When I give the Word.

I was taking my daily walk with a friend, biting into the delicious chocolate frostik, when suddenly she said something and i replied pretty dramatically with a few heavy words here and there. She stood there and stared at me for a second, giving me a 'what the hell is wrong with you' look. i said, "well, I'm a writer, I'm allowed such things." I've never refered to myself as a writer ever before, and i doubt i can for atleast another 5 years. But that one comment led me to think, why at all, did I say that. Well now, I'm not particularly a boaster, nor do i actually think of myself as such ( does this comment make me one?).I do not do cool things like play an instrument, dance all those complicated dance forms, click away to glory with an expensive DSLR, or play with colours and preserve a view on canvas. I want to confess though I take pride in calling myself a writer. She asked me, "dude, how can anybody write, I mean why do you write at all".

Well, here goes. I SUCK at expressing myself, I think writing covers that area. Or so it should. Apart from that, it opens a completely new world of possibilities. You can be anything, say anything for or against anyone, and they'll be reading your blog liking it. That is the power of the Word. When Written properly it has power to move nations. Gandhi, long back used this and sent a letter to Hitler. Martin Luther King made extensive use of it, so did a certain bored female who had nothing better to do. writing is actually a very twisted thing, its like wet clay, mould it in anything you want. If read carefully, it can probably map the writer's brain right in front of you.  It is like an eternal private joke with yourself (yea that's forever alone talk). Anyway, imagine the power one can get, by merely twisting words.

Also, to a writer, it doesn't really matter whether people like what they write, because if you start writing for yourself, you don't care. People might have different reasons for writing, some really serious ones, some for soul searching, some also to wile away time. Me? I don't have any such fancy motives. No i don't want to take over the world, I'm not a lonely little girl in a big bad world, nor do I have to put across a message that will make your life easier, reader.
I'm just,Me. I am Shivani Bansal, and Writing makes me happy.

The Mighty Me

I walked the sea of red,  shrouded by the gold gleam,

The weight upon my head, bore me down every second I stepped.

The sceptre in my hand, and the velvet coat,

Followed the girl in white, as she swung her flaxen rope.

Dropped to the chest of the man I felled,

Her eyes pouring down on me, with diamonds of grief.

Did the right thing, I took 20 heads

 my kingdom, grateful.

Her eyes took mine, and held them like gravity

Told me a hundered stories with but a single drop,

Caressing her cheek.

Slowly slid her hand to her father’s side,

Touched the hilt and made it pure.

The sabre kissed her neck as she made rubies.

The rings I bore, the pride.

I watched it settle to a pebble sitting there.

As she gave her head, she took mine,

Buried it 6 feet under, and shamed.

I drank that night, the elixir drinking me,

Saw her eyes, as they bore into the stone I had in me.

Pierced it like the sword at my hip,

Gleamed like the gems I had.

I took to white, at the sacred ground, bowed my head.

Walking the path of destiny, years after I gave up my stones.

I saw her, the girl in white, looking down upon me.

Stabbing me with her eyes, tearing down

The Mighty Me.

Giant of The Sea

She fell down the rabbit hole,

 scraping her arms against the wall.

In over her head, she couldn’t find a way,

That’d lead her closer to the ray,

Of the giggling sunlight that bounced off the water,

That reflected off the scales of the Giant of The Seas.

With a seductive eye, he laid upon her,

The venom rushed through her like exhilaration.

She’d fall from the skies into his arms,

Be lashed and bloodied, her mane flowing,

Like water on her shoulders, and velvet on his face,

She’d fall towards him and into his arms.

She saw the sights, of a story untold,

As she fell down the bottomless hole,

She saw the things of past before, of things that might,

Again behold, the sight of her falling ashore,

Near the light she thought she’d be,

Into the arms of The Giant of The Sea.

My world or yours.

