Living up to ourselves

Years ago, on a bright, sunny day, I remember the six year old version solemnly promising to herself as she sat  on the swing, pondering on the greater things in life,that she would ‘never ever’ in her life,stoop to using ‘bad words’ like ‘mad’, ‘stupid’ and ‘idiot’.Despite her efforts, she did eventually break that promise and used those very words as well as ones far worse. Now to me, they’re just words like so many others I use on a normal basis. Even so, every now and then, I get a little uncomfortable wondering what the young me would think of me when I do so and whether I’m disappointing her.

I shudder at the thought of putting on black nail polish because just about 3 years ago I found it grotesque and ugly. I told every person who listened that I’d never be seen with it on. Wearing it now would be betraying my younger self, wouldn’t it?

Every once in a while[or more often than that] I do a lot of stupid stuff and say things that are a wee bit dumb. I make mistakes every day of my life. After that I laugh at myself about it. Right now I’ve given my future self complete license to be as stupid as possible and later laugh long and hard about it.I can't stop wondering though, what about the younger me?Wouldn’t she feel rather indignant about being laughed at, even if its by herself? As far as she is concerned, I’m a foreign person-someone she doesn't know at all because she has obviously changed a lot growing up, and she could not have foreseen that coming since time and experiences change all of us and we can do nothing to control it. We all change a little every day of our lives.Some words,thoughts and emotions which are so important and epiphanic at the time of their becoming, irretrievably slip out of your mind like a wispy breeze when you and your state of mind changes.

Can we ever be sure of doing the right things at the right time so as not to regret them later?Can I ever know if I’m betraying my younger self or would she be okay with me talking freely about her? Or would she resent me for it? How will I ever know? All I can do is hope she is as cool as I remember her to be xD

For the most part,on the inside-in my mind, heart and soul I think I've grown up to be someone I would have wanted to become and liked. Why, for all you know, if i somehow could meet my younger self, I could have  a girl crush on me now ;)

By Nirmitee Mehta

We Talk #3:The Moth and the Flame

Nirmitee: You're the moth and I'm the flame

Radha: oooh

Nirmitee: I love this line....I didn't understand the context when I first heard it

but now I like:)

Radha: lol you're an idiot

Nirmitee: usually songs talk about you being attracted to someone.But moths are attracted to flame and the other person is the moth and they're attracted to you so its different isn't it?

Radha: lol

you're still an idiot

Nirmitee: Because you're the moth attracted to me,the flame?

Radha:hmmm I think its the otherway round

I'm the flame

Nirmitee: nononononono I wanna be flame......

Radha: be carefull little moth you'll burn if you get too close

Nirmitee: I'm flame itself,I can't get burnt

Radha: hmm then maybe I should stay away.....been singed one too many times...and the warning comes too late

Nirmitee: no...lets both be flames

Radha: then we can play together

Nirmitee: and we can be orange and red and yellow and give off that special scented candle scent

Radha: and burn when we don't like someone and be envied by everyone

Nirmitee: and we illuminate the people we love with a beatiful radiance

Radha: with warmth and love so we might be the hearth saving protecting

:)

By Radha and Nirmitee

The Edge of Sorrow's Blade

          In 10^th grade we did a poem in school called “The Soul's Prayer” which talked about a person wanting to experience every joy, every sorrow- every single emotion that life can mete out.

                   “Spare me no bliss, no pang of strife

                    Withhold no gift of grief [I crave]”

          Why, I wondered then, as did most of my classmates, would anyone ask for so much pain? If you are going to receive what you ask for in full measure, why not just ask for the happy bits and live a complacent life?

          I wondered much the like when I heard a song  where a line went

                   “…And when I’m at the edge of sorrow’s blade

                     Show me how a heart breaks”

          I pondered over the meaning of this line, each successive time I heard the song and my views on it changed gradually, from finding the songwriter raving mad to being more and more intrigued and enamored by the melancholy in the line. Call me a mush but any song lyrics or poignant lines in a book that talk about hearts breaking move me to an almost teary state. Somewhere along the way I’ve starting wanting to feel those very emotions I read and hear of. I don’t know if I’m just being morbid when I think so, but tragedy and the utter……despondency you read about or see depicted in films is rather attractive at times. It draws me into its soul and sifts through my mind until I can no longer think straight.

          Every so often, I think all of us sit with earphones on, listening to a sad song, reflecting on the poignancy in the words, making a music video in our mind about the situation, around it and the part you play in the tragic melodrama.

          Maybe the reason why pain, sorrow, heartache-all of them, fascinate us so much is because all of us want to see how far we can all go, how strong we can prove ourselves to be, until what point will we be capable of going before falling completely apart.

