Get Off That Scale!

Here's a little some thing for all of you.... and for me too! :)

Get off the scale! I have yet to see a scale that can tell you how enchanting your eyes are. I have yet to see a scale that can show you how wonderful your hair looks when the sun shines its glorious rays on it. I have yet to see a scale that can thank you for your compassion, sense of humor, and contagious smile. Get off the scale because I have yet to see one that can admire you for your perseverance when challenged in life.

You are beautiful. Your beauty, just like your capacity for life, happiness, and success, is immeasurable. Day after day, countless people across the globe get on a scale in search of validation of beauty and social acceptance.

It’s true, the scale can only give you a numerical reflection of your relationship with gravity. That’s it. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, life force, possibility, strength, or love. Don’t give the scale more power than it has earned. Take note of the number, then get off the scale and live your life. You are beautiful!”

― Steve Maraboli

The Lightning Jolt

Ah! Well we had the worst power grid failure in the world just recently. And if you read about it anywhere you must have gotten the stats. But I'll tell you what happened with me.

Day 1- I don't go to college!!

Day 2- I go. BUT....!!!

Well, it seemed like the worst had struck us. I was with my friend and we were going to take a metro train from a station near college to get back home. Unaware of what awaited us, we were having a very informative conversation on Model United Nations and how agendas discussed in such conference are of utter importance to every citizen of this country and this world.

I think I’d want to say that the UNIVERSE HAS ONE HELLUVA HUMOR cuz when we reached the station, we found it closed. The trains were not working. We were bothered but we decided we would take an auto to a nearby station which would be working.  We reached there only to find that that station was also shut.

(And this is exactly what the metro station looked like when we reached there! Imagine when we land there and everybody stared at our faces thinking 'here come two more!' and we're told that it's shut!)

We both let out a laugh! We were stuck and there was no way back home as we knew it. Panic situation as we would call it was laughable for us because we were in this together (THANK GOD!) and we both were clueless. Thanking mobile phones for existing, we called people who we thought could help us in this situation. Calls to our family went later, once we set out to take a bus! By the way- I have rarely ever taken a bus in my life. The count goes up till 10 at the max. And I am 18! And I have never taken the bus alone or with a friend, it’s always been somebody in family.

We saw buses passing by and I was very uncomfortable with the kind of stuffed population I saw in them. I doubt if there was space to breathe too! And then i realized that we're going to be a part of one of those kinds of buses!

(ok no this is just an exaggerated image. but to be real honest, the alarm that you just experienced with this one was just what i felt being right there! You should probably stuff the people sitting on the roof of the bus inside. maybe that shall explain what the bus looked like! Thank God, the bus had a better infrastructure and look than this one!)

Then, if that wasn't all, i got water splashed all over my pants so it looked like i had peed in them! It was just the LIMIT!

Then a blessed friend told me that the metro had started working and so we went back to the station and i travelled all the way with my wet pants back home!

Hallelujah! The city had never seemed to welcoming and beautiful to me before! And my house probably never so cozy. I changed the minute i got home and crashed on my bed to take refuge from the reality that had just passed!

What a day! (And honestly, i could say that as many times you want me to!)

It all starts simply. You learn to tie your shoes, recite your ABCs and skip count by 2. Then it starts getting more complicated.

This is something I found on tinybuddha.com

"You learn that sometimes people hurt you. That even if you plan as best as you can, the future can sometimes surprise you. That the things you expect will make you happy sometimes fall horribly short.

You start collecting ideas about how the world works and how you should operate within it- what to do, who to trust. Then just when you think you have it all figured out, your world cracks open and reminds you there's still so much to learn.

People often debate the meaning of life and how we should live it, but i think most agree that life's about learning. It's about about being a little wiser and more aware than yesterday, and using that wisdom to make the world a better place than you found it.

We all have the potential within us. We're all students and teachers, vulnerable and powerful- and that's a beautiful thing. The most influential people in the world have both the courage to inspire and the humility to be inspired."

Consider this:

People will walk in and out of your life as per their own conveniences. It hurts to realise that some people will never be a regular part of your life ever again. There will just be that memory. But mostly, you will realise that none of this will let you be angry forever (You may not ever forgive OR forget but you'll get over it if not through it :P Like I did). You are just left hoping that there's just a tiny reminder that they get in their head on what happened between you and them whenever they see you and maybe even feel sad about it just like you did once!

And i never say it's ok until it really is, so i mean it when i write it here!

Let go and let in! It's OK!! :)

Teenage: We Are Opinionated

If you're a teenager, are your proud of yourself, your choices, your mistakes and everything you've done in life so far? If you're past that phase, then do you remember what teenage and your thought process was like?

