The comfort zone

It was around August last year when I stood there with a Dubai job offer in hand and resignation email flashing on the screen in front of me. Three and half yrs of association with a large organization has its own way of making you doubt the sanity of your decision to leave it, even though you have always thought you are meant for something more in life. I was restless but also equally calm around the happenings. For me, I did need a bigger, newer learning curve in life.

Sometimes you don't fear uncertainty until you actually stare it in face. I remember a bigger panic than excitement in my initial days around this time, coz life as I knew it, will change. Some things for good, some not so much, but I knew, that's the deal I have now entered. I was ready to change with coming experiences.

25 yrs of growing up in the same home and not living elsewhere dawned me with nightmares of surviving alone in coming times. Smallest of things taken for granted would have to be given up, the rosy picture of a new land does eventually fade away and I started to realize that being away from my city and family could actually be a struggle. There are also, enough people to highlight the negatives around you. Thoughts run around in lightning speed when nervous. Eventually, I like myself for having those little guts to jump into some risky and stupid decisions even if behind it I am shaken.

Life might get you bigger & better things, sometimes, all you have to do is go and ask for it. It doesn't come without a price though, look for your best bargain. Unless, we start breaking ourselves out of self made comfort zone, the secured cocoon we know of, how would we ever progress, how would we ever be anywhere new, how would we ever truly evolve? Go think about, how you can start living differently.

posted from Bloggeroid

Break up

the ship somewhere lost its way.

he knew what was to happen but took the step.

Time; Tide roared in dark laughter that night.

he held on to a dreaded ringing of the phone.

wreck had neither journey; nor destination.

he wished her to cry; shout on the other line.

emotions had their way of confessions.

her indifferent silence; pierced the cold blade.

Love

You know that soft kiss on your pink cheek,

every sunshine morning?  

I want to do it for you.

 

You know that holding your hand when you need it,

Understanding; without speaking a word?

I want to do it for you. Really.

 

You know that me behaving silly just to crack you to laugh,

on your hollow dark night?

I want to keep doing it for you. Always.

 

You know that dream of someone special you wanted,

Looking just at you and smelling your hair?

I want to do that for you. Forever.

Forever.

 

But not now, not any more.

Go away You,

For I have no Love to give,

To you or anyone.

Sexy smell of an old book.

My mom genuinely tried making me read books just like my elder sibling did in the early yrs of growing up. But I guess her approach to get me engaged in it, never really enticed me. I wasn't the calmer nobler self like my sister and so the same tricks wouldn't have worked for me. More so my attitude, who reads books anyways, when you have a whole bunch of friends to have fun with and play sports or videogames in your spare time. Books naively meant school or formal education to me at that age. It still does to many i know.

I think i was 11 when my sister thought of giving another try to having me read books, hers was a better attempt. Something i have been silently thankful till date. I distinctly remember her patience of reading to me than forcing a brat young boy to do it himself. A mocking older sibling convinced my alter ego that listening might not be any harm and i readily bought that. It took not more than a few pages before i took the book from her hand to continue on an adventurous journey that i keep living differently with every new book i have ever picked up. Reading became a matter of choice and i shook my head in wonderment with every turning page.

I have neither been shocked nor appalled by knowing that some of my good friends have never actually read anything worthy in their life. In fact, I have been disappointed by them and their pseudo intelligence. If degrees and money is all have earned in life, I genuinely feel sorry for them living
as uneducated and in poverty. It will be futile blood burning attempt to explain that you missed a great aspect of your irrelevant existance in universe. I can nothing but smile and pity.

“A good book should leave you with many experiences, and slightly exhausted at the end. You live several lives while reading.”  ― William Styron

Second hand and pirated books fit my pocket money of those days and I willingly picked them up devouring them greedily. Once in a while, I have kept losing touch with my hobby but sooner or later i come back to myself as a reader, ready to go on another adventure. Just like that kid after his first book from Blyton. That, five on kirran island again.

The problem with us Indian Men.

Being an Indian man and having interacted with my close friends, uncles and other fellow members of the tribe over my lifetime, though I might not be qualified in my opinion of psychology but I would rather entertain a thought that I have had more than a few conversations and experiences to know us dickheads better than what most presume I might. (Pardon me for the phrase).

