Scribbles

I wrote this one in an eye hospital, while waiting for my turn- on a tissue paper. I think it turned out ok-ish so I am putting it here.

... And I smiled,
Because I was running out of options
when there are things that haze your head around,
You can either take a decision, or get angry and frown.
But soon there is not much of a choice,
Because there is only so much you can do
there is only so much you can fight.
Maybe God sends you with a quota of tears
and I am pretty sure I have run out of mine.
There maybe rules to get it refilled,
Like probably falling in love again
But I was done this time.

Stay with me

Remember I wrote about morning pages? How I wrote first thing in the morning, without looking back at what am I writing? The following is an excerpt of this "unconscious/subconscious" writing which I thought was decent enough to be put on the internet. It is obviously not unadulterated, I have edited it as I went along writing it. Here goes nothing :

Stay with me because my thought sleeps,
I feel sudden jerks whenever there is a wave
Stay with me because I am afraid
Stay with me because the dark clutches me.
It crawls up my feet and hugs me tight like an unwanted friend.
Stay with me because I rather be not alone.
Because life has more to it than what we know.
Its a long day and a longer life and I am here for something that I still don't know.
Stay with me because with you the magic comes alive.
Stay with me because there is a world outside.
I have heard its huge but beautiful --its scary and unknown
I have heard its mysterious.
Stay because together we are one
Stay because we have a long way to go, we are still not done.
Stay with me and stay true
Because that's what I'd do for you.

6 weekends of an alternate life

Why would I be interested in a theatre workshop? I, who was scared of going up in front of a class full of trainees and just saying "Class, lets break for 5 mins!" I, who can't even read her own piece in a casual writer's club environment without getting my heartbeat high. I cannot emote and my hands and voice shake when I am in front of public. So why did I even consider a theatre workshop? Why would I leave my 6 weeks of writer's meet up to do something I know I am not even remotely capable of? Reasons evade me. Maybe I wanted to do something different. Maybe I wanted to take a risk .. maybe I just wanted to test the waters - dip the smallest point of my feet in and back away, without as much creating a puddle. But that was not to happen. Once in, I couldn't pull back and surprisingly I didn't want to.

In the workshop, I was allowed to be anything -- in fact I was encouraged to be anything or anyone else but me. I was an old woman almost at her death bed, yet fighting for a license renewal. I was a minister fighting in Parliament. I was a 100 rupee note narrating my experience of how it exchanged hands and finally I was Mallika Desai -- the eager film maker sitting for an interview, who had the guts to stand up and say "I don't like that question. I don't think it even deserves an answer. Good day!" as she walks away to the background music of "Main chali , main chali , dekho pyaar ki gali ..." In the last 6 weeks, I was all that and much more. I used a bottle as a golf club and a ball of imaginary clay to make an earthen pot. I used a pen cap as a mike and saw a ladder getting converted into a boat. For me, the best part was that I could talk in my normal voice and no body flinched, asking me to keep it down! Surprisingly, they wanted me to be louder. Oh the feeling of liberation! I was in the world of make believe and I loved every moment of it.

I was among strangers. I was among hoteliers, accountants, NGO workers, educators and Pro tennis players. It is interesting to see people bond. It is more interesting to see people craving for the company of the same people who till a few weeks ago were strangers. Some new relations flourish and some old ones fade out and die. Strange is the human psychology. Towards the end of the workshop, taking the certificate, hooting, shouting,chanting each other's names ... I was among friends!

I had seen plays before -- a lot of plays. I would admire the expressions, the voice, the precision, the timing and most of all the guts! But I had never "experienced" it until now. The environment backstage is electrifying. Everyone hugging everyone, encouraging, wishing the best and rooting for each other. After a very long time, I was in a totally selfless environment. There was no competition. No body wanted to be better than anybody. All of us had come together to learn a few things, have fun and put up ONE great show together and I guess we did. We fumbled, forgot our lines, were too low on volume for our directors' liking, but we managed because of our directors. The 5 wonderful people who had come together to form Tahatto -- the theatre group.