Guess what? I am 18 and I'm proud of who I am and the choices I've made; From big, to small, from what I've allowed myself to think and form opinions to what I've allowed myself to feel. I'm proud of it all. Even my mistakes. Because today I know that they were mistakes. If people don't get me- too bad! But it's their opinion so I'm not going to waste my time changing it!

Today, I'm writing because I'm annoyed and disappointed. Annoyed at how badly teenage is portrayed by the "Adults" and disappointed with how everybody thinks they know exactly what teenage is all about.

If you think you've got it all figured, you are wrong! And if you insist you do- SO WHAT? What are you doing about it? Are you helping? Listening? Cooperating? Or even talking accordingly?

No.

Teenage isn't something to be understood. After all, it's just chaos in the middle of chaos. In fact, generalising teenage as a a roller-coaster ride just for the mental conflicts is also wrong. For many reasons, a few being:

• It was a breeze for someone emotionally
• Some may have problems linking to the environment they are living in.
• Some may have problems because of wrong choices.

The basic problem, you ask? Well, I think, when we're kids we submit to what our parents say or do. But as we become 'older' we are taught and helped to become mature enough to acquire INDIVIDUALISTIC RATIONAL THINKING. However, coming right out of the age of ten or eleven, we still perceive the world with principles like equality regardless of age, tit for tat, etc. So with our newly acquired thinking and those same old immature principles we set out to make the journey of becoming and "I" in this huge world to get a job, a family and a good life.

We are taught to stand up for ourselves, for what we think and who we are but mostly it backfires. At least for the parents and other teachers of our lives. The kid, who's by now a teenager, starts questioning, demanding and reasoning for that "I" with their INDIVIDUAL thinking. Is that wrong? But then the people who're used to their agreement are not able to sit comfortable with it. They can't take queries; queries that come with a huge intensity and become labelled as rebellion and the teen labelled as troublesome!

It's a widely accepted dilemma that at teenage, teenagers are old enough to perform their duties but not old enough to to do other activities by themselves without the parents' consent. The classification? Nobody cared to give. Then what to do?!

And if that's not sucky enough, teenagers have a bad reputation because they're becoming too independent. Well we're left to learn from our peers and during that interaction, if we choose to follow certain things that you didn't want us to, is that our fault? We were never told what to pick and instead left to think for ourselves. Well, we did think but not just how you wanted us to. I'm not saying it is somebody's fault but then why blame us?! So much for wanting us to think for ourselves!

Today, I have my own secrets. They're secrets not because I'm ashamed of them but because they're controversial and they're for my personal growth and learning. What I think  may not be something others agree with. My secrets help me become who I am. And I am not comfortable for putting them up for discussion because that is what I think and I'm not going to waste my time changing your opinion or letting you change mine. It's just the way it is.

When I am restricted with rules set by somebody for me, I don't like it. Because I don't get why and moreover I don't know why. I don't know because they're not talked about. Thus, there's no scope of communication and negotiation over it. I have to go by it and there is no way around it. And when I speak about about my disagreement, I am given a 100 taunts about teenage stupidity. And then I stop right there.

It's called stupidity because others fail to get it and don't want to get it. It's an opinion, period. No discussion! :)

Pearls of Wisdom

Today, I feel highly spiritual. So I'm going to share something different. I visited this site called tinybuddha.com and found some amazing quotes that people had put up. I felt like sharing this:

• Love (and be loved in return)
• Love never leaves us.
• Treat yourself the way you want to be treated.
• Others can love just as much you love yourself.
• Don't judge.
• Love the people you are with and enjoy the moment.
• NEVER ALLOW SOMEBODY TO BE YOUR PRIORITY WHILE ALLOWING YOURSELF TO BE THEIR OPTION
• Life is meaningless and we get to add value and meaning to it.
• Be grateful. Don't take things for granted.
• You'll never actually have it all together and that's okay.
• Believe in yourself and your intuition.
• There's always more to learn.
• It's all good. even the BAD had value.
• And Finally...

YOU MATTER!

The Internship Diaries #1

Well, there was apparently a lot to do at my office. As I advance more towards the closure of the issue and I see adrenaline and emotions running high and I wonder helplessly about how much worse it would have been for earlier issues when I wasn’t there to complete a huge part of their work. No, really! They don’t do much during the initial days but then they’re running under crazy deadlines, which is stupid considering how much time they wasted.

However, in the very first week of my work here, I was told to go with my photographer to shoot for a column. I was told that he travelled on a bike. What I didn’t know was that it was a BULLET and not a bike! I have grown up loathing that absolute insult on the name of a modern-day vehicle because it’s noisy and just hateful! My house is situated near a main road and much to my chagrin, a bullet bike does happen to go by that road every now and then and when that happens I spend about five minutes at least, cursing that bike, the one who made it and the one who rides it.

