Sishya

 

When I was a kid I remember reading this famous mahabharatha story on Karna and parasurama. Karna a Kshatriya lies to Parasurama that he is a bhramin to get trained in archery and stuff. Parasurama is very pleased with him. One day when parasurama was like napping in Karna’s lap, a scorpion bites through karna and he doesn’t flinch ( not wanting to disturb his mentor’s beauty sleep ) His hotheaded mentor wakes up due to the blood trickling down on him and instead of being touched by his pupil’s devotion realizes that his disciple can’t be a weak bhramin and must be a strong Kshatriya to withstand such pain. And curses karna. That’s the end of the story. You heard me right. You can read a more proper version of this story here.

Firstly, how flawed and cool is mahabharatha lol love it infinitely more than the boring Ramayana ( Don’t come at me haters)

Secondly, this story is pretty dark, I’m glad I didn’t understand the overtly casteist nature of this story when I was young.

What I am focusing on today and what has been running in my head is the fundamentally toxic guru-sishya bond which is so revered in our country and which is so firmly embedded in our mind that even acts of cutting your thumb (ekalavya I’m looking at you) , withstanding scorpion bites may not be sufficient to gain your ‘guru’s’  appreciation. And you just need to keep trying harder. Anything remotely resembling labour law is seen as a favour done to you. Having no work life balance is glorified. Even the good ones act like they’re performing charity. I remember an  office where my friend worked Monday to Sundays at – they used to say how lucky he was that he was even getting paid. I am not just talking out of personal experience. Sadly, I see workplace exploitation and burnout in all fields including but not limited to medicine,engineering,C.As, architects….basically my whole friend list is one unhappy overworked mess and no one seems to acknowledge that the system is rigged. They just blame the individual as whiny or a ‘millenial’  *sigh*

(359 words)

 

Adulting

 

Cristina yang once told Meredith something on the lines that - just because my life doesn’t look like yours (with a husband and kids) doesn’t mean I haven’t changed or grown. Although I am firmly team Meredith almost at all times, those words ring very true to me now. I am in this transitional period between college and settling down aka ‘adulting’. What are the signs of this dreary process?

1. You’re tired all the time for starters.
2. You enter the real world and it slowly chews you up -with sheer routine.
3. You end up forgetting what your dreams and goals were.
4. Your priorities shift. We just want to be peaceful now.
5. You cringe about the missteps you made in your troubled teen/ cherubic childhood days.
6. You realise you have maybe outgrown this phase and want to ‘settle down’ 

Atleast these hold true in my case mostly. I was trying to maintain the momentum of college and just have fun with my career of being an advocate. But after three years of dealing with other people’s problems, I admit that I tend to ignore mine blatantly and ‘go with the flow’. I realise now that this has made me stop growing emotionally. I am afraid of making mistakes, I don’t even like risks anymore yet I jump between one bad impulsive decision to another. That’s because I push every thought to some deep recess of my mind and it just  comes up when I’m vulnerable and I end up doing things I regret the next second.

Yet people who are around me have no clue about this because I do not give them a clue and then I hold it against them without them having a clue about it still. I have words like ‘strong’ and ‘robot’ being thrown at me and it cuts deep because I seldom feel that way but always wear that mask. I don’t know if everyone else feels like an imposter living their life, I certainly do. I feel deeply unworthy of my life but hey I am atleast trying to face it and move on from this vulnerable state by looking at it straight in the eye.

(368 words)

What once was

  

We are plagued by memories

By what once was

Ours to cherish

But not cherished.

 

To collaborate with &

Not compete against.

To break a for given bond

Without any thought given

Absent mindedly

Like how dusts of disinterest and distance

Began to gather over us

Together.

 

But we are still friends,

Still as dead water.

Of silent tears

Which were (never) cried.

