My Butter Clutter

Last week I thought of going on a “detox” diet (a short term diet focused on removing toxins from your body) out of a suggestion from a friend and a book given by him. I had no clue what it meant to be on a detox diet but the thought sounded quite simple – eating fruits and veggies all day for seven days with lots of water. I figured it couldn’t be that hard given that I am not a meat eater anyway.

Later that week my friend and I decided to go on the detox for seven straight days followed by a one-day starvation day. We ate the best of meals the week before, to ensure we don’t miss good food too much the following week - all this to recover from a really bad stomach that my friend suffered earlier that month.

I had no clue what I was jumping into till I actually did. As one of my life principles go, to not pursue things half-heartedly, I knew if I decided to do it I would follow through it till the end without compromise.

The weekend before the starvation week, I read the book that had details on how to follow the diet. The idea started to scare me a little. The thought of no fries for lunch, no coffee, no bread, rice or milk, no butter, cheese or chocolate, no gelato (and the list goes on) – or in short the idea of no comfort food started to freak me out a little. Moreover the idea of no coffee sounded like something that wouldn’t fit into my routine given that I used to be a coffee addict till a while ago. Though I had considerably cut down my coffee intake, it hadn’t gone down to zero. The medley of all these thoughts started to overwhelm me a little. Nevertheless, I thought I’d try anyway!

The first two days were a nightmare. Really!

I wonder if a non-vegetarian person would ever understand why is it so difficult for a vegetarian to eat only veggies all day to fill in your hunger pangs! How hard can it be for a vegetarian to eat vegetables?! You meat-eaters please your taste buds by eating meat and so eating only veggies might turn out to be a novelty at such times. We vegetarians please our taste buds with some sugar or vegetarian processed food or food which is full of carbohydrates. That’s what keeps us going! You might ask who forces you to be a vegetarian – but no! Look at it as if it is almost a compulsion for us to not eat meat- for whatever reasons, religious or something that your mind doesn’t allow!

So the first two days, I was down with severe headaches and restlessness topped with some irritation. A perfect mix to screw up one’s day! Less productivity at work and horrid temptations seeing the donuts outside my office! 48 hours straight headaches even while I was asleep, I was almost tempted to say “screw this diet!”

But I resisted! And the third day was a breeze. My headaches were gone and I survived.

Though, what came out of the whole thing was the realization that we tend do get so dependent on stuff that we don’t really need. Things that we think we can’t survive without, we perfectly do with a little bit of aggression in the beginning but flawlessly comfortable later on. It is such a reviving experience! And now I can say that I will never need coffee moving on. I can also dare to say I can live without anything by myself.

Our body and mind are way too flexible and we don’t even realize it. They work WITH you in whatever you decide. So if you do decide to love your body and mind, they’ll cooperate completely with a little push back initially, as we all do when we come across any kind of change!

How such experiences mold our thoughts and teach us lessons that we don’t otherwise learn is just so fascinating. And then finally as every lesson applies to life itself so did this. What we really think we’re addicted or habituated to is a myth and the makeup of the mind.

Throw away your addictions! Whatever they are – food, work, smoking, alcohol or a person! You will eventually live happily without anything and anybody! Resist and live the pain and trouble, push back on your invitations and enticements, acknowledge the aches and harassments that come with it and while doing all this have faith in your stunts and you’ll zip it through the air!

And if you’re one of those who don’t really learn lessons without actually living them – then Go Detox!! ;-)

The Jobs Fiesta

As is rightly said “3 apples changed the world - 1st seduced Eve, 2nd fell on Newton and the 3rd was offered to the world half bitten by Steve Jobs”

It was all about putting a dent in the universe forever. A dent that will remain for the rest of the coming generations to cherish and get inspired by, to pursue their dreams and “to live before you die” as was taught by the apple man.

The misfit who didn’t have rules and no respect to the status quo, the man who saw things differently, the troublemaker who did what he believed would change the world and stood uptight till he proved himself right – he was the crazy one.