The moment on stage is surreal. It felt like I was there performing, yet I was not there. On my first show, my hands were shaking and I fucked up the very first dialogue. But I survived. On the second show, there was a strange calmness. The only time my heart did a jump was when I stepped in front of the audience in the dark. Then the lights came on and Mallika Desai took over and I let her. I stood by and watched as she got happy, sad and angry on my behalf. I just came back for the curtain call, thanking the audience for being nice enough to come and see a bunch of first timers. As Prashanth rightly said, "Don't take away any theatre lesson with you .. don't remember the body hooks, the monkey faces, the voice in the range of 6,7,8, and 9. But do remember the feeling of humility that 80 people took time out of their lives, spent their money to see you perform." The thought is scary and exhilarating in equal measures.

I am not sure what is next. I am not sure if I will do any other play now, ever or never. But I know I can go in front of a minimum 80 people and not have a quivering voice. I can smile and look nervous. I can look irritated and angry on demand(Atleast I think I can). I never knew this about myself! Of course I will have to start all over again if I dare to do theatre once more. But I never knew I could do it even once. So there! After almost 30 years of my life, I am reinventing myself. I want to do this and that and that and this. I want to write and perform and travel and yet be a datastage certified professional. I want to take part in Harry Potter quizes and still read all the books I can lay my hands on. I am a bit late in life, yet I am happy I decided to take a step in a direction seemingly not meant for me. See you in the beyond!

Albert Camus

Courtsey : http://www.brainpickings.org/

To Be a Child ...

To live like a child again,
To wonder, To question
To laugh at a confused ant
and To bawl with full lungs
To use those full lungs ...
To breathe like a child
taking in every ounce of air
and using it up
curious,naughty
simple, crazy
an imagination to go nuts for
To look at the moon and imagine it melt
To want To eat the stars
because aren't they just sugar bars?
sprinkled arcoss an upside down ground?
To smile at strangers
and To get smiled back
To be scared and be pacified
To live just Today , because tomorrow?
Tomorrow is a concept Too Tough To define
To just live like a child!
To believe .. stories and fairies
Peter Pan and Santa Claus
To go out and play
get dirty in mud and taste the rain
Oh! To be a child again!

Harry Potter and the Magic of a Genius Writer

I solemnly swear I am upto no good

I think I wrote a Harry Potter post in this blog back in college, when I was still trying to find my foothold in writing. Its been ages now but my love for the books and the characters have not diminished. If anything, it has only increased. When you realise how beautifully and logically the things ended, you can only marvel at the genius of JK Rowling. Maybe being 30 and talking about Harry Potter might be taken as a bit , for the lack of a better word, immature. But I just can't help it. Especially now, when I can appreciate the nuances of a brilliant story, the age really does not matter.

I went to a Harry Potter quiz last Sunday and someone has to be there in person to understand what a phenomenal book series it is. Kids and Elders alike had participated in that quiz. People were wearing time turners, Harry Potter themed T-Shirts, Marauder's Map Tshirts and what not! I could not make it beyond the prelims ( I will still have to learn the books by heart to clear a high level quiz like that) but I did manage to grab an audience prize!

But coming back to my love for Harry Potter, I love how, the whole story is narrated only through the eyes of Harry. There is no other point of view here. Harry unravels the story every year through some incident, over hearing someone, some one like Mr. Weasley, Sirius, Hagrid informs Harry about something which happened in the past, or through a wonderfully imagined route by Rowling, memories in the Pensive. This is so different from R.R Martin's Game Of Thrones where every chapter is a PoV of one character and although all of them are in different situation and are totally different personalities, they take ONE story forward. I don't want to digress from the topic but I am thinking as I write and vice-versa and was wondering how two very different ways of story telling bring out an epic story. Please note here that I am in NO WAY comparing the two stories but only the way the story has been told.

Another beauty of Harry Potter books are how each character is defined. Almost every important character has a back story. Dumbledore's relation with his siblings, Hagrid's story of being a part giant, Sirius and his family ... you just cannot have this much depth by just "wishing" to be a great writer. You actually have to work for it ( This is a small mental note for me) My thoughts again go back to GoT where even The Hound has a back story. I am only on the second book of GoT , but rest assured , it deserves its own blog post -- a long one indeed.

Back to Harry Potter and the books. So Rowling had two things delivered out of her books. One is an individual story for every book ... the philosopher's stone, the goblet of fire , the half blood price and then there is the whole "bringing together of the fall of Voldermort" epic - the hints of which are seen from the very first book. Sirius's flying motorbike comes in the first book, the first horocrux and vanishing cabinet is in the 2nd book and the Room of Requirements is in the fourth book! I tried googling but never came across a post that said that Rowling thought of the whole story backwards but I am sure she had in mind, the idea of piecing together a LOT of things. Who would have thought when Dumbledore good naturedly talked to Karakoff about entering the Room of Requirements as he needed to pee, the very room would turn into a major part of the story.

