Dear Mr. Heart….

Dear Mr. Heart,

As already specified in our previous correspondence, I would please like to request you to not poke your non existent nose in my matters, however intriguing, satirical, funny, ironical you may find them. They are simply not yours to take charge and meddle with. If you need any information whatsoever regarding how to go about this, I suggest you sit down and have a nice chat over tea and scones with your other, and better half, Mrs.Brain.

Take Mrs. Brain, always logical, cool, calm and collected, the perfect example of how someone, or rather some-organ, should function! She always answers only upon my asking, unlike you, and gives me the most practical and reasonable solutions. You, on the other hand, try to trick me, give me multiple answers, and more often than not, put me in more a puddle than before. Thanks to you, my good sir, I have ended up taking weird and stupid decisions. Take my advice, and stop trying to think. As Artemis Fowl II once said, “The heart is an organ for pumping blood. It can no more think than and apple can tap-dance.” 

I hope, through this letter, I have made it very clear that I share Mr. Fowl’s views and i strongly advice you to mind your own business.

Yours Exasperated-ly,

Mango2

 

P.S.: Do stop trying to influence Mrs.Brain ok?!

  

Born in a Bookshop

As soon as I set foot in a bookshop, a feeling akin to being home engulfs me. What is it about books, music and art that makes our soul want to break free of its solitary confinements and reach for the stars? Is it the soothing feeling, is it the craving to escape the harsh realities or is just  a path to become who you really are?

I have learnt more from books and music than what I could have from human company.  entering different world is a gift that very few people can give themselves. To lose yourself in something is the ultimate religion, your ultimate passion. Reading is mine. If the church is a holy sanctuary for a priest, the library is my temple.

The world isn’t ideal in books, no, it is as far removed from ideal as it can be. Some books can teach you that no matter how big the problem is, there is always a solution. Some songs can teach you that living your life to the fullest is the only way to live. Some painting can teach you what beauty is, and that its okay not to be normal. If anything, art has thought me to fly, to soar, to shout like a bird, eat like a crocodile, smile like a sloth and to look like a mango.

It has thought me to be me, and for that, I offer it the most heartfelt thanks that I can. And I think it’s pretty safe to say that I was born in a bookstore.

Keep on Mangoing! 🙂

Mango2

 

When you start to miss blogging..

Life seems to be travelling at the speed of light, and taking me along with it on a semi-joy ride! I’ve been getting along fairly well, but throughout there has been that one leaking pipe dripping at the back of my head, urging me to do something I know I should but just can’t seem to find time for! Drip, drip, drip. Blog, blog, for the love of all things holy JUST BLOG ALREADY!

Maybe someone missed me here too. But the chances of that are probably buried somewhere underground in the mantel of the Earth. No matter, this is one thing that has been unchecked on my to-do list for a very, very, VERY long time.

Why do you blog? To vent out your feelings? To prove you’re worth something? To experiment with something new? Or just for someone to hear? I blog because of all these reasons, just differently applicable to various posts. I’ve been scanning my life minute by minute to find something interesting enough to write about here, but so far I’ve come up blank. And so it got delayed, and my urge to just put up a sentence for the sake of it stretched to such an extreme that just a night before my business exam, knowing that the probability of my failing the paper tomorrow is as high as the fact that you’re going to use your toilet to pee or poo today, I have managed to find myself sitting in front of the computer and typing on and on. Well that’s one interesting thing, at least 😛

There is something so soothing and comforting about the fact that I am at perfect liberty to write whatever I want to, whenever I want to. No pressure to stay within word limits, no constant nagging to write all the time, no questioning the language used or no unnecessary drama over the supposedly ‘outrageous’ choice of subject. In a world where they claim to spread democracy and love it, I personally feel this is the one place where it is truly exercised. Freedom of liberty, speech and definitely no racism. No wonder I missed being here. I remember those days when I wrote purely for the sake of my entertainment, to those days when I grew more conscious about the Freshly Pressed status and embarked on a crazy (and vain!) journey to achieve it, to where I am now, back to square one. It’s a nice place to be, if I must say so myself!

I suppose I can go on and on, but the glare my mother is directing my way might probably burn a whole right through the screen! So I guess it’s time I go back to my textcumtorturebook, again. *sigh*  

In simple words, I missed you WordPress.

See you soon 🙂

Random1 !

