Category: 30-day challenge

The obsession!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

The most recent and dominant obsession that stayed in my life has been…what? I never had an answer to that question ever, as infinte things popped up in my mind, right from sleep, to books, to food. It never seemed too sensible to just pick one as ‘the’ obsession. Looks like I just resolved that confusion of mine. I have never been so obsessed about anything else, as I am about trains now. I am just so much in love with these train journeys that I am finding reasons to travel, which fundamentally doesn’t even exist! In the past week of 5 weekdays, I was travelling up and down for 4 days! Amidst which, I had too lab exams (which obviously is irrelevant!). My point is, for no real reason, I am lingering around the railway station. And today being the last day of the wonderful week, I even wished the train delays. And yay! My journey got extended by 30 precious minutes!

Meeting newer people on every trip, wondering at some people’s sheer piss-dom (the one that pisses off people in general!), running errands, leaning across the blowing wind, arguing for the right quantity of tea, prying at the near-by passenger, making sure he’s not a rapist, and the deluge of railway sirens and track cracklings! Each train journey is a unique experience, that could always make a post of its own in the blog, everyday! Not to forget the awesomeness of infinite picture-peferct photos! A couple of those photos may weave a story of their own, all by themselves! I miss the overnight train journeys, with the wobbly berth and the gentle lullaby of the train that puts me to a peaceful sleep!

Coming soon : Have a few photos and even a video, from my numerous train days. The ones with divine solitude and unbounded-ness! They will fill the voids I left in the post.

Gone are those days!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Which days are gone? I lost the whole thread of my thoughts, whilst I was thinking on it. And debating with my cousin, (relevance as she’s a new generation mom). The topic of discussion was vaguely about the new generation kids, their growth atmosphere, overall outlook to life, blah blah.. And I felt, “Gone are those days…of innocence in ‘my’ childhood.” Which AGAIN, in my parents’ or a preceding generation’s point of view, would be missing lot more from their childhood. So I kinda have a self realisation that it’s just recursive. So I halt my thought on this.

P.S. This photo triggered the post. Adding to it, my three year old niece’s progress report depicting her scale of consideration and compassion. What the fuck indeed!

Yet another marathon!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

All geared up for yet another 30-day blogging challenge! This time with a friend, with whom I shared all of my school-days writing passions! Like, only I’d understand what she was attempting to say to the world and vice versa. We both sucked in what we did. But funnily enough, we never got tired of trying again and again, to improve and prove to the never-pleased critic in both of us! Is it too common to find people who’d put in infinte literary activities in their New Year to-do resolutions? And actually take the pain of cross-checking with eachother, if the literary ‘resolutions’ are being kept! Well, you just found us. Its like, we’re good at almost nothing else but playing with words. The not-yet-pleased critic says, we’re not even good at this. But as ever, we aren’t tired of trying again and again. To you all, who are supposedly the ‘vivid readers’ of my blog, check out my blog-mate here. Read, comment, criticise. (Compliments are also welcome!) 🙂

Hope the co-blogger does the same, as a token of forgiveness to me for sharing the link and publicising the blog! Seriously, why would someone have a blog if there aren’t any readers!

Official flag off to the marathon!

Limbo!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

So now, Rekha akka, I officially lost the challenege. I didn’t write yesterday. Did I forget? Or did I run out of things to write? Well, in reality, I just slept it off. Like, 24 hours are really not sufficient for anything. Lately, I have been losing a lot of time in ways I can’t even identify. And lately, I am not being myself. I am suffocated with words brewing in my mind. And blogging everyday is really not sufficient expression of it. Words are enough to express, only, time isn’t ever. Lost here, with a deluge of words in my head, I can’t explain myself.

This morning, I was shook from sleep by something and the first thought was to confirm if I had blogged yesternight before dozing off. But I hadn’t done anything more than the title “Happily ever after!”. I always wanted to write,but always had excuses to run away from the actual act of it, with trivial justifications. I was of the hope that atleast a challenge of this kind would cheer me enough. An article for a major magazine, or so I persume, is due tomorrow and I haven’t even begun with it. And for the record, the deadline was a month ago, and by some luck, I just got it extended. As if even those magazine people were keen on publishing what I might write! And, I don’t write at all. My college magazine is on the go and I haven’t done anything there either. I have an essay competition today. What miracle am I expecting to happen in that constrained one hour and thirty minutes!

I don’t want to be here, caught in limbo. I don’t want to experience this block in the flow. May be, me writing or not writing doesn’t change anything in this big world. But, there was a time when it changed a lot of things in my little world, filled with satisfaction of having expressed myself! I am waiting to be once again back there. Waiting to be kicked out of this limbo!

