Breathe

There's a light
At the end of the dark tunnel,
But you keep focusing on
Disarray and muddles.

Count your blessings
not your problems, they say.
But what about the times,
when a problem's all up in your space?

What about the days,
when a nugatory thought weighs you down?
When you are clouded by issues,
that make you sigh and frown!

When you can't seem to shake
that pessimism, out of your head.
When you've so much to do,
but can't get out of bed...

The monsters in your mind,
get exponentially piercing!
Your ruminations and beliefs,
get increasingly self-menacing.

The stormy winds of depression,
oh, how will you bear...
When life seems worthless
in this bottomless state of despair.

Pause, hold up;
Take a step back or two.
Exist, barely, merely,
Yes, that'd be a major coup

To the present, to this very moment,
Pay heed
This too shall pass;
Until then, just breathe.

Cool parents

Hi! Howdy!

Long time since I wrote something that's not job related or for obtaining/procuring a job (Sad). I've recently been binging on Netflix original rom-coms (NORC) because 'Hellllooo good production quality!' and because they're so light, just like instant noodles.

This Wednesday, I hopped into an Uber and my driver and I had this instant connection. This ex-writer is now a publisher by day and a ubdriver by night! She has published some really hardcore books, met then-amateur-now-bestselling authors and graphic designers. She asked me if I write and I had this dire urge to say, "Yes, love letters to Reg-agencies!" to put it easily for people who don't get what I do for a living, but I didn't. Because sometimes you don't want to give away too much (especially facts like you're a big weirdo) in the very first conversation (besides the point because I wasn't day dreaming of becoming besties with her). When the 15-minute (yeah, I know, seemed much longer from ☝️, didn't it?) ride was about to end, she told me something I had recently heard about in a movie called "Set it Up". She said you're always harsher on your own writing than the audience and the first drafts are always the suckiest. That's why you have editors and publishers like me *wink*! Which is how I got to writing this post. 

So much for a build-up. Yikes.

So I'm sick today (uhgain) and I'm watching another NORC (yet again) as I eat my dal-khichdi (predictable much?), called Public School. It's about this kid whose mom homeschools him and as he goes in for a GED examination that he's about to double-ace, he sees this incredibly gorgeous girl and fails on purpose to get to do a few months of public-school, make friends and experience it all before Cambridge. His mom wants to protect him because of her past experiences and how she ended up getting pregnant in highschool. What's extremely fascinating about this story is the connection between the son and mom who've grown up in their respective roles (of being son and mom) over the past 15 years, how the independence affects their relationship and how the mother introduces social concepts to her son in a really cool manner or as she puts it "in a safe environment".

I love the movie, because of this relationship. Because it reminds me of how my parents grew with me.

When you're a kid/teen, you want to rebel and do all the things the cool kids do. The middle/highschool period is harsh on every kid. Peer pressure is at its peak, you are being introduced to novel concepts like attraction, infatuation, love, intoxication, lust. You're not sure who can solve these mysteries for you so you end up talking to your peers, who are equally clueless and whose knowledge comes from sources that require secrecy and incognito tabs.

While all this is happening in our lives, our parents who are parents for the first-time (because each kid is different and also because there is a huge learning curve with kid #1) can see this background story building up but don't really know how to approach it. The only things that they are certain about is protecting you from hurt (physical, mental and emotional) or from having negative experiences they've had.

So there's this instant battle between rebelling teenagers full of hormones and adrenaline, dying to experience it all and make their own memories and lessons AND parents who want to help/protect but don't know the best way around it so they end up grounding/reprimanding their kids. This creates a rift and slowly reduces their proximity to each other. And as we all know, when there is a gap between something, it creates room for something else, it being doubt, sadness, negativity, anger in this case.

What we also forget is when we quote cool stories, like I finally got my parents to understand this or that, we take it as a personal win. But don't stop to realize the growth trajectory our parents have accomplished. They never get kudos for it.

