Faceless Stories

Everyone has their own reason for waking up every morning, or “a reason for being”. The Japanese call this “ikigai”. All of us have so many different reasons for jumping out of bed (or, as in my case, crawling out). It could be a compulsion to meet the minimum attendance percentage required in college (most college-students’ cases!), or, maybe, to just meet up with friends, to take up a new challenge that life throws our way – carpe dium. Reasons could be many – perhaps, to just hug your parent, or cuddle with your pet, or even crank up some silly music and goof around in your PJs. Maybe, you just like to see the sun rise and hear the birds chirp. The dawn gives you hope, light beyond the dark, and a chance to start afresh – a new beginning. Since the chance can be grabbed, why not?? Even though we might not all be morning persons, there is always that one reason in our life that gives us the belief and the hope of another day. It’s the belief we take with us to sleep at night and hold on to – and that is how life goes on…Really. Days, weeks, months, years pass by for these little reasons that make us “want” to wake up to a bright, new day. Reasons that keep us alive. These “ikigais” are something that just makes us so much more similar to each other than we realize…These “ikigais” are the faceless stories that are common not just to you and me, but also to stories we do not perceive, or realistically, choose not to perceive.

Last month, I had the unbelievably amazing opportunity to attend a workshop in Rishikesh and the lessons I learnt there – I could not have learnt them anywhere else. Amongst the various life-lessons the workshop taught me, one was that no matter where you go, which language you speak – everyone is one and the same...Flesh and bones…With the same hopes and dreams, same reasons to wake up every morning, same fears and insecurities. We are all watching the same movies, listening to the same songs and fighting the same battles.

Let me now get back to the title of my post – Faceless Stories. These stories are merely just every single person around us. The crowds that we get lost in, in shopping malls or in the middle of a crowded street. They include our batch-mates and our colleagues. Our parents. Our teachers. Even the celebrities we adore and worship. How much do we really know about their lives? Have we ever really stepped into their shoes and seen for ourselves what living their life felt like? How many times, before placing a judgment, have we stopped to ask ourselves what that person’s life has been like? Forget about each and every day, have we ever lived even one day in his life? If not, then, what gives us the power to decide for ourselves what ‘might’ that person be like, or what his life ‘might’ be like. We paint a face what in reality is nothing more than a faceless story…A novel that we are NOT the author of. This serves as the building block to all the pandemonium that we see around us, today. Clouded judgements and influenced perceptions.

Being absolutely non-judgmental may not be possible for all of us. All I feel is that – yes, we may be different from each other, but then, if all of us are different together, then in that, we are all similar. So yes – we are in all entireties, the same. I do not ask you to not judge. I ask you to not judge people by your own standards. Everyone around you is trying to hold on to their “ikigais”, fulfil their dreams, fight their demons, win their battles - and all unbeknownst to you. 

Faceless Stories - Scenario 1:

As you walk home after an exhausting day, a cute seven-year-old skips along the pavement holding her mother’s hand. You smile to yourself and say, “What a cute little girl!” and then something else catches your mind. Little did you know that the cute seven-year-old won her first poem recitation competition in school that day. She was given a certificate and everyone clapped for her. The certificate is now safely kept in a pink folder in her school bag that is slung across her mother’s shoulders. Her mother cannot help but smile a proud, little smile. The mother is reminded of her school-days. She remembers her days in school when she was great in debates and is so happy that her daughter is following her footsteps and enjoying public speaking. She can’t wait to reach home and announce via Facebook proudly before the world about how her daughter won a prize.

At home, the cute, little girl snuggles in bed clutching her teddy bear and soon drifts off into a dream world where she fantasizes about receiving ten more certificates and trophies that’ll adorn her bedroom, and more claps, more hugs, more Facebook statuses, more praises.

Faceless Stories - Scenario 2:

Your boss has just announced your promotion in front of the entire office. As everyone is busy cheering and congratulating you, you observe a colleague, who is a good friend of yours, slightly moving to a corner, with no smile on his face, fidgeting with his phone, and you immediately realize, “He wanted this promotion. Now he’s jealous of me.” Your colleague notices you looking at him and smiles, but you can make out it is forced. You make up your mind to stay away from him as far as possible. He has no idea about your decision. Just a while ago, he found out that the girl he really loved is marrying another man and he’s heartbroken. However, he does not want to share his bad news with you at a time when you are celebrating your success. He decides to shake off his grief and join in the merrymaking even though he does not feel like it. He is happy that he at least has a friend at work.

Faceless Stories - Scenario 3:

Your date just stood you up. As you sit by yourself, blinking your eyes rapidly to stop the tears from flowing, you suddenly hear a delightful scream! The woman on the table in front of you has just been proposed by the man of her dreams, and she's said 'yes'. You stare at the happy couple in anger and mutter to yourself, "Life's not fair! How can they rub their happiness on my face." You don't notice the sigh of relief on that woman's face. You do not see the creases on her face, caused due to incessant nights of worry. For the last ten nights, she has not slept a wink. "How do I tell him that I am pregnant with his child?", "Will he accept me and the baby?", "What do I do now?" - that is all she's been thinking. Finally, she can have a restful sleep tonight. Her baby is going to have a father figure after all. Life's good again. The man too can see nothing around him; he's too engrossed staring into the eyes of the woman he loves. It's time for him to become responsible now, take charge. He cannot behave like a child any more, because an actual child is going to come into his life - his own baby. He just cannot believe it!

Faceless Stories - Scenario 4:

You're having a great time with your friends. All of you have had a few too many drinks. Your friend insists on driving the car, and even though you know it isn't right,  you let him. The music is loud and all of you are singing along, having the time of your lives. You do not notice the man crossing the road, and by the time you do, it's too late. He's gone, and your friends just drive past the empty roads without even turning back to look at him. "He seemed poor...Was probably homeless...No one will miss him...Let's not get into any trouble...Run! Drive fast!" and you and your friends have escaped. It's been a week and life goes on for all of you. There are a few moments plagued with guilt, but nothing so extreme that you aren't able to focus on the task at hand. You just shrug off the ill feeling and get back to work. Back in an old dilapidated house, a visually impaired father is desperately waiting for his son's arrival. The neighbours feel his son abandoned him because taking care of the sick, old man was no easy task. The old man hears these whispers every day and wonders what is it that he did that drove his son away. 

