Plastic Bag!

The ban on plastic bags. I now proudly say that Rajasthan is a plastic free state, and when I say this, I myself can't believe that it is being followed, but it's true. Before August 1 this year, everyone was wondering if this time too, the ban would be like other attempts of the government, just in the papers. I wondered too. But it was a pleasure to start noticing changes in small towns like Pilani itself. The places where plastic bags seemed like an absolute necessity, have also found newer methods. To cite an example: groceries. I went to the grocery section of a departmental store and saw that they had done away with all the separate plastic bags for each variety of vegetable. Now they had baskets which had to be used up to billing and then the customers had to oblige by taking their new belongings in their own shopping bags. Winds of Change.

Pilani

Pilani has it all, all it takes to make me fall in love all over again. In love with the tree lined streets, the shining clock tower on a vibrant backdrop of rain filled clouds and the aura with which the place welcomed me.
The serene breeze in the ground rustles across my face and asks me, what is it that I am missing?
I see 360 around and see dark clouds covering the sky without a patch that would let me see the stars beyond. Occasional spells of thunder and a serene breeze rustling across my face. After a while, the clouds disperse a little, letting us peep into the amazing world beyond.
I could teach the little girl Laali how to connect the dots in the sky and make a spoon, but what she could teach me was how to tilt the spoon and make an S. Imagination.
Warmth, I found unlimited when I visited Meera Bhavan's didis n mess wala bhaiyas. They said, 'Behanji, hame yaad hai, mithai khilai thi aapne jab naukri lagi thi, ab dobara bhi khilana jab shadi ho tab' and dazzling smiles packaged along with such innocent comments. No questions, just happiness lurking on their faces with the satisfaction of recognition from a previous dweller.
The one question that I was asked a dozen times was, 'aap yaha kaise? aapka toh course khatam ho gaya tha na'. My unruffled smile tries to explain, my time will never be enough. This place belongs to me, I belong here...

dreams

Dreams are a manifestation of one’s worst fears. When you dream something and try to churn it, you realise that it holds true as a symbol wherein your mind tries to make you decipher the roots of your fears. You may not even realise that you care for that particular event unless you dream of it, because when you dream of it, you find your subconscious trapped in the exact situation that you are unintentionally afraid of. Not many times are dreams very explicit, but when they are, they will show you a movie, a movie of what actually goes on at the back of your mind while you are lost in day to day worldly matters. When you are awake, your mind is at work and there is another portion of your brain, referred to as the subconscious, which is inactive. It stores your inner thoughts. Your mind carefully choses the thoughts that might be harmful to you and cautiously sends them to the background. This is called regression. It is only when you are asleep that this subconscious comes to action and unleashes your worst fears. So the next time you dream, try thinking about why you dreamt your dream.

edit

peeping into others personal lives is what a lot of people did this oasis. the spice of it all lies in the fun of doing it and then thinking that you got away with it when it had been so obvious that it was you who did it. do not misunderstand me, i am not talking about gossiping. that would be an understatement. i am talking about the ecstatic feeling you get when you try to dig into a 'friend's friend's' personal life through the newly popularized technologies or through the primitive ways of eavesdropping. well, be it social media or something else, peeping n trying to make things right in others' lives has not been the best of the things that a person should be worried about. let them be on their own.

garba

"You know why I like garba so much? That's because it makes me feel that there is nothing more important in this world except getting engrosed in the moment. The feeling of getting lost in the crowd and just tapping your feet to the awesome beats of the youthful songs... It is very different from any other dance in a lot of ways. Individuality is not maintained and that is what I like the most. When you dance garba you dance like any other dancer not worrying about how you dance or that someone might be watching. Only then does the actual meaning of dance comes to the forefront. It is meant to shatter all your worries and let you meditate in the moment. In garba, you keep doing the same step with everybody for hours and still it feels fresh. The act of synchronising your actions with everyone makes it happen. That precisely is what makes it my favourite form of dance."

against the flow

[I wrote this excerpt while interning in Mumbai. Everyday I used to travel from Churchgate to Lower Parel while the Mumbai crowd in general travels to Churchgate.]

I like to walk against the flow... always

I can see the expressionless bodies walk down the street heading to the same place they go everyday, when I am walking up. These faces tell me that if given a chance they would head back to where they were coming from... the luxury and comfort of their home.
The unprecedented advantage is that I can see everyone and everyone can see me... everyone sees me.
The road I walk upon, is the one less trodden, so I can pick on lonely fragrant flowers as I walk along. Flowers that have missed the eyes of so many because they were in a hurry to walk down the street the other way.
And if I keep walking along, I get to behold ignored destinations. And when I decide to enter one of these, I realize I have discovered a whole new world of thoughts and actions, a whole new arena of ideas and opportunities and a whole new empire inviting me to place a foot in and explore the untouched. And this is when I unravel that I was made to tread the 'wrong' path...I was meant to walk against the flow...

I pity so many people, in fact, I pity everyone entangled in the matrix. When you get married you give your best to keep up the relationship, but have you ever thought how much of your wishes and desires you are curbing to do it?? Don't you think twice before saying that tonight's dinner, I want to take with my friends and scrap off the plan I made with you... The same thing happens when you think you have fallen in love. Everything you do is to please your close one. You are so sure that it is him or her that you have to spend your entire life with and so you do your best to keep up the relationship in full spirits.
It is, after all, the matrix we are all strangled into. Expectations are the root cause of everything. I see my parents, they are a happy couple, but mom is always planning on how to keep the family emotionally satisfied and papa, always planning on how to keep the family financially satisfied. My dad always says that to keep up the marriage, if one of the couple loses temper the other must stay calm and handle the situation.
Everything seems so fake sometimes. It's like God set up everything and everyone is trying to idealize their own lives. But is this what is happiness?
It is the human mind that is continuously at work. The subconscious always tries to take you to the levels where you have wanted to go. It will tell you to perform actions that will give you a place in this world. It will make you express thoughts unintentionally which you know you must to make your relationship healthy.
But then there will be a time when everything around you will seem so fake. Everything that you have been doing till now will seem so obsolete, and that will be the time when your subconscious will actually become conscious and will guide you to the actual actions your self always wanted to perform. This is the stage when nothing around you will matter. No social stigmas would hold you back neither will you care about what people would say. That will be the time when you start feeling liberated, unlike the people who have actually not experienced it and are still deeply caught into human whirlpools.

[I owe credit of this post to a person who has changed my life by leaps]

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