Deeds and Destruction

That car in my parking is a dream that came true. A beautiful dream I dreamt as a teen- one day I would be a proud owner of that fancy car- Volkswagon Jetta. I struggled for it, I sweated it out. Worked two shifts at the hospital, ran a private clinic and never let my efficiency meter fall below a 100%. I love automobiles (just about anything on wheels for that matter) and when I lay eyes on that German beauty, I knew I wanted it. After 20 years of back-breaking dedication, it stands in my parking- a gleaming token of achievement.

Being a doctor, it is extremely important to maintain a social life, one that is mercifully devoid of lab-coats and needles. It was in one such social gathering that I met her, the person who was going to be my best friend from that very instant. The food was beyond excellent and the gathering was august. It started over a dinner-table debate, I vividly recall us having starkly opposite views on Stem Cell Research. We threw statistics and data in each others face all night, neither one showing signs of withdrawal. Every argument invited a counter-argument, every pro had a con. But as Fate was to have it, we were a match on that weird and unexplainable level.

That was a decade ago. Today, our hair is white and our teeth are perching precariously. But we're still the crazy doctors, still quarrelling over latest medical procedures and developments.

She punctured her car tyres today, drove them over shards of broken glass. She knocked on my door with that sheepish grin that always warned me of trouble. Well of course, she wanted my car!

I handed the keys over, literally placing the the love of my life in her surgical hands. I trusted her with it no doubt, but that car was very insignia of my life.

I walked out with her as she reversed my car and eased it out into the salty Californian air. It was one of those uplifting end-of-winter days; the sun bright and warm, the wind just about perfect and the last sheets of snow melting away. I couldn't help but smile wide and breathe deep. My house was on a cliff which provided me with the most breathtaking view of the Pacific Coast. I got lost in the ebb and flow, the foamy lather of the water as it lapped up the shore, the happy kids in bright swim-wear, the surfers and the divers...I had forgotten all about my friend and my car.

That's when I heard it. The sickening sound of tyres skidding over snow. Then a scream, a sound definitely that of my friend. The car had gone off-balance! It happened in a mili-second, my car ran right through the barricade and plummeted straight downhill. I watched it hurtling through space, my car and my best friend going down. And what lay at the foot? The Pacific.

Simple math. Chances of survival: Nil.

I could not take it. I knew I had to scream, but dear superior laryngeal nerve refused to depolarize my laryngeal muscles. I watched in slow motion as 20 years of my success and 10 years of my love fell into the shackles of destruction and death.

I shut my eyes in denial.

What I saw when I opened my eyes changed my life forever.

My car landed on flat ground with not more than some disfiguring indentation and shattered mirrors. My friend was knocked out cold and bruised, but alive.

It was a miracle, I knew in my heart it was a cheat-code from death itself. What else could have possibly pulled them out from the very clutches of destruction?

A wave of relief flooded me, almost in sync with the Pacific waters. I had never felt an emotion as strong as this. I was breathing faster and I was beyond myself with joy. I was only a second away from having it all taken away from me...and one second later, I knew it was all fine, the storm had passed. A dent here and a bruise there could be fixed...but no permanent damage had been done.

I had witnessed a miracle.

Now here's a little exercise:

Take that story and apply it to your life. The Jetta would be a good deed you have nurtured over a very long period of time.

That friend was a situation that compelled you to give up on that very deed.

The fall was God's fury in you.

But what made the car stop? If it was a punishment, why didn't it go through and through? What cushioned the blow?

Istighfaar.

In life, you mess up, you mess up real bad. Your car falls into a valley and all logic tells you its the last you will ever see of that beauty. A deed you were watering everyday begins to wither with time and you resign into hopelessness.

But then that 'fitrah' (conscience) in you that still holds good its covenant with God will scream in your head.

Acknowledge that you have been wrong, accept that you have royally screwed up and sinned, and THEN beg to be forgiven. Istighfaar.

In the moment you grasp the gravity of your sin and grovel for mercy in helplessness, God will look upon you with the highest level of affection: Rahem.

You are just an Istighfaar away from boundless Mercy. Do it now, save that car.

My Leibster!

I have been nominated for posts, I have made it to the final stages of competitions, I have won and I have lost. But this is a whole new experience- Blog Awards!