There are so many more faceless stories just like these. Everyone around us, making their way home by the roads they know best - roads that we probably would have got lost on, till we made a phone call and asked them to repeat the address again...Because everyone around you has a life outside of yours, complete with their own thoughts, feelings and emotions. You could potentially just be a passing figure on the street to them. Every random passerby you encounter is living a life as vivid and as complex as yours - populated with their own ambitions, friends, routines, worries and inherited craziness—an epic story that continues invisibly around you like an anthill sprawling deep underground, with elaborate passageways to thousands of other lives that you’ll never know existed, in which you might appear only once, as an extra sipping coffee in the background, as a blur of traffic passing on the highway, as a lighted window at dusk…

Let them write their own novel, a novel that you do not need to write a book review of!

You Against The World

I could think that the sky above me is pink. When it rains, down come nachos! All the trees are red due to excess of anthocyanins. Maybe, people around me have purple hair, gray hands and feet. Our blood is blue, and penguins run the government.

It is easy for me to imagine such things, but I wonder if I would be able to tell you these thoughts? If I did, I’m sure you’d laugh; or say, “Gosh, what is wrong with you? When did you stop sounding sensible?” or maybe you’d dismiss the whole affair as “funny stuff” or a joke. But, what if that makes perfect sense to me?

We all have thoughts that we’re afraid to voice. Perhaps, we’re ingrained with the fear of being looked at as different, or being labelled “weird”. We have been trained to conform, and we pretty much do things that everyone else does, for pretty much the same reasons. We follow trends, and have our preferred self-identities. But, how real are these identities? Are they really us? Why do we care so much about what others will think, when somewhere down the line we’re also taught that they aren’t supposed to matter?

I find myself bombarded with such thoughts from time to time. Maybe it stems from a state of idleness, or maybe I’m one of the people crazy enough to believe that I need to entertain my thoughts, even if nobody else does. So, let’s take this one step at a time; and start on a journey to find our “true self”, discover who we really are, and uncover a new motto to live by – that it’s probably just us, and only us, against the universe, and that it might always remain that way…

There are so many people on this planet with bewildering diversities in thought-patterns, belief-systems, and lives, yet we all seem to have adopted the image of one “common man” who strives to get through the day, get some sleep at night, and busy himself with the humdrum of life. Everyone is doing it! You can seriously see it happening all around you.

Structurally, we are all the same molecules, we possess the same organs and our brains do not develop special structures and features on the basis of our different racial, regional or sexual background. Then, why are we trying to stand out? Isn’t all the effort going to be in vain? Since we are all so remarkably similar, let’s just try to fit in. Why should we try to think different when we all come down to the same matter? “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” Remember?

 Why must you stand out when you can fit in? Why should you try so hard to be yourself? Isn’t that thought by itself sinful? Why do you want to make your voice heard over the seas of the crowds? Why do you want your thoughts to soar high above the clouds?

It’s not easy to keep marching ahead when so many are trying to fit you in their mould. But, always remember, it’s you against the world. It is you against all of them. Stop feeling small, believe that you are Goliath. Don’t listen to the voices – they’re mistaken and are trying to confuse you too! Don’t dig your own grave by falling prey to their words. Just stand tall.

It could be a lonely night, but remember even when there’s no else, there is truth. It’s alright to be a little crazy because that is the real you. Life may seem terrible, but you have no clue – it’s actually beautiful, but the journey to the rainbows is you, just you…

In the end, it is you against the world, and this place isn’t going to be your home forever. As the lights get dim, the Universe will embrace your dark, and your light. If the Universe can, so can you. You don’t have to wait until after the end.

No one else matters. You matter. Only you.

Stop trying to fit in. Start standing out. Extraordinary people didn’t fit in. They broke the rules without caring what people thought. We are all books waiting to be written. But so many books have remained manuscripts in the mind, and never been chanced upon. You know why? Because we’re so busy trying to be “normal” that we don’t think crazy. Steve Jobs once said that those who think they’re crazy enough to change the world are the ones that actually do. Those are the books that get written. These are the people who do not apologize for being the way they are. They know that in the end, it’s going to be just them and their creator. The world does not matter. It never did.

I like me, but there are days when I find it hard to love me. Yet, I choose to believe in me. I believe in my beliefs and thoughts. It does not matter who else believes in them too, as long as I believe in them as strongly as I possibly can. I try staying away from stereotypes. I try to be the truest version of me. And those who know we well, I’m sure they’d agree. Even if they don’t, it doesn’t matter. Believe me, it makes life a lot easier. Own your true self, be yourself, and be totally unapologetic about it!

What The Little Prince Taught Me...

I have always believed that learning knows no age. Every person who crosses our path has the power to teach us a valuable lesson or two if only we remain receptive and open to the learning process. A lot of adults around give me a quizzical expression when I tell them that grownups can learn so many things from children. Their sense of disbelief transports me to the pages of a book titled The Little Prince which charmingly illuminates the gap between children and grownups. It was quite by chance that I happened to stumble upon this particular book but it is one that I would recommend everyone to read.

Written by Antoine De Saint-Exupery (originally in French), the deceptively simple story of a pilot's encounter with a small boy from another planet actually offers a wealth of insight to an adult who chooses to pay attention to the hidden meanings behind the written text.

 The narrator mentions how, with age, we seem to lose interest in what is really important in life. We are only interested in how things appear at the surface-level without bothering to dig beneath.

Recently, a friend and I were discussing how, as we grow old, we lose our sense of wonder. A friend of mine keeps getting exasperated at my childlike exclamations of "Wow!" each time I find something that fascinates me. I do not blame her. As we start ageing, the way in which we see the world changes. According to me, as we grow up, we stop engaging with the world. It's not that we cannot do it. We just choose not to.Not every individual is able to uphold the sense of amazement or of the sheer enjoyment of life. As we grow up, we lose sight of the endless possibilities that life has to offer which was so apparent to our younger selves. Wisdom may involve being more in command of our thoughts, faculties and desires but I believe that the very experience which helps us become successful threatens to limit our imagination and our sense of the possible.