A good story is never complete without a character showing shades or traversing a remarkable growth path.

"After all this Time?"
"Always"

I remember reading this part with my mouth open and eyes wide. Snape helped Harry? The Snape who hated his guts? The Snape who killed Dumbledore? That Snape? How beautifully is Snape etched out! How many times did we read "Dumbledore trusts Snape" and how many times did I say in my mind while reading this , "Well! Dumbledore CAN make mistakes!"

Ron and Hermione stick with Harry through the end. They had a choice! They could always , always walk away! But they stayed, till the very end. I well up even writing about it! I cannot write a Potter article and not rave about Hermione. I was not happy with Hermione ending up with Ron only because I never felt Ron ever treasured her the way she deserved. Hermione was and is the epitome of a strong character. She is intelligent,witty, bossy yet emotional ,friendly yet sarcastic and she is brave -- very very brave. (I want to write about Arya Stark and Daenerys Targaryen but I am stopping myself. This post is about Harry Potter) JK Rowling has so amazingly taken a little boy as a protagonist and with him,takes us, through all his typical growing up journey. I loved the scene when Harry describes his kiss with Cho as "wet". I love it because how easily Rowling points out that even after winning deadly tournaments and cheating death by a hair every single time, Harry will still be a boy!

As much as I love the books, I can never digest the fact that Sirius died and that Harry had not a SINGLE peaceful year for the first 17 years of her life (I am including his life with Dursleys). Rowling gave us all a ray of hope with Sirius -- the closest thing Harry had to a parent! "When all this is over, we will be a proper family" . And he dies! Again, I read this part again and agin -- "No! this is wrong" I thought! I am reading it wrong! It cannot be Sirius. No! No! Harry! why did you not look into the mirror!!

I felt it was a bit odd that Rowling used a whole book to establish Sirius's character and killed him off only in the next to next book. Sad! One funny thing which Tumblr pointed out and I thought it was rather funny! True but funny. It was this -- When Harry drank Felix Felicis or liquid luck, he could have directly gone and killed Voldermort. But then ofcourse, where would be the bravery, the story telling, the struggle and finally the victory!

This story is about all sorts of emotions! Love, Friendship, Trust, hunger for Power, hunger for love (Love Potions) , lonliness, Adolescensce, coming of age, Victory of good over Evil, finding laughter in the darkest of times (Remember .. "I am feeling holy" )

I can go and on and on about this story. I have not covered Fred and George Weasley, Molly and Ginny ( two very strong female characters) about how Malfoy turns weak towards the end or how Neville grows stronger. I have not yet covered about how menacingly powerful was Bellatrix Lestrange or how, even if Narcissa Malfoy belonged to a family of death eaters, she was still a mother at heart -- protective and hopeful till the very end for his son. I have still not covered how mysterious Dumbledore was and how it all unwraps in the end ... leaving the reader confused, angry and all the emotions the trio felt -- we felt it with them!

I never wanted this series to end only till Rowling came out with Skeeter's world cup article of how their current lives are. Suddenly, they were balding, stuck in marital ruts and addicted to fire whisky! That's when I thought it was time to be satisfied. Although, it was a bit ironic how Rowling chose Skeeter's voice to talk about their mid lives. We know that we cannot trust on a single thing Skeeter writes.

However, letting Harry Potter go is as difficult as it was to let go FRIENDS. But we did it and we lived through it. We still have the books and the movies to relive the magic again and again (Although the movies are no match to the books, but they are not bad for quickies)

Thank you Harry, Hermione and Ron. Thank You Rowling!! We let go of you but we hold the memories.

Mischief Managed!

Ramblings

I have not done a rant post for a very very long time and since I do not visit my blog often these days, I thought I'd do one. Life has been going on with sadly,not much happening. I joined Zumba for a month or so and am back to my Yoga. It is always good to workout at home. Why you ask? You don't have to go anywhere, you don't have to pay anyone and you don't have to change. Nothing's more comfortable than your home PJs and of course you have a tab on time so you know when to stop.

