Tag: Random

The wound that healed!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

As a child, it wasn’t for me to be very brave about pouring water over my face. What if a ghost attacks in that split second when I close my eyes?! I’d gladly take all the time in the world to carefully wash my face without having to close my eyes / soap burning them.

I dont know when it started or when it ended. But I distinctly remember how it ended. One fine day, I had a scratch on my face. Tiny, but enough for me to throw a tantrum and blame the toddler sister. I wouldn’t wash my face as the wound was hurting. And it just wouldn’t heal! And finally, one brave morning, I decided to close my eyes and splash water in one swift motion! Voila! It didn’t burn as much, and there was no ghost!

And that, my friend, is how I learnt that the ghost is within us, and we see it clearly with our eyes closed! Moral of the story is – bath often, wash your face more often. It is okay to close your eyes!

Patriarchy and misogyny

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

I casually throw these words away in friendly conversations with my people. Sometimes jokingly, sometimes desperately trying to hide the hurt with a joke. I understand I am not entirely fair in throwing these words around so easily. But, it just makes life a bit easier to hide under these blanket statements than pinpoint this person or that incident.

Patriarchy. We are all victims and survivors of it. Men, women, others. Young, old and ‘lost in the middle’. You, me and them. But often, the grand layer of privilege helps you look beyond it. Privilege of money, people and freedom lets you move forward and leave it all behind. But yet, once in a while, it creeps up through tiny crevices and hits you before you know it. Misogyny soon follows and drowns you in a pool of guilt and helplessness. That’s not to say we are bunch of helpless clueless beings. But when the blow comes from unexpected directions, it’s only naturally you fall and struggle.

Very evidently, this blog has been all about me and my experiences and how I perceive life. This is also one such, but I am unusually hesitant to write this down. It brings me shame and sorrow to quote people from my life this way. But I need this to be off my chest. So here it goes. Fair disclaimer: none of these is immediate family/friends. Phew!

  1. Doesn’t matter what you achieve or do. A woman is a burden to the family. ‘It’ needs to be unloaded onto another family through marriage.
  2. You will be defended and protected because we care about you. But only as long as you abide by the ‘rules’ we lay down for you. Else you are an outcast. An immoral woman.
  3. You may be 30 or 50. You better check with ‘family’ before you decide what to do with the money you earned. Oh this credit card? No, that’s not for you. Why would we waste our time trying to sell it to you!
  4. You may be on the right track, driving abiding to rules of the road. Bang! But that accident is all because of you. Why did the men of the house ‘let’ you drive?!
  5. Okay, let’s say the mistake is on both sides. But now if we go to the police, it’d be ‘uncomfortable’ for you. So let’s just say your male family was driving, and not you. 17 year old teen boy would also be okay, just not you.

The list doesn’t end, but let’s just stop with top 5 for now. So is the blame all on the world and none on me? Absolutely not. There a lot of times I have played the ‘woman card’ and got of annoying insurance/loan representatives. Many times when I have been over protective and unnecessarily worried about a female family member or friend. I have enjoyed a childhood favourite movie overlooking the spewing misogyny. It’s one step at a time to break this century old thoughts and ideologies. One step at a time.

The month-long race!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

I ran a month-long race and won against myself. I took up a challenge and wrote for 30 continuous days – scribbled would be a better word. Every productive activity must have some takeaway. So what are my key takeaways from 30 days of blogging?

  1. Don’t repeat this stupidity. The challenge eventually makes blogging a chore more than the passion to write.
  2. That being said, find some other excuse to write. Perhaps, start some series similar to the travel diaries or book reviews done in the past.
  3. Every random thought in life deserves a spot. Today’s stupidity might become tomorrow’s wisdom. Write away without reservations. You’re the most important reader.
  4. There were random comments and likes (apart from the ‘spammers’) on the blog from within the WordPress community. What I realised on visiting their sites: Good content is all around you. You just need the eyes for them.
  5. I don’t really have a 5th takeaway. But 5 is a round figure! Give in to your random pleasures like compulsive writing. It pays off in the long run.

All that said, will I come back to blog again tomorrow? I highly doubt it. But I’d frequent the space more often than before. Until then!

A Call of Longing

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Far I stood , away from the waves,

Close to the shore, teasing the sea.

Was it the fear for the ocean,

Or was it the test of the waves.

Away I walked, without a wait,

Without a thought, without a turn.

