India

I was a 'patriot' before I knew what it meant. I swore I wouldn't work outside the country, and wouldn't be part of that term thrown about with such severity- "Brain Drain". At 22, I find myself leaving the country for the next five years, this inner patriot finds itself silenced. Do I intend to return (of course, I may not have a choice given the employment situation worldwide)? My answer is no longer a resounding yes. Working in India lays open its problems, and while I love her irrespective of these, they make me rethink living here. I'm no longer certain of returning to her thorny embrace. I want to do something for my country, but when the costs of such a contribution appear on the horizon, I am hesitant. I was a patriot before I knew what it meant. I hope I shall prove myself a patriot now that I fully understand what it means to be one.

Harry Potter

...for what else could 'H' belong to? Like millions of other fangirls, I miss the heady days of awaiting the next books, discussing plots and plot holes, characters and their quirks, debating Snape's evilness quotient and predicting the winner of the Quidditch Cup. JK Rowling gave us something to look forwards to, and gave us characters so much in tune with ourselves we couldn't not be hooked. My Harry Potter stationary set and posters now lie abandoned without the fuel of a new book to keep the fire going. It’s no longer cool to dress up as a character from Hogwarts. An era has passed. In our hearts, however, the memories shall live on.

Goodness

Babies have it. Some people retain it so you can see it shining through their personalities. It's not just limited to people. That serenity that hits you when you enter a temple or church, isn't that goodness itself (oh come on, you atheist, I'm talking to you too)? I don't know how you define it,
how you get it, how you lose it, whether you lose it, if our goodness, as I suspect is just inside all of us lurking inside the layers of shit life has thrown at us. Maybe that’s what self-awareness is- knowledge that you’re Good. Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to find.

Forgive me if this post is a ramble, I’m NOT feeling very self-aware right now.

Fangirl

An abiding feature of my adolescent years has been fangirlism. While the objects of my affections have varied with time, the manifestations of my emotional involvement remained the same. From sportspeople to Harry Potter to movie actors, I was always certain of two things- the everlasting bond I shared with them, and the uniqueness of this bond. Conversely, the sense of being in a community with other fanatics who shared similarly “unique bonds” only served to strengthen this bond.

I still have soft spots for all of my everlasting loves, though their place is currently occupied by other everlasting loves. Adolescent or not, one part of me will always remain a naive fangirl.

Ego

Realisations from Baby Jaishna, who's actually a saint in baby clothing.

We're happiest when our ego is at its weakest. Every moment it makes its presence felt makes us unhappy by a definite amount. It goads us on to think unhappy thoughts, to become the worst we can be, to love less and to be less at one with people we claim to love. It's why time spent with kids and babies is so rewarding, they shear us of the malaise that grows on us with age, even if temporarily. We don't worry about how we look, what we do in life or how we sound.

I'd replace the seven deadly sins with the greatest of them all.

D for...

Note: This is what results when you are out of time and out of a topic and have pledged to write a post a day. Don't judge me :)


O' you flakes in pearly white
Why must you plague me so?
I rinse and scrub and oil and wash
And hunt for solutions high and low.

But, no, you’re always on my head
Reminding me, at all moments
(with an itch here, a scratch there)
Of your everlasting presence

My shampoos have given up in vain
In the bathroom, they, dejected, lie
As I turn to novel cures
But there’s only so much I can try.

One day, I’ll give up too
And destroy the habitat of this nasty stuff
I’ll get you, even if it gets me.
I’ll shave my hair off, O Dandruff!

Cities

After 22 years of having moved across different cities in India and Singapore, I know I like big cities. I currently live in one which is amongst the biggest of them all. I can lose myself in Bombay when I want. I like knowing that I'm in a place that matters to this world, that I can find pretty much anything I look for in some cranny of the vastness I inhabit. I like knowing that I can shrug off the anonymity I love and connect with the city's human side at my disposal. The diversity, the uniqueness underlying this very diversity, the hustle, the self-importance and the lack of it, drive me on.

I'm moving to a little dot on the map of the world called Ann Arbor this fall. It's a town masquerading as a city and the thought scares me.