I am Enough

We go to a restraunt, I’m hungry and you order for Me,
my friends think its sweet, that you would care enough to remember what I like, to order for Me
We go to a party, it’s late, you say you can drop me home Safely
You say its night I shouldn’t have been out this late anyway
Now I think you’re sweet, maybe

We walk through a mall and you keep your hand on my shoulder, just to make sure that everyone knows you are with Me
The hand is heavy
We sit with some friends and talk, but now you’re stopping me from saying what I want
You’re talking for Me
I am angry, you decide I need a hug,
You decide for Me

We go to see a movie, you say that serious art type is not for me
We are at home, you say you don’t like my skirts anymore, the way I talk, I walk
bruises your ego
I am angry
I shout
You decide I need to be punished
You decide for ME

You raise your voice, your hand comes along
Up in the air mid way ready to STRIKE ME
I stop your hand
I realise
It wasn’t you, It was me
Letting you decide what I want to eat, letting you disrespect, disregard what is precious to me, ME
You say you were trying to help,
just trying to make sure that I am okay

and I realise that I never told you that
MAYBE

I never needed you to fix me, polish me or save ME
I did that part years ago
I forgot to say in words
that I wasn’t asking for help
that I was asking for love, friendship companionship
I forgot, but now I am telling you
I don’t need you to fix Me

and from there we can go
to fix things if you want to,
Fix something Soo Much
Fix yourself, your misogynistic, orthodox, set in its way mind
Fix your attitude, the attitude that makes you want to shout, hurl, throw and hurt
when you can be just kind
Or understanding maybe,
enough to get it straight that I don’t need rescuing, I have rescued me.

I don’t need you to come gliding on a horse through the fire
to make you understand that maybe,
I am not looking for you, maybe I am not looking at all, maybe this dress that I wear, that brings your little world to tears MAYBE it’s for me.

To feel pretty and sure and enough for me
So MAYBE
You would get this someday, I am no damsel in distress, no girl that you can “SAVE”
I am me
and I am strong enough to fight for what is right
For ME
I don’t need you or your help
to prove that I am pretty or nice or brave or sexy
or strong or just too far gone
’cause I have Me,
and I am enough for Me.
I AM ENOUGH

Simple and Happy

It is simpler, happy even

When you’re unaware of the life that could be

Of a wondrous journey that is there

Waiting for you

It is simpler, happy even

When all you’ve known are little pleasures and nothing more

Of mountains of joy and oceans of dreams  yet to be conquered 

It is simpler, happy even

When you’ve not seen anything but plainess

When your eyes have never known spectacular beauty or life changing visions

It is, Simple, Happy,

But what if you’ve known happiness beyond small things,

What if you’ve seen beauty beyond belief,

What if you’ve lived the ecstatic version of life that you could have

What then?

What happens when everything around you turns to a blur because the light you’ve seen, shines brighter than anything ever.

How does one go back living their lives?

How do you go back and enjoy simpler things, simpler times, simpler pleasures.

Because at the end of the day

It is Simpler, Happy even, and

Yet, you’ve known Breath-taking beauty and Ecstasy.

I am a STORYTELLER

To be or not to be, the eternal quest

When we were small we wanted to be actors, we wanted to ride bikes or be a cool skater, cricketers, badminton players, sassy models, singers, dancers, astronauts or the Prime Minister of our country.

But every single time we would say something about these dreams, would even voice our little ambitions, the society would break our hopes, parents would laugh on us, our relatives would tell us that “we’re cute for thinking such things”, every time there would be someone guarding our thoughts like watch-keepers, telling us exactly what we can think, we can dream.

Sometimes our dreams died on the lips of our parents laughter, sometime they died in the eyes of judgemental friends, while sometimes they were deliberately murdered because “What will the society say”. Why don’t we ever wonder, who the hell is this ‘society’ to tell us what we should or should not dream of.

When I was little girl, I wanted to be a poet. When I told my mother, she said to me that being a poet won’t earn me any money, that it’s not a “real job”; I tried telling her that I didn’t needed all that money, she laughed on me and told me, I would only understand once I grew up.

Grew up I did, but I still couldn’t understand why I can’t be a poet, a writer, why can’t I be me. I told my friends that I wanted to opt literature as my high school subject, they told me there won’t be much of a scope and that I should opt for biology as my main subject and start preparing for a career in medicine.

I still couldn’t understand, though I took biology, I studied sciences; yet, my heart would leap at the sights of books, my eyes would yearn to see the yellowing pages that withheld lives within them. Soon I realised I wasn’t up for this science stuff. I wanted to be a writer, a poet, a speaker, a storyteller; and that, I decided, is exactly what I’ll be.