As a child, it is acceptable to believe that anything and everything is possible. Setbacks in life make us more aware of our limitations. But what is wrong in being a dreamer? In The Little Prince, the author mentions how grownups are only interested in figures when, in fact, for those "who understand life, figures are a matter of indifference". He goes on to explain how grownups are never interested in asking "questions about essential matters" - for example, when their child makes a new friend, instead of wanting to know about his hobbies and interests, they are more interested in knowing his age and his father's income. I couldn't help but chuckle while reading that part - it reminded me of the time when I had been given the responsibility of selecting candidates for an interview based on the resumes they had mailed. I had found myself wondering, "How in the world can I possibly select five from this lot which appears to have the same amount of qualifications and experience?"

I love the way in which Saint-Exupery turns the tables in his book and actually makes the adults appear as the absurd ones instead of the children. Some may argue that my appreciation for this book stems from the self-satisfaction gained from the reasoning that I am not one of the unimaginative grownups scorned in the story but I firmly believe that The Little Prince will inspire people to shift their attention from pointless or self-centered ambitions to things that make our life more meaningful and worthwhile.

Below are some lines from the book that struck a chord. I hope they inspire you enough to read the book, The Little Prince:

• Only with the heart can one see rightly. What is essential is invisible to the eye.
• "What makes the desert beautiful," says the little prince, "is that somewhere it hides a well."
• "Then you shall judge yourself," the king answered. "That is the most difficult thing of all. It is much more difficult to judge oneself than to judge others. If you succeed in judging yourself rightly, then you are indeed a man of true wisdom."
• Language is the source of misunderstandings.
• I know a planet where there is a certain red-faced gentleman. He has never smelled a flower. He has never looked at a star. He has never done anything in his life but add up figures. And all day he says over and over again, "I am busy with matters of consequence!
• One only understands the things that one tames. Men have no more time to understanding anything. They buy things all ready made at the shops. But there is no shop anywhere where one can buy friendship.
• It is such a secret place, the land of tears.

Unspoken Words

He gazed at her in wonder as she scrunched her eyes, bursting into a fit of giggles. He was in awe of her ability to find humour in the toughest of situations. She caught him staring and suppressed her laughter.
"What are you thinking?" she demanded to know.
"Nothing," he said dismissively.
"Come on," she prodded. "There is something going on inside your head. I can see it on your face. Tell me what is it. Spill the beans!"
She could see a faint smile on his face that vanished almost as suddenly as it had appeared.
"It's impossible to hide anything from you!" he complained. "Let it go. It wasn't important."

She sighed. He never told her anything. In his defense, he felt the same way about her. She was unusually quiet these days. However, there was a big difference even in their respective silences. He never said anything despite her incessant questioning. He did not like having talks on trivial matters. She never spoke because he never really asked her anything. He believed if something was important, she would tell him on her own. Asking questions was too much of a hassle; especially because she had a knack for navigating her way around questions she did not want to answer.

He looked at her as she silently sipped her cup of coffee. She still looked as lovely as she did seven years ago. But the signs of transformation were clearly visible even to him, who, according to her, never paid attention to anything. He could see that her bright, sparkling eyes had lost their luster; her previously beaming face now looked crestfallen and her dazzling smile that at one point of time had lighted up many hearts now appeared broken and never reached her eyes.

He wondered if they had made the right decision. The picture no more looked perfect. Life was jumbled and both of them seemed to just be pecking on to live. Letting go of her was not easy for him. From the moment he had laid his eyes on her, he had found his world changing - it was as if the the earth inside him shifted as per the beats of her heart which had become its new gravity. Only good things had come his way since she had stepped into his life. He wished he could say the same for her. He did not know what she had gained by giving  up the comforts of her familiar world only to be with him. He knew he wanted her for his own selfish interests. He was not sure if he loved her - true love was supposed to be selfless, wasn't it?

She stared at him as he was lost in his world of thought. Judging by his expression, she knew he was once again occupying the room of doubt. She wished he could give up his obsession with perfection. They had been together since the last seven years. She had never cared for a person as much as she did for him. Just the thought of him was enough to generate a smile on her face. Yet she did not know if she loved him. She had read about love in novels and seen it in movies but she did not know if it existed in the real world. She was not sure if she would be living with him had she known what love truly was. Love, according to her, belonged to some unknown territory, of which she was no inhabitant. Love was free to go on its own journey - it could choose to settle down or roam around like a nomad. She had no intention of following the trail made by love. That was not why she had left her world behind.  She had done so not for love but for him - she belonged in his space and would only walk beside him on whatever path he chose for himself.

It did not seem to matter that these conversations always took place inside their heads. To each other, they said not a word yet everything that was there in their hearts was seemingly understood. He instinctively reached for her hand and clasped it tightly into his. She smiled and rested her head on his shoulders. Life was filled with challenges and presented new opportunities, each day, for them to question themselves and their choices. Right now, they had won this battle. But it was not the end for they still had miles to go before they reached the destination that was still unknown to them...

The Pedestal

In her eyes, he was the complete embodiment of perfection. He could never make mistakes. She saw him in this glowing light from the very first time they had met. The thought of him was enough to make her smile and being around him always filled her heart with a nice, warm, fuzzy feeling. These days, however, things weren’t quite the same. She felt lonely and hurt. She just could not understand his actions. She knew something was wrong with her because everything was right with him. Why was she so flawed? What could she do to be as perfect as him? Her inadequacies and faults frustrated her.

He could see the hurt in her eyes. He wished he could ease her pain. But he felt completely helpless. He remembered the first time they had met – she used to always have a merry twinkle in her eyes and her chirpy voice always lightened everyone’s moods. He wished he could restore her old self but he did not have the skills. Repairing people and bringing out the best in them was her gift.  Even if he desired, there was nothing he could do to fix things. He wondered what had gone wrong. Why was she not able to be the paramount version of herself?