Was it the longing to be stopped,

Was it an attempt to stop the lone tear.

The waves caressed my feet,

And the wait for your call never ceased.

OCDed forever

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

Why this obsessive compulsive post in the eleventh hour of the New Year’s eve? Well, just as much as it is an incurable OCD, it’s also a reminder of the all the moments I missed to cherish in writing. A reminder and a warning, just in case it may boost my morale to write more often. For my sake.

This is not a retrospect of 2019. But I definitely want to note down all those special things I wanted to write about, but didn’t. Top of the list is the most amazing trip of MBA life (second best if you count in Japan) – the IRCTC package tour to Orissa! I still can’t believe I didn’t write about it, and I regret it even 9 months later. Maybe another time. There were quite a few short trips like that I wanted to write about. The mini reunion for Convocation, the Tiruchendur Kanyakumari family trip, and even the trip that never materialized – Mystic Meghalaya. Again, maybe another time.

I wanted to write about winding up MBA and getting back home for once and all. I wanted to write about the mixed feelings of getting back to work after 2 long years. About the swimming adventures. The first complete and elaborate Kathakali experience. The unexpected death in the family. The new member in the family. The changing dynamics in friendship. The hunt for newer heights in career. And even the freshly brewed diet plan adopted a week before New Year resolution season, exclusively for fitting back into a favorite kurti.Now that I listed them down, 2019 has been eventful. Emotionally. Physically. And even Spiritually. A lot has happened, the impacts of which come with me to 2020 and beyond. Perhaps I need to reflect on each of them individually. Maybe another time. Maybe.

Zero zone!

~ Soumya ~ 2 Comments

That’s where I often am, these days. A zero zone. Zero emotions. Zero problems. Zero dramas. Zero people. Zero activity. Zero time. Zero place. Zero change. Zero thoughts. Zero. Like division by zero. So meaningless and futile. What can possibly come out of it after all! Being at the zeroth zone, the one thing I can’t help is falling out of it. Now and then. Whether or not I want it. The trouble is, why do I even have to fall out of it. It’s become more like my comfort zone these days. Its just so easy and light, to float in there, like zero gravity. It’s not even a compulsion from anything that I do get out of it, but more like an unmistakable cycle of things, as they are. It feels like a chain, all wound up around my entire self, dragging me in and out of it, not out of compulsion, but more as a chain of cyclic process. It just feels normal to be this way. Zero explanations coz there’s zero demand for it! As the better half once remarked..zero cause, infinite reasons! (Or the other way round?!)

Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry

Back to my haven!

~ Soumya ~ Leave a comment

No brilliant stories to write. No great sagas to sing. A dear diary day actually. Calm. Pleasant. And all the more satisfying.Back to the land of my freedom, soaring high into the secrets of the sky above, and the depths of the land beneath, and the infinite waves of the loving sea. I am all happy and excited about today and the days to come. A refreshing welcome, back to the land of my dreams, my passion, and now my college!

Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry

Blog leave

~ Soumya ~ 1 Comment

As I am suffering from God-knows-what-pain and can’t really type, I’d be grateful if you could grant me one day’s blog leave…
Seriously who am I kidding! Once again running out of topics to write, I don’t know what excuse to find now. Let me just randomly glance thru some random stuff around me.

# Seeing my little sister pack her school bag every night is one of the most painful things these days. I so much miss going to school, with all those geometry box stuff, last min English essays, scribbled math problems and all those tiny things that I didn’t even care about, when I was actually doing all of them. I wanna join some back to school programme!!

# My annoyance and irritation knows no limit. I don’t even think about who am I talking to, until I actually yell and scream at them, only to regret later. I am not able to have it under control.

# Every morning starts with me getting all geared up with some text book, convincing myself that something’s gonna happen today atleast. But as ever, the night just comes back again, as I retrospect and evaluate the academic futility of the day.

# Some days are just so random. I am not even sure what am I looking forward for. Its almost like there’s no reason at all, to start over with another day. But I am just doing it anyway.

# Lately, got back with some friends, over messaging, thru phone and in person. Guess it does good to you, once in a while, reminding what you were and what you are no more. But this time, it was more pleasant than disturbing.

# Off and on with some serious psycho issue. I am acting totally weird, shuttling between persona, writing stupid stuff like this, making stupid self evaluations and finally brooding on them.

This typing with left hand is **** tiring and annoying. Off.

Posted from WordPress for BlackBerry