming days and we can get back to getting tortured, only to bring a new story for you the next March 8th?

Hold our heads high? Well we so wish too. Kindly, do not have a misconception that we want to be superior in the family or anything of that sort. We just want to be given that equality at the discussion table and not be the one who just cooks and brings food to the table. The way a man is appreciated for bringing money home, we just want to know that our family is aware and acknowledge the part that we are the ones who ensure that they return to a calm and relaxing environment. We just want to hold our heads high and look right into your eyes and speak about how we feel about your acts, words and anything that bothers us, without fearing any kind of revengeful violence in the future.

Seminars by successful women on their life stories will not enter our simple head rather it will evoke the most common feeling (jealousy) of how she gets to follow her dreams as our feathers get chopped off! That will make us more agitated or rather get us kicked out of our own house for being too outspoken about our dreams. Instead, it may be a scope for motivation if the society starts to believe in us by telling us that ‘We can do it too’ every time we fall down. Only if you, the society, could give us a nudge to stand on our own feet rather than pulling us down and creating a perturbed situation for us on being a mother.

A day off from kitchen work? We would be happy if you acknowledge the food we prepare after a nerve-racking day at office or rather remove the clichéd statement that women look better in kitchen than men. There is no hard cut rule as such, alright?! Helping us out at the kitchen or just accompanying us is also a kind of appreciation we would look for. A burnt roti on our plate made by you would rather make our eyes teary as we’d appreciate the efforts you put in to shush our tummy. Just like how you get bored of the food cooked by us, we too get bored of the taste our hands tend to prepare on a routine basis. We’d like a change too and that doesn’t have to necessarily wait until next March.

“There is a powerful tension in our relationship to technology. We are excited by egalitarianism and anonymity, but we constantly fight for our identity” – David Owens. Well, I guess women/men empowerment may not be the right move to create a conducive place to live in. If we could focus on egalitarianism, that’d be the best policy we could adopt to make co-existence of both the genders smooth and fair. Let’s keep our egos aside and quit this ‘divide and rule’ policy by each group, and work on being humans first! Let us stop believing that our differences make us superior or inferior to one another.

Yours truly,

An Egalitarian.

Topicless – A new Topic…

Hey readers! A confusing topic? Well, I am really clueless and topicless as I am writing this. There’s this really difficult task of finding a really catchy name for your blog, to get your readers to read it. Atleast, that’s what I feel since I judge a movie by it’s name. Now, you got another point against me, judgmental a person I am, but that’s clearly just for movies and songs and really weird names maybe! Let me make this clear once again, I judge things and don’t judge people because I believe every person has a story of their own to tell.

Now, you tell me, don’t you cringe a bit when you hear absurd names for a movie, like why would the director even name it so?! But, there are these really intrigued set of people in the community who watch the movie to just see what link the movie has with its name, just like those people in horror movies who go towards the ghost when we keep screaming “DON’T! With my own experience of watching such a movie when left with no other choices, I’d like to say that few of them are really good. Now, you get another point, that judging a name is also wrong because a name too has a story to tell of its own.

Did I confuse you now? Well, that’s what state I get into when I have a lot of topics in my head but not enough content to write about. But, ye I don’t really have to work on an essay because people don’t really have the time to read someone else’s story right? But, can you be selfish all the time? Will people lend you an ear to listen you out when you want to rant out stuff? No! So that brings another point that you should be selfish enough not to keep people away from you. Respect your space, but do respect their thoughts too!

Now, getting back to the story behind the name for my blog. I really had a lot of topics to write about but one story leads to another because obviously the mind loves to wander about. So, infact I’m actually topicless but that gives me the right to write about anything random in each paragraph and by anything I mean, I can let my mind wander free without any refrains. How many of us have words unspoken everyday, because of different situations?

Well, I am here, reaching out to many people, because of the support and force from my loved ones to begin a blog. I used to keep my writings and thoughts saved in my diary which my parents had gifted me. It’s not really cool to invade into anyone’s personal space (I still stick on to what I say) but luckily the only sheet that tore off from my diary was a poem I had scribbled on during one of my lectures. My friends didn’t invade, don’t get me wrong, it was the fate or timing that wanted to get me off the boundary limit of my diary. They wanted me to begin a blog but I never felt my writings were really worth publishing. I asked my sister for her opinion too and she was also supportive to begin one. Hence, here I am!