 

She knew

He was so good for her they said. She should be lucky to have him. He was successful in his career , he was caring , he claimed to love her very much , he constantly kept complimenting her. Constantly. He was her caste. He was a true gentleman. He always said the right things. But beneath that seemingly perfect man was an actual asshole waiting to burst out. He however never showed it. But she could feel it in her bones. The way he said things which she wanted to hear. The way his lips curled down sometimes when he was getting bothered but chose not to show. The way he made every decisions hers and basked in the radiance of his magnanimity. The way he loved playing victim. Constantly making her the villain with his actions and not words. The signs were so subtle sometimes she thought she was imagining them. No one would believe her even if she told. Her own mom was smitten by him. But she knew.

 #abusivemen #ministories #theyknow #theyknowthatweknow #mentalhealth #meredithgrey #instastories 

Golden Brown

All the gloss , glitter and glue

Cannot photoshop the sheer phobia

Lurking right beneath her skin

Forming a palpable layer,

They attack her

Only when no one is watching.

She seems so bold

But is actually quite brittle

Her quiet melancholy

Muddled by her extensive cacophony.

She is indeed a prisoner of her own device

Trapped in bravado

She just wants to cry.

Yet when her man is watching

She cannot let him see

If the truth is really exposed

Won’t he just flee?

Better to break it off

And be the bitch

Than take it off

And be his bitch.

Of course it is all very problematic

But who are we to judge?

We all mask our frail insecurities

 marinate them with worry &

deep fry it till it becomes golden brown.

Modern Kindness

What is it to be kind ,

In this mocking (modern) 

Day and age?

To smile at a stranger 

Give them the heeby jeebies 😬

Be a loyal friend 

Who money can’t amend

To trust in humanity 

And better side of this 

Cunning(human) populace?

To just be decent 

With no strings attached .

To be good 

To more than just your blood.

And to do all this

Even when no one is really watching.

(I think I can’t come up with a better picture for this poem. Two of the kindest souls 😚)

Okay my kindness quota for the year is over 😂

Blue Moon

There is something about

Star crossed lovers

Rowing silently

Through the turbulent tides of Eternal love

the glowing full moon

their faux compass

You want them to beat the odds

Cross the sea

To the valley beyond and

Have that happily ever after.

So that one day

When the blue moon smiles

And the stars align

I could cross it with someone too.

You Too

I too didn’t

 wanna  get raped

Stalked hunted preyed on

And

Live in a social structure

Where I could do no wrong.

I too wanted to report him

And make him pay

For all the layers

He stripped off me

And made me a sexual object

Only worthy of being attained

I too want to come out clean

After I burn down this building

Of patriarchy and misogyny

Where his silence is valued more than my voice

And my silence is enough to prove his male noise.

I too

I really do

But will you pay my bills

And help me when I’m on pills?

Why will I ask you for justice

When you shame me for asking too late

Truth is

You don’t want me to voice out

And change this system

Where it works just fine for you

How is my accusation worse than his actions?

Because now you have to do something about it now?

So I’m sorry

If it is going to affect your privileged little life

But I am going to climb to the roof of your building

Take my biggest fricking megaphone

And shout YOU TOO*

*you silent enabler of patriarchy

I hope you can hear now*

Me the living

Me – the living

Writing for myself

Of rivers and sunset

Don’t have to worry about my skill set

Or how the lines don’t mesh

with what people expect.

No likes , no comments , no shares

No feedback to feed my ego back

No more second hand living

It might actually be thrilling

To discover why I really write

All over again

Writing for an audience since tenth grade

Reader is my default

Writing not.

Somewhere along the way

Eyeballs glazed my edge

Was always a cat on the fence

Now filled with trepidation to jump in any direction

I offer platitudes and bromides

In shiny gleaming proses

Posing as something else

Content should always trump form

But then reality always bites on the backside

I can close my eyes and write a poem now

No challenge anymore

I need to push myself outside these boundaries

Do something different

Or something simple

Don’t care about the fancy words I use

Or the number of lines which might bore or please you

I NEED to write for myself and for that

This is the First Step.

My Bookshelf Challenge

So My favorite comic artist Grant Snider From Incidental Comics uploaded this marvellous work recently. The thing about his comic strips are that they are so detailed and the words have as much power as the images. I thought I'll do my annual book update via this structure. So Here goes..

