"Reflecting Back!"

The spirits are high. The colourful clothes and the party shoes are on. The streets are decorated and the whole place seems to glitter in a whole new ecstasy. Cheerfulness and hopes are galloping out of all the hearts. Some are expecting new highs; some are expecting something better from life while some are just busy celebrating carefree. It’s that time of the year when people take out time to look back and recollect the memories of what all has transpired in the year gone by. It’s New Years’ time. Yes, it’s that time of the year when people look back and reflect upon their life’s to see how things panned out for them. Some do it figuratively while some literally. For some, the year gone by has brought some well deserved happiness, some great moments of joy and pure bliss where they simply fell in love with life all over again. Some found love; some found a reason to live whereas some might have touched new highs in life; got a promotion, moved in into a bigger space or conquered a goal in their head they had set or probably landed on a successful milestone. Some may have just started to understand life a bit better and started appreciating it a little more. While on the contrary, for some 2014 may not have been that great a year to remember. Some may have lost their ways, their faith terribly shaken in God and mankind; some may have lost one of their kinsmen; maybe a friend, a confidant, a brother, a sister, a mother or any person close by. Life turning its screw on some as they may have lost their most valued possessions; lost something that meant the world to them. A few may have lost their counterparts, friendships broken, trust breached; some left dejected and aimless; hopeless and tired of running from the world in a constant debacle to keep hanging on and fighting their way out of the problems in life. While for most of you, it may have been a bitter sweet curry with mixed emotions and sentiments, of some highs and lows; some good moments and some bitter experiences. All in all, it’s that time of the year which makes you realize how much you’ve endured and witnessed. Things that have taught you, some have given you new experiences, a better understanding, a new perspective towards different unfamiliar things which you may have never even imaginedor encountered in life before. Even the way you looked in the last year’s photographs has changed. Some of you may have left the confines of your home and stepped into a whole new world with a different set of people; learning new ways, exploring new horizons, adjusting to different attitudes and what not!

In all this hustle and bustle, it’s in this moment that youfinally find a moment of peace to think about everything. This is the time when you re-access your situation and set new goals and aims in life with new aspirations; laying down a blueprint on how you plan to go by in the year to come and take up some vows/resolutions. New Year and New Year’s resolution are indispensible from each other. Some people wait for New Year to knock the doors so that they can take up some resolution about something they’ve been meaning to do. It can be anything; from thinking about going on a long vacation to start exercising so as to stop getting fat; from getting serious towards something to deciding to take out time for family and friends. Literally anything! I’ve even heard New Year resolutions of people deciding to drink a glass of water every day as it improves digestion. I know it is a little ‘different’ but it doesn’t matter. It’s about you. Another reality is that most of these resolutions may never meet their set fate and never be accomplished but still anyhow we make them. We make them just to keep our will strong. You do it to make you feel a little better and focussed in life. Some even decide to forgive people who’ve hurt them as they like to enter the New Year with a clean slate. Similarly, there are some who haven’t yet made peace with the past and are trying to get over things. Think about yourself? Some might have wronged you; hurt you in a way you can’t let go; left you scared and scarred. You may never be able be forgive them for what all they did to you; it may all be justified or even otherwise as you may have qualms with them for whatever happened down the road. Some people believe in forgiving and forgetting while some keep it close to their hearts. Some tend to move on to explore a better world and enter the New Year with a brighter, happier intent while some keep scratching the scars and rubbing their wounds in a hope that they’ll heal someday.In the same way as others may have wronged you, you too may be guilty of some wrongs you did to someone; rooting for their forgiveness in order to find that inner peace which has been missing from quite a while. It’s true! All of us have committed some mistakes in the year gone by. All of us mayhave done some terrible things which we may be ashamed of but I guess that’s what life is all about. Life is all about making mistakes, forgiving people, letting it all go and move on. Not for the other person’s well being but for your own inner self. The pleasure and satisfaction that one gets after forgiving someone for the apparent sin they have committed against you is something beyond words can explain. May be, such a case may arise that they aren’t even guilty of what they’ve done but somewhere deep within, forgiving them and letting it go frees you from the burden of hate and maliciousness that you have been carrying for them all timelong. Sometimes all you got to do is to believe in the ‘Theory of Karma’. Sometimes all you ‘need’ to do is be the better person and act as the bigger person; embracing the reality and making peace with it; telling the other person that ‘Yes, I’ve forgiven you.’ You need not to tell it to the person; you need to tell it to yourself first! And what better opportunity will you find than a New Year’s Eve to wipe clean that slate of debt and hatred in your heart and start living in a more meaningful way; to forget what transpired and to concentrate on what lies ahead. Earn experiences from the bad things that have happened and focus on the good memories to smile a smile of the face. Look around at our loved ones and find the reason to live, to cherish the nitty gritty happiness and the small moments that makes life worth it! Welcome 2015 with a smile, a new hope; giving yourself a fresh start and to cherish every hue that life shows!