Such are men who you can glorify or who you can deviate with while they are alive. But what you can’t do is ignore the change they bring – because they change things and push the human race forward. In them we see genius.

And though the world thinks of them as the crazy ones because they think they can change the world – those are the men who really do!

While the Gods have found a new CEO and the Jobs Fiesta on Earth has indeed ended, here’s to the rebel, the crazy one, the true genius – RIP.

Every moment changes

Every time i feel sad or depressed, I wish for that time to come to an end soon.

Every time I feel like someone doesn't understand me, I feel helpless and thoughtless.

How dependent sometimes we get on moments that are defined by situations is so amazing. So much so that we start hoping or expecting them to stay or leave, almost trying to wanting to get a control over life - sadly.

But so many years of learning lessons and many more to come, all of them only restate over and over again reminding me of the age-old "Change is the only constant".

I resonate with that saying today, every day and every minute i feel a certain emotion.

After so much grief, sadness, happiness, pleasure, anxiety, peace and joy - it all finally comes to an end. And every moment changes.

How you feel at a certain time does not last. Good or bad, happy or sad, it won't last and every moment will change. Every moment will be different from what you experience at the moment. And every moment changes regardless of anything else. This alone thought makes me move on from where ever I am in my mind.

Also considering the fact that life is really too long, most moments won't ultimately matter in the bigger picture. Those that matter will be a stepping stone to your destiny and you'll always remember them. Those which won't don't last anyway.

How unfortunate that the same is true for great moments that make us feel elated. They don't last either. Ultimately none of it lasts, whatever you do! And we can't control that change. It all keeps changing.

But what you can control is how you look at the changing time and what you take out of it.

And every time these changing moments shock me, as much as they do, I only say to myself:

A sleep inducing world and Im wide awake

In a thought provoking world, I lie thoughtless

But what more to say to my mind when every thing seems as huge and wide as a mountain range

It is true today and will stay forever, every moment of time in my life will most surely change!

Run-rhythmia

Run that extra mile, run that walk way, run on the treadmill, run where you can! Run! Cause when you can’t you’ll miss it!

Running is the biggest metaphor for living life, it gives you back what you’re ready to put into it. It teaches you to not wait for the end, but to start and to start with courage.

It is one of those very few things that you can do all by yourself. It asks you everyday if you’re ready to be strong or are you going to be a wimp!

Running gives you a rhythm nothing else can. It takes you beyond your estimations of self and throws away all those worn-out beliefs. It teaches us to challenge ourselves, everyday, every mile!

It doesn’t matter where you reach and how fast you reach. What matters is that you’re set on a journey that’ll reach you somewhere and it’ll reach you there at your pace, the pace at which you want to reach and a pace that isn’t forced.

It tells you, that only you have the power to decide how and at what intensity you want to live life with.

Running teaches you to prepare and to trust that the end shall be satisfying. It teaches you that you can go in any direction under your own power. Where ever you reach is what you had planned for and you deserve!

Run faster, run further, run till your lungs let you – for, while you run you take more breaths and live more. Each breath you take while running reminds you that life’s passing by, so live it up as much as you can!

Running inspires you to do more in the short time that we all have, it forces you to face your fears boldly! It gives you the rhythm that you need.

It shows you a miracle that nothing else does, the miracle that you had the courage to start and the miracle that you didn’t care where it ends, the miracle to do your best without worrying where you’ll end up!

Run a little more, run that extra mile, take that extra breath!

To Friends!

A good dinner and some laughter around, some fine light and some cool breeze, a life which brings some people along who lift your soul, motivate your thoughts, build up your energy and help accrue your penchant to be happy…

People who become a part of your life and stay there to never leave; those sidekicks who love you for just who you are and accept you for what you have become …

Who inspire you in more than one way, help you carry on everyday and move along the journey of life, take each day as it comes just by being who they simply are, only the presence of who matters the most no matter what stage you’re at…

Who laugh when you laugh and cry when you cry, who uplift your mood in the worst times and who just listen without questions…

Who pat your back for your goods and support you in getting better at your bads…

To those strangers who come along your way, sometimes unknowingly and become your only place to go to, who become your home and eventually family away from family…

To friends and a lifetime of them all!!

