Anecdotes and Realizations

 Sometimes when I have a lot of time to think, I feel heavy.  I always need clarity. I summarise my thoughts into one dramatic statement.  The latest one is 'What am I ?' So vague.  What I mean is what kind of person am I . Like my humour  or my behaviour or my postion. Am I the chilled one? The spunky one? The funny one? The emotional one?  Everyone seems to have a fixed role. I don't know what mine is. I feel lost sometimes.  What makes ME me? What is the Anjali quality? I CAN be everything but then where am I ? What comes naturally?  I haven't expressed it well. I don't know if anyone else ever felt that way . LOST.  Hmm...Is it a pointless thought? 

I have never been an atheist or a non-believer either. I prefer remaining in the question till something is decided. In everything remaining in question seems to be best for me. I'm not even sure if agnostic fills the blank well.  In Percy Jackson : The Lightning Thief(Who said you learn only from fat, non-fantasy books?), the Mist causes humans not to see what is happening with the Olympians and the demigods. They fill in their blanks.  Picture Credit: Divya P So I began thinking For a long time many reasons as to why earthquakes occur came up. One I read about was that when the bull holding the earth aloft shifts the weight to another horn, earthqyakes occur. This is a belief. It may be the reason.  Then later we came up with science. We filled in the blank differently Maybe God is just a belief. Because we are not yet able to fill in the blanks of certain things. Like why things happen, why kindness works, why we exist. Maybe after a few centuries we will fill in the blank diffe

I have come across many problems. Many of my own, many of my peers. Most of them have a solution. But some do not. These are when we cannot control the solution directly.  One day a child in our van came to me and Brahmani. (In 2019) Clearly distressed he came to us, 'Akka, she called me a donkey. ' I thought about it. As a toddler I learnt a clear method of justice. You make a mistake you say sorry. But, what if that person is not going to say sorry? What if he somehow is not compelled by the teacher to say sorry ? What if he cannot be blackmailed by threatening to call his parents?  I thought it out. What if someone calls me something a little bit worse than a donkey. What would I do. I could not run home to my parents or my teachers. Sympathy is all I would get. That person may not be interested in talking things out and apologising. How would I get him to work it out with me?  Picture Credit: Brahmani T There I realised is the creator of my problems. We always want someone

 I think for Agatha Christie , I will stop calling it a review. There is nothing to review. It is magnificent.  While reading the book, my head was spinning. So  many details that I thought it had to be like Murder on the Orient Express. Everyone did it! But, she wouldn't repeat it.  Then in the end, I almost burst out laughing. It was so simple that I and Hercule Poirot (Of course, he figures it out in the end) as well missed it. I heard of this book in another Poirot book where he calls it 'his single failure'. I hardly think so. As usual, any Agatha Christie novel is absolutely worth it. Some words I learnt were( In every book I read, I write down the words I don't know in pencil on the front page. At the end, I go through them all. It is annoying but it pays off. ): Vacuous- Showing a lack of thought or intelligence Surreptitious(ly) - Secretive(ly) Effeminate - Of a man , having characteristics considered typical of a woman Repugnant - Distasteful Insular - ignoran

 Maybe its just me. Probably just me.  Sometimes when talking to a friend or a teacher or a family member, I just rule out certain topics. For example if I'm talking to a friend who recently failed a science test, I wouldn't mention exams. If I was talking to a family member who fought with a cousin , I wouldn't bring up their name.  It is all done with good intention. To not offend them, to not pry. But sometimes I fail to understand when I SHOULD cross the line.  Picture Credit : Apurva V What I mean is if you are close to someone you can talk to them. They might feel better if you talk to them. They will know you care. They might feel reassured that there's someone backing them up, someone who cares enough to try.  But, if I am stuck on the end of NOT INTERFERING I may not realize that they want me to interfere.  Then again, they should spit it out if they want me to talk about it.  We make these silent assumptions in our head based on experience. Of course, that'

 Number 3 This is my reading/study lamp. It is from IKEA.  Reminds of a butler.  I gave up on IKEA after my first trip to that maze. Like a thriller . But they do have good products.  Once you are in,it takes a while to get out. So, I haven't gone after the first time. My mother went two or three times after. One trip, Mama  brought back 2 lamps. One black one and one white one. I immediately took to the black one. It is sleek and modern. The white seemed bulky. And a problem we discovered later was it kept falling off its stand.  In action Something interesting about this lamp is that when you touch the bulb it doesn't burn. It isn't hot. I don't know why I was touching the bulb in the first place. It also provides support for the comic books I have in the window sill. It is very useful. Before, I had to get up from my comfortable reading position to switch off the light 5 metres(Blogger says it is meters ! What an outrage) away! You're laughing, but it is so agoni

 My room is a mess. There is stuff that should be in the dustbin and chewing gum wrappers, unfolded clothes, games, books, boxes, pens strewn on the bed. My head feels cluttered too. I think what happens is I find something out of place. Then, I say to myself - I have too much to do. I'll do it later. And the later doesn't come only! The only point of time at which I clean it nowadays is to sleep. What is going on? It wasn't like this before. It looks horrible.  This One is really funny  Aah! My room is a broken water heater. What's yours?           Is this procrastination? That reminds of a segment in Readers' Digest If I had an autobiography, it's title would be? One reader named it - When Procrastination Met me. Yikes! I'd rather start cleaning now! 

