Back to basics!

What an amazing realization and it came without a bang! It's just another quiet day in December. Nothing special about it. While the usual spate of quizzes, assignments and submissions still hangs on my head, something else also managed to creep into the limited space in my brain, the slow and sure realization that things had drastically changed in the last couple of years without my realizing it, that "I" had almost completely changed without ever consciously registering the change. The discovery was pretty disconcerting initially because it suddenly made me realize that the change had cost me things that used to define me as a person before, be it music, movies, my fetish for all sports and everything sporty and books. To my chagrin, I had lost touch with not one but almost all of them. They had been an integral part of who I was, how I functioned and what I did on a day to day basis. The rigors of everyday life had taken away some of my most prized attributes without my knowledge which is why this realization suddenly hit me and saddened me as I felt that I had lost a couple of years of my life. Yes, I have significantly grown professionally and apparently as a person too but in the process I lost touch with certain aspects of me that I had always loved and suddenly, today the price I paid for the change seemed too high. So I decided to make a pre new year resolution, a decision to go back to what I used to be while retaining all that I have learnt in the past few years. I know it sounds like a tough task but that's what is making it so interesting to me right now - which brings me to a new chain of thought...

What essentially defines a person - is it their perception of themselves or people's perception of them. I think somewhere along the course of one’s life, the line between the two becomes blurry because each individual measures himself/herself by what they see to be others' perception of who they are. These external perceptions become their standards and this is what most of us end up working on and improving. But sometimes in the process, we lose some very precious characteristics and attributes of ours. Though you don't miss them much when you lose them but over a period of time, these missing links create a problem with your identity as without realizing we tend to get rid of parts of us that truly defined who we are and want to be. I know it sounds complicated but I feel it isn't. It’s about being in touch with your true self, at ALL TIMEs, about knowing what truly makes you happy and to always latch onto the things that do, and not bother about the things that don't. Life is complicated; I've realized that now and experienced it in more ways than one. But contrary to giving up on it and feeling bad about it, I have actually realized that it offers far more excitement now that it ever did before. My complicated life and the decisions that it entails on a daily basis have ensured that I discover something new about myself every so often. These insights and light-bulb-going-off-in-my-head days are rare but oh-so-welcome. And hats off to my mom for sighting the fact so soon, all these realizations came only after I followed her advice, took a step back from the mad rush of life that I had pushed myself into after coming to IIMB. It’s funny to watch the crazy crowds running like mad after some goal that half of them don't even understand. Putting life in slow motion has made me realize that there's so much more happening on the sidelines that I forget to look out for as I rush along the others. Now I can see the beautiful small things that I missed earlier, like the thrill of reading an interesting book and staying up all night to finish it, like listening to that amazing song that goes right to your insides and makes you feel as if it can define better than you what you are feeling at that moment of time or that spine tingling nervousness and excitement when you face your opponent on the court or the field. I wish to get back those feelings because they were far more rejuvenating and satisfying than any feeling any of my recent "achievements" have given me and that’s what my December resolution is - go back to the basics!

What's going on?

“It’s amazing how you can see right through my heart!”

There was a time that line used to give me a thrill, a thrill of discovering someday what that feeling felt like, that connection with someone, the satisfaction of knowing someone inside out, the belief that someone can read your mind faster than you can. My friends always said that those notions were fanciful, that all that was unreal and implausible but my heart never really believed it. I always hoped that it would happen to me someday, that I would be able to experience what poets have been talking about for centuries, that I too would someday know the feeling of seeing the whole world in one person. And it would have come true too had it not been for this cruel cruel world. The past 3 years have tried incessantly to teach me the true meaning of life, the way it should be lived, the way it should be looked at and treated and I’m not sure I like what I’m being taught. People all around me talk about the need of the hour, the pressing engagements and obligations of everyday life that just HAVE to be taken care of, the work that always needs to be completed before one can even think of indulging in leisure and the responsibilities that one can never really get rid of.

I’m sitting in a room all alone with the rain falling on the leaves outside, a sound that I haven’t heard in ages. It gives me the kind of peace that no achievement in the last three years has given me. Sometimes these experiences almost make me think that I’m a loner, content with the sights and sounds of nature, at least the sights and sounds that I have in mind – from the smell of the first rain on a parched ground to the pitter patter of rain drops in a puddle to the swishing of trees in the wind or of the rain drops on the roof – I just love the sight and sound of the way the world works!

Sometimes I crave for someone to share it with – anyone who’ll understand where I’m coming from when I go on ranting about the clouds in the sky and the wind blowing in my face or the sun shining down on my back on a cold wintry morning and the lethargy that accompanies the warmth. I miss the ‘good old days’ at home when I saw time as it went past me, not as a blur but as a procession of experiences and events, when everyday had a meaning, a purpose and a new lesson to teach. Now it’s always the same, with one day being an exact replica of the other, doing the same thing every day, learning the same lesson and following the same routine.