So, naturally I didn’t want to travel on that bike. However, despite my own set of likes and dislikes (which nobody in the office gives a damn about) I sat on that bike. And that one ride that I took, gave me all the more reasons to hate the bike. For one, that bike was not just noisy but also uncomfortable for the person sitting at the back and it was PETRIFYING and PAINFUL to sit on that bike! Last but certainly not the least; I hated that bike because I was now under the category of people who were being cursed for using that bike! Get where I’m coming from?

I held on to the handle behind me tightly because every second moment I believed I was going to fall. Also, the guy just stank! So I’m pretty sure that people who saw me on that bike that day saw me inclined opposite to that guy… Oh yeah! I’d like to take a fall than torture myself with that stink every second. Also, I couldn’t even place my feet right on the bike so I was uncomfortable. But God knows, I was more uncomfortable when I asked the photographer where to place my feet while going back to office because my feet, legs, thighs and maybe even my butt hurt when I sat the way he told me how I was supposed to! :-/

Now, what was I doing when I was on that bike? Apart from feeling terrified and angry and uncomfortable? I was just basically singing to myself to panic less and also to distract my mind off the fact that I felt that I was gonna fall. Moreover, I was planning how I’d write this little piece of my internship diaries!

What  goes over my head is why guys can die over their bike? That’s still acceptable but why is their BULLET their life?! It’s an absolutely despicable means of transport and what’s even more puzzling is that they take it as a jab to their personal self if somebody says against their BULLET! Oh. MY. God! Really?

As I went on to becoming less fearful of the bike, I was given a shock! The photographer was gonna travel on his bike to Ladakh so he got carriers fitted on his bike. That meant trouble for me cuz I had to make an extra effort to climb on that bike. Well, I would trash that bike if I had the choice! I didn't give a damn about it, let alone making an effort to travel on that bike! It was no Porsche that I’d give all that effort into just getting on it! :-/ So I ended not just loathing that bike but also the process of getting on and off it!

All in all, that ride was something I wished, would never happen again but then when does life oblige to your whims and wishes?

I obviously had to keep quiet about it! :-/

The Complexion Obsession

Well, all societies have some social evils and mine has quite a few as well. What I am going to talk about today is the complexion obsession. This obsession is mainly specific to females just like many others. And as much as we’d like to think that it’s only limited to the older generation or for that matter, the rural population, we are enormously wrong.

It’s what a million girls go through regardless of class or category. It’s all the same. When a girl is born, it is variably accepted among different societies. Some dislike it, some act against it, some dislike but accept, some are disappointed but accepting and welcoming.  But when a girl is born with a dark complexion, many are found perplexed. Some may even think a girl not born is better than a girl born dark. Many instantly wonder how they’ll manage to get her married! You see, it’s still the responsibility of the elders in the family to get youngsters hitched and it is widely accepted.

I accept it, too. I understand that this is one of the factors behind our strong family system in India. More precisely, when a marriage happens in India, it’s not the marriage of two people; it’s the marriage of two families. But that’s beside the point.

A dark girl goes through a lot. I did, too. And yes, no dark boy or fair person goes through the same. The dark girl is subjected to more struggle in every possible sphere of life- work, socializing, marriage, etc. Why? Well, it almost comes as a natural instinct to people. They would be more willing to talk to the more beautiful person than the two people standing in front of them. And here, it’s understood that a fair skinned person is better looking- ALWAYS- than a dark skinned person. And it’s assumed that a fair person is better in every aspect than the dark one; manners, nature or whatever. She has to face ruder jokes. She has to grow up faster to understand that it’s exactly how people are treated in the big world. Her bubble bursts way earlier than the ‘prettier’ ones who get the subconscious nice treatment.

And so is the life and fate of a dark girl that if she manages to improve on her complexion- meaning she happens to grow a few shades lighter- she still won’t be spared. As much as she would feel happy for getting compliments for that improvement, it is almost understood that for better or worse, her complexion will always be talked about and it will be a huge part of what defines her in the eyes of others.

And yes, it infuriates me. Why not?! If you are judged on what you can’t choose, would you like it? Wouldn’t you feel helpless? Would you not feel bad if your boss doesn’t promote you because you’re the son or daughter of a particular person that he happen to hate? And yes, you might come to embrace what you have like many stars these days claim to have done with their plus-size figures but when that topic comes under the spotlight time and again doesn’t it exasperate you, like me, that you have to stand up for yourself and give that little statement to shut people up while the others have it easy?

Oh! And then you’re told to keep quiet about it and not answer back or even give out cheeky one-liners over such comments for the sake of your image. And sometimes just because it is the demand of society that you maintain your composure in public even when they are out to assassinate your confidence or demean your wonderful personality just because you’re dark even without trying to discern even the least extent of what an amazing person you could be. Keeping quiet about it…

It’s not always safe, you see, cuz it might lead to that little riot inside of you. :)

Do post your comments and tell me your view about this!