500 Words for Update

Hello,

I have not been able to update my blog since a very long time. To update you and keep an entry for myself, my life has been… just like it was. I started learning French again. I must say I am proud of myself to have done over 20 French exercises!

My YouTube has been slower than ever. The main reason I chose YouTube almost a year ago was because I needed an escape. Life lately has been like pushing a car with flat tire uphill – A lot of hard work and very little regard. But then again it is MY car and I must push it. After trying to be sweet and stuff on my YouTube channel which no one watches, I as now use it as a vent. I will cry about everything that annoys me and everything that is wrong. I’m sure this is a good idea. Once I get all the excuses out of me, I may be more focused on things that will make me better.

The June wedding was absolutely fabulous and I looked pretty. The bride obviously looked pretty. The ceremonies carried on until 4AM in the morning. It rained. A LOT. It’s as if the Gods were too excited for my cousin’s wedding. I hope you guys are equally happy in my wedding. Although I want a beach wedding or a wedding in Haridwar but that’s a story for another day.

Me at the wedding

I still look at the skies and make up all kinds of stories about clouds, sun and everything. I’m not sure how to really put the feeling in words. I feel very small and very big at the same time.

Onto what I’m planning for the rest of the year. I’m preparing for GMAT. I’ve made up my mind to get into a badass school, get a badass job, travel the badass world. That and I’ll maybe make another video and vent out about everything in life.

Wow writing after such a long time is very difficult. I’m rusty! I guess I’ll let it be less that 500 words and maybe writng again tomorrow completing all 500 words.

So, adios amigo!

500 Words for a Wedding

A June wedding. That’s what has been decided so far. She is the happiest she can ever be. After all, Indian girls live for this day. For their new lives to begin with freedom. With love. She remembers her sister’s wedding. It was almost as if she could feel her sister breathing in her.

In less than two months, her parents will give her away in marriage to a groom better than the one of her dreams. She didn’t know so many butterflies lived in her stomach. Were they little caterpillars asleep in their cocoon waiting to come out as beautiful butterflies and take over her stomach on this day? She felt so light. Almost as if if the butterflies fluttered their wings with a little more force she may fly away with them.

Oh! The preparations! She has been to so many different stores but didn’t find a single wedding dress of perfection. Partially because she couldn’t get enough of her fiancée. They are always on phone. Their parents had arranged them to be married. An arrangement that turned to blind love for each other in a matter of a phone call. Yes, they have never met each other. They trusted and respected their parents’ decision to go with the flow.

Modern technology has helped them change the arranged marriage to one of love. Constantly exchanging pictures and messages. Pictures not only of them but also of their house after the wedding. Their home. The groom lives far away from his parents because of his work and his parents didn’t want to leave their home town. She will live with him. It is an exciting match that both of them have similar dream of their home. She thanked the Gods every minute for giving her the man who understood her like no one could till now. Not ever her parents. Some things are better understood by your partner, after all.

The wedding dress was still to be decided but she has begun shopping for her regular clothes for the days after the wedding. A sari? No. It’s very difficult to walk around in a sari all day. Okay maybe one or two saris. She doesn’t want to wear denims in the initial days. She has all her life to wear those. A few salwar kameez. Many, actually. A few sun dress. A few “fun” dresses too for the nights of togetherness.

I am next in line to be married. I can feel her emotions reflecting on me. As a pact from childhood, her sister, she and I had efficiently decided who will be whose Maid of Honor. She was her sister’s, I will be hers and mine will be her sister. We quite haven’t talked about if we will follow the pact or let her enjoy the days with her sister. The last of her before she is a missus to someone. I don’t think I will have any other choice but to step down because I am always busy with my work 100 miles away from her. Although a few hours trip, it’s hard to find that time easily. A June wedding. And then next me. 

500 Words for March

“What if I fall? Oh, but my darling, what if you fly?”

― Erin Hanson

Yes, that quote is not Freud. After a very long time I have sat down to write something from my mind. Write my feelings. Although not many people read my blog, I feel guilty for not carrying a good habit forward.

A lot is going on in my life right now and I think it is time to share it on my blog! Ha ha. No, I didn’t win a lottery or became a star overnight. These are just some little achievements which I am proud of. As mentioned in my earlier blog, I rarely keep up with a new habit. I have a really small attention span and that’s why I end up quitting 90% of the things that I start. However, since this year, particularly March, I feel I have tried to really get my life together.

