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

An ark for the future

Whenever people give advice on writing, be it in books, movies or real life, one thing always said is “write what you know”. One woman according to what I read adhered to it to the extent of making her husband gag, blindfold and tie her up just so she could write about a kidnapped person’s thoughts and experiences more realistically.
Looking at it differently, if everyone just stuck to writing about what they know, boundaries would never be pushed, the science fiction and fantasy genres would lie empty other than the pieces written by magical beings themselves (they exist. DO NOT try to convince me otherwise). Part of what I think a writer’s job is, is to think and imagine the what’s and how’s the rest of us cannot.
Maybe the secret is writer and reader journeying together into realms unknown. Maybe that’s what authors do when they don’t have many actual experiences in that field….the writer learning of and living in the world he has created and reader being patient with his thoughts and believing the writers words. So lets the two of us try that and go on a voyage looking for what might happen if the Noah’s ark situation occurs once again in the future, say in 2012 since so many doomsday theories surround it.
It is October 2012 and due to global warming, the threat of polar icecaps melting is imminent. The world is witnessing fights in every single communication forum-louder and more forceful than ever before among presidents, celebrities, businessmen, neighbors each trying to justify why they need a place on the ark group of spaceships more than the others.
One hears of a fan buying his favorite actor a seat on it (with 5 star luxury available of course!) and being promptly berated by his family for wasting money that could have bought every one of them places at that price. The omnipresent subject of discrimination[racial or otherwise] makes its way into this controversy as well, making way for more people coming onto the ark. There has to be a couple of people not just from every ethnicity, country and religion, but also especially in the case of India someone from every state and caste on it.
The question of taking 2 of every animal species does not rise, what with so many people clamoring to get a seat. Instead genes of every species will be taken along and once optimum living conditions are obtained they’ll all be cloned. This makes the animal activists indignant and they plan to remain behind to share the fate of their fellow earthlings-in the nude.
Come November and most of the small islands are submerged and have completely disappeared. The larger ones like Sri Lanka and Madagascar partially so with their inhabitants fleeing to landlocked countries.
As December 21 approaches….things get more chaotic and the future murkier making it harder for me to predict what happens next. Maybe since it is doomsday and nothing will work according to plan, right after taking off, the spaceships will malfunction and hence all signs of life on earth will disappear. Or maybe…...there will be enough ark spaceships for every one of the 7 billion people on the planet. And even if that does not happen, we’ll start a completely new colony in space like the Jetsons [loved that show!].
Take that world politics! You can’t have wars when you don’t have countries anymore.
But for what really will happen…..we’ll just have to wait and watch won’t we?

By Nirmitee Mehta

{Disclaimer-The writer of this piece has not seen the movie 2012 and does not plan to either. Hence any probable references to the plot of the movie can by accounted for by the simple explanation that the makers had gone into the future and stolen ideas from her brain.}