She had put him on a high pedestal. Thus, she had given up her power and started believing that she was just not good enough. Whenever she thought of him, only his good qualities dominated the foreground of her perception. He just did not seem to possess any negative qualities. Trouble had started brewing for her the moment external circumstances tried showing her that this state of grace was just a temporary phase. She was not ready to let go off her beliefs.

He was also not in a good place. As long as she continued to believe in her own projection, she could never see him as a person who also had flaws and issues. Initially, he had enjoyed seeing himself as perfect through her eyes but he kept wishing that she had not believed in that illusion. By entertaining the illusion that he was perfect, she had deprived him of the space to be human. He always had to think a million times before acting. Yet there were quite a few times that he had slipped. Each time he made an error in judgment or acted in contradiction to her idea of perfection, he could see her closing up and distancing herself from him. She did not want to become disillusioned. The very thought made her so angry!

She knew he was not to blame for the fact that she idealized him. She wished she could just accept that no one is perfect – we are all a combination of human and divine qualities and each day, we struggle to maintain a balance. The more she filled her head with this idea, the easier it became for her to love him with this new-found awareness. She saw that by embracing this idea, she was actually allowing herself for a greater intimacy than when she had held him aloft an airy throne. The moment she could see through her idealized projection was the moment she began to see him as he truly was.

He looked at her and was amazed to see the transformation. After a long time, he felt truly connected to her. They walked on equal grounds together holding hands. Finally they had realized that in life, there are no pedestals. They owned their own divinity as well as their humanity. They had finally discovered the key to balance and wholeness within themselves and their relationship. They were finally at peace.

"Snap" Out!

Today, I ended up taking an unexpected trip, completely out of the blue, down memory-lane courtesy a bunch of photographs that captured various different moments of my life. The entire journey from one picture to the next was nothing short of a roller-coaster ride. With each picture that I viewed, I was either re-living a memory or I was trying my best to construct one. 

It’s perfectly acceptable to have no idea what was going on at that particular fated moment which my parents chose to capture the six-year old me. It’s also fine to wonder why the album contains a picture of my four-year old brother crying his lungs out. In my head, I was fabricating all kinds of fantastic stories – sometimes, it’s a good thing to not remember. It opens you up to infinite possibilities.

Then, there were more recent pictures of college-life. I was amazed at the amount of pictures I had of my college-days. To be fair, it isn’t really surprising – I went to college at a time when uploading pictures of your random day-to-day life was a popular Facebook trend and I was no exception to that rule. As a child, I remember having camera-rolls that would last almost a year (and sometimes even longer) capturing only significant events of your life. Today, a casual dinner with friends amounts to over fifty photographs!

Sometimes, I wonder if we are over-indulging on the exhibitionism. Do we really need to preserve every moment on film? I have great photographs of me at birthdays and parties with people I hardly know – I look pretty but there are no precious memories associated with any of these pictures. I find nothing to reminisce about when I glance through them. We all seemed to be too engrossed in capturing moments than making them. Today, we have thousands of pictures from our everyday life. How many do we actually treasure?

Some photographs also have the ugly quality of reminding you of all the bad decisions you have made. It can be amusing – for example, a picture of you with a really weird haircut because, at that point of time, you felt it looked really ‘cool’. At other times, it can be heart-wrenching especially when you stare at pictures of yourself with a person who has wronged you – yes, they seemed to be right at that point of time and yes, you have learnt your lesson but the photograph serves as an unpleasant reminder of the fool you had been. Destroying the evidence is no easy task – even if you delete the picture from your computer or tear the physical snap to shreds, one of your classmates is bound to have the proof of your ill choice on their Facebook page! It’s best to just ignore those memories and move on. At least, I did that! Meaning is a truly mysterious quality that arises at the juncture of the virtual world and the real world; don't you think?

What struck me as odd was the fact that I hardly have any pictures with some of my closest friends. Till date, I don’t own a single photograph of me and my best friends from school. My best friend and I would have less than five snaps together in a span of an eight-year long friendship. That’s less than one picture a year and a few of them out of this meagre lot are not even half-decent shots! The funny thing is – it doesn’t matter. I still cherish each and every moment I have spent with these special people even though I have no means of showcasing them to the world. I don’t see the point of flaunting them – they are dear to me; the world’s stamp of validation is not required.

Staring at the photographs brought me in touch with different versions of me. I got in touch with the younger me, the prettier me, the spunkier me – aspects of mine which I feel are slowly vanishing. However, that is life. I am sure as I move ahead; I will get in touch with these old parts and reconnect with them. It is equally possible that as I trudge forward, these parts will continue to bounce away and disconnect with me forever. Either ways, it is alright. Even if I am losing older versions of me, newer versions are getting created every moment. Whether I choose to capture them or not, all these versions will blend together in the end. Life is beautiful and more so, if you can freeze-frame at the right moments!

Reality Check

Some weeks ago, I was bonding with a colleague of mine at Leopold Café. Our initial conversations steered around the topic of family, travel, career-goals but a couple of drinks down, we were talking about more intimate stuff like crushes, relationships, our fears, and insecurities…Suddenly my colleague turned to me and whispered, “Don’t look immediately but that guy has been checking you out for the past fifteen minutes! See eight o’ clock!”
I secretly glanced in that direction and chuckled, “He’s probably looking at you! No one that cute would be checking me out of all people…Look at me! I look horrible!”
My colleague just rolled her eyes and replied, “Well, you forget that beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder and if you think you look horrible, then, you probably cannot see what I can!”
We changed the subject but later that night, I wondered about what my colleague had said…

We all judge others – that is an established fact! We look at a person and immediately draw conclusions based on our first impressions. The judgments may change over a period of time but we are never people who do not judge. We can’t even stop judging ourselves; how in the world are we to stop judging others!
“I am so fat and ugly that I will never find true love”, “No matter how good my intentions are, I always goof things up”, “I am a pathetic loser”, “I will never get anywhere in life” – do these statements sound familiar? With all this negative self-talk happening inside our heads, it is no wonder that we feel nothing is perfect. We are all so driven by our need to be perfect that we fail to see the reality of people with their little flaws. It is these flaws that make them even more beautiful. It is so difficult to accept and embrace our own imperfections – I know that sometimes I find it extremely hard to see myself beyond my shortcomings. I am sure it is the same with everyone else.