It has its disadvantages too, the biggest one being that if you do anything wrong, you won't really know because there is no one to tell you. But then internet videos/CDs and books help. Another drawback is that since you know you just have to move from your room to your exercise area (sometimes the 2 being the same) you tend to become lazy. That is a pro and a con.

I was thinking ...life turning out to be good or bad, purely on the basis of karma, is just a matter of those 10 minutes. What I mean is this ... You have to get up in the morning to exercise, but you sleep off for those extra 10 minutes. You have to go out to meet friends, maybe do some work but you laze around and eventually quit the idea of going out. On the contrary , if you decide to let go of those 10 minutes, you end up doing a lot! I am not generalising a trend, but that's what happens mostly. Think about it.

Another thing that has been occupying my thoughts lately is the internet. Most people who know me, know what a huge internet addict I am. Internet is an overload of information and a major reason why it is more important now than ever to draw a line and decide for yourself about what is right or wrong. Take health for example. There are people who say milk is important and people who say adults should not drink milk. There are loads of articles on how it is a good idea to drink fruit juices and an equal number of articles that will tell you to eat fruits and skip the juice. I am giving these examples because these are a few things I search for and get all sorts of point of views. I mean anything and everything has lots of goods and lots of bad points about it. Same goes or cosmetic product. I was looking up or a MAC concealer and there were hundreds of women saying how awesome it was, another hundreds saying that it didn't work for them and that is true. Obviously what works for one will not work for another. So after running round and round in circles, we come to the same thing. Internet can help you show all the aspects for you to make a decision but it will never make a decision for you.

Moving on to the other things, I have been meditating on and off and though I have been doing it for as long as January ,everytime I do it, I feel like I am doing it for the first time. So far , no mental peace has approached me and I am not sure of how much of an "alpha" state I reach. All I know is that when I sit and try to meditate in my cab for that endless journey to office and/or back, I doze off wonderfully. So, I don't complain about the long hours anymore -- unless we get stuck in the rains or something. Even the evening it was raining, the driver was gracious enough to leave the lights in the cab on. So I could happily read my Game Of Thrones. So I did not complain even then -- except for a sore bum. I am entitled to at least that. Things in office are nothing but idiotic and I don't even want to talk about it.

I do want to talk about writing. Although I have not been writing here much, I am doing something called morning pages. Look it up in google and you will come across the book Artist's way by Julia Cameron. She coined this specific term although many authors before her have advocated the same idea. Write 3 pages of unconscious writing. Basically, without stopping , you write whatever crap comes to your mind. It is a lot of fun doing it , provided I get up in the morning with enough time in my hands to accommodate writing, Yoga-ing and rushing for office. Sometimes I doze off while writing and end up writing extremely non coherent matter in context and in writing. Once out of nowhere, while my pen was slipping and I was dozing off, i wrote " I don't know who alexander is" right in the middle of some blah things I was writing about. You never know what your subconscious is up to and that is why it is so interesting.

I have been pretty regular in my writer meetups and I am not sure how I do there. People there are too sweet to give you any negative criticism whatsoever. I once read a story after which there was pin drop silence. No claps, no good, no bad. The host was nodding his head , one guy was staring at me and others seemed lost. Eventually one really sweet female said some good thing followed by some other good things by some other sweet people. This happens almost everytime, leading me to believe that I am pretty okay or every time I read something people are just searching for words to get over me and then move on to the next reader. But I love my time in the writers and actually look forward to it every week. Sadly I missed it yesterday but as I said I manage to go there almost every week.

I am still far from being perfect but something stirs in me when I think about writing -- a feeling which says, " Not everything is bad in the world". I think that feeling is enough to hold on to the craft. These days I am heavily inspired by Phil and Sarah Kaye and I am trying my hands on spoken word poetry. I attended a workshop and participated in a video made by campus diaries. Although, obviously I am not propagating the video, it is not bad. But I haven't told anyone about it (Except Rahul ofcourse and another Writer friend who happened to stumble upon it himself) and I have no plans of putting up the link. I am sure other poets are doing that well enough!One day , if I gather enough courage, I will perform too. But that is not immediate.

