Written Traces

Hey, how you doin'?  No, I am not rewatching Friends for the zillionth time.  It's just that I hate to start traditionally.  I'm in a conflicting situation: some of my readers like my conversational tone, but apparently it isn't quite acceptable to the publication agencies. Two of my best-appreciated stories were rejected because of their tone. The rejection felt like a jolt that I could practically feel in my head, especially the second one.  Since that day, I've been caught up in a vicious loop of boredom because I stopped writing anything new.   I also called off a new transcription gig that promised me some good money, but the client was a tad bit of a scoundrel in his behaviour.  So here I am, having voluntarily stepped away from both writing and work, and somehow managing to be bored out of my mind. Pretty efficient, ain't I? I'm in that peculiar state where I don't want to do anything to kill time, yet somehow want the time to pass joyfully. I ...

Life is not easy.  Life is difficult. Life is challenging. Life is relentless. Life is a battlefield, and you are the crippled warrior.  You don't stand a chance.  The only thing you can do is either fight with your dignity intact or surrender, smothering your own self-respect. My bad luck is that I chose the former.  People are fake in brief encounters.  People are selfish in the long run.  Tonight, I struggle to find anything worthwhile in the people I have encountered throughout my life. I'm writing this in a moment of profound frustration. Perhaps time will soften these words, but tonight, this is what the world feels like. For years, I have been instrumental in the success and upliftment of those I considered my own. My assistance is genuine, without any expectation of personal gain, only because I believe that when my time of need arrives, they will remember me. Instead they remind me, in ways subtle and obvious, that I am not worthy of their kindness...

I know it is not usual for you to hear from me so soon.  Twice in a week?  I must be on fire. But lately, nothing seems to keep me engaged for longer than an hour, and my thoughts drift quickly from one thing to another. When it comes to my thoughts and the endless debates that go on in my mind without resolution, I tend to write in search of clarity. Recently, I realised something about myself: I can go for days without talking to anyone and remain completely unbothered. What surprised me wasn't that I could go days without talking because I have done that for years. What surprised me was realising how little it affected me. At first, the silence was meant to teach someone a lesson. The problem was that it had no effect on me. I have spent nearly half of my life on my own. I come from a family where both my parents held respectable positions in their respective fields, and naturally, their work demanded much of their time. On top of that, I have been dealing with health issue...

Hey!  Four months, no see? Just kidding.  I have been out and about for a while, and when I finally came back and settled in, I just got too lazy, or should I say creatively unmotivated, to journal.  The last time we caught up was in February, and honestly, I have been a bit under the weather for the past couple of months. Speaking of which, I recently went through my life's second operation, and it was for the most ridiculous reason.  Before that, let me ask you a question, "Have you ever paid the price of doing something right ?" Because that's where my story begins. I have, quite literally, become the victim of maintaining basic oral hygiene. Like most people trying to maintain good oral hygiene, I brushed my teeth diligently. Unfortunately, I took that commitment a little too seriously.  Brushing your teeth is good, but things took an awry turn when I brushed too hard, especially with a hand as steady as Ross Geller's marriages. (I'm assuming you have watc...

Author’s Note: There are places we reach because someone we love knows the way. When they are gone, the road remains, but the certainty doesn’t. I don't remember the road that leads to a particular destination. As someone who takes the seat of a passenger, my only job is to sit back and pass the time it takes to reach from source to destination. That being said, I take immense pleasure in giving my absolute surrender to the hands of my father, who takes the wheel to get me to the destination we both shared. It is always at the destination of TTPS, where my father served, and the source is Puri. Yet not once did I bother to memorise the road. I remember only a few landmarks, a few habitual stoppages where we would pause along the way. Nothing more. The rest of the journey was spent in the comfort of being driven. The reason I am being so elaborate is that I don't remember whether it is after the passing of my father or before, but I used to have a very particular nightmare. Kind...

Do you know w hat I been thinking lately? Honestly, I have been thinking about a lot of things, but when I stop for a moment and think about my thoughts, I can only think of nothing. It's just a lot of thoughts colliding with one another at the same time, which I deem equally important, as I was quick to abandon them. This has been the case for months. It's not that I can't write or something, it's just I have been feeling greatly unmotivated of late. Every day, I hope for this lack of inspiration to go away, but I think about being unmotivated so extensively that it has become my general state of mind altogether. Here's another thing: very briefly do I get this sudden surge of inspiration while thinking about feeling uninspired. But the moment when I decide to act on the inspiring surge is also the moment it passes by without notice.  The thing is, a lot is going on in both the inside of me and the outside of my surroundings, which has my attention evenly distrib...

This is the tenth month of the year, and so far, the year has been very tumultuous. But if there's one thing the year has taught me, is that I need to undergo a lot of self-reformation.  I can't hide behind innocence or simplicity. It's just becoming a pattern of mine that even I am getting fed up with myself. The pattern I am insinuating is oversharing. I have a habit of going overboard. And honestly, when it happens, it feels so natural that even the person I am oversharing with can't find traces. It starts as a harmless conversation, something light, something genuine and honest, and before I realize it, I’ve already handed over pieces of myself that weren’t meant to leave the room. The year started with me feeling betrayed when this oversharing backfired on me when the person I over-shared with, shared my oversharing with someone else (the person about whom the contents of the oversharing was about). Don't get perplexed. Just take another read if you didn't ...