Weekly Writing Challenge: From The Pages Of A Question Mark

She stood there quietly, careful not to lock eyes with anyone but stare at the ground. She stood in the farthest corner, and it almost seemed like there was a little less sunshine there, a piece broken off from Tartarus. She knew she wasn’t going to make it to class in time, but that was hardly significant in the recent light of things.

Up until last week, she had thrived on sharing the spot of center of attention, content to be the loyal sidekick of the ever so intimidating girl whom she looked up to. As long as she walked in her shadows, the world beneath her feet was adorned with flowers..and a beautiful symphony harmonized in the background of her days. She’d come far from being the new, shy and lost girl she was at the start of the semester. Using her perceptive skills, it hadn’t been hard to figure out how the politics in this school worked. You bow down to the ‘superiors’ and get recognition, or be a chameleon and blend in the background. She was tired of the latter, and so opted for the former this time. Life was bliss, and she was content. Oh it didn’t matter if she was sometimes shoved around by her ‘leader’, made to do things that went against her nature, lost the capacity to think for herself and basically became a big Question Mark. She was noticed, and that was all that mattered.

But her idol had deserted her. She had packed her bags and left with her father, not for a moment considering the impact it would have on her disciple’s life. But even bothering with a phone call was too much to expect, wasn’t it? After all, they weren’t friends. They were in a relationship of give and take, where she pledged her loyalties and got a safe haven in return. Or maybe they were friends. It didn’t matter. Now how was she to carve a niche for herself when her own identity was missing. How does a question mark question itself?  

Her knees were just about to buckle, her mind just considering making a run for the exit when a smile fell upon her eclipsed corner of the ground. It was one of her colleagues, another question mark who had sympathised with her in moments when her conscience had tried to breakthrough. She offered her hand, and the glint in her eye showed that it was time to get rid of the question marks that plagues both of them. Well it was about time them, wasn’t it? With squared shoulders and the light hearted feeling of losing that ridiculous punctuation sign she thought was acceptable, she reached for that hand. She knew what she had to do now. She took a step forward.

On Being An Optimist

Work pressure, School pressure, Family pressure, Cooker pressure – I mean, pressure cooker! Modernized life was envisaged as a stress free, push button easy dream come true. But if you ask the common man how he is enjoying his life, your answer would mostly come in the form of an abuse or red mark or extremely dark circle on your face!

With great power, comes great responsibility ,

said Spider Man. Or his uncle. Doesn’t really matter. A little modification to the quote would be an appropriate laugh at our condition today

With great technology, come greater gray streaks

Among all the towers and metal that engulf our surroundings, happiness, values, beauty among others have seem to be flung out of the window. Whether intentionally or otherwise, it still makes us miss experiences that our ancestors had to enjoy.

But there is always a silver lining in a cloud, and if there isn’t – we could always make one! On the ride to school, for instance – how many of us ever notice the tiny, almost insignificant parks trying to add a dash of colour to its bleak surroundings? The ladies walking in traditional clothes with ridiculously contrasting canvas shoes, huffing like baby hippos in a desperate bid to evade that jingling fat. How many of us notice the blatant display of one’s wardrobe in the balconies of those majestic high rise towers, despite the penalty enforced by law? The hilarious running around of someone who’s gadget battery is breathing its last?

We have been hardwired to notice the earthshaking quarrels cause on the procurement of the dreaded bills , but don’t feel the sweetness of the make up later. I know I’m speaking in a sharp contrast to my last post, where in layman terms I called my life a shithole. But I like to think of it as a bad phase, and the fact that I’m standing here now shows that you can too.

Life gives you a million reasons to cry, you give a billion reasons for those million to die. It’s what makes life worth moving on. You could choose to let the fates mess around, or be the author yourself. The world today demands a price for every comfort, but its up to you if you let it manipulate you or control it yourself. Being optimistic is definitely one of those things that’s easier said than done, but if you can see the bright side of things even days or years after they’ve occurred, you’re getting somewhere.

We can only hope to gradually be called the ‘Optimistic’ century. Hopefully not the ‘Desperate to find gold in the dump’ one 😛

– Random 1 🙂

 

P.S ~ A little something to cheer up those drab days!

Identity Crisis

“You’re too young to go for all this now! Wait a few more years…”
“You’re too old for all this childish nonsense, grow up will you?!”