As a side-note, we had an HR based training that spoke about culture of accountability, this Wednesday (yup, this Wednesday was really packed with growth vitamins for my brain). One of the takeaways was spot-recognition. When you see someone go above and beyond and really help accomplish something huge, you take a moment and celebrate them! And while we put such wonderful concepts to use in our work-life, we often forget to apply these to life in general and celebrate the gifts we fondly refer to as parents!

Here are some instances when I forgot to celebrate you, ma and pa!

1.  I always brag about how being a biology student helped opened doors of free communication between us. I haven't ever stopped to realize how you both encouraged me to and never asked me to STFU. How there was always open communication about everything. There was obviously SOME shyness during the initial years but look how we all grew! How you would point us to right sources and how questions were entertained, even if some of them weren't directly answered.
2. How there were never shows we couldn't watch together as a family or talk about
3. How you were always aware of the company I kept but never forced your opinion/ decisions on me
4. While you two dropped me off everywhere, walked me to school/college during every exam and waited till it ended, you two put a rock over your heart (dil pe patthar 😋) and sent your only child across the 7 oceans/seas.
5. My entire debacle with depression and how you grew to accept it and approach it in the right way.

There are so many instances and I cannot possibly list each and every one (for obvious reasons of limited content exposure to my audience which is most likely only going to be the two of you), and I'm sorry that I never spot recognized it. But I'm eternally grateful.

Watching this movie brings back all those moments we spent growing as a family. I love you two.

As I close this very weirdly written, zero proof-read article, I leave you with a slightly word-smithed dialogue from this movie. "Why is it weird to say my parents are cool and my parents are my best friends! Well I think my parents are cool. We should be able to say this!"

Powering down
Beep.boop.beep

  - Appiquéness <3

2018 updates

Hi All

Who am I talking to? Me from the future or You - whoever you are, if you are even there 😅. I know it's been months or probably over a year since I posted.

All this while, I've had this urge to post every single day. Truly, I did. It's just that whenever I would start, I'd either get into branched topics and then leave the main topic altogether, while wondering about a topic that's not even remotely related as it would seem to the reader or I would just have horrific memories or doubts about the topic and the urge to write would die pretty quickly.

Yeniway! I've been meaning to share more about what's been up, what all has happened and what's the purpose of life as I see it (no not really,  this has never honestly crossed my mind).

Hope I can honestly get to it and start yapping away like I used to.

Keeping it short, testing if I still gots this,

Maybe I don't, maybe I do...

We'll see,

-Appiqué <3

Some random poems. Ep 1: Opposites

Hey, almost a year han!
Outdoing myself with every post on how late the next one can go.

Yeniwayyy, so there was a phase when I was trying my hand at poetry as a 16yr old. I'm not that good at it as you shall see; my work is almost as average as my writing.

But recently, I have been re-reading those and have had this sudden urge to share to give you an insight of how my braim functions.

So without further blehblehbleeeah,

Opposites<3

Have you ever stopped to wonder
What she holds in her deep blue eyes
Her true emotions
Under her thick rimmed spectacles she hides

She finds a way to run
At the mention of his name
Because the buzz it would create!
She wouldn't be​ able to handle her shot to fame!

She looks calm
Just​ like a stangnant lake
But the tingles and butterflies of her first ever crush
Is too much for her to take

This swan pretends to be​ a duckling
So she can elope
And her self esteem is so low
She doesn't​ even want to have a tinge of hope!

She thinks he's out of her league
But barely does she know
He might be the star jock
But his true feelings, he too doesn't show

And every once in a boring class
He buries his face under a book
And when he finds her lookin the other way
He cranes his neck, just​ to steal a look!

He' s worried about rejection
He is confident she'll say No
He thinks she's way out of his league
But barely does he know! :-*

 
-Appiqué <3

Insecurities

I want to apologize for not having posted since a really long time (which did not affect anyone, just getting it out of the system).

The thing is that I've been wanting to write since a year but I can't. I won't call it a writer's block because I am not a writer. I am also not short of content since my writer app tells a different tale. It is filled with more than 20 unfinished posts just lying there waiting to be completed. It's just that the urge, within me, to complete an article has sort of died.