2017 has been a disappointing year reading wise. I read only 13 books of my target 30. I also read out of my comfort zone. Sci Fi , Tamil fantasy , Rural based books and classics are really not my cup of tea and cold the cup remained till I gulped it like a medicine. 

Don't worry I also hate it when they make the movie poster the book cover

The Sci Fi book was Ender's Game. Not bad actually got sucked into the dystopian alien fighting kids fighting monsters schtick in the end. Apparently it is a whole big franchise. Read it if you are into that kinda thing. 

The two tamil books I tried this year were Ponniyin Selvan and Moondram Ulaga Por. 

Must Read

Ponniyin Selvan was every bit the epic it promised to be and I can't wait to read the next books in the series! Kalki is really an artist of mythical proportions. However , since I was reading Tamil after a very long time it took me time to read this book. 

Moodram Ulaga Por was quite honestly Moondram Ulaga Bore. While Tamil flows like poetry to our author Vairamuthu , the subject matter is handled very didactically. But lots of mann vasanai and muyal kari. I can understand why people would relate to this book. However , I didn't think we needed a literal white savior to fix our agrarian scenario. 

I read Gulliver's Travels finally. While it was fascinating at first , some of the adventures like meeting the floating island people and science hating people got boring real fast. Still a fascinating satire which makes us question the nature of Human Civilisation. 

Moving on to the challenge : - 

1) The Book I couldn't put down - Every Jefferey Archer book. Every Damn one. That man knows how to write a story. If I had to pick one , it will be Kane and Abel probably. 

<3

2) The book I couldn't pick up - My law textbooks are heavy af 

3) The book you gave me / which I haven't read - Oops. Quite a lot unfortunately. First on the line will be Jackdaws by Ken Follett gifted by Naveena which I will read ASAP. 

4) The book I brought to the beach - Who does that to books? :O Although when I was a kid I used to sneak Famous Five books into the bathroom so that I can read in between my bath. Yes , I was that kid. 

5) The book I tried so hard to like - More like the book I am trying so hard to like. War of the Worlds by HG Wells. My my I never knew end of the world can be this boring! Another book that I just couldn't sit through was Shame By Taslima Nasreen. How can someone cut paste stuff from wikipedia and call that a book?

6) Book I have multiple copies of - Only Time will Tell By Jefferey Archer. It came out in 2010 right around my birthday and suddenly everyone was gifting me the same thing! This made me lay down a rule that No more Jefferey Archer books as gifts on my b'day ( my brother was assigned to buy me them every year ^_^ somehow every Clifton Chronicle book released around by Birth date :D ) 

7) The Book that saved my life - Well a lot of books have shaped me as a person. Secret Seven Series by Enid Blyton opened the magical pathways to books for me. This saved me from becoming a Tamil Serial addict at the tender age of 8 :P 

8) The Book I lent you - I have a strict no lending policy and catalogue all my books. They are my treasure , how can I risk losing them? 

9) The book I fall asleep to every night - I never re read , there are too many books to be read out there! 

10) The book I mistook for a hat - Blasphemy!

11) The book I am desperately trying to write - History written as fun short stories for kids. 

12) All the books that changed my life - Oh boy. Five Find outers Series by Enid Blyton , Harry Potter Series by JK Rowling , Mahatma Gandhi by Louis Fischer , Perry Mason Series by Erle Stanley Gardner , Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth and Paths of Glory By Jefferey Archer. 

You can also respond to these questions in the comments! Will be fun trust me. 

Abducted

I happened to read about the girl in a box , Colleen Stan recently and her story really shook me. I tried to imagine myself in such a situation and find it impossible to sound optimistic , so honest I'm being. 

Dear whoever who gets this,

I hope you really do get this.

But I am pretty sure he will tear this up.

 Another one of his psychological games.

I don’t really know my name

Not anymore

Like before

Objects don’t need names

That is insane!

But I was a person once before

Used to hate my life

For being so normal.

Perfect parents

Enough income

Boring lifestyle

I wish I could get back to that life

haha

He penetrates me everyday

Tearing parts of me for himself

My flesh fully exposed

My limbs chained to the ground

I am his slave now.

He let me escape once

I think 5 years back?