In psychology, we learn about narcissistic personality disorder, a condition named after a mythological Greek youth, Narcissus, who was so infatuated by his own image that he drowned in it. These days, I feel everyone, including me, is doing the same thing. We are such harsh critics of ourselves that we are just not ready to make room for anything that can help us feel better. How many of us have difficulty accepting compliments? A few days ago, I told my friend that her dress looked fabulous! She gave me an unsure look and asked, “Are you sure I don’t look fat in this?” I laughed. How difficult is it for us to just give a polite smile and say ‘thank you’ when someone pays us a compliment? I know it isn't very easy for me. I find it easy to accept compliments like “You’re so considerate” or “You are a good friend to have” but I just don’t believe it when people compliment me for qualities like intelligence and beauty. When my friends call me smart or pretty, I really wonder what aspect of mine they are mirroring back to me and helping me to reveal to myself. Are they just being nice or do they genuinely mean it?

A lot of my clients and my friends gape at the effortless way in which I can offer them a fresh perspective of looking at things. The funny thing is that when I am in trouble, these same friends help me see the other side to my problem. Why is it that we can see others so perfectly but when it comes to ourselves, no matter how hard we look, we are never able to see ourselves clearly?

It is easy to say what another person is like but do you really know the actual ‘you’? Once upon a time, I believed that no one knows me better than I know myself. Recently, however, I was asked to make a list of “100 Reasons Why I Love Me” – the list had to contain hundred items of things that I was good at or things that I liked about myself and, to my surprise,  I could not go beyond #23. Reaching #23 was also quite a bit of a struggle! In the end I wasn't even sure if I actually believed in some of the things I had written down. Was I just writing some things down to reach the goal that had been set? Were there only twenty-three things (or probably less) that I was good at or that I liked about myself? Surely, I am better than this; or, perhaps, not? Being unable to complete that list was quite a bit of a shocker for me and I do not believe that the reason behind reaching such a short number has anything to do with modesty!
I asked another friend of mine to work on the same list. She too struggled. When I glanced at her list, however, I could easily rattle off fifteen-sixteen things that I felt she should add to her list which she was not so sure about. Similarly, she told me a couple of things to add to my list which I was not sure held true to me.

I wonder why we have one set of standards for judging ourselves and a completely different set for judging others. In fact, why do we judge? If everyone is a constant work-in-progress since perfection is a benchmark that can never be reached, why can’t we get real? Real people are not flawless. Real people fail. But they also get up and keep going. Real people are constantly wrestling and negotiating with their own shadows, fighting the good fight to keep from spilling their perceived darkness on those around them.

I wish to complete that list soon – hopefully, with a little help from friends (if they are reading this *wink*). I feel it is time for me to get real and get in touch with my core which is beautiful. Are you ready to meet the real ‘you’?

Before Sunrise | Before Sunset | Before Midnight |

Spoiler Alert: This post is about my thoughts on the movies, “Before Sunrise”, “Before Sunset” and “Before Midnight” and it is, unfortunately, not free of spoilers.

Eighteen years ago, on a train-ride starting from Budapest, two people from very different worlds – Jesse (played by Ethan Hawke) and Celine (played by Julie Delpy) – met one another. Even though the movie, Before Sunrise, was released in 1995, I saw this movie, years later, and I was completely floored! I raved about it to everyone I knew, even stating that it is “one of the best films ever made!” Knowing that I have low tolerance for uniform superlatives like “the greatest this” or “the worst that”, some of my friends were rather intrigued. They asked me to tell them more about the film in terms of the plot. Usually this is an easy question to answer; however, how do you get someone hooked to a movie simply by telling them it is a film essentially about two people just walking around and talking to one another? Yes, Before Sunrise is a movie about two people talking but I don’t really mind that because the conversations are stimulating, thought-provoking, engaging and allow you to know more about the protagonists in terms of how they see themselves, each other and the world.

For many cynics, a chance train-ride leading two strangers to form an instant connection powerful enough to motivate them to disembark in Vienna and spend time with each other until the next morning may seem to be too magical a fantasy to actually come true in real life. Yet this is exactly what happens in Before Sunrise and the powerful performances of the cast and the ease with which they converse with one another makes it absolutely believable. The characters are regular people – Jesse is an American with a Eurail pass on his way to Vienna to catch a flight back home. Celine is a French student on her way back to Paris. Their conversations are exactly the sort you would have with anybody any day –childhood, parents, former relationships, music and arbitrary philosophical stuff. The sexual attraction is obvious but it is handled with great care and patience. I like the way that their short stay in Vienna is not presented as a travelogue but as a series of meetings with amateur actors, fortune-tellers and street-poets. The tourist-sites are not emphasized; instead, they are seen inside a music-store, spending time in a church, going to a grave-yard, and drinking wine in a random park. The movie ends with them at the railway station the next morning making a pact to meet six months later at the same place without exchanging any contact information.

Before Sunset released in 2004. Fortunately, I had watched the first film in 2008 and I did not have to wait nine years for the next release – I saw it immediately.
Before Sunset is set in real time i.e. nine years after the two characters had first met. Jesse is in Paris on a book-tour – his novel, This Time, which he wrote, inspired by his time with Celine, is an American bestseller. Celine happens to be in the same book-store. In the beginning, itself, they broach the subject on why they did not meet after six months – it turns out that Jesse had come but the sudden demise of Celine’s grandmother made it impossible for her to make it. Since they had no contact information, there was no way of getting in touch. Jesse has a flight to catch the same evening and so they utilize the rest of the afternoon catching up with one another. While they continue to talk about environmental concerns, violence in third-world countries and religion, through their conversations, we also learn what has happened in their lives since their first meeting. Both are in their early-thirties and are dissatisfied with life in varying degrees. Jesse is married and has a son but he does not really love his wife. Celine is dissatisfied because her current boyfriend, a photojournalist, is not around as often as she would like him to be. The connection that they had with each other still holds and as the movie progresses, you can see the fumes of passion getting rekindled with whiffs of tension; especially when Jesse reveals that he wrote the book with the hope that he would find her someday and Celine replies that reading the book brought back painful memories for her. The movie ends with both of them arriving at Celine’s apartment and Celine playfully telling Jesse, “Baby, you are gonna miss that plane!” and Jesse smiles nervously, fidgeting with his wedding-ring, and replies, “Yes”.