A friend suggested to me to change my background since a dull beige wall isn’t the best attraction for a YouTube channel that is trying to grow. I did something I have been planning since last 3-4 years. I made a photo collage. Earlier in the day, when we were kids, people had real cameras with camera real and the photos we developed from negatives. One didn’t know if the photo was good and bad and everyone had to wait over a week to get the photos back. I have a giant cardboard box with photos after photos as packed as sardine. Oh the memories. A lot of things changed this March and I’m just glad all are for the better.

1. Mum sold my bed off and she still hasn’t decided on a new bed
2. I made a photo collage wall decoration
3. Another decoration with fairy lights
4. Posted videos on my YouTube channel almost every week
5. Fixed my belly chain which had been broken since October 2013
6. Crossed my monthly view goal on YouTube
7. Got my laptop fixed MYSELF

That is my photo collage wall décor.

For a person who never completes anything, I think I have come a long way by achieving many thing out of which only 2 were on my list. April now feels promising. I have already started to wake up earlier than usual. Haven’t had junk food in a week. I’m trying to shed my belly fat till June because my cousin is getting married in June and I’ll be one of the bridesmaid. I need to restart jogging as well. The next thing on my list for today!

Really, getting off of the couch and DOING things is not as hard which you get in the flow. But getting in the flow gives you the most terrible feelings ever. It’s out of your comfort zone, now that you are working, chances of failing are as much as being successful but the end goal still stands there. Being. Successful.

I think I am getting a hold of the whole adulthood phase and boy is it a roller-coaster! And there is one more thing that is keeping me going forward. I don’t feel the “quarter life crisis” as frequently as I used to. I’m 22 and I’m finally catching up to what I should by as a 22 year old woman.

“It's surprising how so many people forget that once you've hit rock bottom, the only way is up”

P.S. I have many motivational quotes, comment blow and I may choose the best 50 to post here. They really help.

500 Words for Quitting

I have an interesting life. I just see it from a boring perspective.

--Arunima Sangwan

With that quote I have managed to successfully describe everyone’s life ever. Especially my own.

This is my 10^th try since the morning to write something… anything.  I had a start for each topic but I could never conclude any of the blogs. Why do people say the first step is always the hardest? I have finally decided on a topic and I was amazed how many things I did try. This is not boring. Boring doesn’t make you nostalgic.

Most of the people I’ve met in my life have not been afraid of starting anything new. They just weren’t sure how to take the second, third or fifth step. What I’m trying to say is beginning isn’t always the worst; it is continuing doing it that scares people. Today I’m just going to list the things I started but never continued:

1.Jogging 

(Started: March 31^st, 2015; Ended: Sometime in September)

The biggest regret I have is not continuing this habit. I got pretty good with it by my standards. When I started I couldn’t run for more than 10 seconds. Yes! 10 seconds! Had a thief snatched my bag back then and I had to run behind him, I’d be thinking of the color of my next bag.

I had to stop because my jog trail isn’t cemented and it used to rain… a lot. I used to run 4km/2.5mi without stopping.

2. Daily Vlogs 

(Started: January 1^st, 2016; Ended: January 8^th, 2016)

Eight days! Just. Eight. Days. I uploaded the videos on my YouTube channel which, by the way, you can visit by clicking here. I still make videos on that channel but the vlogs are now private. I really liked the first 4 days of vlogs I had uploaded but I was so ashamed of not being able to continue it, I made them private.

3. Daily Journal 

(Started: A thousand times throughout my life; Ended: A thousand times throughout my life)

My mother writes in her journal fairly regularly. She’s had this habit for the last 20+ years. I’ve always been inspired by her and wanted to write about my life and people around me. I still want to write a real journal and not just write on the last pages of my notebooks.

4. Playing Guitar 

(Started: January 18^th, 2013; Ended: August 15^th, 2013)

This is one of the longest standing habits I had. My best friend bought a guitar so that we could learn together. We played guitar on an Independence Day function in the college. I played guitar every day between Jan 18 and Aug 15. I did pick up my guitar a couple of times after that but I had gotten so bad I just couldn’t inflict the pain of hearing me play on my family. I wish to play again someday.

5.Learn Urdu/French/Spanish/Italian/Marathi

(Started: Don’t even ask; Ended: More times than I started)

I love languages! You learn a lot about world when you learn languages. Especially the similarities of words in different languages. Someday, I will start this journey of learning another language again and not quit.

The worst part about writing is you are full of ideas when you are away from anything you can scribble on but as soon as you pick up a notebook, everything seems to mix up. It’s like all the colors spiraling into just one big white.

