Home.

Image Source: https://quotesgram.com/importance-of-family-quotes/

Home? Can four walls encompassing few people be called a home? Is it important in defining us? How important is it in shaping us, making us who we are today?

I have been plagued by these questions for some time now.

My story started in Kolkata, capital of  West Bengal, a state in the north east part of India. West Bengal is not that hard to find. It has a rich history which is easily available on Google. I was born and brought up here. All my firsts, starting from learning to talk, learning to stand, learning to write, learning to understand the world and its people, every first started from here. This place, out of thousand other places became the reason for my existence.

How can a place, a place so small compared to the rest of the world, the rest of the universe become so important? The point of this post is to find an answer to that.

When I started thinking about this question, one recurring answer came to mind, my family. This place does have something that no other places in this world has, my family. It is the family that roots me to this place. My brother says "You never give up on your family." Indeed! What I have learnt is that when everything else ends, it is the family that stays. Family never leaves, never judges, never hate. It became the only static in my life.

I believe everything is built on a foundation. A tree will not survive the storm if it did not have strong, firm roots to hold it still. A building will not survive gravity unless it has those iron rods to give it foundation. A relationship will not mature if it did not have the foundation of love, mutual respect and trust. An artist can never dream and create if he does not have the foundation of his imagination. Foundation.

Family gives foundation. The courage to fight the world, to stand up for yourself, to chase your dreams, to learn to feel, to learn to love, to learn to trust, to learn to laugh, to learn to share pain. The basis for your existence becomes the family, the air to give flight to the wild creature buried deep inside your heart. It becomes the roots for one's tree of life to expand and branch out.

It is the family that makes a building made of bricks, a Home.

In the end, it's me and me alone that matters!

Photo Credit: http://imgur.com/u37f4pC

I am not proud of some of the things I have done in my life. I am a selfish person. I only do what I want to do, I only believe what I want to believe, irrespective of it being wrong or right. I have lost people throughout. Sometimes I have cared, sometimes I did not give a fuck. Why I am writing this post?

Because in spite of being a horrible friend, a horrible sister, a horrible person, I have two people, my brother and my best friend, standing beside me always, through everything good or bad. And that is enough!

It bothered me before, when I thought about how many friends I had in school, how many times a week I used to go out clubbing, shopping or to the malls. It bothered me how from being with so many people I ended up being with just one friend from school, how I ended up being, spending all my time alone, inside the four walls of my room. This room, where I am sitting and writing this post, just a month back made me claustrophobic, suffocated me. Not anymore!

Somewhere between then and now, I realised something. I realised how important it is to take out time for me, to be with just me, to read my favourite book, to watch my favourite movie, to spend an hour working out in the gym in spite of being a lazy ass, to take a stroll on my terrace under a blanket full of stars with the night surrounding me, to spend time sitting on my window sill, smoking a cigarette and talking to me. It's amazing. It's the most beautiful feeling I have felt in a long time. Just me and the world. How this happened? How I felt the extraordinary out of the ordinary?

Well! It happened when I opened myself to the world. It happened when I severed ties with everything that I did not need, the people who does not matter, the world that judges, the ego that grows, the self pity that feeds.

We, humans have this tendency to cover our emptiness with people, we tend to cling to companionships, intimacies, thinking that the key to our happiness lies with the people we are with. It's true to some extent. It's okay to be with people and feel happy, and complete. But that happiness, that sense of completeness does not last forever. That happiness never grows. As there is no growth in emptiness. It's hollow. The state of feeling whole and complete comes from within. Peace is an inner journey, a mission to discover one as an individual in this vast universe.

In the end, it's me and me alone that matters!

"I am not okay!"

I am not okay!

Even after all these years, even after shifting places I am chased by my insecurities and pain.

What I could never understand is how my life became like this, so disarray and jumbled. I was a good student in school, with dreams, big dreams that made me who I was. I was a dreamer, a person who in spite of falling down a thousand times, stood up and fixed it. Now... I just give up. I try, I actually try to stand up. But I guess I am just tired. I am tired of getting up each morning and not being the person I used to be, I am tired of being a coward and not pursue my own happiness, I am tired of dreaming things and not chasing after them, above all I am tired of fighting to make something out of each day.

I read this quote somewhere

 "I have this strange feeling that I'm not myself anymore. It's hard to put into words, but I guess it's like I was fast asleep, and someone came, disassembled me, and hurriedly put me back together again. That sort of feeling."

This quote feels like it was written for me. It hits right at home. Because no matter how much I try I cannot, any more be me. That girl, who was so optimistic, so full of life, so inspirational is lost.