If Before Sunrise painted before you a simple picture of ideal romance between two dreamy youngsters who meet, fall in love, and are very hopeful and enthusiastic about the future, Before Sunset, to some extent, is heart-breaking as you re-visit these characters who are now more grownup and somewhat jaded by their life-experiences. It brings you closer to reality and the picture that the first movie painted does not appear so beautiful anymore.
Being a fan of happy endings, I was somewhat disappointed when I learned, in the beginning of the movie, that Jesse and Celine never met after six months. However, I hoped that the second movie would show them having a happy ending. The abrupt end of the second movie seemed unfair to me! I hated the fact that it just left me hanging! I wanted to know whether they actually ended up being together “happily ever after” or were there going to be more twists to this romantic saga.

The wait ended when Before Midnight released this year. I was extremely upset when I found that this movie was not releasing in India. However, I watched it yesterday. Jesse and Celine are now middle-aged. They have two beautiful daughters who are twins. The movie begins with Jesse bidding farewell to his son from his previous marriage and is unhappy to see him go. The air of tension is evident throughout the film and you can see the cracks beginning to surface in the relationship between Jesse and Celine. The film exquisitely depicts a day in the life of the couple and you can see how the years of togetherness has brought into their lives a fair share of conflicts along with love. The couple is not just quarrelling over every day things like, for example, the fact that he does not shave; but it is quite apparent that the couple has genuine issues lurking beneath the surface of their fairylike relationship. As the story progresses, one can see that Jesse’s humour is a mask to hide the serious problems in their marriage while Celine’s assertiveness and strong-headedness are triggers for unpleasant confrontations. They still talk a lot, argue even more, sometimes are exasperated with each other  – in other words, they are everything a real couple is in today’s times; and like regular couples, they too sometimes fail to re-create the magic of their past romance despite good intentions. In every relationship, once the newness wears away, one is exposed to a lot of sides of the partner which one may not necessarily like. While acceptance is the key, a lot of us try changing some things about our partner and do whatever we can to make things work for us in the best way possible. Jesse and Celine are no different. They are still fond of each other but the spark that was so apparent in their years of courtship is dwindling with intrusions of reality in their relationship in the form of ambition, parenthood and work. One thing that really struck me while watching the third movie is how convenient the internet has made things – at a lunch-table, a young couple tells Jesse and Celine how they maintain a long-distance relationship through Skype. The subtext, here, questions whether a situation like Jesse and Celine’s would be possible today in an era where communication technology is so pervasive.

The three films, when seen together, beautifully depict how our shared connections just seem to bounce back and forth with the passage of time – it is a rare, beautiful yet real experience. In the first film, the couple largely talks of the future; in the second, they are focusing on the present; and in the final movie, Jesse and Celine are seen reflecting on the past and how their lives have turned out to be since their first meeting. You can actually see how a couple progresses in a relationship and how one advances and alters from one stage in life to the next. Before Sunrise is about the idealism of romance, Before Sunset grounds Jesse and Celine’s love as a decision they both have to make while Before Midnight is about the consequence of these choices. All the three films depict the protagonists trying to control the flow of life, attempting to find the meaning of their existence and struggling to keep their anxieties at bay through their words and actions. The most interesting feature of the Before trilogy is its focus on real-time – the gaps between when the films are released (1995, 2004 and 2013) are reflected in the characters’ ages in the movie. A part of me hopes that another sequel releases in 2022 – after all Jesse and Celine’s love-story only seems to grow better with age - but only time will tell if my prayers are answered! 

The Conformist

The flight was ready for take-off. She proceeded to Gate Number 2 for boarding. It was commendable how she had managed to fit three years of her life into just two suitcases. No longer was she the girl who needed three bags along with a colourful purse for just a week-long vacation. In these three years, so many things had changed...It is easier to travel light when there are so many things you want to let go off, she realized.

As she neared the gate, the briefcase of the gentleman, walking beside her, slipped out of his hand and fell open. He had probably not locked it. All his files and papers were strewn on the floor. Normally, she would have stopped on her tracks, bent down and helped him gather his belongings. Today, she just walked past him. No one had helped her get back on her feet when she had been down. She saw no reason why she should bestow anyone with such generosity.

She looked at the young mother standing in line. The creases on her forehead were proof enough that the not-more-than-four-year old twins were quite a handful. The mother was having a hard time separating the two from each other – they both seemed to be engaged in a mock wrestling match. Once upon a time, she had been extremely fond of children but not anymore. She could no longer look at the world through the eyes of a child and elude the harsh reality. The time had come to dispel illusions and boldly face the harsh world.

She made her way through the aerobridge, curtly nodded at the air-hostess who smiled at her, and sat down at the seat by the window. It was just a matter of some moments now. She would soon be leaving this city forever. As she fantasized about her life in the new city, the air-hostess tapped her on her shoulder.

“Excuse me, Ma’am,” the air-hostess began. “There is an old lady who gets air-sick while travelling. Would you mind exchanging your window-seat for one on the aisle?”
She rolled her eyes. She knew that the old she would have graciously agreed to the offer. But she wasn’t her old self anymore. She was done being nice to people!
“I am sorry,” she said. “But I really prefer this seat. I do not like being disturbed.”

The air-hostess gave a nod and went ahead making the same request to another passenger on the window-seat. Meanwhile, she reflected on what she had just uttered. There was a time when she loved being in the company of people. Being alone in a place used to terrorize her! Today, she felt claustrophobic around people. The movements of the pendulum from one end to another were indeed an amusing affair!