Could be months too

Hell is always for eternity.

I was out in his front yard

Naked except for my cuffs

Unused to all the sunlight

And freedom of my limbs

My starved body wouldn’t move

Shivering in terror

I was almost thankful

when he came with his stun gun

And told me he always knew I couldn’t do it.

Why am I saying all this to you?

Please take my baby

And raise her well.

I can’t be a mother

From the bowels of hell.

Seven Superstitions

  When I conducted a poll on my blog group for a suitable topic to write on, I was surprised that ‘superstitious beliefs’ emerged as a frontrunner. Of course there was the ever enticing ‘ How to flirt with girls: For men’ giving equal competition to it.Since I believe in Non obvious topics , I choose this one.

The poster girl of superstitions

You can find my How to not flirt with girls -> Here. You can find my ancient post on superstitions  Here. This post is a rehash of sorts of that post.

Before listing out some whacky superstitions let us ponder about the idea itself. Even the most unreligious and logical looking person sometimes hold pretty weird superstitions. The rationale seems to be  ‘why tempt fate?’. People used to the random uncontrollable pulls of life and nature try to bring some semblance of sanity with their own dose of insanity. Fear of the worst case scenario and the guilt which will definitely hit us if we proceed anyways and fail, also serve as pretty strong factors for holding superstitions.

I feel that superstitions or any habit for that matter are alright as long as they don’t impair our already dysfunctional lives. Like Harry duping Ron into believing he had drunk liquid luck , superstitions help us believe that all will be well and even if we failed it was not for want of effort on our part.  

That being said lets proceed with this semi listicle on Some Superstitions which I felt need to be mentioned.

     1)    

  Like the movie ‘chain kulii ki main kulii’ rightly showed, cricket is a fertile ground for superstitions to sprout from in our country. In this movie we have our protagonist who believes in his ‘magic’ bat only to know in the climax that it is he who is special. Cricket is a game of confidence and sledging and batting collapses, a little liquid courage did no one any harm. However, it is a different ball game for poor spectators who can sadly not control the cricketing proceedings. This leads to crazy situations when some people don’t watch the match they love for the sake of their team’s victory or banish others from watching it and sometimes make people stand in the exact positions when lady luck struck.

    2)     

Now imagine the rural scenario of agriculture dictated by the vagaries of nature. How can we be surprised that these people are the most superstitious? If I was a farmer in India I would probably wet the fields with my tears. It is no surprise that they tend to have the most ‘primitive’ superstitions like animal sacrifices and are the most vehement followers of faith and religion. You cannot survive without beliefs in these areas of activity.

   3)   

   That might explain why the most corrupt , cut a share to god in the name of faith. It is their own superstitious belief that they are making a deal with forces above. The tirupati coffers tell their own tales.

   4)      Talking of whacky superstitions , I read this book called ‘ When girls dare’ long back. One memory that stays clearly in my head when a girl really needs her violet color undie to win but it has gone for laundry! So what does she do? Of course wear a red and blue one and win the race :D

   5)     A surgeon's scrub cap

Only one purpose for this pic

    6)      Irksome ones which make no sense at all in this century :-

·         Wash hair at home after cutting hair even if they gave u a hair wash at the parlour ( borders on casteism if u ask me)       

·         Reach the house from the back door after coming back from a funeral. And bathe.

7 7)  

  Reserving the worst one for the last. Untouchability practiced in the name of menstruation in certain houses. Apparently a 3 day vacation for women from housework , it is actually very demeaning . You cannot touch anyone , the clothes and utensils you touch are impure and this practice silently continues to day in many households. While I do know some women who use it well to get out of social situations it is an absolutely disgusting superstition to still follow in the 21^st century. 

    What is the whackiest/ most ridiculous superstition you hold or have heard of?