If I haven't mentioned before, I got into severe depression almost a year ago. The harsh reality of my dreams struck me and let me incapacitated to the point of not being able to function. In the sense that, I would cry almost every minute for every little thing I'd notice or feel and it got to a point where I needed to seek help. I sought professional relief and though it didn't do much but just being able to get things out of my mind, slowly, enabled me to come to point where the crying reduced.

I feel pretty vulnerable right now putting up something that's so private but it's what I feel so strongly about at this very hour, this very minute and hence the words are flowing without any creative hindrance.

I was lucky enough to come back home for summer and bury my head, my fears and qualms in the protective and assuring hugs of my family.

My mind looks at my past dreamland like it's the kingdom of doom and darkness and manages to produce phobia and panic at just the mention of the fact that in a few days, my three month long escapade would come to an end and life would slap me hard with the bitter truth that I am not strong enough to face, for now (maybe forever).

I want to cry while I yell my lungs out and beg to not go away. I don't want to leave the familiarity that I've grown in since the time I started comprehending things. I don't want to make solitude my best friend again. I don't want to cry to the point of exhaustion, to the point where my family's pity turns into vexation.

I am reading a novel where the protagonist leaves to go to college and has a lot of internal conflicts going on. I didn't know the story would develop in such a relatable way as the description was pretty concise and evasive. However with each passing chapter, I notice the protagonist trying to follow the principles of mindfulness, of fully being in the moment and living it completely even though her head is clouded with several tangential issues.

That's the thing about preparing to go away.  You start becoming aware of each of the little things that you once took for granted, that didn't matter to you, but were, in reality, a privilege. And with that realization, you want to immerse yourself fully into the moment and try to live it completely. But you can't because your mind and heart keep pulling you off in different directions, taking you away from the moment and pushing you into the unchangeable past or unforeseeable future.

And with that self authored quote, I end this rather confusing post.

  - Appiqué <3

When you prove your education was worthless and you are as illiterate AF!

Ok so I have an exam and I’m already halfway through one more blog post that I was supposed to post a week ago but I haven’t completed. There’s this issue that has happened that is eating my brain cells slowly one at a time so I thought what better way to get it out of the system than to write it down. So here goes something.

There’s this guy in my class and although I see him as a potential good friend because we come from the same undergraduate background and have gone through some crazy shitty subjects and curriculum together and are equally homesick, but there’s something he said that is driving me nuts and I’m going to pour it out.

Background: I’m pursuing higher education/Masters and am terribly homesick to the extent that saying any word and I kid you not, any word, will trigger the subconscious portion of my brain which will with its unique talents and creative imagination abilities link it somehow to my home, to my country and enable me to cry at the drop of a hat!

So this guy and I are having a deep conversation about how we’ve gone from humans to a bag of popcorn that has been kept in the microwave way past the warning time so it can “BURST” anytime and then he says, you can complete your education and head back immediately to which I reply I’ve a loan to pay off. So he says, you can get married and then your husband can take care of the loan. You’re a girl, what tension do you have? It’s not like you’ve to look after your family. And I’m saying this again, I see a potential friend in him but never in my life have I been so enraged by/at someone that the thought of using a pen to slit their throats has appealed to me more than the appeal generated by an Oscar to Leo De Caprio!  So I said, uhm yeah I do! I’m the only child, I do have to pay off the loan and also look after them. To which the sexist F%@#^* replies, your husband will do that. You girls have no tension, get married and cook. Everything is done for you. We earn, we take care of our parents and yours, we take care of you and the kids! I took a minute to calm the part of my mind that has been trained by Game of Thrones and said, do two things ASAP. ONE, BREAK UP WITH YOUR GIRLFRIEND AND TWO, NEVER EVER REPRODUCE!

I’m ashamed that the boy is from my city, a city that’s the most “modern” part of my country. I’m ashamed that he belongs to my generation and that he has the privilege of pursuing masters in the land of freedom, the land where sexism and racism are issues that are taken very seriously, a land where people are broad minded and welcome people who function on similar lines! I mean WTF bro! Seriously!