PS: I just read a small article somewhere which mentioned a way to savour all the good memories so that they can a cherished at the end of the year. Take an empty jar and every time you experience a special moment, write it down on a piece of paper and put it inside the jar. In this way, at the end of the year, you’ll have a jar full of happy moments you’d love to recall. Worth giving it a try, isn’t it? 

Happy New Year 2015! May you fall in love with life all over again! Keep Hoping, keep loving and living!

Yes, We are men but we're all different!

I don’t intend to give this a highly dramatic or a vague diluted start. Neither do I write this in self defence or out of cynicism or to feed my male ego and nor do I intend to portray that I’m a typical male chauvinist who is out here to screw allegations laid on us by the fairer sex, whenever we ‘poor men’ try to do or say something. I write this out in my senses being fully conscious when I call us men poor. A small incident that follows is what brought me to this conclusion. Many of you out there may think I’m stereotyping the fairer and the more intelligent sex, but trust me I don’t intend to objectify, generalize, demean, dilute their predicaments or condemn them in any way what so ever. This is purely based on what I witnessed in the recent few weeks when I came across a series of similar happenings in my life that has made me strong enough to write this out.

A week ago

It’s the beginning of one of my favorite month of the year! Yes, it’s December. YAY! December is special to me. I love winters. I love everything about winters; the weather, the cold, the chilly breeze, coffee, tea, other hot beverages, the clothes, the trees, the replenishing sun, the beautiful roads, the fog, the mist, the dew drops, blah-blah; everything! I don’t know why people don’t like winters! For me, it’s my favorite season! Anyways, back to business.

It was the 1^st of December and I was all geared up and excited at the advent of the month. What added more to the fervor and jubilation was the fact that I was going to meet my school pals i.e. my school sister and one of my most special friend! She was leaving for New Delhi for her internship in one of the prestigious hotels there.

I decided to take a bus to the “adda” we had finalized for meet up. The bus stop was a pretty casual one but busy with a lot of people busy waiting for their respective route bus to come and pick them up. Thanks to our Chandigarh bus service, we all knew we had a plenty of time on our hands before our buses arrived! It was early morning and the bread-earning crowd has evidently visible busy on their smartphones.

All of a sudden I hear a sudden thud! Some papers sprung up in air and a second later I hear everyone murmuring and hushing. I try to take a sneak peak at the ‘crime scene’ out of curiosity. A girl in high heels had stumbled down to the ground. Nothing that serious. A gentleman came forward to help her get back up on the feet. Seconds later as she regained her composure and all her documents, she stood in the queue. The guy, out of good will, inquired if she was alright.

“Don’t! I know guys like you! All you men are the same! Sab ladke ek jaise hote hai! Dogs, pervert and jerks!”

The man was taken aback! He froze as he couldn't absorb what had just transpired. He felt so ashamed, flabbergasted, guilty and angry; all at the same time. He said nothing and joined back the queue and waited for his bus to arrive and soon left the scene! The day passed and I finally met my friends and later in the day back came but the reminiscence of the morning didn't leave my sidewalk. 