The thought to write this has lingered with me over a period of many months especially when I hear my good friends referring to women as sluts just on intuition whereas the same is a sign of masculinity when we meet up to howl together on full moon and also oggle at the other sex. Since we more sophisticated, we do it very mildly. Never the less, only we can do what we want.

Dominating women and giving them a second grade status has been one of the profound disguises of our cultural heritage which we seem to ignore or to be put more aptly, have a blind side to it. Sure, I am not questioning whether we are loving Dads, brothers or husbands but I am questioning the very way in which are brought up thinking we are even if subtly more important than the women in our families. I am not only referring to the eve teasers / rapists the capital of our country seems to produce or the molestors of guwahati who blatantly go about tarnishing the image of our gender in unmendable ways but also our so called degree holding educated class and modern city men too. We have been born and raised with an ecosystem right from our families, societies to our movies portraying our superiority or our more important role in the average Indian daily life. What amazes me that despite all our worldly books, we guys still refuse to have women as equal partners in our relationships or decision making process. Very often I come across smart intelligent friends who loosely refer to women as Used or Second hand because of the fact that her previously unsuccessful relationship has come under the lens for scrutiny, quietly forgetting their own dating history. Virgin bride or girlfriend is still chaste. Women seen having just a coffee with someone are still whispered about in some circles. We ourselves want our girls well behaved and an open discreet license for us. Just because we can't handle confident women, we will demean her.

Most Indian women might spend a lifetime in this patriarchal circle without truly discovering their individualities ever. We might also take pride and establish laurels on success of our marriages over western cultures without analysing the still widespread domestic violence, infidelity, lack of voice of women / support from families and the stigma of the word divorce. A woman standing up for herself without her own family support will be all in vain and will add to the success data of Indian marriages. Let us celebrate our statistics.

We love to control. Not just our generation, it is historical. We have been so afraid of women's sexuality and our inability to understand it that we have made a whole society to distinguish everything into the segments of morality and culture, bending towards the 'inferior' sex. Over the period of our civilisation we have managed to come up with traditions and taboos to reiterate the fact. We might see; learn; understand but snidely cast it aside in the garb of our rich heritage and ancestral gifts probably coming from apes themselves, no but let us not disservice by questioning. We have obtained our professional degrees better than most countries in the world but failed our education and we will refuse to get out of it. Yes, we are proud and intelligent Indian men.

One of the facets why this happens is that we men lack making some of the most important decisions of our lives. I should call us Indian boys rather then men whether we are 20, 25, 30 or 35.
Come what may, we just refuse to grow up and are really afraid to do so. We are feeble, we have always been spoon fed and refuse to do anything on our own. Even if we manage to marry an educated woman with career, we still want her to feed us like our mommies and added perk, be mistresses in our bed. Because of course sex was a gift bestowed upon us on marriage. I still hardly see men who can talk to their fathers face to face and it is certainly not just out of respect. We are an afraid bunch who has refused to grow up, take our decisions and stand by it.

Maybe we are all not so bad, but it is sometimes disturbing to see lack of equality; truly and genuinely. Indirect cheap remarks on women who are different from our instilled moral patterns are nothing but just subtleties of more prominent public attacks by insane orthodox activists. Culture is never static, it's beauty is what each generation shapes and grows it into, not just a modern silent manifestation of an age old hypocrisy.

One way to open up your mind from our generations of stupidities is accepting. Yes, we have a problem.

Short fiction continues

I am glad I continued my endeavour of writing Short fiction in the form of www.75wordstory.blogspot.in

It is equally incredible that a few people joined me along the way and send their stories. We have managed to get most of the writers via the facebook group of Short Fiction over the past few months. What is spectacular is that the how strong some of the short stories can be. Anything which can make your thought linger for more than a second on the fiction written, has succeeded in its attempt to grip the readers.

The original idea was to continue writing myself and keep improving which has taken a hit. I am lazier than I thought. I need to put in more effort myself to come to telling stories. So keep watching that space, you will see more stories from me.

And who knows, someday I might end up doing what every story teller deep down really wants to be doing.
Do it on a bigger platform.

Blogs are good but that love for books is just different.

*smiles*