Cheers!

A multitasking job – Life!

Kudos to the lock, the stock and the barrel!

Kudos to each - for surviving every day with energy, enough to see the next, for living life the way it is!

What a super draining out and obnoxiously challenging this issued-by-the-anonymous job is!

Imagine dealing with your goals and desires, your aspirations and dreams, an entirety of could-be’s and should-be’s, a world full of uncertainties and the unknown, living in the present along with the baggage of the past and the curiosity of the future, the loss of people in your lives, roller coasters of emotions and attachments, empathy and sympathy, the drama of relationships and the mannequin it ends up forming, the trauma of expectations from self and others, the burden of fulfilling needs of people you care for, the idea of making a good life for yourself and your children, for wanting to be the best you can at every microscopic stage of your life, for dealing with friends and family and for juggling between so many different worlds you shift from and into, the want of being a successful person and the wish to write your own destiny, the acceptance of unexpected events that occur and oh ! dealing with the need to love and to be loved – and then of course throw in some grocery shopping, laundry, being neat and clean and presentable, sleeping , cooking, eating, concentrating, working the best you can, talking, breathing, yawning, falling sick etc. !!

What a super exhaustive and multiplicative job this can be!!

And each one of us, do this everyday as a routine. We betray ourselves of the pat we all deserve on our backs, the acknowledgement and the appreciation that we seldom show ourselves and expect more from others – a boss, or a spouse, children or parents.

Lets not wait for anybody else to validate this truth of each of our lives. Lets believe it ourselves and pat our backs on the amazing job of living life just the way we all do!

Lets felicitate our survival today and lets all smile just for who we all are!

Oh Summer – My myth!

How it felt to soak those sun rays deep within your skin, all day for long days!

That season filled with breaking the rules, standing apart, ignoring your head and following your heart.

And the sweat under those flip flops that almost made you slip, the little tinkles on the forehead trickling down beside your ear slowly, one at a time; making you feel soulful about the warmth of Seattle – that imagination of a rightly balanced summer, that wish to lie on a hammock basking in the fever of the bright, the early!

That desirous appearance of the mountains bubbling with the gleaming golden rays of the sun, shining just at the right rims and angles, still aspiring the necklace of majesty.

Oh and the pompous lake Washington broadcasting its blue with the slight tinge of the yellowish golden flash bestowed upon by the flare, that yellow bright star.

Where are ya lost - behind those foggy, shady mystical films?

Where’s the summer when it all started? Where’s the summer when we all partied? Where every day was a Saturday night - where the sand was on my seat and the waves kissed my feet?

The sweet smelling breeze, the salty waft, sun kissed hair – Oh summer, take me there!

Grandeur at its best!

Beautifully sewed by the rays of the sun, this majestic abyss stands as undisturbed, unmoved, and untouched by modernism. Every falling ray of sunshine stiches the constantly deforming canyon every morning and radiates a maze of colors beyond and beneath its slits. The aura of this huge picture sitting so calm and content, immovable and certain of everything in life reflects so much belief and steadiness - belief in one’s own faith and steadiness in the ever changing world.

No matter what changes outside, this grand canyon confines its space so uniquely to not let anyone take anything away from it. It shields the life growing within. The tiny gears growing within it ask so little from life itself. They thrive in the hardest conditions and yet blossom looking the best.

The morning sunrise sets a reminder every day to keep a watch on the magnificence of nature and that of life, the grandness of how much nature throws at you every minute, the reality of bliss and a delusion of an unreachable cosmos. All in this one space – the Grand Canyon!

Every day when the sand sheds off the edges of its wide crevices, it only deepens in a different direction and carves itself with more beauty. It unfolds a different sense of refinement every second.

As the sun seeps down, the setting rays ornament the canyon in the most gentle form and the moonlight with the stars adorn its forehead reflecting a stunning glow which brilliantly celebrates every little part of the Canyon in its own way.

This, 2730 million years ago formed rock solid figure still encompasses the same and more beauty every passing day reminding each of the grandeur of one’s own personage, the magnificence of nature and the spirit of life in its own magical way.

This mythical Canyon that decors its city with its abiding existence and its adamant zest -may it continue to endure the course as it is today, for generations to come so each born new feels blessed to have stepped into a world with so much victory and so much heart !

Stare is constant

Change is the only constant they say. I think stare and change are constants for a person who realizes how liberating staring can be.

Staring gets to you the pause that we all need regularly in our everyday lives. It gets you in a state where you feel frozen until reality strikes, when a wish that the world can stop for a bit flies by your mind. Stare gives you that still, that pause, that high and that constant that nothing else can. It relieves you from the constant struggle of thinking, the fight to battle with doing the right thing and disentangling all those tightly tied up knotted feelings that don’t let you get anywhere or make you feel stagnant and blocked. Stare blocks that block. Stare lets you freeze for a while and pauses your world for a few moments.

I love to stare. I can’t stare for too long, but I love it. I’m addicted to staring. And while I’m still staring the real world strikes and I find myself back on that land full of my own struggles I don’t want to face.

It has meant so many things in different aspects of my life. I’ve got into deep troubles and felt loses even, due to my habit or want to stare. In a class it has meant, “why don’t you leave the class if you’d like to look outside the window anyway”. Who would think, that little mind which really doesn’t have any space anymore has frozen and is in a state of still.

In a relationship, it might mean “What are you thinking about? (Nothing.) How can you think about nothing all the time? You don’t communicate enough with me!” It’s all a matter of perception. Whoever said I’m not perceptive doesn’t really understand that state at all and bears no capacity to ever understand it either. I’m not thinking anything. I’m in a state where I love to be cause I permit myself in those moments to stop thinking, stop analyzing, stop observing and stop caring about what the world thinks of me.

At work I’ve faced humor “Ms. Jangla, now if you’re really done adoring that white board so much, may we hear of your work agenda for the rest of the week please!”

With a set of friends it has meant “Uh oh…we’ve lost her again!! Come back you lost soul”. A very good friend gets curious and asks “I wonder what you’re thinking all that time that you stare. I want to look at what you’re looking at...” I’m not looking at anything really. I’m only at a pause where I wish to be forever sometimes, cause I love to be left alone. I love to just not think and freeze. I love to not hear and not see with my eyes open. I love to not get distracted by anything in life. I love to be or not to be.

I’m not thinking about anything. I Promise.

I’m only taking a break from thinking. And I’m not lying either. I’m only being truthful to myself by taking that break. I’m only excusing myself from doing what I should do all the time – ponder, think, live, do the right thing...I’m only procrastinating a little cause I think I can allow myself to. I’m not lost anywhere!

I’m not thinking all the time – I’m not! I’m playing dead and suspending myself from the constantly changing time and elements, I’m only immobilizing myself for a while cause I love to, I’m only blocking myself from my thoughts. I’m only quitting for a while. I’m only quitting to resume!

My stares are the semi colons of my every day life, where I stop and wait, at most times unknowingly. It’s a switch from struggle to momentary peace. It’s a switch from struggle of dealing with thoughts, struggle of getting things right by being yourself and the struggle of handling life as it comes to that temporary peace that lets you be all by yourself amidst strangers, that’s lets you lay still in that mind of yours and says exactly this “I’m holding onto everything till you come back! Come back soon though, I wont be able to do this for long…”

I stare cause I choose to! I stare to be or not to be for a while! I stare to look at things exactly the way they are! I stare so I can breathe! And I stare so I can be blocked!

Bridge that hope!

Spring is here – almost. There is something extremely winsomely pleasant and beautiful about fresh leaves and little wild flowers on the trees. Little petals of Utopia strengthens your belief, all of it that has been lost in the hopeless arctic winter.

Summer is so promising. Summer is so much more life and energy. Summer is soul and summer is striking. Summer is want and summer is a need too. Summer is hopeful and summer is beautiful. Summer is a vacation and worth the wait too.

Winter feels more like a forever halt and an eternal continuation for the sunshine to arrive. Winter feels depressing and lonely.

But it’s almost coming to an end and spring is the aura of that end. While winter feels so hopeless and seems never ending, spring approaches and the sun shows glimpses every now and then, hope starts to reach you little by little. Spring says its not yet there, but almost. Just about, hang in there, just a little bit and the extremes will be bridged – very soon.

And then life is such. While you’re just at the brink of losing it completely, it sends you one more hint your way, one more whisper to hold on to and you pump up your optimism, hopeful about your aspirations. Spring is such – it sends little hints, it magically adorns the trees with little beautiful lives and makes you believe in life yet again.

I’ve decided I’m going to make peace with my restlessness. I’ve decided I’m going to bridge the extremes. I’ve decided I’m going to wait eagerly for the summer while spring is already here!

Self-War

Times when frustration rules the day and when nothing and no one seems to relate to you, YOU can certainly relate to the still waters - so obviously self-explanatory but yet so lonely. So still it stands will all the light it absorbs, with the countless towers surrounding it and shadowing it, the depth it bears screams to the world that in spite of being so gorgeously outspoken it still ultimately is alone!

It is such an internal struggle with self and with the world where it feels like the entire world is against you including your self – in every sense of the word. And there is really no energy left within to fight your ownself let alone the entire world. Its amazing how at times like these you feel like the most left out person but I realized that no can take your pain completely. And sometimes the person you think you can relate to the most and who you claim best understands you, fails to even sense how you feel. That’s when you feel loneliest. Sympathy is the least of what you’re probably looking for. If anything you’re only looking for a ear, but that’s exactly when you fail to realize what was it that you needed at the moment. It is only the after-event pondering that makes you wonder if that’s what you really needed.

The realization that moving on, such a feeling might arise more often than you’d like and the note to self that certain things in life can only be dealt on your own is very relieving. Cause you now know what to do – suck it up! The fact that you are your only listener strikes and acceptance takes over pleasantly. Ultimately you’re left alone to wage the war against yourself, where you know that the entire world is right in their stride, but the several attempts of the traumatic tourist within you who’s been exploring the different sides in you, one day finds out the difficulties you face in facing yourself. You and only you know those things and only you can feel the struggle of facing it and falling flat on your nose over and over again.

Its not the pain, it’s the frustration you’re not able to momentarily deal with and whoever understands that has been through it already. Someone who doesn’t just yet, will some time in his or her life time.

After all it only feels a little better to know that almost all of us go through such phases. In the end we realize that no amount of explanations to any one or connections with anyone make things better. Its only acceptance with self that makes you climb the curve in life that you need to get through.

And after repeated attempts of retrospection you ultimately reach a conclusion that some things are better left unsaid!

Caprice

I don’t have kids of the age of 13-15. I don’t have kids actually, for now. But I’m already scared of my kids growing into that age at some point.

As much as I don’t like to call myself a writer for some odd reason, I must accept that observing little details and putting them on paper is really my thing. Maybe sharing my thoughts with people who might be able to relate is my thing. So I was doing my usual Saturday morning routine, sitting in the café downstairs of my apartment building and sipping on a latte, reading the newspaper.

I heard the lady at the register. She asked “What I can get for you today?”

“One non-fat vanilla latte and one strawberry and cream shake please” said Alya.

"Name for the order please?"

"Alya"

Alya's kid wandered around in the café looking for something that he could potentially throw on the ground or break. He had the revolt in his behavior. He jumped around disrupting people’s silence including mine. When the disturbance continued for a while I decided to take off my glasses, put the paper down and watch him.

“I don’t want strawberry and cream anymore. I want cookies and cream” the kid said.