I was a witness to this tragedy! I mean, how can one generalize everyone? Not everyone is the same, right? I too was astonished to see the turn of events. Isn't that what happens generally now a days? I’m not pointing fingers on the whole female fraternity (I dare not! :P) but there are a few women who have made up their mind that every guy, every male offspring is the same; a pervert! No! Yes, the darker sex hasn't been the best when it comes to behaving properly with the fairer one but that does not mean that you convict the whole genus of being a jerk or a pervert and in some worse cases, rapists! Just like you can’t judge a book by its cover, the same way you cannot reach to a conclusion about men too. If no one had inquired with her if she was fine, she would have notion-ed it this way, that how insensitive we men are that no one of us bothered to take a look if she was fine! Now that someone actually came forward, she didn't take a minute to snap out at him and call him a pervert. I mean seriously! We need to think it all over again. What are we doing to ourselves? Have we all lost that feeling of compassion and concern in us? Did he really do it with a bad intention? Stop generalizing, stop stereotyping! Not everyone who’s coming close to you wants to take advantage of you or to molest you or even worse, rape you! Everyone’s not the same! I mean, think about it, if that was the case, the whole character and integrity of your own dad and brother would be at a stake. Is he not a nice man? Is he too, a pervert? Not everyone is a pervert, right? Judge people on merit and their behavior and not with preconceptions and a narrow mindset! Stop calling men dogs (though we would have preferred wolfs! :P ). You won’t call your dad or your brother a dog! There are men who have proved to be a great father, a caring friend, a loving brother, a loyal lover, a midnight protector, a safe guard, a sound guide and I'm sure what not! Accept it. This is not how the world goes! You cannot blame the whole male genus for a sin done by a fraction of it. You cannot put the onus on the whole fraternity and ask them to carry it in their stride. You cannot put all of them into the circle of culpability. You cannot just walk around blaming, cursing and putting down all men for something unfortunate and unpleasant done by a few demons in the society. It's a kind request to both the sexes to be wise enough and not generalize or stereotype. Respect every individual. Even science researches have proved that every person is different from other. So be sensible, be rational! Make Peace, spread peace! Respect everyone because yes, we are men but we're all different! :)

Curtains Fall!

My heart retorted, my breath fell short, I clutched the bed sheets, my mind scurried all over the place trying relentlessly to absorb all that had transpired in the last 2 years. The clouds outside were pouring down mercilessly amid the dark, venomous night. Thunders rumbled startling me almost every time. They felt as little explosions, painting the canvas of the night sky. I camouflaged under my blanket and seized my chest and my eyes bled rain! Whom could I confide into, with whom could I let it all out. I lay low all by myself with my heart aching, looking into that 5 inch piece of gadget that I possessed. My finger trembled while typing the texts. She was breaking up with me. In a blink of an eye, it felt as if all the doors of my life were slammed right at my face. I felt the walls of the room contracting towards me, encapsulating me, with an intention to engulf me. I was numb! All I knew at that moment was I was losing out on my life. I felt myself giving away at an anvil as if a sword or hammer would just come down at me any moment taking away my head with it! My parents were fast asleep in the room right next to mine, probably tired and satisfied after toiling hard all day at their respective workplaces. The clouds roared again and the tempest turned more violent and satanic. I just wanted to see her, tell her that it ain't over yet, that no matter what happened between us; this is not where our story ends. Tears, like rain spilled out of my eyes. She was sure about putting an end to all of it - the relationship, me, our memories, the promises we both made to each other, everything that connected us! With every text we exchanged, I was beginning to fall apart bit by bit, speck by speck! I begged her for a reason, anything which could justify why we were doing this to ourselves! It just took her a text to sum it all up!

“I dnt luv u! U were a mistake. I was jst playing with ur emotions!”

The very next moment, I felt something break! My heart snapped just like a mirror would after enduring a big heavy blow! The lump that was building in the throat from the last one hour had reached it's crescendo! I was stunned, shattered, and speechless, all at one. The lump had gripped my throat and I struggled to breathe, gasping for air! I don’t know what hormones got the better of me as a sharp pain surged up my heart, visible on my face. It was then I came to know that it all had come to an end, that she had made her decision, that she had just passed that knife through my chest making a slit which would take a lifetime to recover. She had just cursed me with a pain I could never get rid off! She had just called 'curtains'!

A Little Broken!