          But we never really will know how much we can bear and how strong we are until we face it, will we? The human spirit never fails to surprise its keepers.A line from the book "PS-I love you" really shows you how, when Holly tells her sister Ciara-If your husband died, you would cope if you had to. There’s nothing brave about it, there’s no choice involved.

          And that’s the way it is, whatever pain that’s meted out to us in life, you learn to cope with it if you have to. Because there’s no choice involved. And because survival is our primary instinct. So really, pain should not scare us that much at all…


-Nirmitee Mehta

Rain Defines Life!

It's raining it's pouring, the old fat man is snoring, he bumped his head into the bed and couldn’t get up in the morning, morning, morning!!! A childhood rhyme that I hear constantly in my head every time I see the rains,  “yes the rains are here, finally the rains are here!”.
This rhyme brings back so many… reveries!  It brings back the love for rain that I’ve felt since I was child! The pitter patter of the drops, the orange hue of the entire atmosphere that threatens to turn grey at any moments, the smell of the ground, the flash of lightning, the roar of the thunder, this one rhyme takes me back to the very greatness of rain!
Another phrase I’ve come to associate with rain is “Pune rains and Pune girls”. It’s a very romantic notion and brings to mind every love story every love scene that has to do with rains…The dark, unaccommodating clouds, a wet girl and a handsome stranger, a love story that we are all secretly waiting for! Rain is something I truly love and I could honestly write odes to it so maybe it’s just expected that for me love of any kind would find all its meaning in rain, especially romantic love! If I love someone I want to love them the way I love the rain, loyally, irrationally, inconveniently, love every imperfection that forms it, love the long wait through summer and winter, a love which even though it annoys me( because how am I ever supposed to travel on the bike when it keeps raining? Rain that’s killing my social life, and making me a perfect couch potato) but even so I love it and I know I should appreciate it because I have waited for it every day and would wait for it every day of forever and all I  know is without it I’m miserable, a love like that, never-ending! Rain defines the basis of fairytales in our harsh world; it takes me back to these words:
   “At the end of the day faith is a funny thing. It turns up when you don't really expect it. It's like one day you realize that the fairy tale may be slightly different than you dreamed. The castle, well, it may not be a castle. And it's not so important happy ever after, just that it’s happy right now. See once in a while, once in a blue moon, people will surprise you, and once in a while people may even take your breath away.”
 …and rain gives me so much faith.
There’s one other thing I love other thing I love about rain, it makes me realize the importance of art and beauty, all I can think of in the rains every time I look at it even when it ruins plans and annoys me is how beautiful it makes everything, how every colour is suddenly so much more vibrant, how green is suddenly the most beautiful colour in the world but then so is every colour that the rain touches! When we study environmental education one of the reasons to save our environment is listed as saving its priceless beauty, I always thought this as a little selfish I mean we should save the environment simply because we destroyed it so now it’s our duty to save it not to feast our eyes! But when I look at the rain I understand, beauty inspires us! And natural beauty has inspired people for eons, inspires to want better from life and inspires art and wouldn’t life be a little less meaningful without art?
And sometimes I forget everything all of this… elaborate meanings, hidden messages, and make my mind blank, cuddle into a blanket and eat something piping hot, like Maggi, in fact I’m going to do that now, maybe you should too because the rain really should be appreciated and made most of it comes only so often.

By Radha Agarwal

Of sweet talking and sweet eating

Chahita: Hi lovely
Nirmitee: Hey sweet pea <3


Chahita: My chocolate cupcake
Nirmitee: My sugarplum

Chahita:My honeybun

Nirmitee:My muffin

Chahita: My strawberry pie

Nirmitee: My apple pie

                  My dairymilk :-P

Chahita: My MOD donut <3 

Nirmitee: My lemon tart

Chahita: My chocolate chip cookie

Nirmitee: My maple syrup covered waffle

              <3

              My nutella crepe

Chahita: My chocolate syrup covered pancake

             My cheese fondue

Nirmitee: My brandy cream cookie

               My vodka pizza :-P

Chahita: Teehee :-P

             My chocolate bomb

             My tiramisu

Nirmitee: *giggle*

Chahita: My Ferrero Rocher cakeeeeeeeee

Nirmitee: My caramel custard

              My cheeeeeeeeeesecake

Chahita: My lindt chocolate :-P

Nirmitee: My chocolate croissant

              My garam garam jalebi <3

Chahita: My roshogulla ;)

A generation of tech-addicts

          Here I was at the Venetian in Macau and instead of paying attention to the exquisite sights and sounds of the hotel, considered to be one of the most magnificent in the world, I was ill at ease, frustrated without reason and wanting time to go by a little faster. It was the same a few days later in the vibrant, pulsing city of Hong Kong, brimming with new things to see, take in and capture in my memory as well as in my camera, where instead of doing just that I listened to the nagging feeling in my head that was telling me about the number of notifications on facebook, mentions of twitter, bbms, whatsapps and text messages I was presumably getting that very moment. I was partly justified on my birthday when I was curious to see how eloquent and creative my friends would get with wallposts along with the customary greetings from most of my friend list.

