Shrinking mind!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

Do I look like a ‘shrink’ from any angle? Do I actually look like some human god who can curb away all your sorrow? I find it ridiculous people confide in me. Not irritated. Just amused at the very idea. When I say people, the list is sufficiently wide and endless. I dont know if that’s even the reason why I smile so less to people and frown all the time.

She’s on her way back from Bangalore. Its extreme cold there and she was shivering and had to see a doc there. One cant get out of home till ten in the morning coz its snowing all the time. Its her sister staying there. Her sister is working and hence busy. So she goes around to meet up once in a while. Her husband is also busy. So she goes around all by herself. She was too afraid to travel alone. But once everybody started teasing her, she pushed away the fear and began to travel alone. She lost her kid. Life is more or less empty now. Vidya is her name. Except for the last sentence, all the previous ones were her answers to the questions she might have wished me to ask. The five hour train journey was intermittently and effortlessly made engaging. I should have known better to maintain my indifference and never take away the headset from my ears.

I’m not callous. I’m not insensitive to others’ grievances or pain and agony. But being pricked doesn’t feel good. Everytime someone talks to me, I am itched to talk to someone too. Someone atleast! Thinking of the fact it is, I lack an ear. That’s too valid a prick as well!

First time, I’m regretting something that I wrote. I shouldn’t have written this. I really shouldn’t. Most of you who read this, have talked to me and I perhaps helped you vent. I’m not counting back and seeking redressal. All that I meant was, I need someone to talk to. The way I stood for you is not a comparison. Its just a prayer!

The iconoclast!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

All my life was an attempt in vain to be an iconoclast. I did not think being one is easy. But I assumed it was possible for me. But the futility of my efforts is depressing. Futility isn’t absolute though. I haven’t yet met with a fiasco. Its just minor flaws that reflect major shortcomings to what I have always wanted. So now what do you say? Is my loss redeemable yet?

My mom read the blog the other day. And her obvious worry! What on earth is my never ending saga of mourning and pain about? She wonders what have I lost so much in life. She’s right about that. I haven’t ‘lost’ anything in life. Life is good. As good and as smooth as it should be. For an average girl of my age, requirements are few and expectations are huge. And for me, they never matter for they are all taken care of. Wants and needs are the way I define it for myself. If I call a want to my need, it gets done as my most immediate need. All thanks to my family and people around me.

But what if I am the illusion myself. Practicality ruling over me, often I filter my wants and needs. What I desperately need gets pushed under my fancies, presumably too irrelevant to be even thought of for a second time.

I get that. Even without looking at your eyes, its obvious what you are thinking. When people have totally nothing to do, may be they can think so much and write so much and drive others nuts! Lol. I agree. I have totally nothing to do. Hence I think. Hence I write. So with you. You dont have anything to do. You dont think yet. You dont write yet. Hence you read. And hence you pull your hair. Who should be blamed?

Traffic – a review

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

A very very delayed reviewing of the movie Traffic. My inability to stay updated with every other movie playing in the cinemas should be kindly excused. I dont go out for movies alone yet. Nor do I beg my parents. So well, reviewing gets delayed. However though, I saw “Traffic”, going to the cinemas. 😛

Writing about it has been there in my mind ever since. For the urge to be strong enough to push me into writing this took so long! So now what actually pushes me into writing this is silly. A casual quick read of today’s chronicle gave me a glimpse of a self development feature, penned by Anupam Kher. He was vaguely talking about how life is a Domino effect. Or atleast, that’s what I vaguely deciphered from the write up, at a glance. Just as you get up, the first thing that happens to you is the trigger of the entire chain of events of the day. People call it by omen, lucky charm, divine signs and what not. The decision that you make this precise moment is totally dependent on the immediate previous moment of your life. And it continues, as if traversing through a reverse Domino effect. One after the other, perfectly cascaded and aligned. Thus happens life. A shouting at B. B throwing C out of job. C breaking up with D. D committing suicide in front of E. Enlightened E apologising to F. Fmaking friends with A. And back to A, B, C and D. Well, after putting this down, I guess I’m not cent percent correct with this theory of mine. It doesn’t feel wrong yet. 🙂

This stream of thought is awesomely conveyed through the movie. Every scene feels so related to the previous sequence of events. The story line crosses many lives and the connectedness is spread across all characters. Overall, you might miss consecutive connectedness. The relativity of the dialogues and the scenes are taken to a level so subtle that you dig into the movie to identify with them.

