The Lone Flower

You may appear out of nowhere;
you’ll be allowed to break the layers of green sepal,
Gently blossom and kiss the sun.
You may spread vibrancy and fill lives with ecstasy.
You will become brighter through rains and

Flutter each day in the mildness of the gentle breeze;
YOU, lone flower!

Remember though, the storm is not far away
and when it comes, you will initially toss;

You’ll try to stand with head upright.
But one day, you will be plucked away from where you belong,
torn apart and trampled upon.

Remember then, you aren't the lone flower you thought you were;
You weren't meant to survive the storm
You've just walked through a raging fire
You were burnt completely; to ashes
Remember then, to rise
like the Phoenix were YOU!

Where are we heading to?

Not all books we read can leave us questioning, wondering and instill in us a feeling of living through the times and in situations that we’ve personally not experienced.

‘Freedom At Midnight’

 This is not a book review per se but thoughts that engulfed my mind as I walked through the pages of this book.  Read on!

It is a generally human tendency to build our perception with the author’s notions and ideas as the base. Everything we know is only the interpretation of our senses. The contents of this book are no different. Through the eyes of Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins, the book portrays certain officials as leaders and role models whom we’ve never imagined to be. It looks like back then, the greater part of the struggle was to propagandize the feeling of oneness in every Indian. The description on the diversity in India once again articulates the grandeur of this place.

Think about it! For some of us, worship means to chant prayers in unison while for some it’s a personal conversation guided only the sound of temple bells and glow of the fire. For few, God has no form while for some, Nature with all its elements are God.  The language of a person in the south is not understood by one from the North or for that matter even by those who are little less than 100 miles away. What is considered clean by one is ritually clean for another.  Contrasting beliefs and practices across the length and breadth of the country. Think again- would you have imagined a place like this to remain as one piece till date and its people to be called citizens of one nation above anything else?

The struggle for Freedom meant fight our own land back but also to keep alive its diversity. We have come a long way indeed. So long that we now question without reason, argue illogically and determined to lose identity. Maybe the roots are deeper and the problem what we think is the problem is actually not the one.

When I read this book, chapter one to two and on, the incidents that were part of our fight for Independence described in this book sounded familiar but the experience was new. We grow up learning about Quit India, the partition, communal riot, the perseverance it took to raise the tricolor that represents not a region or religion but the then 400 million and now 1.2 billion. But our textbooks failed to tell us that its result is what we are now and questioning this is questioning our existence.

Let’s try telling the next generation that certain things are beyond doubts and choices, teach them when to argue and when not to and pick battles consciously so that next time when someone says “Love your parents” or “Respect your elders”, they will not say “This cannot be enforced on us or made a mandate”.

“Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way

Into the dreary desert sand of dead habit

Into that Heaven of Freedom…”

-Tagore

Just Introvert's Things

When it’s a meet up or a party I constantly bombard against someone who has a hundred questions for me and my mind voice, “Again??!!”. My answers are never more than a phrase long. The conversation usually ends with “Why don’t you talk?” To this I do not have a reply. I smile, nod and my answer- only I will hear. If you are an introvert it’s highly probable that you’ve witnessed this day in and day out.

Sometimes I wonder what we’ve made our place to be. Its’ fast and competitive and it’s too quick to prejudice people.  Here, you are perfectly normal if you can have hour long conversation with anybody, have yourself surrounded by a crowd, go loud on social media, hang out whenever a chance, party hard and repeat. We’ll it is not wrong but not my preference

“Why aren’t you talking?” It’s because I do not want to share every detail of my life. The whats, whens, whys, hows etcetera. Sometimes, it becomes hard to explain to people that my thoughts are just too complex for them to understand and hence I might as will have it to myself. I’m an introvert and I belong to a different archetype and it’s not well understood by others. I still embrace the philosophy of living life once. In a world where extroverts are celebrated, introverts are looked down like we have a chronic sickness. 

On behalf of all introverts, No, we are not shy, we are not insecure, we prefer to be among friends with whom we can have ear-long conversations and share all we want to. We do not force ourselves to be introverts in order to spend time effectively or to use the resources efficiently or to get creative and create a dent in the universe. Out of the million options, we choose what interests us which might not be the same as yours. We enjoy going to café and enjoy a book over a coffee, think before we speak, sit under a tree and stare aimlessly, walk in solitude, melody it is for us over metal heavy, rock and bass.

 

Dear extroverts, we do agree sometimes we’ve wished to be like you but at the end of the day we are happy being us. No, we are not depressed or abnormal or sociopaths and we are not your enemies.