I can say I took my share of time to make that decision, but I made it. It was scary at first but when I got to doing what I wanted to do, things started to look real nice. It was as if I was destined to be this person, this person that understands feelings this person that writes poetry, this person that weaves words into mischief and love and then I became this person that does what she wanted to do.

Learning to understand what we truly are is one step towards success, and learning to appreciate that is achieving greatness. For when we truly understand where our hearts lie, we come to acknowledge how good we are at what we do, and how good it feels to be our own selves.

So, it’s high time we stopped telling our kids that their dreams are too big for them to achieve, its high time we stopped laughing on the people who dare to break these old set norms and its high time we ourselves stopped listening to what our society tell us to do, we stopped seeing what the world wants us to see and it’s high time we discover our wings and learn to fly.

Learn to fly ‘cause the view up-top is breath-taking.

The beginning was tough, as beginnings usually are…

Sitting here alone in a bakery in Noida I realized how far have I traveled; how many losses have I suffered and how much is there that I’ve gained. It seems only yesterday that I was packing my bags to leave for ASMS, to leave for the place where my dreams lay.

Dreams of being a rebel, of changing stuff have always been there, they’ve been there and they’ve followed me; but I didn’t know that I was destined to be a rebel. I didn’t know that I’ll have to leave my love, my solace, my home, my Lucknow to chase these bubble dreams. I did not know that being away from home was going to be this tiresome, this tedious, and this lonely. Most of all I didn’t know, what was lying there, in the future that I’m supposed to have, supposed to deal with; and this insecurity was biting the insides of my courage and my brains.

Overthinking and over reacting, my favorite jobs; and them I did… a lot; because well, I left home, my comfort zone, I left my friends and family; but I forgot to leave behind the old me, so I had to put up with people I did not know-had no idea about, survive in an atmosphere which was alien to me, and let the old me live.

It might not have been that difficult if I thought a little less, just a little; but I did not, and the result was that I neither knew nor could control anything. I did not know where I was going, what I was doing or where life was taking me, I just kept moving.

Yet, I packed my stuff; yet, I shifted; and yet, I came. The beginning was tough, as beginnings usually are; it wasn’t easy to deal with, it wasn’t an experience I would like to have again. Yet, somehow it was an amazing experience. The hostel sucked, the people appeared creepy, and the city appeared to be ickyish and difficult to live in. In short I felt alone, alienated, desolated and odd. Odd was the most apt description of how I felt, I did not blend in, not just language but also reactions differed, not just opinions but concepts differed.

There did came a time when I thought of giving up and going back home, but somehow I survived, I kept going on.

Sitting here in Mr. Brown bakery, Noida; I realize it actually wasn’t all that different, this place did not mean to attack me, engulf me or make me miserable, all it was trying to tell me was the fact that I had to accept this place as my own, only then will it accept me as a part.

So, I accepted all I could I came here to be a great scholar, but I turned out to be a compassionate writer, I came here to receive answers but I turned out to question, to dwell, to evoke. I came here to become something, and I became myself. How? I’m not sure I’d be able to explain at all, but I did; somehow I did.

Not just a person of opinions, this place taught me to be on my own, completely; it taught me independence. It taught me slowly but effectively to never be an option, but a necessity to have, a deal breaker. Learning is a great experience, but performing is a greater one, I was taught that it’s not just the screen that’s pretty but also the camera lens; it’s not just the ink that’s important, but the story it writes as well.

The journey has been full of ups and downs but it was and is a beautiful one, none the less. I’ve been doing a lot since, trying my hand at things, facing my biggest insecurities head on, and learning to live on my own, with nobody to love me, but myself.

Somehow I’m in love with the journey without knowing it.

A simple girl, with not so simple plans and I nailed it, right in the head because, it’s beautiful not to fit in, be different, not know the odds but love what you’re doing. So keep going, no matter where, how, or through what… Just keep doing, whatever it is that you’re doing.

I know there will come a time when we no longer would understand what’s happening around, but that’s the most crucial time; it’s in that moment that we need to hold ourselves in place and move with grace through whatever life shows us.

Because only when it’s dark, we need to balance and know our exact place, though, lights will guide us home, smoothly and effortlessly. It’s the dark that will test our limits and make us strong.

 

So keep moving, because life never stops, waits, or looks back for anyone.

Keep going, and you’ll find your way home, just like I did.