Diary of a Lost Wanderer

  After Mumbai, I moved to Singapore for a brief period.  One of the most often-heard things about Singapore was how it was all plastic and lacked any authenticity of its own. This was often followed by the stark difference between the rich and the poor who co-existed in the island city.  I was also told that this difference would seep into conversations, leading to a lot of mixed behaviour the moment they know which part of Singapore you are from. 

Even before we had completely gotten over 2020, 2021 turned out to be a recap of the nightmare 2020 was. And what better way to deal with this chaos than the world of words!  Whenever the noise around gets too much to deal with, I turn to words. I resort to either writing or reading to stay sane. It helps me sail through. Today, I am sharing with you my own book which was born out of chaos. About the Book Laze on the sunny beaches of Australia, drown your worries at the Varanasi Ghats, or get lost in the endless roads of Pangong Lake – this book promises to infect you with an incurable wanderlust. Sprinkled with liberal doses of real-life incidences and stories these pages capture the real magic of a place through its people in the perfect manner Be it the old man climbing the Sydney Eye at the age of 80 or the lonesome kid at Nubra Valley they promise to redefine life like never before. Fasten your seat belts as you embark on a journey of a lifetime with A Lost Wanderer where ...

  For the time I remember, I always wanted to write. I used to have diaries, secret journals which later on turned into blogs, and long emails to friends. I just wanted to talk and share everything that I thought of with someone. Gradually, with the passage of time friends dwindled (of course, one would get bored with the amount of talking I can do!) and that is when I moved to write stories. 

**Trigger Warning: Suicide, Ghosting** Recently a young actor died by suicide which led to a lot of furor on the social media. While I am no one to comment on how right or wrong this furor was, I can surely vouch for one thing - it is wrong to blame him for taking this step. Anyone who is/has been remotely suicidal knows for sure that our mind and body are out of our control. We cannot think rationally and hence this step.  I was into self harm for almost a decade before I quit it, never to go back. I knew I wanted to die and had tried many ways to do so. Every time I did it, I experienced a sense of relief. I felt I was one step closer to freedom. I was out of my senses, there is nothing else that mattered more than freedom from that pain and from that existence. Not even the pain, my death would have caused my loved ones. Because in my eyes and mind (maybe!) I felt no one loved me enough to mourn my death. 

Source: HuffPost Dear M, Tonight, as I lie down on my bed like always, I cannot help but think of you. Lying down on my stomach, I am reading a novel while the faint voice of Noor Jahan fills the air ". ... Hamari saanson main aaj tak woh… ". Cool breeze plays with my hair while the tingling sounds of the wind chime, add to the whole feel of the moment. I think of you, because that is how I remember you... always and all ways. Your hair, open, dancing in the air as you lie down on your bed with some novel. A heart-touching melody playing in background while you flip pages of that book with your long, sharp and brightly coloured nails which shine in the tender lights. A slight smile on your face now and then depicting that you are enjoying it all. I will always think of you like this - pristine and poetically beautiful.

Image Source: youthareaweesome.com Childhood was so blissful and easy to be in. There was no pretense at all. If you were cranky, you were cranky. If you hated someone you could say,' I hate you!' with equal vengeance. And if you really liked someone you could display your affection in whatever way you wanted to.

Privilege [ˈprɪvɪlɪdʒ]  NOUN a special right, advantage, or immunity granted or available only to a particular person or group.  Privilege comes in different forms. I am privileged in more than one ways and still I at times struggle to understand the reality of a situation. Though I do make conscious attempts, I will confess I fail myself a lot. Over the last few years, the number has ofcourse come down and am still learning. But the fact that it needs to be spoken about, doesn't take away anything from the seriousness of this issue. 

In the last few years, my ability to hold conversations has gone down. Initially it scared me, because I am a chatter box ( Or should I now say, WAS a chatter box ). My activity on WhatsApp has gone down to abysmal and so have my phone calls. I hate making or receiving calls. Worse, unexpected phone calls even from people I know give my anxiety. 