This is the Leibster blog award- for those with relatively obscure blogs having less then 200 followers. So what's the point here? The point is that recognition is the best form of motivation. This time, I got recognized by my dear dear dearest friend, who very graciously nominated me for the award!
Being nominated comes with some duties, some blog etiquette. The nominee is required to nominate 10 other bloggers who fit the bill, answer 10 general questions and pose another 10 for the nominees. None of this is a compulsion, it is fully voluntary.
Let's get started.

Sheema Ali of the mythoughtsreloaded fame. I love your blog to bits Shim. I love how it documents the nitty-gritty details about your life; some good, some bad and some ugly. We started blogging for very similar reasons, mostly motivated by the instinct to write. Today, I'm so super proud of you. Ye le tera award :P

Then there is my laddoo woman, Shonazee Aziz Somani. Borrowing Robert Frost's wise words, this girl talks about dreams, hopes and faith. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you: Life Goes On...
This girl writes effortlessly with precision that goes straight to the heart. Sense, Sensibility, Simplicity.
Le tereko bhi diya award :*

Sakshi Singh, of the beautifully titled blog: Rooh..
I love the use of photography in your posts, it adds so much 'rooh' to your writing! I don't quite know how you stumbled onto my blog, but I acknowledge you as one of my favourite followers. Being an active blogger needs time and energy, which leaves me in awe each time I see a new posts from you (which happens quite too often!)
My Leibster to you Sakshi, for such a diversified and genuine blog.

This is the problem with being such a selective blogger; I have only 3 nominees, when the requirement states 10. Can't help :P
Moving on to the fun part: the questionnaire!


1- Describe yourself in one word.
Sincere

2- Your favourite quote.
Fa inna ma'Al 'usri yusra (For indeed, with hardship will be ease)
Inna ma'Al 'usri yusra (Indeed, with hardship will be ease)
-Quran [94: 5,6]

3- Favourite book.
Can never name just one!
-Atlas Shrugged
-The Fountainhead
-Harry Potter series
-Dan Brown series
and a hundred million more...

4-  If you could live permanently in any decade, what would it be?
Lovely question!
I'm not too sure about the exact historical era, but it would definitely be during the 17th century, Italy. The era of Michelangelo, Bernini, Vasari and the likes, the decade of artistic revolution and some exceptionally creative minds. I'd probably have painted a fresco at St. Peter's Basilica for all I know :D

5- What place would you like to visit (free of cost?)
Free of cost? Outer space, fosho!

6- If you could have dinner with someone dead/alive, who would it be?
Anyone who'd pay the bill xD

7- A perfect evening is?
-Rain on the window pane, a book propped open on my lap, a mug of piping hot coffee. <3
-An evening spent talking to that one amazing friend, for hours...endlessly. <3

8- Share one thing that is on top of your bucket-list.
LIVE.

9- What motivated you to start blogging?
Ah, nice one. My blog came into being with one simple agenda: to write.
I had never fore-planned the course or the essence of my blog, it was only to be a channel for all that mumbo-jumbo in my head. Gradually things took their course and my  blog became more and more personalized. It was never created for publicity or propaganda.

10- What is the best part about being a blogger?
No one pronounces a 'verdict,' no one judges. Blogging becomes a getaway when the world shuts it's ears to you. A blogger's life is always catalogued, like a frozen frame captured in the mundane flow of life's events. So when you scroll through your blog life cycle, you'll realize how much you have been through and how much more is yet to come.

THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN! Here are my questions to those I nominated up there.

1- One personality trait you are proud of.
2- One personality trait you wish to replace.
3- Beauty vs Utility. What do you prefer?
4- What is your take on selflessness? Do you believe it exists in the world that we live in today?
5- Describe the Utopia you wish to see.
6- If you were granted a reincarnation of choice, you would be?
7- Earth. Air. Fire. Water. Your element, and why?
8- If you were to write a book, what genre would it be?
9- Your favourite word in the English language?
10- What does the fox say? xD

Get started bloggers!

Cherophobia.

I've realised over a considerable span of time that this cyber-space that I call my 'blog' is simply my hideout. A place I retreat to after I turn my back against everything else. My blog is where all my junk is stashed.

