The Rebel

To all the men in my life who aspire to be saints and ascetics, to every person who advocates inaction or even detachment as the way to stay away from conflicts or struggle, thank you for showing me the other way.
But I will not allow your opinions to come in the way of my interests which are absolutely worldly in nature. Because passion for plain awesomeness, cannot exist with non-involvement. For awesomeness shall be my life's goal every moment that I live.

I will consider the alternate course only when I will have struggled to have a taste of everything life has to offer today. My struggle will be like the struggle of Man, who has had to do everything by himself to be whatever he is so far. I will work till I bring about change, I will climb the mountains, cross the rivers, laugh through all the tears, love till my heart breaks, be impatient, careless, and funny and love over and over again if I have too. It is only this way that I can do justice to Life.

Here's chucking all those words of wisdom and enlightenment I have read over the years into the recycle bin. They are after all just words, serene and peaceful albeit, but not of much use to me. Like the Medical Encyclopaedia in the book shelf back home,which gathers dust because all that valuable information was never of use to any of us(One Arts Major and Three Engineers in the family).

Moreover, there are other words that help when I drive a nail into my finger while hammering, for instance ;). If these words speak of a Place where I have to go to, I have learnt all about it. But I will make my own path reaching that Place.

Inside me there lives...

Inside me, in a warm, little house made of wood, there lives a free woman. She is free because she doesn't have to pick a man to love, because she doesn't have to fight and she chooses not to fly. She is free because she just lives.

Inside me, there lives a woman who is very unlike me.
She breathes deeply and separates orange scents from cinnamon, ginger scents from clove.
Down there, there is a lot of time for such doing such kinds of things.

The moon knocks on her door, in the evenings, sometimes.They mend their broken hearts over tea and biscuits. Not many people may know this, but the moon is in love with the sun who doesn't care much for such kind of things. When the moon has left, the woman realizes that she has always been the moon.

Inside me, there lives a woman who is neither young nor old. She sips tea in the afternoon smiling at the memory of an old song while looking outside her window, at the lake beside her house. She likes to write with sharpened pencils and chop vegetables with sharp knives.

Inside me, there lives a woman who doesn't remember her name. Some people call her Meera, some Mary, some Shabari and still some Radha.
Sometimes, there are deeper stirrings in her heart. During these moments of great gratitude and inspiration, the Guest pays her home a visit. The rooms and corridors of her home, that she constantly cleans, airs and frees of clutter in preparation for the Guest's arrival, are flooded with sunshine and filled with the fragrance of the sweetest flowers the instant the Guest steps into them.
Inside me, there lives a brave woman who is not afraid of waiting endlessly for this Guest to arrive.

Inside me, there lives a woman who is Free.

The Chalice says...

I am the Afghanistan that your America has pilfered.
I used to be naive before, but since I have understood your cunning I don't trust you.

I am the hard work, sincerity and the toil that you crushed and trampled with your cunning and deceit.
I am the talent which never saw success because you snatched my opportunity. And so my eyes have become the mirror into which yours can hardly look into.

You have beside you a chattering parrot which tries to seek your attention, fluttering its mascara-ed eye lashes and pouting its red beak. You stare outside the window, the least interested while I look on with amusement from the seat behind.
If I were with you(instead of the parrot), I would sit by the window; you would want me to, every time. I am that kind of a woman.
You waste your time taming a hundred such parrots rather than be with someone like me because between the both of us, I shine. You are definitely polished well, but I shine.

I am that gender which constantly has to fight against a mighty but invisible lobby of shadows of your gender; I say shadows because only your shadows remain. You used to be strong, dependable and worthy of trust once. Today you feed out of crushing whoever is stronger, faster or better. You survive solely by the strength of your lobby rather than by merit and remain increasingly insecure of your dwindling abilities.

I call out to you to face me, if you have the courage, in this battle, because today you have to fight to take what I have. Today I am not giving it all away hoping that you are more responsible, believing that the power will be better used in your hands. Because today I have the feeling that I deserve it more than you; success has never got into my head, money was not spent into nights of mindless boozing and power was never used to hurt another.

From where I see it you hardly stand a chance.

Heaven on Earth

Is there anything more wonderful than biting deep into a huge slice of some delightful chocolate trufle pastry? The taste of thick frozen dark chocolate melting in your mouth,ah!

Well I did just that yesterday while watching the beautiful movie 'A Good Year' for the second time. It is sad that, these days, we have had to compromise on so many noble values in our journey to become the most 'whatever-fits' creation on earth.

Gone are those days when, little children lived with doting grandparents.To live with somebody who thinks the world of you, who believes that there could be no one brighter or better than you, who knows for certain that you alone will become the richest, most sought after person, someday in the future, can do magic for a child.To have somebody around who is proud of you, because you are the way you are, can be the driving force behind your success, in every walk of your life.
To have found such a person, would be like having God as your guide.

I wish more number of parents, today, would understand the importance of nurturing children with warmth, patience and love instead of shoving them into high profile schools and expensive colleges.

Leaving a legacy of wealth behind after your death or spending that extra hour with your children today? Which one would you respect your parents, for doing? Which one do you think your children would remember you, for doing?
Its not the wealth, I am sure. :)

Chennai Diaries : My right-brained rockstar!

I found this as I was leafing through an old diary. At that time I was a paying guest for a Tamilian family, in Murichur Road, Tambaram. Deeksha was the land-lady's 7-yr-old daughter.

"I am constantly surprised, how the world expects, two people with two completely different brain orientations, to react in similar manner to a given stimuli.We set general standards like 'IQ' to test all people, when 'IQ' essentially is a measure of one's left-brain capacity.

The reason I have so much fun teaching 7-yr old Deeku is because of the weird reactions that she gives while doing her homework.'Deeksha! M and not W. b, not d.',  I often find myself reprimanding.
'Enna Kodumai ithu!'she mutters, irritated.
Our curriculum has very few arrangements for right-brained or dyslexic children.
Multiplication tables, force, motion, machines, arduous hours of mugging up may not be Deeku's cup of tea but she excels in extra curricular activities. She can spend hours in front of the mirror choreographing dance steps. She gets excited about teaching me her steps. The most fascinating thing about her is her invaluable heart. Expressing appreciation and sharing come to her naturally. Patience, tolerance and forgiveness are the virtues she is blessed with. She has an acute sense of rhythm and a vivid imagination.

Deeku's teachers think she is slow in learning .I find this unfair(though she is completely unperturbed).Her parent's though optimistic get slightly worried sometimes.

On any given day,Deeksha would prefer a painting session, outdoors or yoga or a song/dance class. Instead she stares at a myriad of numbers and alphabets in her notebook. Seriously, Enna Kodumai, I feel like asking.

The left side of the brain is responsible for the following, mainly:

• logical and analytical reasoning abilities
• words and speech recognition
• decision making

Perfect for the school topper or the math genius. But the problem starts when you get older and start measuring feelings, and analysing relationships. The left-brain-dominant people, not surprisingly, thus fare poorly on the personal front. A strong left-brain combined with a powerful memory is all you need to justify revenge, condone a wrong act and probably even cause harm to another.
Remember reasoning thus : 'He/She did this to me. I was wronged. Now it's my turn.'

The world population today has a Left-Brained majority.
Trees felled, concrete jungles, global warming, terrorism.Would the global scenario be different if it was the other way around? Even if I stopped thinking wishfully, I can't help asking for an elementary education system that offers more options to little children so they can learn things that they are naturally inclined towards."