The world took her.

I am plagued by how people time and again used me, how people ruthlessly left me, how I always have been a pain in the ass for my parents, how I have always let them down, how I keep letting myself .
My insides are like a burning furnace, with everything engulfing me.

I have no peace left in me. Anymore.

Dreams

"I believe in my dreams, in their beauty, in their clarity." said him, one of my good friends from college.

We were engaged in a thorough conversations regarding dreams that I was having for the past few weeks, dreams which were futile, awkward and hopeless. I remember at some point in my dreams I was rebuking myself for having them. I was guilty as hell. I really needed to tell someone and so I did. To him.

(The thing is I know the futility of the dreams, I know dreams are comfort drinks in times of trouble, I know they are rays of hope in bleak dark days, but in the end, they are just dreams. Something that originates in the subconscious and ends there. PERIOD.)

Hence when he said what he said, I laughed it off. He further persisted saying

"I know understanding my theory regarding dreams is impossible to you, somehow, they are impossible to me too. But in 50, 60 years when I am dead, you know where I will live? I will live in my dreams. I don't know if there is heaven or hell, but I know there are dreams and in dreams I will dwell."

I was taken aback. There was something, some kind of uncanny beauty, in his words which made me think. I got of the phone and thought, so many thoughts were going through my head. What really pulled me into was the thought of living in your dreams after death. I have often thought about death, I remember there was a time when I had time long discussions with my Bengali teacher regarding death. My idea about death has changed from time to time, sometimes death was a timeless peaceful sleep, sometimes death was the continuation of life somewhere else, sometimes death was freedom. But I never associated death  with dreams. His words knocked me somewhere, to the point that I took out my ipad and sat down to write this post.

What do you think?

Is death a peaceful sleep in your land of dreams?

~Starting Fresh~

How important is “starting fresh”?

“Starting fresh” is the best thing that can happen to you. Why…? Simple…! You grow up in a town among people who soon become our family, friends, best friends, relatives. Relationships are the best thing that can happen to you, so are the memories that you built with them over the years.

After few years, you start feeling constricted, bounded to the family, friends, relatives that you made over the years. You get stuck in the cage of their expectations from us, to your responsibilities towards them. And somewhere in the middle, you forget where you as an individual stand in this world. You forget our identity, you aspirations and start defining or refining yourselves from the point of view of how people want to see you! You want to move forward but you can’t move beyond a point, you remain stuck in the humdrum life of yours, clinging by a thread to your sanity.

Desperation, depression, worthlessness, insanity, self-destruction takes hold of you!
That’s when you need to break free, to escape the human cave and be free. To break free from the bonds of relations, their expectations, their captivity and expand your wings as far as possible to find out that thing, the one unique thing, that makes you “YOU”!

~The Storm~

I ran to the terrace and found her there.

Her music was everywhere, the ceaseless platter of the rain on my terrace floor, the rushing of the winds from all sides.

I felt her rage, her power in her strong winds, blowing around me, making everything tremble and shake in her quake. I felt her agony, her heart-wrenching pleas to be heard, to be understood, much like the chaos deep inside my heart. Her diamond like tears, the tears that until then she had buried inside, were falling effortlessly.

Standing there with her surrounding me, I opened my arms wide and let her purify me, rejuvenate me from everything that was holding me back. In that moment, we were nothing but one. Two broken souls, finally finding and embracing each other!

What Is "happiness"?

“Happiness”

What is it? Is it a feeling or a certain period in our life or a …… what?

All I know is that it does not last forever, it’s fleeting. Almost like a sudden gust of wind on a still silent night, filling you with a warm glow and then in a poof it’s gone.

When I search my past for a particular period when I was happy, I come up with answers I least expect. What I dig out are moments, a couple of seconds or minutes, when I know I have been happy!

Like….

“On one boring day, while coming back from somewhere I was in my car, waiting at the signal. On looking around, I saw few kids playing hide and seek, one of my all-time favorite games. That moment all I wanted was to get out of the car and join them. Yeah, the game was that tempting! J But there was no way I could have just abandoned my car!

I saw one of the kids hide inside a shop. After few lengthy boring minutes of waiting inside and in vain, he decided to come out and see where the seeker is. And the seeker was right outside the shop! I could not have let the kid bring his own demise and get caught, so I kind of frantically waved at him and warned him to stay inside. Understanding my warning, he smiled at me and remained inside.
Then the signal turned green and the car moved forward!”

I don’t remember much of what happened that day except my encounter with that one kid playing hide and seek. That moment, the moment when I frantically waved my hands and asked the kid to remain inside the shop because the seeker was right outside was one of those moments when I truly believe I have felt “happiness”.