This time, the junk comes in the shape of paranoia...well at least that is what people say it is. The overly critical sci-fanatic in me calls it Cherophobia: the phobia of happiness.
What sounds like blasphemy on face value is actually one of the most realistic things I have ever felt. Fear.
The few intermittent moment of happiness, choked into silence by fear, the fear that this too shall be gone.
As a medical student, it is now a second nature for me to go about segregating, simplifying and classifying any data. And based on the current data in hand, I'm an acquired cherophobic.

Acquired. Conditioned and developed over a period of time, not innately grounded. They've been giving us examples since 7th grade about conditioned reflexes. You get up when the teacher walks into class, you learn how to manipulate a knife and fork, the dog salivates when the bell is rung...I get scared when happiness comes my way. Because this entity called happiness is only a guest appearance that vanishes even before you are done applauding. It walks in casually, fools with your head and strolls out just as casually. Every miniscule thing that holds the potential to make you smile, is a ticking time-bomb that will leave a trail of destruction.

Everything I had loved, I have lost.
And that has left me stone-cold scared. Scared to smile, scared to get attached, scared to live. I hate having put myself into such a place, but now I'm neck deep into this bog.

Tomorrow morning, that little percentage of my old self will chastise me for this post but the slowly deteriorating larger percentage of me will win its case. Once again old Nida will want to laugh, play, paint and be awesome. Once again, new Nida will deny it.
Aaj phir dil ne ek tamanna ki,
Aaj phir dil ko humne samjhaya.

Ending of the Beginning

Since the moment I hit 'Post' for the previous write-up, I've been hanging off a thread. Since the 22nd of August, I have been living in the shadow of some impending doom, some tragedy. Simply put, I was waiting for my results. I was waiting for the NTR University of Health Sciences to pass a verdict on me and on my capabilities.
It took awfully long to do so.
And when it finally DID, I had no clue what to feel.
So on the 9th of October, phone calls from excited friends told me "you did awesome!"
I could not bring myself to believe a word.
With heightened anxiety and slightly quivering hands, I turned on my computer and headed straight for the official results website.
Error 404: Server Unavailable.
Dammit!

I was getting frantic by the second. For the next hour, I received congratulatory calls from my people, which I returned with polite thank yous. In reality, I had no clue.

One and half hour later, at 4:31pm, I saw.

Saying 'I saw' would be incorrect though. I just stared with unfocused eyes. As my vision hit my total score, my body froze but my mind began to race.
I could not bring myself to comprehend my marks individually. All I could understand was that it was the sum-total of one whole year's effort of simply trying to stay...afloat. No, it wasn't because I found it difficult to study. On the contrary, I LOVED it. I enjoyed my subjects and my study.
It wasn't the demand of hard work, it was the circumstances, that got the better of me.
So all I could do, was sit and stare while my head played it's movie in flashback. I will not be ashamed to admit that my throat went dry and eyes went wet. What did my mind want me to do? Rejoice because I notched a decent score, or dust those gladly forgotten recesses of memory and stir up a hornet's nest?
Bittersweet.

I took a breath and rubbed my eyes. I had been fighting for so long and the finish line was so close.
Finally, I saw.
Hmmmm. Not bad. Landed a few notches below expectations alright, but victory was mine.
And what was the loot from this battle? Distinction in 2 out of 3 subjects, one of them my favourite.
So while a part of me was chiding me for missing out on the third subject, every other sensibility wanted me to scream in joy.

I would have, if only the walls in my room could attach any significance to it.
So I sat down again; numb, cold and all alone.

Beep beep beep, the number you are trying to reach is currently unavailable. Please try again later.
Mum was away and that had left me in the company of four beautifully stupid walls.
It was a weird day and had it not been for some 'get-your-mind-off-it talk' with a friend, I would have resorted to talking to my beautifully stupid walls. They have ears, I was told.

Like a scene from Bollywood movies, it had started to thunder and rain. I got up and walked out. I was not thinking. I mechanically carried out the actions of locking my door, walking out and starting my bike- just like Shahid Kapur in another Bollywood movie. Mentally, I was in another place, another movie.
Ice cold rain hit my face and lightning streaked the ink-blue evening sky. While people were running into the safety of bus stands, shops and stores, I hit main road. I loitered for one and half hour like that, on road, soaking wet. I remember waiting by my best friend's house for 10 minutes, never once thinking of going in. I wandered, destination unknown, just like Shahid.
It was late when I got home, and the constant downpour enveloped the city in an eerie sort of mood. I WANTED to feel better, I did not know how.
Called up my mother again, and this time she answered. Blankly, I gave out the details of my results, expecting a lukewarm response. Surprise surprise.
She was happy!
In all honesty, I had not seen that coming. But I'm glad it came, because now I knew what I could allow myself to feel. Too bad dear brain, you have to stop screening your movie.

Crazy day, that one. Crazier year.
I have stopped being furious at myself, one measly subject ain't vetoing my potential. I'm capable of being bigger and better. I would also like to point out, in my defense from myself, how much I HATE that one subject. Disgusting. Despicable. Dreadful and Dreary. Ewwww.

Yes, I feel so much better :P

At the end of the day, all said and done, I'm me. I bounce back with a Coefficient of Restitution equal to or greater than 1. Time for me to do just that.

Boing...boing....boing....boing...!

MBBS-1

3 subjects. 6 papers. 9 days.

They told us it wouldn't be easy. They didn't tell us it would be this hard.

I walked out of college on the 22nd of July with a crisp hall-ticket tucked inside my bag, a motivational speech playing inside of my head. Yes, I was to appear for my 1st year Medical Examinations in less than 24 hours. Exams are challenging. I like them more because they are insightful, show you where you stand. This however was my pre-Med School ideology and I knew so little.

Rule #1 for clearing Med Exams: Kick sleep of out of the window and stack up on caffeine. Time is of the essence and you need to make sacrifices to buy it. Need to perfect the art of optimizing every passing hour and making it productive. The body wont like it. It'll begin to shut down your cognizance and each fibre will demand rest. Brew coffee, splash water, shut the drama and restart.

I've worked for 20 hours each day, for 10 days straight now. A simple voice saying 'fight, you're stronger than this.'

I had successfully coped with sleep issues for the first two papers- Biochemistry 1 and 2.

But if it was meant to be easy, it would not be called life.

It began as a little swelling in my otic canal. Before I knew, I was taken down by migraine followed by a ear ache that seemed to be ripping holes through my ear drum. Anatomy paper 1 one was sure to spell doom. The pain never subsided, and after handing out my answersheet for the day, I thought I was to collapse. Funnily, I couldn't even make time to visit the the doctor. I simply popped an antibiotic and smothered my ear with Soframycin. It was time for paper 2.

Antibiotics induce sleep. Don't we all know that? So yes, my second paper was to go down the drain too!

The anibiotic did what it was supposed to do, it relieved me of the pain. I just wont be able to guage the collateral damage I've suffered until I have my results in my hand.

Now with the pain subsided and my normal nocturnal cycle re-established, I had every reason to look forward to my favourite subject- Physiology.

Paper 1 was smooth as silk. A decent question paper, one that I did justice to. I think I smiled in response to a question paper for the first time. "Omg there was SO much to write! It just went on and on and on!"

There. I jinxed it. Life went "Aww, let's get your hand some rest sweety."

At 12:30am that night, I fractured my right wrist.

Hit it into a door bolt while making it out of my mom's room in utter darkness. Couldn't even yelp.

I decided it wouldn't be so bad and dismissed it...until I picked up a pencil to mark out an important line.

I could barely hold it.

The next two hours saw me sitting with ice-packs in one hand and a book in another. Desperately trying to train my hand into dexterity. Blue, swollen hands aren't the best of omens.

By 5 in the morning though, the ice seemed to have brought down the swelling. The pain only aggravated with forceful movements. I could just barely hold on to a pen.

Then Life belted out another joke.

Q. No 1: "Define Pain. Describe the pathway for pain sensation with a neat diagram."

Was I to laugh or cry or what?

I finished the entire exam. Still amazes me how, because even now my hand appears bruised. Because even now, this post is a left hand type out.

The last 10 days have left me fuzzled. I have bean bags beneath my eyes that could easily lodge a sleeping baby. My sleep cycles have been thrown haywire and the night seems to have lost it's sleep inducing effects.

But I feel relieved. I know that when I finally fall asleep, I will not have amino acids, livers and brains floating in my dreams.

Exams are challenging. They show you where you stand. And Iam glad with where I do. Irrespective of the outcome of these examinations, Iam proud of all that I achieved- even before I entered the exam hall each day.

3 subjects. 6 papers. 9 days. DONE.

*yawn*

Nida Fatima, aged 19.

"OMG you're nineteen! That's big! You should celebrate, got any plans for tonight?"
"Uhmmm, 2 minute silence maybe?"

That came out spontaneously, at the drop of a hat. Why did everybody sound so excited about my 'last teen year' when I frankly couldn't care less? Birthdays are meant for people who believe their life is worth celebrating. Mine deserves a 2 minute silence. I've dealt with more losses than triumphs, have had more of scars than therapy and I've fought more than my 1.5kg brain weight could endure. I do not see year nineteen being an improvement over that either. So yes, I put my head down and stay shut for 2 minutes, in remembrance of the Nida that once was. The Nida that was loved. The Nida that was butchered to a cause unknown.

No, I didn't fight heroic battles and I'm sure as hell incapable of doing that. My losses were self-borne and my scars, self inflicted. God created man in a mould of perfection and all things nice. Negativity was the ingredient we added on our own. We garnished ourselves with morbidity, leaving behind a dish we dare not taste. For all those medals and trophies in my cupboard, those laminated certificate albums and those monthly pay cheques, I feel as under-accomplished as a scrap of torn paper. A scrap torn from a sheet that was once whole. Does any of this account for a celebration?


~But I'll find repose in new ways, though I haven't slept in two days.
'Cause cold nostalgia chills me to the bone.~
This, I shall. I'll find my repose, I'll find my way out of it. Just as I am incapable of heroism, I am incapable of giving up. And this spirit was born out of a promise that a Book made to me:
"Surely with difficulty is ease, with difficulty surely is ease" [94: 5,6]
A comforter like no other.

I will be 23 days into year 19 when I sit for my first year Medical Examinations. Hardwork has never intimidated me, and challenges like these give me a real kick. So I am going to channel all my energies into doing what almost hundred people asked me to do: "Make your last teen year count!"
I am leaving my losses far behind in order to plunge myself for bigger gains. Wouldn't want to take that leap of faith with my feet tied with ropes of regret. Science has a beautiful way of teaching us that. If the heart goes into failure, little structures placed in our blood vessels take up responsibilty for setting it right. When that fails, miraculous tiny molecules of hormones take charge. When they go down, the kidneys play their final stroke and viola! That fist-sized heart is pumping gaily again!
Giving up was not an option our bodies gave us. So much happens inside of us just to get that one breath in perfect timing. And to think we never realize it!

My last teen will not be a fantasy. It'll be the way life is meant to be. I will lose, I may win and year 20 will come along in the blink of an eyelid.
But then one person came along and told me "Friends are like flowers, they brighten your day."
As long as life allows me to brighten up someone's day, I shall keep going. As long as life hands out such trivial joys and simple pleasures, I shall keep going.

Blow the horn, the war is on.

Today I feel the urge to blog. Not the need, not the intention but just the urge.

I am typing this with zero knowledge of what my next word will be, or the structure of the next sentence that will follow. This time, my whims take lead and my limbic system controls the reigns.

Fight. Fight it out. Fight it to the end. These mottoes seem to be driving the course of my life for quite some time now. Oh yes and not to forget: This is a fight that needs to be fought alone.

Yeah, particularly the last one.

They will not stand by you. They will all disperse like little ants. They will walk out on you mid-battle. Then it is just you, your sword and your shield against a battalion. Fight bro, stick it out till the end. In fact, you are the only one person who will not ‘give handle’ to yourself. Every other damn person will.

                                                              “Et tu, Brute?”

It’s overwhelming. That sword will bend and the shield will succumb. People will fail you, your soldiers will die and your ammunition will run out. However, the show has to go on, and its time to fight bare-fisted. Clench your fists and grit your teeth, in full knowledge that your only solution is brute force.

                                            “Be not like dumb, driven cattle;

                                                   Be the hero in the strife.”

It is not about who stands in the opponents court. It is just about what is at stake. Sometimes, the game is played You vs. You- and one side HAS to lose. You could be your own nemesis, your own undoing.

 The essence of the matter is that your reasons will change, your armies will change, your stratagem, your battlefields, your prize…every thing will change. But the fight? Yes, that will go on. The fight against the mucus in your respiratory tract when you struggled on your first breath will become a fight on your deathbed against your last breath. Your main strife will be what lies in the middle of those two. So blow the horns, the war is on. Make it count!

PS: Wow. I let go, and this is what stumbled out of the closet. This is an unaltered article, completely free from pre-meditated ideas, typed out in roughly 20 minutes.

The Table of Truth

Today looked like just another drowsy mid-summer afternoon. I lay rolled up on the couch, listlessly hopping from one channel to another, staring blankly at the television screen. I had almost dozed off as the countdown began: "Movie resumes in 4...3...2...1..."
Then I jolted upright.

8 questions, 8 tasks, 21 crores. No contact with outsiders, no quitting mid-game, and no messing with the rules. What rules? Just one: if you lie, you die.
Sounded like a fair deal. So what if you couldn't quit? How bad could the truth get?

Real bad.

Possibly the 8 easiest questions ever, with the toughest of answers. Because the truth, my friends, ticks off a dormant time bomb of emotions. Wipes away years of grime from a past long forgotten. The past that travels a full circle and greets you with vengeance.
The 8 tasks- some easy, some disturbing, some life threatening. Each one of them intimately tied with  a shameful history. A history of the past decade, of a contemptible youth and a trail of disgraceful events.

To quit meant having to lose an arm. To continue, meant having to lose ones life, ones love, and everything interim. But 21 crores could change all of that, couldn't it?
So it went deeper into the gutter. Money- that was prime. And so wrecking another man's property, making a carnal exhibition of ones wife and holding a gun to someones back became the rightful thing to do. Money lay at the end of virtue.

We act without considering repercussions. We believe in living 'in the moment' and forget how the next moment is going to return fire. Then there is one slight brush with the past, one chance meeting with a face from the bygones, and life crumbles down. A stage is reached where regret and repentance holds no meaning. The stage where the cash stood, smiling an ingratiating smile.

"You shoot him, or I shoot your wife."
Shoot, and then the money will flow.
Shoot, and bid goodbye to your past.

A dam bursts open somewhere within, and in an overwhelming wave of self-reproach, the trigger is pulled.


I sat stunned, stone cold. Did I see what I just saw?
A series of instances flash through my mind. All the things I had done and gotten away with.The circle would definitely be complete someday. The boomerang I threw would trace it's path back to me. Would I ever have to pull the trigger as the last means of escape? An extremely uncomfortable scenario to envision, but not one to be ruled out.

I had seen arrogance turn to helplessness. I had seen pride transform into shame. I had seen the perfect mix of realism with surrealism.
I had seen it all, on Table No. 21.

 

With that, I switched the television off.

Caged Yearnings

"It's my life. It's now or never. It's my life. I ain't gonna live forever. I just wanna live while I'm alive. It's my LIFE."

BonJovi came so close to summarizing the story of my existence! Yes, this is a life I was blessed with. It's mine. And just because you know how much you mean to me, do not deceive yourself into thinking you can manipulate my life, in any possible way.But yet again, that has been happening to me at every crossroad of life. SOCIETY has dominated and ruled over every major decision of my life. PEOPLE began to believe they could take over a girl's life. A girl too weak to write the chapters in the book of her life. Why weak? Beacuse she's small. Merely a teen. Lively, enthusiastic...unaware of the "big bad world" out there.Which begs the question, "Was I born blind? Or did God substitute my brain with vacuum? "I've seen the world. It's dark, dismal. Not a soul I know is genuinely pleased with where he/she stands. And the people I see who smile their outwardly smiles, are already dead within.They tell me they've tackled life. That they've had glorious, fulfilling lives. They tell me they're happy. Happy beacuse they stuck to custom. The tried and tested formula of untangling the mess that started taking shape while we lay floating in amniotic fluid.

"Follow what your ancestors did, you'll never go wrong," they tell me.

"Am I a sheep?" I ask in return.

It's true, for a human community, we have an undesirably large number of sheep. I have my aspirations. A girl of the present times, I know precisely what I need to live a life that agrees with my version of "happy." People I know (including me) have been controlled by those who believe they have the right to dictate. A majority succumbed. No one stood up and stuck their neck out. No one stomped their foot and took a firm stance against the society. And when I finally muster the courage and tell the world "this is what I want," they pull me down like a treacherous bog.