She was sitting next to a middle-aged woman. “Hello, how are you?” the woman tried making polite conversation. “This is the first time I am flying! I am a little nervous.” She tried smiling at that lady but the smile did not reach her eyes. She, once again, stared out of the window, pretending to be blissfully unaware of the woman who was struggling to buckle her seat-belt. Once upon a time, she used to go out of her way to help anybody in need. Today, she did not see the point in assisting anyone – it did not do her any good.

As the captain announced that the flight was taking off, she breathed a sigh of relief. She was finally leaving everything behind – her old self, her old job, her old “friends”, her old life – forever. It was now time for new beginnings. She would be in a new city; in a place where she knew nobody and nobody knew her. Life had given her another chance to collect her dues. In these three years, she had inadvertently been taught the ways of the world. She was determined to put life’s lessons to good use. She had successfully been conditioned to become a conformist…

Free Association

The alarm rings and I reach to hit the ‘Snooze’ button with a big groan. The extra five minutes of sleep are not really enough to arm me to wake up and face the world. Nevertheless, I put my feet on the ground and get out of bed. This is probably the only time of the day when you can proclaim, with assured guarantee, that I will not be having a smile on my face.

I brush my teeth and switch on the geyser. In the mornings, I feel too lazy to bathe and I try dawdling as much as I can. I grab the newspaper and amuse myself by reading just one particular column and some comic strips – yes, that is all I read! Don’t let the quantity of two newspapers delivered at my door-step every morning, with all the supplements, deceive you!

I switch on my laptop and visit Facebook. I like this book of faces. I like playing games with some of these faces. I like spying on some of these faces. I like the Facebook memes. I like the Facebook Likes! I am glad that Facebook allows me to “share”. Believe me, I am a very generous person!

I realize I can procrastinate no more. I push myself to get ready. Fifteen minutes is all it takes. I leave the house looking the best I can with my clothes, accessories, and the theme of my Windows Phone, all, colour-coordinated and matching. If you find it hard to believe that all this can be achieved in such a short while, I’m afraid that is your problem!

 It’s just a two-minute walk from my house to the station but it takes me longer. I like to look at the people I pass. My thoughts seem to wander instead of focusing on the road. Even though I take the same road, I always find new things to wonder about. The railway platform is just as fascinating and even more colourful. Most people hate the train journeys in Mumbai. I do not mind. I like travelling. It helps me know the world. It helps me know myself. More importantly, it allows me to Tweet, check-in, update my status, and, basically, tell the world what I am doing now!

On some occasions, a sudden text from an unexpected loved one lifts up my spirits. Not that my spirit needs any kind of lifting…On most days, I am way too high on happiness for my own good! But then, what is life without love? It’s like watching The Big Bang Theory without Sheldon (or Dr. Sheldon Cooper, as he likes to be called)…And The Big Bang Theory without Sheldon is like…well, nothing! Ironically, the Big Bang Theory states that out of nothing, everything was formed…but then, let us not distract ourselves with these sudden diversions of thoughts…

What? You are finding it hard to see where I am going with this post? How does it matter? Is it always necessary to know one’s destination when one ventures out on a journey? Sometimes, it’ll be nice if we just allow ourselves to flow. Allow your thoughts to flow. Why does one always insist on connections? Are you and I connected? Despite technology’s repeated attempts at making us believe otherwise, tell me, honestly, are you truly connected with anyone?

If you were here for the first time, by now, you will know that I talk a lot. If you’ve been here before, you could say that I’ve, probably, started talking even more. “These are all your perceptions! I don’t really care about the world!” is what I usually declare except that it isn’t always true. Inside, I am still screaming, tattered and crushed about the fact that I was judged, and perhaps, wrongly. But it’s a cruel world and I am a brave girl. The smile on my face defeats all your attacks. This smile on my face will never fade; and trust me when I tell you that; I am not someone who will be caught unaware. I completely believe in taking things at face-value even if that attitude goes against my profession. Looks can be deceiving but I really enjoy the game – you deceive me and I will deceive you. In the end, we are all just deceiving our own selves. There is no ‘you’ just like there is no ‘I’.

As you can see by now, this rant can go on endlessly. However, I shall have mercy on your soul and put an end to this jibber-jabber now. Feel free to “like” or make your presence felt in any other way; you also have the choice to meander to other spaces in the virtual world, pretending as if you were never here. Life is still beautiful.  

The Break-Up

It was way past midnight when she finally reached home. The effects of the whiskey were wearing off. She was no longer high on happiness. In fact, her head spun and she was feeling dizzy. She wished she had refrained from displaying her dancing skills at the club. Her legs ached. She got out of her heels and sat on her bed. She switched on her laptop and signed into her Facebook account.

He was still on her list of "Close Friends". They had broken up a week ago and even though she had changed her "Relationship Status" from "In a Relationship" to "Single", she still had not been able to remove him from her list of “Friends”.

She glanced at the list of notifications. He had changed his profile picture. He was with a girl – from the backdrop, she could make out that they were, both, in the living room of his house.  "Who is this chick?" she wondered. She looked at his Wall Posts. His status read, “Best Weekend Ever!!” She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach as she saw his latest “check ins”. He had visited a pub with her on Saturday evening, and on Sunday, they had gone for a movie together, after brunch at a restaurant which used to be her favourite.

She could not stop the tears from rolling down her eyes. She wanted to scream but no voice came out of her throat. She wanted to send him a message but he had changed his number. She did not have his new contact details. She was frustrated and she cried herself to sleep.

The next morning, she could not focus on work. She wondered how it had been so easy for him to move on. Even though she knew she was making a mistake, she could not abstain from logging into her Facebook account once again. There was another notification! He had changed his “Relationship Status” once again to being “In a Relationship”. He had uploaded new photos as well, of the weekend he had spent, with the new girl in his life.