Being the wise one!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

This is not me boasting about my wisdom. This is plainly about the ‘wise’ aura that I am proud of! I asked someone who knows about the 30 day challenge, for a topic for today’s blog. And this, the title, is what she suggested. Like so many others in this world, I often feel very wise about decision making and problem solving in other people’s lives. And unlike so many others, I find equally sensible and wise about ‘the’ moments about one’s own life too. I am confident about what I do, what I think , how I speak, why I turn away. I know it all, in my life too, as in any another person’s life! I may not be a visibly successful person, considering how promising my wisdom appears to be.

But yet, this is a feeling. That boosts confidence in me. To make another step in my life, as in others’ lives, when situations demand! I am growing beyond my tiny shell of ignorant arrogance and foolish temperaments. I can help people out, as I listen to them. I may have access to a variety of life experiences and may be growing more mature and containing enough, to most adversities that a normal person may have to sit thru. I can talk, coz I listen patient enough to assimilate and walk thru the by-pass! I suddenly feel old. Looking around for newer and sectioned experiences!!

Murder(er…er?)

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

I don’t want to kill anybody. Atleast at this precise point of writing this, I least bit think of it. But if things go this way, I’ll be arrested for killing someone, sooner or later. I feel like a dangerous sociopath myself, with the revving of an engine my head! I am a total noob with vehicles on the road and yet, I hold all authority by law, to drive a two wheeler, even the one WITH gear, and any four wheeler! How ridiculous! I am a social threat and nobody stops me! Coz nobody knows! I drive rash. Rash doesn’t define speed alone. I am careless on the road. Reckless and blind and deaf. But I can’t refrain myself from the vehicle. I love that wind-against-the-face feeling and tearing away of limits. But its often not on my risk, when the involved parties are not even part of the plan. So finally, I came down to a conclusive term with me and the road! I won’t ever ride any vehicle anymore until I have a personal guarantee that I’m fit for it. And guess what! I even called up an intimate someone to have an eye on me. To stop me from going anywhere near or gaining control of any revving thing! And look at me! I still go around in two wheelers, without letting myself accept the risk, often failing to properly communicate my schedule to my “in charge”! And without fail, I regret having done that, like today.

So today, I went for a ride, all by myself. Was driving as careful as possible. And suddenly, I just felt like overtaking this guy on a bike and I did. Coz he wasn’t racing anyway. And the next moment, I see him revving intensely and overtaking me and a car ahead of me, in a turning! I thought he almost fell off it, or hit somewhere or something. I needn’t have overtook him. May be, I just hurt the “guy’s ego” and instigated him! And further as I speed down the road, on my way back, lights were up and the Sun was down. Again, overtaking a vehicle, I was on a nitroboost. And there they go, an old couple taking a U-turn or something right ahead of me. I almost crash landed on them.Thanks to the brakes that actually worked well even with my slow brain! I could stop at a safe distance. They didn’t have the light turned on. But yeah, that’s no excuse. If I were that blind, I perhaps should surrender my licence or at least turn off my nitroboost forever. Hope I don’t end up killing someone in my ‘Pleasure’ trips!

The editor!

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

I always wanted to be an editor. An editor of something. The newspaper editor we see in movies, who make controversial story appear in their daily, and contribute in the making of a socially aware society! (Like Murali in the movie Pathram!). Or the magazine editors who cover interesting features and meet so many people, for every edition of theirs! Like my cousin Rekha. I wanted to be something near an editor at least. I wanted to read and filter what others might write. I want to make my own comments in the editorial, and still get people to read it. And on one awesome day, my English teacher asks me for an editorial for the school magazine! All the while, I was one of the two student editors who didn’t know what we were actually doing with the magazine. Coz, we never saw a single article in the magazine before its publication. And even to get a copy of the magazine, of which I was an editor, I had to pre-order with juniors and wait for, coz by the time of the magazine release, I was already out of school. That was one unfortunate editor experience, except for the joy, for God knows what, that I saw my name against the title ‘Student Editors’! The fellow editor also blogs somewhere here, but she is yet to grant permission to bring her out in public. Hope she does, at least after reading this.

So by ending up with a professional course, I almost fully bundled up my ‘editor dreams’ and was facing reality with a smile! And then came my second year of college, with a college magazine boom! So I hope, I work here now, and may be someday I can at least get into the editorial board of it! And guess what, I just back off and sit at home, teaching myself to forget about all magazines! I re bundled my ‘aspirations’, for which I never worked for. Yet again, the time came once again when I could unravel my bundled up desire! But not anymore, for I now realised final years are never gonna be editors, by University norms, and I have less than 2 months in my pre-final year! 😛

Need I say more!