2017 was the year I spent most of the time lying in my bed. One after another several health issues kept hitting, rendering my unable to do anything much except sleep and mop around in bed. While I did spend most of it shedding copious tears, but once I was bored of doing that I decided to watch movies. Because holding books at times is an effort, music seems like noise and you feel like staring at something on the screen which distracts you from your current surroundings. After books if there is anything that has the magical power to tele-transport you, then it has to be movies.

2009 Wake up Sid had released. As a movie it was dreamy and as a concept it felt so close to heart. I had set my foot in Mumbai for the first time as a child and had fallen in love with this city of dreams. 2004, I was back to this city. This time as an adult for an interview which was typically my first solo trip ever. This city has remained to me what I like to call my first love. You might break up and go however far you want, but there is a strange solace that you experience only here. In the next few years I was making frequent work trips to this magical city and every trip added more smiles to my dreary existence.  My love for Mumbai was what made this movie special because Mumbai is the narrator of this story. I have always believed this city breathes and this movie makes me hear its heartbeats in those tiny stories that come together to define Mumbai, a city with a heart. The most amazing part of this movie for me has to be the beautiful house Konkana Sen Sharma...

Image Source: Pinterest There is a story hidden within each one of us. Waiting to be told, carefully hidden behind those cracks and crevices. It beckons you from those dark deep corners... especially in those long nights, ones that are lonely and scary.

“For me, trees have always been the most penetrating preachers. I revere them when they live in tribes and families, in forests and groves. And even more I revere them when they stand alone. They are like lonely persons. Not like hermits who have stolen away out of some weakness, but like great, solitary men, like Beethoven and Nietzsche. In their highest boughs the world rustles, their roots rest in infinity; but they do not lose themselves there, they struggle with all the force of their lives for one thing only: to fulfill themselves according to their own laws, to build up their own form, to represent themselves. 

Because there will never be enough reminders in life - to love, laugh, live and most importantly be kind to your self before spreading it to people around you!

I turned a year older last week and it has been one of the most free-feeling birthday I have had in decades. Being born under an inauspicious star, the stigma associated with birthdays refused to leave me till I left the house for further studies. But as fate would have had it, I ended up with someone who was equally conservative about birthdays, dates, birth stars and the auspiciousness around it. It didn't take me that long to walk out of it as much as it took me to heal myself of all those accusations and learn how to celebrate myself. This year, I got myself gifts after a decade or so of mourning. The minimalist me went shopping for clothes and lucky me, I found a perfect birthday dress in my size within half an hour. (Believe me when I say this, it is no mean feat to find something that I want in my size and THIS for me was a sign from the universe that it is high time I let go of everything that was and embrace everything that is to celebrate everything that will be...

Source:  Positive Prescription This month I am grateful for a lot of things in general, though there is also a specific list but I would rather share this one here before sharing the other one later perhaps. So without much ado, here's the list of things I am grateful for:

In the last few months, there have been atleast two instances where people felt let down only because I did not share enough with them. And the first thought that came to my mind was this; “ It takes a lot of courage to show your dreams to someone else .” ― Erma Bombeck Since the time I began understanding the importance of friends and relationships, I have been struggling to make decent friends. It is after many years that I came to know it had to do with my childhood trauma as I had somewhere ceased trusting people, and worst, trusting my own self too. Believe me it was a humongous task to make my self believe in me, know that I will not let myself down and though my therapist says I have done a brilliant job, I still feel I have a long way to go. Maybe few years down the line when I have healed myself more, I might be able to reach out and help others heal. Today when I am hurting so bad, I can barely see myself helping someone heal let alone being a g...

“ It's a funny thing about life, once you begin to take note of the things you are grateful for, you begin to lose sight of the things that you lack. ” ― Germany Kent

" You are a strong girl !" I grew up listening to this often. More as a means to quieten me rather than a compliment. Every time I threw a tantrum, I cried, I failed, I got hurt - these words were there to remind me that I was not supposed to be weak. Or, should I say, I was not allowed to be weak. 

Today, yet again...  Someone made fun of my illness.  Someone mocked at the abuse I have been through in life.  Someone laughed at the trauma I faced and the therapies I took to heal myself.  Someone giggled at the fierceness with which I continue facing life thinking I am my own super hero. 

Yet another month has gone by and I spent the last one week thinking about what all things am I grateful for in February. After a lot of thinking, here's what I have concluded: