He makes me feel I’m important, highly talented, brilliant, and of course, THE exception. He makes me feel I’m on top of the world and he’s right beside me. He makes me feel I can do things and I can do them well. He makes me feel confident about myself. He makes me feel I AM MYSELF.
And I love the way he makes me feel this way. More importantly, I love the way he makes me fall in love with myself!!
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
On Independence Day
We had a "Value Education" class during our school days up to the Eighth grade. We had to maintain a 100 pages notebook, all decorated and filled with preachy text. Come August, and "Independence Day" for a synecdoche on Patriotism, would be a usual topic to fill in with more preachy text and a couple of tricolour stamp-size flags and pictures showing a fluttering piece of cloth attached to a long wooden cane clutched in the hands of a Too-Cute-To-Be-True kid. And I wondered why they never thought that making cartoon characters like Mickey mouse clutch the tricolour in their hands, instead of pink-cheeked, frock or half-pant clad kiddos might actually help rise the sales of such stickers.
Independence Day, thus, for me, meant a combination of the above, a national holiday, singing and hearing loudspeakers and TV programmes playing patriotic songs throughout the day and watching the common tricolour pinned on most chests.
It was a day when everyone seemed to have oiled their patriotic lamps and fought the War of Independence along with Lal Bahadur Shastri and Lokmanya Tilak. It was a day when you could finally use that full-white ensemble and a saffron duppata and be appreciated for it. It was also a day I could show off my marching skills. And lastly, a day that reminded me of the current presence of the month of August, and the upcoming Raksha Bandhan.
Although I loved patriotic songs, especially the "Ae mere pyaare watan" single by Mannade, the National Anthem tune and the white ensembles; the parades and the march-pasts, the lamp burning below the India Gate, the national holiday and the chocolates distributed on account of it, I could hardly be considered "Patriotic".
For me, Indians usually got "Patriotism" confused with "Religious Fanaticism" and "Race". I preferred tagging myself as a "World Citizen".
But hey! Independence Day also meant something deeper to my Artistic, Philosophical and Poetic side. Though not patriotism, I considered Independence Day to be a celebration of one's own Independence. Independence on an individual scale. Independence, as what it actually meant to ME, and to YOU.
Independence, for me, meant Breaking free of all bonds, leaving one phase and entering the other phase of life; Being self-sufficient, content and the Master of your own decisions and dreams.
And I'm quite sure, India as a whole would also have thought of Independence as more or less, the same, on the eve of the midnight of 1947.
You see, I can also read History textbooks and remember important dates.
So here's wishing you, one and all, a Happy Independence Day. Just remember, If you were moved enough by this article, Independence on an individual basis is what actually the Independence of the entire nation thrives on.
An Ode to the Endless Wetness
The splashing of mighty waves on the rocks, the salty fragrance and dampness sprayed out in the air. The roaring winds, the howling waters, the transferred epithets.
The sight of the mighty and gigantic sea is in itself highly liberating. Though it leaves one's hair and face all sticky and salty, having a little chat with a close friend and enjoying a generously spiced up corn has its own definition of fun and rejuvenation.
An ode to the lovely and soapy waters that actually clear off huge amounts of foam from our minds. It's as if the sea collects the foam from hundreds and thousands of worried and tired minds in itself.
An ode to the refreshing and highly palpable power of the gigantic stretch of wavy pleasure which in fury, might change into wavy "terror".
An ode to the similarity the sea holds with me, and quite many other lonely and subdued beings forced into living, forced into mortality.
Three cheers for the non-living and yet life-providing endless stretch of serenity in which even the sun revels drowning!!
The sight of the mighty and gigantic sea is in itself highly liberating. Though it leaves one's hair and face all sticky and salty, having a little chat with a close friend and enjoying a generously spiced up corn has its own definition of fun and rejuvenation.
An ode to the lovely and soapy waters that actually clear off huge amounts of foam from our minds. It's as if the sea collects the foam from hundreds and thousands of worried and tired minds in itself.
An ode to the refreshing and highly palpable power of the gigantic stretch of wavy pleasure which in fury, might change into wavy "terror".
An ode to the similarity the sea holds with me, and quite many other lonely and subdued beings forced into living, forced into mortality.
Three cheers for the non-living and yet life-providing endless stretch of serenity in which even the sun revels drowning!!