Being a (sort of) writer allows me to be a part of a completely different universe , feeds me with thoughts that are alien to my otherwise IT-ed mind and I love that refreshment. I need IT for the money and though there were these cruel students I met who were like "Oh poor you" "Oh thats sad" when I told them I am from IT, deep down, I dont regret it. I feel like clark Kent, who gets to turn into superman only in weekends. But that is so so so much better than those poor uncles in my workplace who don't have anything to do other than attending calls, paying EMIs and smoking in the smoking zone. Seriously! So so much better than them and when those uncles make fun of my reading habit, I cannot help but feel sorry for them.

Anyway, I have taken this rant post too seriously. I hope to come here more often. See you later! :)

The story of a six year old

This was supposed to be a story of a 6 year old
About how she was like any other 6 year old ...
Special and ordinary in her own way

This was supposed to be a story of a 6 year old
Of how she was energy , laughter,life, tantrums and lessons woven together.
Of how she used could never sit quietly ...no 6 year old does these days

I don't know her really , but I do imagine her
I see her running back to her father spotting a cockroach
Hiding her little face in those broad shoulders and laughing at herself ...if you listen carefully , you can hear the chuckles
This was supposed to be a story of a 6 year old girl ....learning,forgetting,hugging,fighting ,loving ...being loved...maybe just like you and me... This was a story of a 6 year old

Instead, this is a story of how life was trampled when it had completed only 6 years.
Instead ,this is a story of how she was touched, scratched,groped, forced ....

Instead this is a story of her shrieks ...were they allowed? shrieks with questions ....seeking answers, seeking justice . This is a story of how those shrieks were silenced ...how the eyes were silenced.If you listen carefully, you can still hear that silence. But make sure you cover your ears because there is nothing more deafening.

This was supposed to be a story of a 6 year old girl.
Instead,it became a dark memory.

The First Time ...

Back in the days when people did not know that there was such a thing called a hug, did they ever realise the magic of touch , accompanied by a touch of magic? History tells us that when the first man discovered that his food tasted better when fire touched it, he broke into a small jig of sorts. Maybe that was happiness calling out to him. Did he ever register that?

Imagine the first person who broke something because he was angry. Think about the first person who wrote down his feelings because he did not know what was messing up his head. When he kept his pen down and exhaled -- that must have felt good!

Imagine the first two people who fell in love -- When they didn't really understand what was happening to them ; when they thought that the butterflies in their stomach was actually because of a bad meal they had or when they broke into silly smiles and thought that was highly unusual -- would they know their hearts would break too?

Imagine the first guy who experienced a heartbreak. Do you think he felt the same physical pain that you and I have felt sometime or the other? When a small drop of water peeped out from his eyes and his vision blurred -- did he worry he was probably losing his eyesight because he lost the person he loved the most? Do you think he felt the urge to cry unless there were no tears left in him to give it to the one who gave it to him in the first place? Do you think he still could not understand why he always felt that someone was kicking him hard in his guts all the time?

Stereotypes

"If you stop and think, you will realise how rudely funny are the stereotypes that we live in"

It was Akash's 7th birthday and Suman wanted it to be better than the last one. He did not like cakes and pastries like other children. He did go out to play with his friends, but whenever suman would peek out of the window, he would be standing in the corner, never looking dejected or concerned about feeling left out. From Suman's eyes, he was happier when left alone. Calling his school friends would be only a waste of effort and energy like the last time.

She went to Akash and asked "What do you want to do on your birthday Akash?" He looked at her with large bright eyes. "I don't know" he said and went back to his book.

"OK I have an idea" She said.. hoping she would at least get her attention.

"Would you like to go to the fair?"

"Alright" He shrugged.

Suman would have liked some more enthusiasm but like always she reminded herself -- 'One step at a time'

If life was described as a series of colours, Suman would describe her life with her son as gray, a bit of white here and there and maybe a few blotches of black. On the day of the fair however, Suman saw colours trickling in their lives in the form of Akash's smiles. There it was -- shining like sunshine yellow. His enthusiasm -- a beautiful bright red. She saw blue in his chuckles and his eyes -- a full rainbow!

Maybe it was my fault. Suman thought. I was so busy acting like a single parent, I forgot that he was probably struggling to let himself go too. For the first time in what seemed like a long time, Akash was behaving his age. He wanted to go on rides, eat ice cream and run around all at once. She took him to a little dress up corner. They had cowboy, batman and superman for little boys and wonderwoman, fairy and princess for a little girl. Akash stood there, studying every child going in and coming out dressed up as a someone else. "I want to be a fairy" He declared. Suman heard loud laughter, ,muffled giggles, questionable smiles and nodding of heads.

"A fairy you shall be" She told him.

He wore his wings, showing off his new superpower. The wand in his hands beamed under the sun and so did his face. The whispering over the choice of my son's dress however continued. "Why are they laughing at me Ma?" Akash asked. She could not let a few stereotypes damper her son's birthday. "They are not laughing at us son. They are laughing with us" She said. "Happy Birthday" She said, ruffling his hair.

Its been many years to the incident. Akash wanted to fight many stereotypes that bounded our world.But somewhere down his life, it seemed he had stopped. He could not take the laughter, the stares and the questions. Ma's stories were not true either.

"No Ma! They are not laughing with me. They are laughing at me -- that day and even today." He looked at his dancing shoes and sighed. "I have given up Ma"

Hide and Seek

Aren't words supposed to be a writer's best friend
Ready at their beck and call
Walking with each other
hand in hand ...
But then why do words suddenly abandon me
hiding behind , running free
I coax them to come back
To sit with me and help me write ...
To make themselves available
"You are my tools" I tell them
No, Scratch that .. You are my love
You help me create whats beautiful and ugly
Sometimes a poem, sometimes a story
You help me create people ...
you, my dear words, are the life in my people
But hardly do they listen ...
We sit all day ... the blank page and I
staring away
After sometime, when the emptiness starts winning ...
I force myself ... to force my words
But,they still peek and run around me
teasing like children
enjoying this little game
and I, like a tired mother,
finally sit down, apologizing to the page
promising the next time my words will behave
just then I feel a tug
a small word stands
giving me a shy little smile
slowly bringing along its other friends
I sit back and let them play
let them form their night and day
let them do their work through my fingers
I let my words create my world

A letter in the past

Dear 16 year old me,

I wish I knew at your age what I know now. But you know what? It is okay! Let me tell you ... You are doing pretty okay with your life. Yes you are not the most successful lady yet, but there will be instances where you will be presented to a younger person as a good example.That's right! You don't know these people now. You have not met them. But trust me ..they are good people and you will like them.

I have good news and bad news. I will start with the bad. You will not remain as you are. You will change -- not always for good. You will find yourself disliking people for trivial matters and unfortunately you will be unable to let it go. You will do and say things which you will regret, but you will get over it. You will get into fights ( not many though, you will not grow up to a very confrontational person) and you will meet strange people but somewhere down the line, you will face it all! That's the good news. You will survive and you will learn! You will learn to live and take life with pinches of sugar and salt. You are going to change a lot of cities, by the way! I know it sounds unbelievable to you right now but you will and you will like it! You will have innumerable stories and experiences and you will find yourself extremely lucky at times.Also,Your notion about love is wrong. It is okay as of now for you to believe that love stories are not for you. Falling in love may not be very important, but if you do, fall for the best guy. Don't worry! You will meet him.

I wish I could stop you from crushing on wrong guys. But you will anyway! So maybe I will give you a piece of advice. Stay strong! Actually, you will be surprised by how strong you are, going by the fact that you right now cry at the drop of a hat. Talking about advices, I have tons of advices to give you. I hope you take them seriously.

First and foremost, Exercise! One of these days, somebody is going to advise you to join a gym and you are going to take it offensively. Don't! It will do you good ..very good!

I know you read but trust me, you are not reading enough. When you grow up to be my age, you will look back at all the books that you have still not read and all the books that are still being written. This will overwhelm you. Start with the classics right away! As another note, even after all these years, Jane Eyre will still remain your favourite! So good going at that!

Don't waste your time watching cartoon network! Really, your parents are right! You are sixteen! It is okay if you don't want to study either. Please go and learn tennis and skating at the senior club. You have no idea what a wonderful facility you have at your disposal and how royally you are wasting it. Trust me, when you reach my age, not being active outside your little television set is going to be the most regretful memory ever.

Don't be afraid of Venu agarwal! She is just your chemistry teacher and surprise of surprises, you WILL learn to cheat your way through titration and seriously you are going to laugh at it when you come to my age. It is useless! So are log tables, surface tension derivations, probability and binomial theorem. Don't bother! I mean study them now but you will eventually forget them. While at that , you might want to know a bonus future fact. Those toppers? After 10 years, there won't be a lot of difference in you and them. In fact, a lot of things that look like matters of life and death today and many more years to come will almost be forgotten by the time you reach my age. So you might as well relax a bit!