It is a town that you'll probably read on the back of a Hindustan lever product, like an outlet, and forget as soon as you graduate to the ingredients or even before. I don't know. But its a town where hundreds of girls in a hijab are educated. A town where by the chandragiri river 5 college going students would sit on the shore, under the bridge, and throw stones in the water. A place rightfully called the 'God's own country' houses such a town called Kasaragod. It has open fields where the grazing cows are disturbed by the nonchalant kids playing cricket. A place where you find houses of all possible colours and sizes, a place, a reflection of modern India where a small town life and city life goes on parallely. Where people are willing to help random strangers accustomed to concrete jungles cross the real ones in slippers. Where coconuts and big mansions are a daily sight. A state, longitudinaly located at the shores of the Arabian sea, kerala has two main sects of people. Muslims in the north and Christians in the south. Now this is a very abstract distinction that I could make to know better about the state as a whole. The town, Kasaragod, redefines simplicity as never before. It almost makes you wonder what if you were in place of a random stranger you see walking on the road, going to school. How different would life be. Its almost amazing to think how precisely things work out for people, because even one little change could lead to completely different life journey with new goals and accomplishments. With new concerns, contexts, worries and personalities. But here I am sitting in an air conditioned innova, with headphones on, writing this, rather than that girl in a hijab with a packet from a grocery shop , walking home and wondering about what to cook for the night.
This in a sense leads of to conclude that people live in their own heads. Every single person has a different world and different perception towards life. It is difficult to understand because of its large magnitude, in terms of the whole world. But then again, our brains can only process so much. Or can it?

Into the night

Im here, on my way back home from manipal and I just crossed a place called ansoti, which probably doesn’t even figure on the map. Frankly I’ve had a history with trains, when I was a kid and a train would come on the platform I would be amused how I felt that I was moving and train wasn’t. Then physics happened and I realized that it wasn’t something magical about me, but something called relative velocity. Then came a time when, whenever a train came on a platform it was time for vacations to end and it was time to go back to hostel. Back to my friends, back to what we called ‘central jail’ but wept like, well girls, when we left. Scindia Kanya Vidyalaya.

Then came a phase when the whole meaning of travelling in trains changed for me. It stopped meaning what it usually does and became travelling in locals in Mumbai. It meant fighting for place to stand even when there were seats available(who am I kidding-they usually weren’t).It meant hanging out of the doors and reaching the destination in one piece, it meant earrings for Rs.5 and vada pav for another 5.

Trains have always brought about a rush of memories to me, and at the same time, creating new ones- real and hypothetical. Now, when I sit in one, I realize how miniscule I am, there are so many different lives, so many different peoples and their own different world who come and travel together. When I was a kid, at the end of a journey I would probably have made friends with people in mine and next two compartments. Now,  here I am, sitting on my own little berth and writing. Trains are like an intersection of so many lives completely different from each other. It is that common point where everyone exists in equilibrium with others. They have different backgrounds, different reasons to travel, different destinations, but at that point they learn to co-exist. That is human nature, I think under all the fights and everything we are as ONE. We are like grass blades, separated at the tip, but conjoined at the very root.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     

Soulful Music, Or a Musical Soul?

How good it feels when you are listening to your favourite piece of music and you can point out/ predict the minutest change in rhythm. For me, music has been an ultimate bank of emotions where one could find, overwhelmed and subtle, expressive and deadpan emotions. It is like a time Machine which once opened will fill you with all the emotions you once felt when you heard that song, you might not remember the context itself, but the music would remind you of all the things you experienced that time. It might be a visit to your hometown, a teary goodbye, or even the sight of your crush. It is, in fact, amusing how a simple set of sounds tactfully spaced can bring about a stream of memories you might have consciously, or subconsciously , pushed to the back of your mind. Somehow it envelopes you in its soulful beauty and induces different emotions in different people.Some People may feel more energetic and inspired while the others could get completely lowdown, some might even completely stop listening to that particular song or artists if it reminds them of something they can't let go of. I think, it is not the content of the song, but the sound of it that brings about the innermost memories in people. It is the music that lulls you into its own world which somehow is entwined with your own. It is the rhythm of beats which resonates with that of your own soul and makes you feel in harmony with your own self. Music is a pathway to your soul, or has it always been there?