 Number 2.  This is kind of a reversed puppet. You pull from the bottom not the top.  Celebration! I will just be here !  When we were around 7 or 8 , Mansi went with her family to Goa. She returned with two of these  contraptions. One orange and one pink. We sat on her brown sofa with the black markings, and she gave me the orange one. I was irate. How could she keep pink for herself? I stayed mum at the time. It has been hanging on this door for 5 years now. It hasn't aged well. Clearly. 

 Often I have been told that life should be 'simple'. I disagree with this, or maybe I just don't understand what it means. What I am saying is that people tell me that simple life or Hindi me 'Saada Jeevan' is good. But what do you mean by that? Do you mean that we should live only on our necessities? Not taking anything else? Then, will we be happy?  Enjoying life - Picture Credit: Me I don't think so. I like my things. I'm not attached to them, but I like them. I like my books, my paints, my room , my wave board, my cycle. I don't want to live without them, if I had a choice. If having things makes me happy, shouldn't I have things? I can have things, then why not have them?  Simplicity is probably meant to bring serenity. But, I think simplicity in the mind brings serenity. Having clarity and knowing your purpose(There's this awesome TED talk about a similar thing by Emily Esfahani Smith on YouTube).   I think I most probably misunderstood wh

 One of the most beautiful sights I have seen (on TV). A herd of buffalo graze lazily in the bright green field and the white dainty birds sit randomly on their bodies.       No buffaloes in this house, just cats One harsh movement would be enough to kill the bird. But no. The aggressive fighter can be gentle. Maybe if our world was in a symbiotic relationship, giving and receiving, everything would be alright. Using our power judiciously , sparing the weak. How lovely!

 History is one of my favourite subjects. Perhaps I took to it as a challenge initially, to like something everyone hates. To stand out. Anyways, history is everywhere. Its a story to be told. Each item in my room has its own unique history. So, when I'm down with ideas, this seems to be something fun to do.  First item is this:  In the window sill, next to Lucky Luke The story is behind it is not very intricate but I love it. We when to Hyderabad Lit Fest, not sure which year. 2019 I think. At the posterior end of the fest, there was the art and paintings section. There was a man , a salesman and a young man of around 22. He was disabled and was thus painting these elaborate paintings with his feet. I looked at the collection of paintings. The one I liked was of a young girl in a red dress and a straw hat with a red umbrella sheltering her and her cat. It reminded me of Maya. And I think it was hopeful. Anyways, Mama was looking to buy something for Biren and wife for their upcomi

 My proudest moment is perhaps that I religiously maintained my list of sticky notes with the names of the books. This is my 13th year of books. I forgot the date for some , so I am just giving the names :  1 Artemis Fowl - Eoin Colfer Hickory Dickory Dock - Agatha Christie Asterix : All at Sea(Asterix is technically a comic book though)- Uderzo and Goscinny Asterix: Magic Carpet - Uderzo and Goscinny  Asterix: Omnibus - Uderzo and Goscinny Cat among the pigeons- - Agatha Christie The Jungle Book - Rudyard Kipling Passenger to Frankfurt- Agatha Christie Cards on the Table- Agatha Christie Alice in Wonderland- Lewis Carroll Through the looking glass- Lewis Carroll Artemis Fowl : The Arctic Incident- Eoin Colfer The Inimitable Jeeves- P.G. Wodehouse Appointment with Death- Agatha Christie I am Malala- Malala Yousufzai Artemis Fowl : The Eternity Code- Eoin Colfer Percy Jackson : The LIghtning Thief - Rick Riordan The Diary of a Young Girl - Anne Frank Home to Roost- Tessa Hainsworth Murd

 My 13th Birthday was much anticipated and caused me quite a few sleepless nights. I woke up at around 6 am and started answering messages and then straight from 730 am (after a bowl of Almond and Honey cornflakes :) )till 1 pm calls were all I was doing. My father gave me so many books! I got Evil Under the Sun, Lord Edgeware dies, Percy Jackson : Sea of monsters(Thank you Vinod mama), Don Quixote, The Prophet, The Count of Monte Cristoe and the Murder of the Orient Express (Jyo maushi. Thanks!)  My father also made a huge card. It is a collection of his diary entries around the time I was born. I haven't read it through yet. I need to do that. My mother gave me SO much art stuff. I took around half of it, the rest we can donate or gift to others. I spoke for around 20 minutes with each person and my throat was horse, but I felt elated and loved. Here is a list of calls and messages I got.  1.       MAnha, 2.       Hasini 3.       , Prajwal 4.       , Shripad 5.       , Mansi 6.