Also, although you will learn cooking eventually, it is going to be the hard way. So unless you don't want to create scenes the way I did, enter the kitchen once in a blue moon. You will definitely thank me for this piece of advice.

Take those essay competitions seriously. You will know why! Also, can you please be a little more insistent with your father about letting you joining journalism? I know its a shot in the dark, but for your future self sake,can you? I will tell you one secret about your father that you might not have understood yet. He does give in to your pressures! You have to be really really persistent. He agrees! I know you are smirking with disbelief right now, but in a few years you will know what I mean.

Also, please learn a little styling. In 10 years, you will look at your older pictures and cringe! You will learn, but please, take a lead and learn a bit more.

In the next 10-12 years of your life, you will fall and rise. You will cry alone and laugh with friends. You will win and lose, but you will be fine. Because you will discover behind that easily scared, naive self , you are much better. You will be afraid but you will be successful in not showing it and moving on! It is going to be a good life. You will like the ride!

The lies in your childhood .....

Were you as a child , told to eat your food or else the big bad policemen would take you away? Did you wait on Christmas, late in the night to meet Santa Claus? I remember my dad's logic for making me go to bed early. "Your toys need time to play. They can come alive only after you sleep... So sleep!" He told me. Also, this was way way before Toy story. I am not sure if he even knows about the movie series. Of course, I believed him! When I realised my father's little story was nothing but a cute lie only to instill discipline in me, I was disappointed. It would have been fun to see the toys come to life in the drawing room where they very meticulously kept in a line. Do they remember their order in the line , I would wonder. I remember tumbling 1-2 toys before going to bed, just to see how I would find them in the morning. That my mother would rearrange them before I got up was a different story.

After I grew up, I made a promise to myself. I would never lie to my children. I will tell them that there is no santa claus and that they would not be taken away by policemen if they don't eat their greens. But should they grow up and decide to become police men /women themselves, they would not be able to run behind a thief with no healthy food in their system. Tell them the truth! They might find you boring or maybe harsh in the beginning but they are bound to understand you when they grow up.

Somehow, my mindset is now changing. Maybe a little harmless lie is okay to be told to a child. Not because its the easy way out, but because with every little lie, there is a take away. Santa leaves gift only for the nice, leaving the naughty. Not saying Thank you can be a bit allergic (this is the funniest of lie ever told by a parent!) and eating chocolates in the night can bring bad dreams (until they learn the importance of dental hygiene!) When every word that you say shapes up an entire personality, you have to pick them very carefully and hand them over to a little one who looks up to you and at least for a few years, believes you to be perfect! I will tell my child about Santa claus, about fairies and about the pot of gold at the end of rainbow. Let them listen with their eyes wide open. Let them believe, let them hope, let them imagine and after a few years , let them make a choice.

I am not a parent yet, but I guess you have to know where to draw the line. Picking up another of my own childhood story, my nursery teacher would threaten us that if we did not stop wailing, we would be fed to her 2 huge bull dogs. I was taken there once too, and I remember being too scared to even cry. How did that affect me? Until just a year ago, I was terrified of dogs. Actually not even a year ....I am still scared of dogs though I don't show it anymore. I mean , I had recurring dreams of dogs running after me. Thankfully, 2 days back, I dreamt that I was playing fetch with 2 adorable puppies. So I would now like to believe that the fear is subsiding.

Talking about useful lies, I met a pair of new parents in a train , enroute to bhopal. Their child was OBSESSED with the I-pad. Actually for his age of 2.5 years he was a genius with the gadget. But at the end of the day he was still a child who needed his rest , his food and his time off the I pad. After a lot of persuasion, love and a bit of anger display, when the parents just could not separate the boy and his toy, the father stealthily switched the I-pad off and told the son , "The battery ...gone!" No Battery ..See!!" Then, and only then did the child sleep and peep out of the window to see the scenery outside. Phew!! Only then, even we could sleep! A very useful lie I say!

So maybe I will lie to my child. He/She will definitely grow up to know that it was just a cute lie to make him learn a lesson or two. I am sure after he/she grows up to be 18, 19 or 20 we will both laugh at it, like my father and I do today, over his toy lie. "At least you went to bed early" he says . I can't help but agree!