                                                                                             

Before~

The comfort of the creamy curd rice

Rolling on the floor , watching TV

Using Laika as my squishy pillow

Sleeping through life

And moving in my own jolly pace

Reminiscing about a happier childhood

With the same bunch of friends ,

Dipping Fries on cheese

Unbothered about kilos and hours

Driving on my scooty ,

Wind washing away my starting jitters ,

Sitting with my special friend on the cool mud

Of  my Bessie beach ,

And trying to tell him that

The Big Things in Life are actually Very Small

The montage that passes through your eyes

Before any nerve wracking moment is

A Random rhapsody of your lived moments ,

So live your life friend

Like the waves before us

Rise and crash and touch some lives ~

Mistakes make great stories

Worry only about being true to your self.

He smiled a quiet smile

Placed his hands behind my head

Leaned forward

And shut my mouth in his style

What was I saying again?

13 questions why

Every blogger out there has that one eternal wish – to know that they are not rambling to themselves in this vast internet blog space. Pageviews and likes can only take you so far. It is all about comments and reader’s engagement. If a post elicits someone else to express a counter view it has done its primary job.

So today I am going to initiate and partake in a ‘fun’ activity with all you readers. I am putting up 13 questions and my answers for the same. You guys can choose the ones which appeal to you and answer the same. The answers need not be long – let’s have some fun with this!

       1)      Coffee or tea? 

       The classic way to segregate people. Espresso or earl grey? Filter Kaapi or Chaai? Caffeine fuelled mornings or Tea enabled evenings?  Well my answer is * Drum roll *  Coffee! No surprises there for people who already know me. You can take the girl from kaapi but not kaapi out of the girl ( did I say that saying right? I always mess it up!) But I have recently started obsessing over the milder teas too.

     2)      Cats or Dogs? 

       Another question which divides people across borders. Doggo or grumpy cat? Scooby Doo or Smelly Cat? Puppy or kittie? I am a dog person. I don’t really have a choice in this matter. If I think otherwise, my Laika will disown me :P

       3)      Game of thrones or Breaking Bad? 

       For reasons I cannot fathom , the world seems to pit a historical fantasy against a crime drama. For reasons , I have already stated  -> here I do not get Breaking Bad. The broader tapestry and more twisty turvy Westeros captures my imagination. And my House in GoT : Lannisters. Hear us Roar! I love Cersei Lannister and Jaime Lannister. Not together. As individual characters :P

          4)      TV shows or Movies? That is one Vague ass question. Who comes up with these? ( Ok I do. ) I personally prefer character development over the plot itself and that is why I love TV shows over Movies. 2 hours is too less a time to leave a mark on my soul. That’s my opinion

      5)      Marvel or DC?

That is a toughie since I joined the Superhero Bandwagon only recently. While I did enjoy the Avengers movie a lot , I have stated how I love TV over Movies. Hence my love for Flash , Arrow and Supergirl ( Berlanti universe) supersedes my love for Thor and Captain America.

      6)      Classics or Thrillers? There seem to be two types of readers – those who like their Dickens and those who like their Archers. While I like to read everything , I prefer courtroom dramas and investigative thrillers and modern drama over the more slow paced yet lovely classics. It feels like blasphemy to say this out loud

      7)      Kamal or Rajini?

       

One of the hardest questions of my childhood. While I fell immediately in love with Rajini’s charisma and style , Kamal’s genius and sheer versatility and what he has brought in to Tamil Cinema has made him edge over the former. I still will go FDFS for both their movies.

     8)      Ilayaraja or A R Rahman?

 This question was harder for the previous generation and will be irrelevant for the next one. Ilayaraja takes home the melodies but A.R.R takes everything to the next level. He was the man who gave me music in my growing up years – I stick with my Arima.

    9)      Dhoni or Kohli?

Both the players have made Indians believe we can win. I go with my captain 07 MSD. P.S – CSK IS BACK NEXT YEAR YAY

    10)   Morning or night person? I am a night owl. It gives you tranquility and space to think. No tick tock.

    11)   Poetry or Prose? Right now in this point in my life , I want to flow like poetry rather than end up like prose.

    12)   Saturday or Sunday? Saturdays are overrated. Sundays I vote! Laziness > partying

    13)   Was this Fun or not? I weirdly found this fun. ( Maybe because I created this game :P I guess I’ll know the answer with the corresponding response to the post)

So that’s all my friends! Share your answers in the comments below. Let’s get to know each other!