500 Words for a Sunset

Nothing makes one feel insignificant quite like the sky does. Have you ever rode a bike down the road in the middle of the night and all you can really concentrate on is the sky full of shining stars? Or returning home in your car from a holiday and you see rain clouds behind you? It feels like a race against nature, doesn’t it?

The ego, pride, all the achievements look meaningless when you look up towards the sky changing colors from blue to red to purple in the evening. As the feeling of satisfaction rushes down my nerves, I mentally fist pump that I lived another day. I made something out of it. I look up to the sky as I stroll in the park. All the happy noises of the kids playing in the park, guffaws of the laughter therapy group, the rhythmic thumps of a jogger passing me, the music coming out of my earphone just mutes down to zero.

Earth is the only habitable place for millions of miles in any direction you go. And I’m standing here on earth. A tiny little human enjoying the colorful dance of the evening as sun behaves like a reluctant child not wanting to go home after the soccer match but has to. I almost feel like the other friend left in the park because sun had to go home early. I don’t want to go home yet! I want to play with you for a little while more! Please stay. But just like a small child I’m quickly distracted by everything the sky has to offer me.

I am spellbound by the sheer beauty of the chaos in the sky. The clouds, the birds returning to their nests after a long day of labor to their little ones, the small insects taking their place and roaming freely in the darkened sky, that one cloud who really wants to let go of everything and dance as he rains happy tears for no reason whatsoever. I want to follow this sunset. I want to see it from every beautiful place man has created to relish thousands of sunsets passed and million more to come.

I am almost jealous of our ancestors who had a greener, earthy view of life as we know it but I quickly shove the feeling away to take in every bit of the sunset with everything I have. Is every sunset as beautiful as this one? Yes. It doesn’t matter where you are, who you are, nature doesn’t discriminate against anyone. Whether you’re in a desert, a skyscraper, on the banks of a river, in a slum, in your office, at home. Every sunset is just as beautiful and gives you just as much satisfaction.

I have never thanked God for not killing me in my sleep. That is the best death possible but that’s a story for another day. I just thank God for letting me live through another day to see another sunset. I can list all the places in the world I want to see just to see the sunsets but right now I have to rush home to sleep peacefully and start a new day.

500 Emotions and Questions

If you came here to find something funny or interesting, this is just a blog full of forever unanswered questions. Hit the X

I am 22 right now. An age to finally find complete freedom. Freedom from being thought of as a child. Freedom of being who you are, of following your aspirations, of reaching for the stars. But what if when you are just about to pluck the star from the sky, you’re told that’s your limit? What if you know you are capable of plucking each star from the sky and rearrange them in beautiful intricate patterns that make more sense to you? What if the very ones you trusted to hold the ladder still are the ones cutting it short so that you fit comfortably into their perspective of you?

Many a times you find yourself in a position where all you can do is try to stop your dream land from caving in is to try to push everything back to the exact place you made for it. This, ironically, is what makes the sorrow of not attaining the just-within-reach dream worse than it would be otherwise.

As an Indian girl belonging to a “proper” Indian household, the clock is ticking for me. No I’m not a fetus and no one will kill me right when I’m born. But everyone I know these days looks at me funny. Everyone has started to “examine” me like I’m a lab rat so as to put me in the best suited cage for me. The cage being an arranged marriage. A marriage built on very fragile egos of parents of the groom and bride where the bride must bear the burden of keeping the family image up and good for everyone. But what if I have no intention of being the proper-ty wife of someone? What if I have no intention of giving up my surname? What if I don’t want to give up my job because I must move to the land unknown where my husband wishes to stay? What if I want to be an equal just the way a marriage is supposed to be?

And how is one supposed to just meet a person 4-5 times (A LOT based on my cultural background) and decide if he’s the one for me? With one of my cousins getting married recently and other one on the verge of, I have come to know of some traditions and values which are frankly quite shocking to me. One of these is, the girl’s parents must be the one to contact the boy’s parents because they are the ones in need. Another one that makes it to the top of my list is that the girl’s family must bear the cost of transportation for all the guests on the boy’s side. WHAT?! Am I really a burden? At the age of 22, am I really a sore to my parent’s eyes that they must be the ones “pleading” to the guy’s family?

Okay let all this be damned, I also got to know me meeting the potential groom would be sort of an interview and I will only be an interviewee. I am just supposed to answer any of his queries? How am I supposed to fall in love with a guy and lay in his bed on the first night without even clearing out my doubts? How am I supposed to make that guy fall in love with the real me when I’ll be sitting there pretending to be a shy, introvert person who is okay with being the second priority to everyone when in reality I am the alpha bitch? Strong, independent, in love with self, isn’t afraid to question norms. And why am I expected to not be the real me for the rest of 40-50 years because doing that would mean being of no “use” to my husband and stay quiet in fear of being… left?