Now, if one asks me “What really is happiness!?” I say “Happiness is happiness, a moment of uncontrollable joy! That’s it!”

~Mayo-Corn Sandwich~

This is our legendary Mayo Corn Sandwich. Legendary..Why? There is a loooong story behind it.

Every four years, our school conducts a fest called the “Spectrum”. Each and every student of our school has to participate. We are taken to the fields and given training for six to seven months. After every practice, we are provided with food packets containing pastas, fruits, pizzas, cookies, cakes and this “Mayo-Corn” sandwich. I remember trading my cookies for this sandwich. I love  love loved it! And everyone around me loved it too. It was really hard to find a trading partner. L

The Spectrum was undoubtedly the best part of our school life. There used to be less number of classes and more amount of fun. Reminiscing about it now makes me want to go back to school so damn much.

Well, getting back to this mayo corn sandwich.

For days I have been thinking of making this. Mayo and corn are too of my favorite things in the world. One day, I finally did. The moment I posted a picture of my version of the Mayo-Corn sandwich in Facebook, it became a hit. I decided then and there to give it in my blog. So here it is-

The Recipe-

4-5 tbsp Mayonnaise

½ tsp freshly ground Black Pepper

½ cup Sweet Corn

4 slices of Fresh Brown Bread

1 tbsp Butter or Margarine

The Procedure-
First is preparing the Corn-

Boil the corn until they are golden in color. Heat some butter or margarine on a wok, and fry the boiled corn for five to seven minutes.

Second is to make the Mayo Corn mixture-

Take a medium sized bowl and put about 4 to 5 tablespoon of Mayonnaise on it. Add the ½ teaspoon of freshly ground black pepper and the prepared golden fried corn (step one). Now mix everything together. And keep it aside.

Third is toasting the bread slices-

Heat a tava and place the bread one by one on it. Toast both sides of each slices of bread until they are brown in color.

Fourth is assembling the second and the third step-

Take a toasted slice of bread (step three) and put the mayo-corn mixture (step two) on it and cover it with another slice of toasted bread.

"Mayo Corn Sandwich"

The Mayo Corn Sandwich is ready now! And it is deliciously awesomely yummy!J

In Night's Presence...

Last night was so beautiful that sleep was eluding me! I was lying down on my bed, which was half drowned in moon’s shimmering light, and tried with everything in me to sleep, to mute the loud voices inside my head.  There was something about Night’s presence, that every time I sought her, she surrounded me, she made me feel safe! Her quietness, Her shadows, Her lone silent songs did havoc on my senses.

After hours of trying to sleep and in vain, I got out of my bed and walked towards my window and just stood there, staring into nothingness. I stood there and thought about all the things that was bothering me, the never ending fears, the endless insecurities, the silent cries of my heart.

Then in a snap, just like that I forgot, I forgot that I am being chased by my demons, the past that never seems to let go of me. It was then that I felt her presence, Night’s presence. Her moon shinning brightly in the sky, the black shroud that she has cast over everything surrounding me, the stillness of her beauty and her presence everything. Suddenly, I did not feel alone. I felt accepted, I felt Night hugging me tight and whispering that I am not alone, that Night herself is with me. Right there, in that moment, I felt the voices inside my head subside and I let myself be free!

"Not an Ideal Daughter, Not an Ideal Sister, Not an Ideal Friend"

I am not an ideal daughter, not an ideal sister, not an ideal friend. I am a selfish bitch! PERIOD! I try beyond everything to fix this part of me, but in vain. It’s not that I don’t love my parents or my brother or my friends. I love each one of them, with every part of me!
The thing is that I have been hurt so many times in the past that I don’t have it in me to believe anyone any more again. Every time, every fucking time I dared to trust someone, that person broke my trust, abandoned me, treated me like I did not mean anything. Over the years, I buried all the hurt, the humiliation, the pain. When they over flew, I buried them again. Until the point, I could not do it anymore!

I want to love them, my parents, my brother, my friends. I tell myself “I will be okay! I am having a bad Baaaaad day! I have people who love me, treat me like I matter! I am going to be okay!” For a moment I actually believe I am going to be okay. Then in the next moment, all the ghosts from my past come back. They choke me, they suffocate me, until I feel like a prisoner in my own room.

That’s when I give up. That’s when I know that no matter how many times I try, things will never get back to what they were before. That’s when I start ignoring the people I love. That’s when I throw them away and treat them like they mean nothing to me. That’s when I push them away, far away from me, until they leave me in my place of hell, all alone!