Like many our lives, unrelated instances create commotion and change the very course of the plot. Unable to identify with the strange relativity and subtle line of connectivity, people often fight back the swirl and drown themselves. Seldom do we realise, drifting along with the current is a much easier way to unravel the eerie ties of dependence!

Ah! The butterfly effect!

The revelation!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Fears aint numbered. Huge in number and immense in impact. I wish if I could count mine. My fears have never ended by any of my lamenting. Everytime I lament, I wish that’s the last time I cry about my fears. I guess my fear is afraid of me, to abandon me and face my wrath. Lol. Fear all around. Life is so frightening to me now. What happened to the bold courageous me? Well, who said I ever was one! People make mistakes. People misunderstand. 🙂

But then, personally I never knew I was so much of a scardy cat. Afraid to move. Afraid not to move. Afraid to talk. Afraid to be silent. Afraid to sleep. Afraid to stay up. Afraid to help. Afraid to not help. Lol. This sounds like Kamal in Thenali? Reality is not much far from that. ‘Ellam sivamaya enparkal. Aanal enakku ellam bhayamayam!’

The latest added to the list is…ah stop there. Just as I typed this, I got a notice from a group of women. “Soumyanjali”. (Respect to Soumya, mourning her death) The recent controversial tragedy of a girl Soumya, brutally raped and killed in train. So does that count to be my fear too? That somebody is following me, day in and day out. It has been there for somedays, resurfacing often.

Back to where I stopped before reading the notice. My latest fearlist member; sleeping in an air conditioned room. That sounds ridiculous. Even to myself. But then, yesterday, after long I slept in an AC room and I was shivering of the fear and not of the cold. May be its the eerie silence. Or may be the buzz of the AC. May be its the presence of the chill. Or may be its simply the absence of my favourite rickety fan and the soothing lullaby it sings for me. I cant sleep without the fan.

More than the presence of something, its the absence of that thing that frightens me. I had typed this sentence once. But connection failed and I lost all that I typed. Cant type again. I’m afraid to lose again.

Yet again!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Why are people so stupid? Rather so cunning? Or cunningly stupid like me? What was I saying to myself the other day and all the days that passed? That I wouldn’t die I wouldn’t die. A hundred times I wouldn’t die! Yet again, I attempted. This one was serious. Not that others weren’t. But this one was certain. I would die. With all my senses, I was prepared to embrace the seducing death. (Should I rather call it charming death? Lol.) A handful of paracetamol tablets kills you. So was my knowledge atleast. Now that I am alive, I know it does shit to you! The tablets were my last resort. Took out the compass and all those sharp edged tools my unsuccessful engineering life had gifted me in the past. As blunt as my life, nothing was sharp enough to cut through me. Except for frail and fading cuts, they were good for nothing. But then, death was so tempting. After life was inviting. As though somebody from the other world talked me into a migration of worlds!! LOL!!

Why do I laugh so much? Rather, do I laugh at all? When did I start falling into the group of those who never moved a muscle as they typed ‘rotflmao’ or ‘argh’!! I always felt the laugh, the anger, the sorrow. Online or offline, emotions or people never changed for me. But now, what have I become? An insensitive unresponsive depressed psycho. Nobody calls me a maniac. The one who would run around and spoil things for everyone. I am always and forever seen as the silent killer, who suck life out of everyone and everything with silence. My ominous silence. Echoing sorrow and grief in every soul that crossed.

Am I not man enough? She tells me I aint. She tells me I am crippled from inside. Ruined and mutilated. Too much a coward that I cant even look at my own wounds and tend to them. I couldn’t bring myself to embrace her. All that she’d wanted could be a touch. A word of assurance. But I was numb. Numbness that she fails to notice. Cowardice is what she names it. But, couldn’t it have been just my helplessness… Ah! Whom am I justifying to? Myself? Sigh.Perhaps, she’s right. As ever. As right as her prudence can take her to be. My prudent princess,you may move souls. At times, you could crush them too. For so much is your power. So much is your worth. So much is your charm!