The only aim behind this blog is to spread this message to all the budding writers: Get your pens out, fill it up with ink, keep writing. It doesn’t matter if you don’t have quality content. Well, no one is really perfect in this world. So, take a chill pill buddy and let your mind wander free ’cause there’s no bigger wanderlust than your mind 😉 …

Welcome back!

Hello readers! I’d like to welcome you all back to my blog. After procrastinating for around a month or so, here I am trying to retrieve my readers or find any new ones and get my blog up and going. It is sometimes difficult to maintain a blog, because you have to keep posting in order to maintain your count of few readers. But, you know what? Writing is my passion, and though a little late realization from worrying about what content can impress my readers, I have learnt that I write because I want to express and this is my way of expressing. Yes! I chose words to express my thoughts and not to impress anyone. There will be some people who can relate to me and some who can’t. To begin with, how many of you write or scribble your thoughts onto a sheet of paper, it could be a diary or a scrapbook which contains some really good quality stuff contradicting the name ‘scrap’ given to it? Well, I began writing when I was in my 8th Grade and those were just on sheets that I saved in a file folder. Once, my sister and my friends pestered me for a really long time to begin this blog because they saw some potential in me after reading one of my creations, and hence here I am. It’s a feeling of contentment, when someone tells that they could totally relate to what I have written and that’s when I thought I should write what people expect. But, no I was wrong. I cannot let anyone control my passion. I will write whatever I want to, and it’s not like everyone’s going to read it.

I am not writing currently from a writer-in-a-story kinda atmosphere; like in a silent garden, resting on an armchair while sipping a cup of coffee, the wind caressing my face as my mind elopes to a land of fantasy and you know a beautiful calligraphy pen in hand penning down words running through my mind and as a result a pile of papers on the floor ’cause obviously your mind can’t just be right at the first time and is indeed a twine of words. Phew! I almost took myself to such an imaginary land whereas I am just resting on my couch, with the TV playing some Bollywood songs randomly and a laptop resting on my lap. Well my readers, that’s the power of words to you. Words have the ability to create images in your brain and the success of a writer is to make his/her reader imagine the entire story as the latter reads one of the former’s creations. For that, is it really necessary to use sophisticated words or show your hold on vocabulary? No, I don’t think so. Why are nursery rhymes so cute and fresh? It’s because of it’s simplicity about how Jack and Jill went up the hill or how Humpty Dumpty had a great fall. For that matter, it’s even the Fable Stories that we used to read as kids that shows how simple stories convey a single meaning without complicating it. Whereas, if you read the novels these days or watch movies, there are a lot of meanings that we can take from it and it depends person to person, whether they want to see the real positive ideology and understand it and imply it in their lives or just take the negatives one and be like, “that’s what they showed in the movie too”, and hence I’m right.

We, humans have the capability of complicating even a small stuff into a huge one until and unless it eats up our head so that you know we could just blame it on our mind,”I’m sorry I just overthink at times”. Really? At times? We don’t really like simple things, do we? If everything is going on fine in our lives, we still have to worry about something going to go wrong in our near future ’cause someone stupid enough has told that ‘If you laugh a lot, you’ll cry that much too” or something of that sort. So basically we can’t even laugh until we cry the tears of joy because it may magically turn into tears of sorrow. It’s funny how we ask our friends to pinch us, so that we stop our laughs before it crosses a limit. Wait, there’s a limit to laughter when laughter is the best medicine? Hmm, seems intriguing to me! Well, how many of you have followed this stupid scheme of getting pinched voluntarily? We can’t live anymore in the present, as we are always worrying about the future. Why? Life is anyway too complicated (as what we portray it) , it doesn’t need a helping hand from your brain to complicate the small list of simple things. So, don’t even bother to help life if you can’t simplify stuffs.

Ok, hold on! I was talking about the power of words and here I am ranting out some philosophy, phh! That’s what a pessimist would think . Well, if you take an optimistic approach to this, I was clueless about what to write to restart my blog after so long, and here I am typing out words entwined in my brain and I have typed out enough content for a blog. Voila! See, that’s all that matters: Take out the meaning of something happening in your life in a way that will bring out the best in you instead of hindering yourself from putting out something exciting, because even if you may not like your work, there are plenty of them who can relate to and is looking forward to just see even a small effort from you!

P.S. Welcome back readers! 😀