I’m going to be very harsh and judge your parents for the obvious failure in upbringing! Because what have you done to deserve any sympathy from my side! If our generation has people that think like this, girls we’re doomed! We’re screwed! Say goodbye to the dreams of living in a free country because even if you think…ooh the orthodox Khauuup buddhes are going to die soon so hellloo freedom, then guess what, spoiler alert, there are mini khaupsies in our gen too, which upsets me to no end!

When people do this, discriminate on lines of religion, sex, caste, subcaste or whatever is subordinate to any of these categories….when people in general discriminate and they are those lucky few who’ve had the privilege of being literate/ educated, I lose faith in education! Education fails on you asssholes! You are a disgrace and you’ve failed yourself, your parents, your teachers and your entire generation! I know I’m going to repent saying this, but such people shouldn’t be allowed to procreate. We don’t want prototypes of these in an already screwed up society!

I’m sorry Ma and Pa , I was going to give up and prove these people right! Never now, never again!

I’ll be back with another post which will definitely be a lot lighter on the brain. Sorry but I’m not apologetic about this post!

-Appiqué <3

Poem #3 - The Indian Woman's song

OK this was a poem that I wrote in the heat of the moment...a lot was happening in my country and in the media w.r.to rape, molestation, crimes on women in general and there were people that would just say shit in front of the cameras and recorders to get their moment of fame and youngsters would either go completely berserk over what was said and revolt on Twitter, Facebook or any other social media or those that we fondly refer to as moti buddhi wala insan or basically retarded would get some inspiration from the crap these public figures would say and start their own anti woman campaigns.

As a teen (I was when i wrote this) who didn't read newspapers but had to because social media was brimming with it, I was red with rage on how the victims were either being blamed or completely ignored in this havoc.

I wrote it with an innocent mind and very limited vocabulary as would be evident when and if you go through it, but my father just edited it . It still is very kiddish but I'm going to post it so suck it! :P

P.S: Daddy ....Thank you and love you lots!

The Indian woman's song: Sept 2013

Today I sing an untold song

Of heinous crimes committed since a time long.

And I know you are too bored to bother

But I scribble as humans push humanity off the border.

I stand at the station waiting for the train

Hoping and praying that it doesn't rain

I try to plan the rest of the day

So I can ease out of it in a comfortable way

As I wait I see a group of boys,

Looking at us girls like we are the shiny new toys

Hissing and laughing and passing comments lewd

Though fully clothed in their eyes we are nude.

Some of them bumping into us for fun

For Molesting girls they're always on the run.

And I want to protest and shout so that people hear

I keep shut as their mentality I fear.

In a country where rape is ok

The men are free to do anything, I say

Kill a few people, crush their dreams

Like life is dirt or so it seems

If a girl says no, she means yes.

Because she doesn’t have any right to say otherwise

And if you can't get her to yield, you just can rape her, kill her, And do it in ways ugly and blatant.

It's a man's world after all

Where women are objects of desire

It's a world where she is denied respect and rights...

And now she is tired of getting into fights.

Blame them all, blame as much as you want,

Western culture, clothes, movie influence and rap songs

Even the three year old was at fault

The one that faced the brutal assault

She was using her father's mobile

She was giving signals!?

That innocent juvenile...

Go see a few pictures on the effect of the nuclear bombs

On Japan's parts, till you feel you've wronged.

Trust man to convert something useful into a device to kill

Humans - depriving nature of its balance intricate and atmosphere tranquil.

So Ladies please carry your pepper spray,

Again it's up to us to be careful they say

Their crooked ways they aren't going to mend

Until a few of them, to hell, we send.

I say take charge and kill a few

Just to start ending our curfew

Your body, your life, you call the shots

Wear what you please, jeans or shorts

Our constitution grants all the freedom we desire,

Let's all ignite our inner fire

Let us all stand united against this unpardonable sin,

It's our battle and it's time for us to win.

 - Appiqué <3