The lucky charm!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

She aint my lucky charm nor am I hers. But luck is that single word I’d relate to her, over and over. It was long back. Long long back, when we were too small kids to even know the implications of being lucky. She called me lucky once. And hence started our distance. For a long time, I thought she took me for what I’m. Just the way I’m. But then, I didnt appear so transparent to her. Well, not her fault that I blackened myself. 🙂

A childhood friend, who grew more than to be a cousin. But then, we could have gotten better. Thinking of those tiny nasty things that we did…Lol. Wish I could make them public! She was always the good girl. Soft spoken, gentle, beautiful and loving. The perfect ritualistic orthodox innocent Brahmin girl anybody would love to call theirs. I wasn’t jealous that she’s all that. But it really got on my nerves when people compared me with her. How she helped her mom in the kitchen. How she respected her dad. How she took care of her flowing hair. How she obeyed elders. How she never spoke back. How she ‘that’. How she ‘this’. Ah! It was exhausting. And what does she say about it! “Soumya, eppadi di mudiyarathu unnala!”. Lol. She thinks high about me. She would have loved to rebel the way I do. Talk back the way I talk. Not obey, for once. Not seek advice, making a decision. She still likes me the way I am and the entire world is pushing me to be her.

I can foresee that. How my life is yet to be pushed to be a facsimile of hers. But it doesn’t matter. For I know what she is. What she wants. For the pious, loving, caring, obedient daughter she is, she’d also want to pull a prank on her dad. Fight with her mom for days. Sneak into her brother’s phone. Yay! It aint just me.

The two decades of
our lives, changes have swept all over us. So much in her. So much more in me. Beyond those infinite distances that has grown between us, I still owe her a rightful place in my life. When my dad scolds me for grabbing the glass from her and sipping it with my lips before I return, I should always be able to say, “Lakshmi thaane appa!”. My lucky lechu!

Disclaimer

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

Whatever I write is not complete and that’s NOT all about it. Only those things that meant something to me, good or bad, cherished or despised, are focussed. Neither the incidents nor the people mentioned are fictional. But this is not complete. This is not all about what it is, or what they are. More than these words of mine, they make my life complete. Its just a quick peek. So, dont judge already. 🙂

This is not like me writing. But very much like me talking. I’ve such preludes and intro dialogues when I talk, but hardly when I speak like a keyed toy.

The ringing sorrow!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Sorrow rings, doesn’t it? Inside your soul, inside your brain, inside your very self. It rings in monotonous yelps. In everybody around me. In everything around me.

Everything needs a reason. So is my theory. The above paragraph is the reason. (It is my yesternight’s craziest ever random rambling. Lol.) And the cause is my new action plan. That is something like, one day a post, about a family member. I can be quite confident about writing that coz hardly one or two of my family reads my blog. The reason, elaborated, is that I mumble inaudible cries and pathos and call it ‘my blog’, whereas I actually want to write proper sensible stuff and feel satisfied. The first paragraph was an aftermath of one such attempt. So were my many previous posts. So finally, I need to anchor my ship somewhere and relax before setting of for this long exhausting voyage. And my family that is.

My dad was born into a family of eight kids, which makes it four brothers and three sisters to him. And leaves me with so many uncles and so many aunts and their families, completing my ‘big’ family with so much to talk about. My mom is sibling-rich too. Two sisters and one little brother. Stay along. And read about my whole family before you wonder where I got my crazy streak from!

Vekkam!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Athu penmai pesidum muthal aasai varthai thaan…Vairamuthu’s awesome lines about a woman blushing! The face turning pink in blush, at the thought of her man, expressing the yearning.

That’s just one form of ‘vekkam’ or blush or shyness or whatever. There are other forms, more complex and ironic.Self rupturing and mutilating kinda. But then, they cant be casually referred to as shyness or embarrassment. They are step closer to loss of respect to one self. And for a person with self respect as all that’s left in life, its an ultimate irredeemable loss. One that pushesyou to death. Through with it!

Aghast!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Taken aghast by the turn of events. So totally shocked to move a limb, raise a thought, utter a word. I’m shivering. Not in the chill. But in the coldness around me.

Changes are what people should be used to and okay with. But then, I aint very happy about the very change. One pushed
after the after, my stack is full. Overflow condition! They are still in stack. Cant execute any of them. Coz none of them gets popped. My top pointer was never incremented. How the heck am I gonna empty my stack and finally ‘accept’ changes!

Ah crap! My programming sucks. I’m ashamed to call it coding. ‘Coding’ sounds techy and geeky. But ‘programming’ is okay for losers like me. There’s always this bug that escapes my eyes. Rather, my skills. It usually is too late before I even acknowledge that the code is erroneous.

What do I do then? What are my options? I cant change a bit. I cant take change a bit. I’m just so fucked by the changes. And the blow, one after the other. Too heavy to be blown away!