All I want to do is pluck that one star and not forget my real name because I’ll be a missus of a stranger.

500 Feelings for Rain

Rain has always had a special place in my life. Everything about rain has always made me happy. It is raining outside right now and I feel so incomplete knowing I can't go out and dance in the rain. Living on the third floor has its cons. That, plus the fact I've had an on-again-off-again relationship with cold since the past 3 months.

I am talking to a really good friend right now and a few minutes back it was about rain. We are REALLY good friends but somehow we never let our guards down in front of each other. Guess, rain can make everyone weak in the knees. This is an excerpt from that conversation...

"It's raining"

"Yeah"

"You love rain, don't you?"

"Yes... but how do you know?"

"You're my friend, after all and after so many

years of friendship, I'm a bad friend if I don't

know when you're low and just need to vent

out"

"*sigh* but rains make me happy.This time

it's making me feel sad…”

“So what about rain do you like?”

“I love everything about it. What’s your

question?”

“Just try to list things you like when it rains”

“Okay… I love dancing in the rain. Even in

this thunder. Your turn.”

“Haha okay. But you can hear it too? I mean,

we are 5km away. This must be one hell of a

rain. I love soaking in the rain too”

“That’s not the same thing! Anyway, I like

driving in rain too”

“Scooter or Car?”

“Scooter. I don’t even know how to drive a

car. Why do you think I make you drive me

around all the time, Mr. Chauffeur?”

“LOL. I love long drives. Drive far and away

from everything world has to give us. Driving

towards a peaceful nothingness.”

“I like sitting down taking in the rain and look

at nature quench its thirst”

“I like looking at the birds happily hopping

towards the rain water dripping from the

corners of the roof and come back towards their

nest and do that jiggle to get the water out”

“I like sitting at a roadside dhaba sipping on hot

masala Chai and enjoy pakodas and look at the

slowed down traffic on the highway. I love

walking in the rain.”

“God, I love that too! Now I really want some

chai-pakoda”

“I guess I should go to sleep. Night”

“Yeah me too. Good night.”

I didn’t go to sleep. I’m sitting here recounting this little conversation. I was sad before he pinged me. I have had a lot of things on my mind lately… oh wait *ding* I just got another text.

“I love walking in the rain too.”

500 Words of Beginning

After numerous tries of writing and failing, this is yet another try to be a writer someday. Well, technically, I am a writer still. After all, I am writing this. So let’s look back and see why I stopped writing back then:

I HAVE A BORING LIFE. NOTHING EVER HAPPENS TO ME.

While this is partially true because there’s just one routine I follow every day, five days a week, every single week. Yep, I go to work. Before you start making conclusions: I LOVE MY WORK. It’s challenging and I get to learn a lot but the damned NDA keeps me from talking anything related to it.

Then...

How must one find an afflatus like this?

The answer is… I don’t know it yet. I will share it with you when I find it.

Why did I start another blog, you ask? Well, I’m trying this new hobby training app and one of the programs I signed up for (which was free, of course) is #500WED

500 Words Every Day

I have coined a new term today. It is basically an emotional imbalance in a person and you’ll be amazed by how many people actually suffer from this. I’m sure there must be a real term for this, but until I find it, it’s Singlitis.

NOTE: after having written this post and on the stage of editing, I Google the term and it turns out, it already is an existent slang! Sigh, so much for creativity.

Singlitis

Definition: The feeling of loneliness one gets when one has been single for a long time.

Usage: You know it’s Singlitis when you talk about relationships all day

Generally observed: In girl after they’ve been single for almost a year and see everyone around them in love.

Symptoms: 

• Sufferer sighs a lot. 
• Talks to a lot of people thinking it may turn into something better. 
• Cellular gadget becomes more important than friends. 
• Higher attention to physique of oneself and the potential partner.

Diagnosis: But DO NOT diagnose yourself as suffering from Singlitis. Only a practiced, experienced single person with a wisdom of more than 3 years can tell you when you TRULY are suffering from it. Any such professional single person is a Certified Singlism Practitioner... like me.

Cure: Keep calm. It’ll go away. I promise. J

Over 460 words. I guess it is a good start. Let me know what you think about this article in the comments. This is a beginning of a new era. And who knows, you may someday find your name in “Acknowledgement” pages in my best seller.

Stay tuned! I have a nice story for tomorrow. Till then, ciao!