2014 - An Optimistic Beginning..

2013 was a year of upheavals.. Good or Bad, it changed lives in some or the other manner. There were achievements and retirements. Birth of new political parties and loss of near and dear ones.

2013 has been a year of changes and evolution.. It has been an exciting year nonetheless. I am walking down the memory lane remembering what happened in 2013. Remembering the good and bad times.

I am not a supporter of optimism. Pessimism runs through my brain and blood and nerves altogether. I am a extreme pessimist and proud of that. But I have this strange sense of optimism that is running as the year changes its last digit.

A ray of hope, of happiness, of better times. Of new beginnings, of new chapters in life. Whispering into my ear, I can hear sounds telling my heart to calm down. To forget the hardships of 2013 and that this year will bring in success and smiles.

So I don't know if I am writing this for the guy I can't sleep without talking to(& m not allowed to fall for) or my ex. I don't know if I am writing it for my best friends, whom I could not give enough time in past few months, or the one who is in US and I am wishing would come back soon.
I don't know if I am writing this for new beginnings at my workplace or for the ones I have left behind.
I don't know whether its for my parents to understand or for my brother to wish him luck and love.
Or maybe I am writing this to reinforce the optimism in myself..

I am trying to picture how I want my coming year to be. I just know that there is a happiness or there is a thirst to find happiness. 

Dilon mein tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho, Toh zinda ho tum!
Nazar mein khwaabon ki bijliyan leke chal rahe ho, Toh zinda ho tum!Hawa ke jhonkon ke jaise aazad rehna seekho,
Tum ek dariya ke jaise, leharon mein behna seekho,
Har ek lamhe se tum milo khole apni baahein.
Har ek pal ek naya samaa dekhe ye nigaahe.Jo apni aankhon mein hairaniyan leke chal rahe ho, Toh zinda ho tum!
Dilon mein tum apni betabiyan leke chal rahe ho, Toh zinda ho tum!

I heard this quote travelling in the metro today and asked myself: Does my life have enough things to achieve yet?  Do I have enough dreams to work on yet? And the answer was yes..

So all I need is to open my wings and fly. To open my mind and see every other moment as a new opportunity to strike a mark. To keep my eyes wide, To keep my arms open, to look for people who love me and keep them close, not let them go. To be ready for whatever life throws at me. To turn it into the way I want it to be. To love. To live. To Laugh. To finish animosities. To mature and move on. 

For it will make my life peaceful, easier.. It will make 2014, a true new beginning..

Change is the only constant in life..

However clichéd the statement may sound, it is after all the ultimate truth of life.

You grow up, move on. Take Risks which either fail or become successes. Trust people, get betrayed or treated well. Friends fall behind, enemies get tired. And the list goes on..

Still, there are things and people in life that you stick to. Things which become a part of you. People you don't want to let go. Who gradually become a constant. As constant as you or your life.

But the process of permanency of the variables is lengthy and painful. It may take patience, fights, pains (emotional and/or physical), time and what not.

Doing yoga every morning, or your sweetheart you decide to marry. Eating habits or sleeping trends. TV shows or playing Sudoku.
Every constant is a result of serious thought and effort. But then what if You're not that confident or strong enough to make that effort or to think it through. What if every time a glitch appears, you run away, you go into hiding to come out after the storm has past..

You realize in the end that you have lost everything or everyone. That the storm took away everyone you loved or cherished and left you again with nothing but loneliness.

Eventually the constants in your life are: Emptiness, the chaos in your heart, the habit of "not thinking" and of course.. Change..

Afraid of the Dark..

6 yrs ago I got my new room. I decorated it as a kid.. Rainbow on one wall, purple color on the other. Glow-in-the-dark fairies on one wall and stars on the ceiling.
Wind-chimes, Photo-frames, Soft-toys and what not..

I used to love sleeping under my starry sky, with my teddy bear; thinking, contemplating, laughing, crying, smiling, frowning and sometimes even trying to count the stars in my sky.

I used to love when they used to glow, because they were my silver lining and the cloud too.. The fairies were my angels, who listened to my whines when I cried over something silly, or witnesses to my solo mischief.
I saw myself better in the darkness than in artificial or natural light..

I used to switch off my lights and venture into my dark room every night, knowing it was not dark all the way. Knowing that my stars and my angels are there with me..

But as this "half a decade" passed, I have grown Afraid of the dark..
Afraid to even look at my stars or talk to my angels. Afraid that I may get alone, afraid to go into my thinking mode, afraid to contemplate.

I go to bed when my eyes cannot stay open anymore, when I'm almost dead on my feet. So that I do not have to think of that incident that made me sad, or to keep myself from thinking aloud with my fairies, because they might tell me what a horrible person I have become.

I have moved away from the dark, to stay away from knowing myself, from knowing what I really want, because the society won't accept it.

Last night when the electricity was cut off, I saw it flicker off. My eyes witnessed my room going from full of light to the stars shining bright into my eyes..

As if they were calling me for another rendezvous. But as usual, I was afraid of them, afraid that they might compel me to come out with my deepest desires and I would not be able to face myself later..

So I lit my candles, trying to push my stars away from my sky. Trying to stay Afraid of the dark..

A Ride of my Life

I wrote this one very long ago, but forgot to publish it. So, here it is...

My last morning of the brief stay at my alumni meet, I went on a bike ride. A promise that was long overdue.  A promise made by one of my bestest (although that word doesn't exist) buddies. A friend I can believe with my eyes closed. A friend I can trust my life with. We might not discuss our deepest secrets or our personal details. But he's a friend I can sit and sing my heart out with.  Someone I fight with equally as much as I laugh with. And we laugh even when we madly dance to "Our Song" - I'm sexy and I know it.

The drive was heavenly. It took me out of the world for those 10 minutes. While I was sitting behind him with my head rested on his shoulder, I wanted to forget everything else and just enjoy it. Yet I was thinking a lot. I was there in the moment, yet many a things crept in my mind. It took me to a world where I could talk to myself. Where I could drown in my thoughts and he would not disturb, yet pull me back to reality.

I can't thank him enough for that beautiful ride, which opened the deep secrets from inside my own heart. I can't thank him enough for being there, without even realizing it..
What I regret is not being able to record or capture that moment or not knowing when I will get that chance again.

To find solutions, quiet and peace. To find myself..

But then, some moments are meant to be etched in your mind. And this was definitely one of them...