If you’re between the ages of 13-18, you’re no stranger to the above sentences…. To the predecessors, I totally understand, to the successors, all the best for what you’re going to have to endure!

Firstly a sincere apology to my sparse loyal readers, I’ve been dealing with the pangs of adolescence a little too frequently nowadays..

My parents seem to have taken to criticizing every action of mine nowadays, and at times I just don’t get what I’ve done that’s so wrong! Maybe I’m whining, but hey I’m going through stuff here! My parents have deluded themselves into thinking that whatever they do is for my happiness and the betterment of my future, but leaving me in tears each and every time isn’t my idea of joy…

I go left, I’m wrong. I go right, I’m doubly wrong. With all the awkwardness that accompanies this phase, my pillars of strength, ‘supposed’ pillars of strength seem to have the weakest foundations. My studies, friends, love and life are all being trashed and all I can seem to do is stand and watch it raze to the ground.  Accepted, that all I do is not right, but all I do isn’t all that wrong either right? Right.

Social life seems to either be wholly Facebook or nothing at all! There’s nothing I can seem to do to please anyone! Teachers need studious, friends need cool, what about me? If I express I’m too bold, if not I’m too shy. With all the relationships going haywire simultaneously, which one do I focus on?

I seem to have lost myself in all this mess. Always rushing in to please and help others, a desperate bid to stay away from wrongdoings, a struggle to maintain a hold on my academics and loss of my very identity in all of this. And it does not help matters that my parents seem to be the most orthodox and even primitive. Extreme, I know…but true if you knew them! I’m talking about parents who raise their hands to beat to blood in anger at being questioned, resorting to burning if rebuked.

I don’t mean to sound like a typical teen ( though maybe I do! ), I do understand my parents legitimate concern over me.. But what if it crosses the limit of reason? There’s nothing more infuriating then being told off for every step you take and chastised as too young to understand anything.

No privacy, no liberty – A monarchy of sorts…

Are all teenagers leading such lives? 

Enter title here / Title (optional)

In a broad classification ( actually mostly based on my novice observations), bloggers are mostly of two types : Those who effortlessly manage to convey even the simplest of topics in a ‘Freshly Pressed’ way and those who struggle for hours or days to write something in a ‘Freshly Pressed’ way. Sometimes, people manage to create great masterpieces, but just don’t find an appropriate title for it.

If a post is good, you need it to be titled just as good, maybe even better! If you get good titles, it means you have a basis to write on, which obviously makes everything easier! I don’t claim to be a genius on this front by any means, but I could try to offer a little help to make the blogging time of your lives a little simpler!

#1 Don’t Rush – That is the main point of this whole post! Once you hastily decide to baptize your piece with a less than proper title, it could well be wasting the time, hard work, and sometimes even sweat that you put into that beautifully crafted masterpiece!

#2 Ask a Question – When you ask a question those who read it are wired to respond, or at least see what the response is! It automatically creates an interest to see what the blogger’s take is on that particular topic and will hopefully generate comments! 😉

#3 Personalize Titles – While blogging your writing is targeted towards hundreds, and to the fortunate ones probably thousands of readers! If your title is something that appeals to the need of the person, and can be related to it will also pave your way into search engines!

#4 Power Words – Beware. Use of power words could either trigger an eagerness to read the post of skeptical thinking that it is another usual post! Some words can evoke a powerful response in readers, like ‘Free‘ (In a world where prices are skyrocketing, there are hardly a few aliens left who wouldn’t grope at a chance for free stuff), ‘Easy‘ (We all like easy don’t we? Also quick? Or better still, easy AND quick!), ‘Discover’  (Everyone thinks that they’re born to do something great, so why not give them their definite reason?) Stunning, Secrets,  etc….

#5 Humor Titles – Whether your spelling includes a ‘u’ in humor or not, a title that tickles the funny bone ( which is actually a nerve, by the way!) is sure to attract that much wanted attention!

 

Assumingly helpful,

Random1 🙂

On Ants saving Ants.

A couple of weeks back, I came to India. Naturally, it was still a massive breeding ground for every insect imaginable. An due to my inexplicable fear of all creepy-crawlies, I go on attempting murder on every tiny organism I see.

So this other day, I found an awful number of ants in my room. I decided to leave them be as they didn’t start attacking me yet. But then after they started eyeing my granola bars, I got mad. So I went and stamped one. Simply.