Hey!  It's been a while since our last one-on-one.  I have some news to share if you're reading this.  Recently, on the evening of September 29th, I received a surprise email.  Like any other evening, I was busy assigning myself an engagement to pass the hours until I received a phone call and got engaged in it half heartedly.  That was when the email arrived in my inbox. I saw the little Gmail icon at the top left of my mobile screen and decided to ignore it, only to notice it again.   And finally, when I opened the mail, there it was in the subject in all capital letters, "Congratulations, your AdSense account is approved!" After the first rejection, I had little hope of getting the approval, especially after considering that it's a personal blog.  But it is what it is.  However, there's a lot behind it. It's been five years since opening this blog, and although the blog might seem pretty neat, it had no hope of going anywhere when it was c...

Have you ever been nice to others, like friends, with the expectation of them being nice back to you?  Or at least nice to you when you are at your lowest of the lows.  Speaking of nice, what exactly does being nice refer to, and how do you be that? The thing is, although it may seem that I am about to lecture you on niceness, I, too, have a very vague understanding of it.  Just the other day, I was thinking about a friend and how abruptly I got out of touch with her. At first, I thought it was an end, but here's a truth slap: getting out of touch doesn't put an end to a relationship. Here, in this case, the relationship was a friendship. I admit I was not bosom to her, and she already had a clan, and where in the clan I stood, was in the peripheral.  Anyway, back to the niceness topic.  Like I have said, I have had a hazy grasp on niceness, but later in life, I understood that it is how to be "appropriately nice" to someone in distress that counts, and that's ...

You feel as healthy as you look pretty .  Let me elaborate on this one.  No matter what, you must never underestimate or undervalue the power of being all dolled up.  Having said that , I must share the fact that the initial years of my sickness have deprived me of every bit of happiness. Some were circumstantial, and some contributed to having a particular mindset owing to those circumstances.  One such thing was getting ready for the day. But for what ? I wasn't going anywhere. In fact, I wasn't even moving, so what's the point?  It remained a situation for quite some years until the day I finally put on some cream on my face, following setting it with some talcum powder, then putting a bindi on my forehead just between both my brows.  This and a look in the mirror, and all of a sudden I felt, Look!  There she is , "Me" After years, I felt myself again. Someone I hadn't seen or met for almost a decade. My bad health even altered the way I looked. It ...

It was the 5th of April, a day that started like any other, but ended up becoming a harsh reminder of the cost you have to pay for the assumptions made by others on your behalf.  So the story starts with a scheduled signature that I have to give in person for the proceedings of an essential thing in our lives. I was scheduled to sign an official document at a place about an hour away from our home. For most people, it’s a task that might feel unimportant. But for someone like me, who cannot walk independently and depends on a wheelchair, even the smallest outing needs planning, coordination, and patience not just from me, but also from the people who are involved.  That morning, my brother, who was driving me to the appointment, decided not to bring my wheelchair. A decision which was seconded by my mother. He assumed the process would be quick and wouldn't require me to step out of the car at all. His intention wasn’t to inconvenience me, I know that. He just thought he was m...

No, I don't mind my parental reprimand. I think I could use some administration in my life. I don't think I have figured it all out. About certain things, I might have, but there is a lot to go and given their age and experience, especially with life and people, I believe there’s wisdom they can pass down to me. Also, I don't think whatever I do is right every time. I question the morals behind everything I do, and if I have done something wrong, then I prefer being hit with the truth rather than hiding behind false justifications. I don't think I deserve immunity from being told the difference between right and wrong. I used to think like that during my soft girl period, but now, at the age where I am right now, I just want to be as morally acceptable a person as I can.   Another reason is my love and respect for my parents. It is above and beyond. I care for their emotions that are attached to me. A child is a child. He or she is the property of their parents. And one...

Sometimes, we all find ourselves saying, "I feel very weak".  But how weak do you exactly feel?  What would you understand if I say I feel weak in the sense that I feel as if there is no strength left in my body to even feel the body? Would you understand that the weakness I feel makes me not able to raise my hands?  Would you understand if I say it does not make me able to stand on my feet?  Would you understand if I tell you that occasionally, it does not make me able to sit?  Would you really understand it if I tell you that, at times, it does not even make me able to talk?  I hardly think anyone would believe what my weakness entails much less understand it.  Still, whether you understand it or not I never stopped feeling it. I have been feeling it for two decades.  But the peculiar thing is that despite how long I have been feeling this, I never seem to have properly conveyed this to anyone. But strangely, my father understood it. I have neve...

Do we stop grieving over our loved ones? Does time really swipe away the despair, the intense pain that we once felt? By saying once felt, do I mean that I don't feel it anymore?  Does the void ever fill itself up ?  Do we fill them up with anything but the memories, 24 years of it, that we cherish ? One thing I understood about the way we feel about our loved ones is that they are not their silhouette, they are not their appearance. They might be a little bit of their skills but that can be acquired they might be a little bit of their voices but that can be imitated. So this makes us question what it is about them that makes us identify them ? As our own, as our loved ones ?  The answer is abstraction. Abstraction is something that is not physical. It can be an idea or something that you feel but cannot show. Everybody experiences abstraction of feelings and since it is common to everyone, despite the lack of demonstration we still understand what abstraction of feelings...