As she stared at the screen, she, suddenly, burst out laughing. Surprisingly, instead of remembering the times she had spent with him in the last two years, it was a casual conversation with her mother that was playing in her mind. “Your generation is a strange one,” her mother had stated. “All of you are moving towards a culture of exhibitionism. It baffles me how you enjoy giving minute-by-minute updates of your life to the whole world. In our days, we had one camera and we developed the photos once in a year…But you upload pictures every single day – of lunch, of some kitten on the road, of your cubicle in the office – keep me away from all this. I do not need Facebook to let my close friends know what is happening in my life.”

Not being able to concentrate on any task, she decided to take the rest of the day off. After a long walk by herself on the beach, she dragged her legs home. Once again, she logged on to her account. This time, there were no notifications. She typed his name on the search bar but his profile did not open. He was no more appearing on her list of “Friends”. He had blocked her! She was even more amazed when she realized that this information did not devastate her. Although she was a little mad, at the same time, she also felt relieved. He had, with the click of a mouse, erased all possibilities of the two of them having any access to each other’s lives.

It was now her turn to shoot ahead. She managed to force a smile on her face as she clicked a picture of herself and uploaded it on Facebook with the caption “All Smiles J J”. She felt pleased as her picture received some instant “likes”. She had succeeded in showing to the world that she, too, was moving on… 

As Real As It Gets

This article of mine appeared in the 'Augmented Reality' issue of the 'Digital Natives with a Cause?' newsletter on Page 13. Here is the link:  http://cis-india.org/digital-natives/dn-newsletter-may-2012.pdf
I am posting the unedited version here - I think my original draft had fewer grammatical mistakes! I hope you enjoy reading this and I look forward to hearing what you have to say...

When I was in standard XI, I broke my leg and was confined to the bedroom for more than three months owing to my inability to walk. It was at that time of severe boredom and extreme loneliness that I stumbled upon the wonderful online world. I have never labelled myself as a ‘tech-savvy’ person. My visits to different sites that the Internet allowed me to access had, earlier, been limited to checking my e-mails periodically and using MSN Messenger or Yahoo Messenger to chat with my school friends or family members. After my fracture, I discovered that there is a limit to things one can watch on television and there is only a certain amount of books one can possess and finish reading at one point of time. My friends were busy with school-work, tuitions and suddenly I was no more a part of their world. I could only spend time with people if they chose to come home and meet me. At first, I had a lot of visitors but gradually, their frequencies and numbers started dwindling. Desperately looking for ways to spend time and maintain some contact with civilazation, I launched Google’s search engine and stumbled upon the world of online discussion-forums and groups where people from all across the world meet to talk on subjects pertaining to their common interest. From that day onwards, it seemed that my Fairy Godmother had waved her magical wand and suddenly time had started flying for me! I could while away time chatting with new people – it gave me an opportunity to know more about the view-points of people from different age-groups, different locations and different life-styles. I have always been fond of writing and it was an online friend, who, one day, introduced me to the world of blogging. Blogging not only gave me a platform to share my thoughts with others but it also gave me a chance to see what others had to say about them. Soon, I became a regular visitor of this online virtual world and some of the people I met, there, I ended up meeting in real-life as well.

I am not sure that I can call the world of the Internet a ‘virtual’ world. I am a real person and even when I am online, I would like to be considered as someone with a real existence. As I write this, I am reminded of Jacques Derrida and his statements on multiple realities. Derrida had questioned the very notion of what is reality – according to him, the very history of Western thought was based on opposition: good v/s evil, man v/s woman, mind v/s matter, black v/s white. Moreover, these oppositions were hierarchical with the second term being a corruption of the first. But how appropriate are these oppositions?  The opposite of good, in my opinion, is ‘not good’ – if we cannot define a person as being ‘good’, it is not necessary that the person can be labelled as ‘evil’. The opposite of evil is, therefore,  ‘not evil’ – a person may not be evil but he need not be good either! In the same manner, I feel it is wrong to juxtapose the real world against the virtual world.

For argument’s sake, I am going to use the terms ‘real world’ and ‘virtual world’ to explore the various facets of these two different realities. The so-called virtual world, today, is a society of its own harbouring a wide web of social interactions and relationships. Just like we are surrounded by all kinds of people in the real world, there are people of various backgrounds inhabiting the virtual world as well. In the real world, we meet people, exchange ideas, spend time together, talk about the incidents of our daily life…We do that in the virtual world as well! With lack of playgrounds in the urban centres of our country, children and adolescents restrict themselves to playing indoor games and today, online gaming is a popular phenomena with more and more people having access to gaming consoles like XBOX 360, Playstation 3 and Wii. In the real world, we all try garnering contacts to get work done, look out for jobs or get any kind of help; the virtual world is no different with people making use of social networking sites like Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin and many more to gather more human capital in the name of friends, followers and business contacts. People exercise their Right to Freedom of Speech and Expression in the real world by saying what they feel like in front of people. They do the same online on different platforms and are able to reach out to a wider mass of audience. Just like there are certain norms and values in the real world which the people are expected to follow, the people who are accessing the virtual world are also expected to adhere to a certain code of conduct. As time passes, the needs of the people change and if a society is not able to meet the changing requirements of the people, it crumbles and falls and is replaced by another. We see a similar trend happening in the virtual world as well.
At this point I would like to pose the question: Exactly how different is the real world from the virtual world?

I am a person with various identities – I am a woman; I am a counsellor; I am a resident of Mumbai – there are so many things that define me. I have many relationships; to name a few - I am a loving sister, a faithful friend and a dutiful daughter. We all have stories to share about how we met a particular person. We meet people at book-stores, in classrooms, at work…Similarly, we meet people online. Why is it that only the section of people who we met online get labelled as ‘virtual friends’? Isn’t our friendship with them as real to us as our other relationships. Do all ‘online friends’ have no significance at all in our daily, everyday life? Haven’t we at some point of the day or the other - say, on our way to work - thought about a particular friend and what he is upto even if he is someone we know in the virtual space. I, personally, would not like to have a non-real existence in the life of another person. I do not like being thought of as a virtual entity. I am no ghost who just lurks around in the online spaces from time to time! Why, then, would I deny somebody else a real place in my life?

So, is there really a distinction between the virtual world and the real one? Well, not for me, at least!