And a little while later, I saw a tiny ant, about ten times smaller than the one I stamped, carrying the stamped ant and taking it away. I learned two things that day:

A. That ants are very nice.

B. We should not kill ants.

That sounds expressively lame , maybe expressively so, but the ants that day expressed a sentiment that is practically non-existent in most of the humans today: sympathy.

If a human was there on the road, having just suffered an accident, every single person within a 5 km radius of that area will congregate at the scene of accident and watch. Just watch. Only one in a million will come up and step forward to help. It’s a stone throw away from cannibalism.

Kind of makes you wish you were an ant, doesn’t it?

Sympathetically yours,

-Mango2

 

The Life and Times of A Clustered ‘Vacation’

7 a.m waking up in the morning gotta be fresh gotta go downstairs

Gotta have my bowl gotta have cereal

 

The list goes on and on and after an exhausting couple of months, at long last! –

 

Its Summer Vacation, Vacaation,

We’re gonna have a blast now!

Everybody’s looking forward to free time, and ME time!

 

I know, I’ll make a VERY bad composer, but that’s basically the idea I had in mind when I got away from the hustle of Dubai and was surrounded by the familiar and loving faces of my relatives…Aah, its going to be all pampering and Oh!  look how think you’ve become and basically luxury for the next 2 months I’m here!

This, is the life. 🙂

I was very rudely awakened out of my dream though, when the very next morning I realized that with 11 people cramped together in a 1 bedroom house, how are we supposed to find any peace?! The place basically turns into a war zone every hour or two with somebody arguing about having birthrights to use the loo first, or ready to kill over the last cupcake and GET OUT before I shoot you down for the remote! Missing pants, exchange of ‘personal’ stuff (which is the most embarrassing part!), you begin to wonder if there used to be something known as ‘Peace’ and ‘Quiet’ in this world… Privacy? We were in a serious relationship, then he got ignored and exploited so much that he left me…

But then again, you can’t exactly be overly rude – or else

 

My dream vacation, all literally crushed and pushed down the drain….

But when you come to think of it, these vacations are usually the highlights of the year. I’m not going to get all sentimental now, but at the end of the day when everybody is exhausted from all the tantrums and hair pulling (And I mean that literally), what it all boils down to is the laughter on a silly joke, someone’s leg pulled, the desperate try to give equal shares to everyone and the fact that we find comfort in each others company 🙂

Somewhere in all these years I’ve learnt that in our day to day life, more often then not we don’t have a second to give someone whom we may want to give an eternity. So even if it involves a little noise and petty arguments, I’m going to cherish and miss every moment spent here with all of my family!

It definitely isn’t my idea of a dream vacation, but its much better than anything I could have dreamed up! 🙂

 

A claustrophobic,

~Random1 🙂

P.S – Happy Friendship Day Guys! 🙂

 

Adalia – The noble :)

For those of you who winced away looking at this, felt extremely sorry and were reduced to tears, cursed God for such cruelty, or even just wondered if this was another Facebook hoax…

I’m with you on all these fronts! I did a little more research and unearthed that this poor plighted little girl is named Adalia Rose, and is merely 5 years of age…

She, and quite a few other kids are unfortunate victims of a terrible disease called Progeria. It cannot be detected until the child is 10 – 24 months old where rapid signs of aging start popping up. The poor souls become thin, lose clods of hair and their face elongates abnormally!

If you’re abashed, then brace yourself, ‘cos this isn’t the worst!

Around July 15th, a page was made on Facebook saying ‘Stop the aliens’ and pictures mocking her were put up of this poor little child by insolent ‘people’…

and many more which I don’t have the heart to put up…..

A death rumor was also spread which was fortunately quickly dispelled by Adalia’s mom on her facebook page. It’s truly disheartening to note that people could be so cruel to a child who will probably not even live to see her early 20’s, and instead of reaching out a hand to help, they reach out a hand to shove and mock!

I don’t know how much of a condolence it offers her parents, but if a simple like to her page shows that there are people who care, I wouldn’t hesitate too much, since I’m one of those people whose heart is about as hard as jelly!

 

If you were previously aware about her condition, do spread the word and join in the prayers that she AND everyone else plagues with this disease live a happy and as long a life as they can…. 🙂

 

A thoroughly moved,

Random1 🙂