“You can’t have cookies and cream anymore sweety. We have already placed the order. I asked you 3 times before ordering it and you said you wanted strawberry and cream” Alya reminded Ivan, her 13 year old son. Not looking at her son, thinking that her ignorance would stop him from making a scene in the café she herself looked a little troubled by her son’s forceful demand.

“But now I want cookies and cream. Ask her to change it. I want the freedom to change my drink whenever I want to.”

“You can have cookies and cream in the evening. Strawberries make a good breakfast in the morning.” Alya said.

“You’re not a good mom at all.You don’t respect my choice. Why do I have to listen to you all the time? I know what’s good for me and what’s bad. ” Ivan screamed and walked out of the café in tears.

The entire café watched while Alya only had a pretentious smile on her face waiting to get the heck out of the café. She took the latte and the strawberry and cream and walked out embarassed.

Who can you really blame when your kids come up with such statements which you know aren’t true nevertheless there isn’t a way to make your child feel secured and comforted? Is it the age or the peers or the environment? Or is it the way you bring up or train your children? But realizing it after such events when the damage is already done, is there a way out of it or is it too late? Should you start doubting yourself as a parent and your inability in bringing up your kid or should you put it on that day and age where your child is in the revolt phase of life? But is it easy to convince yourself that it’s only time that could fix your relation with your kid and you can’t do much about it at the time?

I’m not a parent and I used to think being a parent probably needs lesser work than the pleasure that it gives you in return. I’m not sure of that anymore. I’m not sure if I have the strength in me to face that part of my life where there possibly will come a day when I blame myself for not having the right mother-child relationship with my child. I’m not sure if I want to be the mother my kid doesn’t want to go to. And in the fright to not let that happen I’m not sure if I would land up overdoing my part as a parent and turn out being over protective of my kids.

Anyway, miles to go I thought and snapped out of it. My coffee cup was empty. I walked towards the café register.

The lady at the register asked “What can I get for you today?”

“Strawberry and Cream shake maybe.” It’s better than cookies and cream I thought to myself.

I felt the cold today ..

By the streets of Seattle, walking on the stony walkways paved between stretches of grassy lands, the cold wind that kissed my cheeks and moved my hair, swirled my ears and sucked my bones, reminded me of the time five years back, back in Chicago land when I was completely new to the city and there wasn’t a moment where I didn’t curse the harsh wind and the ruthless itch it brought with it and I felt it in every nerve of my body. I had not imagined life so hard but I lived it. I cursed it all the way and every moment for all the distress it brought along with its adamant vigor to cause immense suffering.

Every day was a new confrontation with self, a new challenge to leave home, to gather the courage to feel the beast trying to get inside of me from any angle it possibly could while I walked my way to reach class. Resisting all that atrocity and ugliness it got with it and still keeping that energy alive, bled away all the will and strength to survive the day.

It’s been three years I moved away from the place, from the cold and its bitterness.

I felt the same cold today three years later. And I didn’t even really feel it. I enjoyed it and savored it. I slowed down to feel it deeper and smiled. I loved the touch of the wind on my face and it no more felt harsh. It felt known and my own, surreal and beautiful.

A shift in perspective, life, growth and self, changed everything including what the city and its elements resemble to me today. Only today I realize that cold resembles struggle and survival to me. It resembles suffering in the most brutal conditions but holding the faith that it will end someday. The cold that I detested once, taught me to look at life in a different way. It taught me the lesson of bearing pain and how to survive in the toughest times. It taught me perseverance and conviction. It taught me to be fearless.

I live my life fearlessly today and I believe I can survive any phase of life and handle whatever comes my way with the right attitude. It taught me the lesson I needed to learn the most. The lesson of being lionhearted !

That faithful beast stayed with me to teach me my lessons till I learnt them. It stayed by my side on my journey regardless of when and where it would end. It left me when I learnt what I needed to and was ready to take up whatever came my way. Today when I am no more surrounded by it, it got back to me with a hug and a hello and to remind me that though as ruthless and as brutal the entire journey of life gets, it teaches you something that you need, to live the rest of your life.

I love Chicago. I love Cold. I love Life.