‘Smiling is easy; at least in pics!’, my friend said with a bright smile on her face, glancing through the photographs we had clicked in a recent outing along with our other friends. Our newly made pack of 4 was sitting on the sides of Gandhi Bhawan after a long day of toil in college preparing for a college event. It was late evening and the weather was gracious enough to be pleasant with a cool breeze blowing across brushing our bodies, the whiff of it like that of one after the rain. It had actually rained in the afternoon. We all were so busy working that we didn't pay attention. The place was one of my favorites to introspect and to ooze out my limbered up soul. Today was no different. I was lying on the grassland with my eyes drawing the constellations in the dusky sky and my heart busy collecting and reconciling my thoughts about the day and my troubled life. In the midst of such lovely weather, the latter part of the statement somehow broke my trance and caught my attention. The happy voice had a hidden pain in it. I was forced to check on my friend if she was okay or not.

‘Are you okay?’, I inquired.

‘Yes! I’m okay. Don’t worry! Just a few old memories!’

I couldn't speak anything after that. The statement she made was one which was very familiar to me. It was the exact same thing I used to encounter with the same ‘Are you okay?’ question. I had no reply to it but it sure got me concerned. She too was in an emotional turmoil. I guess all the four of us shared the same feeling. Maybe that is what strengthened our bond in such a short span of time. Whatever the reason was, the statement made me uncomfortable. I tried to lighten up the atmosphere but it was visible and evident that she had made her statement for the day. Though, we all were back to our super lunatic mode with all kinds of veg and non veg jokes being cracked at each other, all of us had that undying pain and sorrow lurking through our eyes which no one spoke off. Amid the madness and the PET bottle of Fanta that looked to us as if our pint of vodka, we shared not only our sorrows and pain but an affection, a sense of care that ‘Yes, we are there for one another!’ As we gulped our fanta down, our eyes testified and became the alibi that we all shared some moments of true happiness.

As I came back to my room, comfortably seated in my bed under the quilt feeling its warmth, I was still thinking. ‘Is everyone a little ‘broken inside’? Or is it just me and a few of us? Am I a pessimist? Is my fight with God justified?’. Traversing through the labyrinth of my heart, mind and my inner conscious, I looked for answers. The crypt in my heart didn't respond to my call. I felt my soul catapulting for an answer between my heart and mind! I started to recall names of the people I envied for a better life then me. It was my habit to mark names in my head during the normal day in college of people who I thought had a much cooler, carefree life unlike me! Her name was also on the list. Maybe that is what made me wonder about all these questions that I was thinking of. She wasn't supposed to be in pain in my head for what I had pictured of

her. The famous, ’Don’t judge a book by its cover!’ quote seemed so true at that moment! I actually drew out my notebook and a pencil and made a list of all those names. It took me about 15 minutes to think of them all and I finally had a list of 10-15 names. ‘Should be good enough to start with!’, I told myself. Taking one name at a time, I started to analyze whether their life was as perfect as it seemed or had they been just a little better in carrying themselves off in this brutal, unforgiving world! Some had family issues, some disturbed due to their relationships, some struggling with grades, some into fight with friends, some heartbroken, some betrayed. The list of ‘tragedies’ kept getting bigger. I started striking the names that

didn't qualify to my ‘Happy people list with no problems in life’! It took me other five minutes and I realized that all the names had been stripped off from the list. I tried a few more names but they too met the same fate as others. I was motionless for a moment. ‘But they all seem so happy! Is it that it’s easy to smile on the outside?’. I somehow had the answer to this question in my heart. I had nothing to say. Over the next few days, I put forward a observation test in front of me as I started observing everyone a bit more closely than usual. It took me a week to cover a few more classmates but I still couldn't find a perfect name. My hunt failed. It was then I realized how naive I had been for the past 19 years of my life where all I thought was how troublesome my life was. It took me some time to absorb the stark realization I had just

witnessed!

Everyone has to face their share of troubles. No one in this world has a perfect life. Everyone has to deal with something or the other. Some have family issues, some irritated with their friends, some troubled with their relationships, some pinned down due to the stress of studies, some in a fight with their own. Not some, actually everyone was in a fight with their own self! A fight between the pessimist and the optimist in them to determine how they lead their way. A battle which took place every morning after waking up before starting the day and every night in bed before sleeping. Life isn’t perfect! Life isn’t always what you wish for. Life is a little imperfect and everyone has to face it! The Almighty does not use different balance to measure

other person’s happiness! It’s all about the attitude you portray towards a given problem. It’s about how you take things in your stride and how you deal with them. Everyone is different but yet same in some sense when it comes to it. Everyone’s ‘A little broken!’.