Being Indian

15th August (Independence Day Of India)...It is the day of visible display of patriotism- people selling me flags at the Traffic signal, my favorite radio station playing "Saare Jahan se Acha..",  my Facebook feed full of  "I love my India"  status updates, my phone is spammed by forwards including that "Our Indian national anthem has been voted the best by Unesco", while the movie "Border" is playing on at-least 5 TV channels.. I feel Today I could just die for my country!

 But then these party poopers show up and they refuse to be a part of this Celebration.! These bunch of people who say that they do not identify with this nation and Nationality, and say that they refuse to abide by the lines drawn by our English friends. The say that they want "Azad Kashmir"


. So in 1947, in between the 14th and 15th of August, people were rather harshly handed over the identity of being Indian or Pakistani's, but the fate of Kashmiri's was kept in abeyance. They were to be Kashmiri's until further notice. Over years of precise propaganda, they were instead handed over guns to decide for themselves. We could call the struggle of these Kashmiri's misguided, or deluded or just a search for their identity. The death in numbers, turmoil, living in curfews, sleeping with gun fires, and walking with stone pelting and generation and generation of people who were  made to believe that they needed freedom ! "Hum Kya chate Azadi" ("All we need is Freedom")!


So I exist somehwere on the edge of this confusion, a Kashmiri (mostly Indian) but without "a" Kashmir! Today, amidst all this display of celebration of freedom something inside me turns tri-colored. As the national anthem is being played I stand up awkwardly with this intense realization of my own emotions of patriotism. How could I feel so intensely about identity/nationality that did not have any common grounds.
May be this sudden gush of emotion has settled the debate for me " I am afterall a PROUD INDIAN"

who is getting married???

Wedding diaries- That book that I was not interested in reading until I was the one getting married.
Nonchalant that this marriage thing only happened to other older more mature people. But before I realized it, I was  already on a self propelled journey of quite a few hyperbola’s. No please don’t ask me to stay calm, for heaven sake it’s my wedding , and yes I am invited by default..

So counting days, months to the wedding, I had to write the jumbo mombo of the many thoughts that go through the head (in the spirit of educating those who are or would succumb to the “wedding
syndrome”).


The most obvious thought of “how your life may change after marriage” gets completely sidelined and the predominant question of wedding dress takes the center stage in the “duh, obviously” way!. And before you appraise yourself with this change in priorities (from facebook to pinterest), everyone starts expressing their rather verbal, and impolite concern about "you losing weight" for the wedding.

While you expecting people to share their profound insight and anecdotes on marriage (and maybe even staying married), instead you are handed over a whole book full of wedding know hows (hair dresser's Number, Best wedding dress designer, make up tips, and not to forget best Diet plans). And that's when you realize that the extremely dramatic query of “whaaaaaatttthh you don’t have a hair dresser yet” is universally accepted as normal and the “what are you wearing” question is the most  obvious first question from friends and family right after you announce that you are getting married! I guess this is why smiling brides and grumpy groom holding “the end” placards are so universally accepted.

How did we (women) manage to convince the world with such conviction that our ultimate mission was infact to be married and the wedding was our own little fairytale of perfection (perfect hair, dress, makeup, shoes, jewelry, perfect, perfect, perfect).! As much as I would want to deny it, I squarely fall into the category of “I hate planning” and if that wasn’t bad enough I have what they call a “9 to forever” job and hence my favorite thing for all wedding related planning is procrastination (so if you can get it done the day after today, then maybe you should only attempt doing it the month after).

But I keep hearing these voices “but what about the dreams you had for your wedding”. I must admit, for a very short second I did panic. May be even I want a pintrest worth wedding but then I have full 5 whole months to plan it and then I write my first and last note in my own wedding diary "it is just a wedding and besides you Mrs. Bride, noone really noticed how perfect those center piece's were"!

i died...

Why is it so difficult for us to accept that we are dispensable and borderline inconsequential? So yes we will die, and as sad as that may be, the world will keep on moving at its pace.

Remember that book “who will cry when you will die?”, it was by far the most redundant title, because when you do actually die the last thing on your to be black mind would be the amount of tears that your death will cause.Grand Finale, very last breath, good bye, emancipation equated to the comfort that you would otherwise derive from self importance- "hey! I just died!!!!!!!!... and all you did was cry..??"

 In a science class they once told me, we are 50-65%water, not solid steel or titanium, not precious diamonds, not artificial plastic, but water. Could this mean that we can evaporate and dry up? Our physical existence, a covering on skin, ectodermal tissue, muscles, blood, veins, bones, tissues and the internal organs delicately and meticulously put together, with immense meaning and purpose.
And yet covered with this vulnerability of in-existence, only bones and flesh, breakable and degradable, fragile.

But then still what a wonder we are.. While I process my thoughts, I also breath, exhale and inhale, process oxygen, throw out carbon dioxide. I eat, digest, process the food, retain the important, throw the waste and I see my computer screen, hear the noise of keyboard, touch it, type words while my minds imagining and thinking and all when I thought I couldn’t multitask.

I am unknowingly, effortlessly equipped to perform various tasks, some with practice and some naturally. I wonder how such fine balance was created, this refined structure, meticulous design, wondrous mind and impeccable outcome. And yet, I was created to end, to vanish, to decompose and to DIE.

In words of a wise Mr. Taxi walla … “even if you put all the money in the world, with all the many precious stones and every materialistic, expensive things that ever existed on one side of the scale of balance... it would not be able to measure one tenth the value of even one human being...That’s how priceless each life is…. ”