Unwinding!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

If only if I could just skip this writing or unwinding of the day! I am near a black out of my senses. Too tired. Too much pressure. Too sleepy. Exhausting but exciting days are on their go in my life. And at the end of every such day, I just wanna hit the bed and black out. I don’t wanna think about anything. Not about what happened the whole day. Not the least bit about writing. Just shut the eyelids tight and usher sleep in!

This has always been an irony in my life. As in many others’. I so much want to write. About my life at this precise moment. There’s really so much to write about. To be proud, to be happy, to be sad, to vent, to simply share. But now when life’s so eventful, I don’t have time. Not even to acknowledge the awesome turns in my life, let alone write it down. But the craving to atleast scribble something is pushing me enough to post this. Well, everybody’s life’s so and so I know there’s nothing to boast about it. But I just had to say it out anyway.

The irony still intrigues me. Almost a year before, my days still used to end up in a black out when I used to forcefully exert so much pressure on myself and push me to exhaustion. And back then, I used to support and justify my ‘not writing’, with this same very reason of the end of the day black out! Things pretty much remain the same except for that, now I don’t look out for blacking out! Writing is always at stake and so is my passion!

Thanks a lot and sorry!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

“People get annoyed when you thank them or apologise, at informal occasions.” I was surprised by that information! Its like, “She’s showing off too much!”, “She is so ritualistic. Doesn’t value relationships at all.”, “What does she think? That I did this for her for her thank you!” “No thank you and sorry between friends yaar!” Oh my God! Really! So much responses for one thank you or a sorry. Its like you can just never be sincerely thankful or apologising, whatever may happen, all gets questioned. But I still always thank and apologise. From the bus conductor in the morning thru the friend who drops me to the next bust stop in the evening,(its actually like I take her pillion and ‘drop’ myself!!), I thank almost everyone who does anything close to a favor to me! And I apologise, when the trouble was really not intended.

With all these, I had almost had ample confidence to be a part of an organisation or to work associating with a larger crew! After all, I had self proclaimed myself as a very ‘down to earth’ person! But there’s this thing about communication you know! Fundamentally, you are to decipher only so much from someone’s words, just as much they said. But everybody digs for deeper implications and often misunderstand the situations. At least with me, it has always been like, it’s what’s that’s said as what that’s actually! Nothing more to dig for! But a stronger theory holds. It is never about how good you’re at heart. It’s about what you communicate with them. Never what you think/feel, but about what you express! Now with the activities of the Union and so many other organisations that I am now a part of, I am to communicate more with a larger group of people, more frequently and more intensely. And there I understand, what my other friend said is so right! I should really start behaving more like my name. More ‘soumya’. Humble and polite. I need to work on it. Really so, that I don’t rupture my rapport with the population around me!

And thanks to that unknown senior! He perhaps really changed something about me. “You talk good, clear and confident.But may be you should take more care about what you communicate. You shouldn’t have said *that* in the last meeting”! Yeah I agree. When hundred people around me point a finger at me, chances are higher that they are right and I am wrong. So, its time I thought about it. And I guess I am implementing the ‘name put to action’ agenda already! Thanks to so many of you who all, in a way, answered my question from yesterday’s post. And thanks, for pointing them out so brilliantly to me. Gratitude. And apologies.

Nanbenda!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

That’s the kinda friendship that I always sought after! Too few but too close. The kind I have always had. There was always accusations I am so unfriendly and hoarse to people. And the things were that way for the great majority of time in life. The twist in the story comes at this phase of life, where I am in college and face extreme loneliness. And at this point, when the attitude gets questioned, it’s almost like I just yield to all the accusations. Blame my attitude! I haven’t ever been too friendly, too nice or too cool. But nor too sour nor too bad. Something might have still been wrong with me or the rest of the world then. I’d rather choose its me! Easier to explain one person’s abnormality than with the entire world. Other than the random comments about my ‘not-like-the-name’ attitude, I have never had such a clear description about me!

There was this guy in train with me yesterday. A childhood friend. We used to go to the same after school creche, attend the same music class and so many other kids’events. I saw him first there. But he was with friends and I didn’t want to bother him, with an ages old companionship story. But in a while, he spotted me and wondered why I never took an initiative all the while. I openly said the reason. And then, we traveled together for the rest of the journey. Half way thru, he wonders why am I so much in a ‘pucham’ mode all the time! Surprised as I am to be, I wondered what could possibly trigger such a question. He clarified, that there’s never any faint expression of excitement or joy in my face. That all the 3 – 4 times that we ever met after childhood, I appeared all grim and dull to him. While actually, I was all excited about having a company for the journey!

Now arises the question! Am I more misunderstood by people around me or by myself? One of us is definitely wrong. Despite the fact that I look out for ‘nanbenda’ kinda friends, why do I look like such a moron and be the despicable one!! I am not worried about it. Just a sharing a line of thought about things that run in my mind. Hoping answer(s) to the question in comments below!