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!

~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!”