           Why all this antsyness? Why the scrambling to check for free wireless access on my cell phone? Why the anger at the hotels we stayed at for not offering Wi-Fi free of cost for guests so I could calm my nerves (SUCH misers I tell you!!) Why do my parents keep berating me for being a tech addict? Surely not!

          Surely I’m not the only one. I just like being connected and being in touch, right? I just like talking to my buds each night and tell them about my day. Shouldn’t I be completely justified in doing that seeing that if I don’t tell them ASAP I’ll forget later, not just to tell them but also in my head, creating a void in my memory.

          Coming back to my original point, why is it so impossible for so many of us to live in peace without having to be obsessive compulsive about our electronic lives? How is it that, if asked what we wouldn’t be able to imagine our lives without, most of us answer cell phone or laptop? Every time I pass a water body or a hole in the ground, I instinctively hold my phone closer and tighter in my hand, unable to imagine what I’d do if it fell down. How did we start letting small boxes of plastic, metal and silicon or whatever it is they’re made of dictate so much of our lives?

          This isn’t one of those superior sounding anti-facebook, anti-technology posts, there are enough of those around and I’d be one to talk, not even being able to deactivate my facebook account for a week in an attempt to study for exams unlike a friend who deactivates her account every time she’s bored. I just want to ask why we absolutely have to be connected at all times. Why can’t we do without just for a few days?

By Nirmitee Mehta

NOTE: This post may or may not have been exaggerated, depending on how desperate it makes me sound ;)

Take me to Vienna

8811 kms.

          If I drive without stopping even once, Google maps assures me that I will reach Vienna in 4 days and 20 hours. This is one trip I’d go on in a heartbeat because Vienna is the city that holds the key to my heart.

          I started thinking of Vienna as more than just another of the many cities that populate the world when I started reading Eva Ibbotson. My love for her writing translated into a bigger love for a city I’d never seen, such was the power of her words and love for the city. Back when I first read about it, visiting Vienna was just a far away dream, out of reach for me, maybe because it isn’t on the “must see” lists of most people, it just made a place for itself on my bucket list.

          Then about 2 years ago when I decided to go on exchange and looked at a list of all the places we’d be visiting on the Eurotour, my dream of visiting this Hapsburg capital, this city of love and music did not seem as far fetched and without it, I began counting the days till I’d be there.

          Was it the rushing back of the knowledge of places I’d read about as memories from a distant life? Or was it the pure joy of actually realizing a wish or dream come true? Or was it our wonderful tour guide whose narrations about the places we saw bringing them back to life? I don’t know what it was but any of them or all of them combined to present before me a golden day, the kind of whose memories when thought back on later in life make you sigh contentedly.

          Looking up at the statue of Maria Theresa, the empress “who made Austria great”, on either side of which the Museum of Art History and Museum of Natural history respectively are situated, I could almost see Ruth from “A Morning Gift” visiting both of them throughout her childhood and returning to the Museum of Natural History when years later to seek asylum from the Nazis. I saw her again when we were shown a typical Viennese house built around a courtyard with a tree in the centre just as hers was and imagined it having been hers.

          I saw Ellen from “A Song for Summer” when we went to Demel’s famous Kaffeehaus where she’d enjoyed Vienna’s best coffee and éclairs. I saw her going to watch a Rosenkavalier gala at the State Opera or the Staatsoper when I was at the same place, going to watch La Boheme.

          Nearby I imagined Tessa from “Magic Flutes” at the Klostern theatre working for the International Opera Company without pay simply because she wanted to serve music.

          My Vienna special moments were mostly an amalgamation of what I remembered from the lives of Ruth, Ellen and Tessa. Maybe that’s because knowing them, having reading them over 15 times each I’ve started carrying parts of them inside me and in this incredible city I became a part of them as they of me and learnt what they knew all their lives living there. Maybe now it’s hard to tell where their memories end and where mine start.

          The one special discovery that I have a claim over in this city is of a little side street called Blutgasse or Blood alley which I immediately stored away for melodramatic moments in future stories.

          Even after all this there is still so much that I have to go back to this city to see and to do- see the Spanish Riding school with the Lippizaner horses, sit on the Prater Giant wheel in the Prater park, take a walk along the Danube, catch a glimpse of the river Wien after which the city is named.

So Vienna my love, take me to Vienna

-Nirmitee Mehta