"I'm going to be a Doctor"

*applause*

"I wish to be a Journalist"

*verbal bashing*

"What will you earn? How will you feed yourself? Who will ever marry you? Will you ever get settled? It's against what we've thought you. Don't you see? Become a doctor, you'll have a SAFE life. "Safe? Do you need more articles in the newspaper to know depression makes one suicidal?

The society, is nothing but a crowd. A crowd of such anguished souls lost in the maze of life. Such negativity in their DNA that if someone wakes from that slumber and points towards the light, they reject him outright. It would disappoint Charles Darwin to know that it is a part of their genetic sequence now, to resist change, even if it is for the better. Because custom has staled them. Destroyed the power of independent thought. Like zombies, they wander. Aimlessly, groping in the dark.So is it justified, for this...crowd, to steer somebody else's life over to their side? Personally, I neither know, nor care. Because I've had enough of people, I'm through with it. Call me names, disown me, do what you want, you mean NOTHING to me. You are just another face in a sea of other faces.

"My heart is like an open highway, like Frankie said I did it my way. I just wanna live while I'm alive..."Yes BonJovi, you said it right. It IS my life. It is my novel that is yet to be written. How it ends, I cannot fathom. All I know, is that now, I weild the pen. And I'm moulding my life the way I want it to be. My rules, my ideas, my twists, my turns.The society can go and suck it.

Cheers to Life!

The 'good' is only appreciated in contrast with the 'bad.'
The value of joy can only be measured against pain.
For without these contrasts in life, neither would there be a dawn, nor dusk.
Neither would there be a reason to wake with an aim, nor a moment of introspection before sleep.
Life would be reduced to a stagnant reality, aimless and devoid of growth.

Pain is mandatory for growth, the wise have said. We have been taught into believing that success cannot be tasted by those who haven't been thrown to the dogs in the past. They say life is a mortar and pestle and only those who can take the grind, survive.

I agree, but only partially. We have been a generation of humans obsessed with glorifying pain. Every little hurdle is a reason to groan for, every road-block a reason to slump, every failure a reason to cry.
We're giving up every single second. We make a waste of each breath we take, and rightfully deserve. So occupied we have been with miseries, that the very abstract of happiness has become obsolete. The line of contrast has been smudged beyond recognition and only a grey muck remains.

I hit a phase just like the one described above, only recently.
Situations went off-handle, and I found my maturity levels inadequate of controlling events. After all, we learn from what we experience, we don't carry it from the womb.
Life is a rabid bitch, we've all learnt. I experienced its manifestations first-hand. A twist in the tale, a turn of the tables, a shuffle of the cards...I can give it so many titles! Maybe even the Dementor's Kiss? (to satiate the Harry Potter freak in me!)
So what did I learn out of this particular experience? Like the biological rabies, the bite from this bitch comes with its anecdote as well. That like Dementors from fiction, these demons too can be warded off by a Patronus.

Now, what was the first requisite to cast a successful Patronus?
JOY. HAPPINESS.

As bizarre as it may sound, nothing dries tears faster than a smile.
But how does one exactly conjure a false sense of delight in a seemingly hopeless situation?
I fought it out. With each new morning, I set out to snatch whatever shred of happiness I could find. I struggled against choking tears to plaster a smile across my lips and courage over my face. Wore my favourite colours, smiled at random people, helped out a friend in need, tried every manoeuvre that could keep me occupied on a mental level. When I thought I was going to falter, I told myself that I don't deserve the pain. I gave myself the responsibility of keeping me happy. I made happiness my top priority.

The result amazed me. The tiny tiny bits I was collecting culminated into a beautiful silver Patronus. That smile struggling through tears? It was finally free. Uninhibited. It was somewhere around this time I understood the significance of these very popular lines:

"Dil jo tera baat baat pe ghabraaye, dil pe rakh ke haath use toh phusla le.

 Dil idiot hai pyaar se usko samjhaale"

Theoretically, it may sound bizarre. Practically, it is a major challenge. But the result it will yield, is worth every bit. The point of the matter is, you deserve cheer in the same way you deserve the oxygen you breathe.  Not a force in the world can snatch it away from you. Never, ever, give up the pursuit of happiness.

And if life is a bitch, shrug, and say Bitch Please!