Resting not in peace

Very recently i realized being peaceful and sitting in peace are two different things, just like keeping quiet and being silent, or maybe listening to something and hearing something. For economics students it might be easy if i say that being peaceful is a flow concept. But when i come to think of it, i doubt that any normal person is peaceful, ever. 99% people let the environment around them affect their moods, and if they sit somewhere quiet, or beautiful, or someplace that might get them in touch with their own being, they are sitting in peace. But it is only the 1% of people who find the world within themselves and are the ones who are peaceful, or live in peace if you may. And the more i mention this word, realization sinks deeper that peace is a highly improbable state to achieve these days. The reason still being unknown to me, i would partially blame the technology like everybody else does. What intrigues me most, is the fact that , knowing all this, we don't even TRY  to be in a state of nothingness. When someone says Im resting, they probably mean that they are relaxing their muscles, or lying down to stabilize blood pressure, but never do they stop for a second, and THINK. Or more precisely try NOT to think consciously or sub consciously. Never do they try to be at peace with themselves, never do they stop judging every tom dick and harry who walks their way, never do they try to REST IN PEACE.

no love lost

Ah. Sleep. It is one of the many things in life people think can control, but really can't. I would describe sleep as the guy you're crushing on, because when you are doing something else, it comes quietly, and suddenly your gravitational field shifts and as much as you would want to continue with your work, you can't. You just can't. You can't stop thinking about the warmth of that pillow, and the sheet cozying up around, and suddenly you find yourself lulled into its charm and give in to the temptation however important the work might me. You can sure avoid it with hot and sickly sweet cups of coffee, but eventually it will lure you into its sweet embrace. Mmmmm. But on the other hand, if you try to go after it, try to feel that comfort in your pillows, it just spurns you like a fly out of that warm cozyness, and all you feel is a strong sense of betrayal by your very own comfort zone, your stuffed toy, or that named hand pillow you've had for years. I wonder how much will it have us waiting. Guy and sleep alike.

Bambai Meri Jaan

For those of you who do not understand hindi, it means, Mumbai My Life... Literally. And straight to the point, it is the MOST beautiful city in the world. It is the city of irony, where there are beaches and mountains, slums and five star hotels, roadside markets and fashionable malls and designer stores. This is the city where even the lowest rung of people are allowed to live with as much dignity as a super-hyped-movie-star. This is the place where the Indian version of Hollywood came into being. This is the city of professionals where everyone is on time even if the heavens are pouring their wrath(or love if you may) in full swing. Even though I wasn't born here, it doesn't stop me from calling the 'Satelite City' my home. Why am I in the sudden 'Home Sweet Home' phase even after living here for five years? I'm soon going to leave this place, this City Of Dreams. I don,t know where i will be in the next 5 years.. Atleast i know where my heart will be.

she's the man

First thing's first, i don't like being a girl. Sometimes it feels awesome, but the other times it just feels hindered. Like everything is limited for me. When someone wants to know more about someone, the first thing they do is talk to them. Now being a girl that is what I cant do very often, considering the ones I want to know more about are rikshaw-wallas, paan-wallas, small artisans who sell their goods at cheap rates to avoid competition. I want to know how they survive the competition, how they spend their free time, what kind of food they eat et al. So being a girl you can't just sit beside them and talk because it 'looks wierd' and most of all they might have the 'buri nazar'. I realised this impedence when i started reading Shantaram. If the author was a girl, he couldn't have done all those things. Or maybe it is only the Indian girl who feels hindered. Even after 66 years of what we call freedom, here I am writing this, well, write up about being a girl. I sometimes think that had I been a guy, I could've gone for walks at 2AM being battered by a 3 hour test, or atleast my friends wouldn'n discuss about clean-ups and blackheads, and moreover i could walk away when i pretty well pleased. That is what being a girl includes, life by rules. When with family you follow the 'Family protocol' of not texting continously or else it would be assumed that there must be something fishy, with friends you follow the 'Friend Protocol' of listening to everything the fellow girlfriend says and nod in agreement. After all, their boyfriends wont listen to that crap, and thats when they need the kind ear to listed to their 'Waist Worries'. How do I get by? Well I have an image of The Tomboy In The Group, so that cuts me some slack. But then, I also feel happy about being a girl, because then I wont have to deal with girls for the rest of my life. And with no offence to anybody, I want to say that its not the 'gender' I have a problem with, its the ideology which has been stereotyped as girly, which I, very explicitly, have used to write my first blog. The Feminist that I am, I think its not your gender or the way you dress up that makes you girly or Tomboy, its where your head is, and just because alot of girls follow that ideology(I think what kind of ideology I mean is obvious) it is called girly or 'chique' as it is popularly known.
....And i dont know how to conclude this so, im just going to say, that PLEASE do not be limited by what others think of you or what you think you are SUPPOSED to do.