How to save a life.

After Derek died, Grey’s Anatomy fans, all over the world, hit the roof. They went ballistic over how their beloved creator Shonda Rhimes, so brutally uprooted McDreamy from Meredith’s life leaving fans with little or almost no time to process any of it.
I was one of those people. I cursed the creators over killing off, one of my favorite male protagonists, in a show. But what I had forgotten in the course of the last 11 seasons, was that the only protagonist the show ever had, was Meredith. So Derek or no Derek, Meredith will never cease being front-runner.
After I finished watching the final episode of this season, I felt something unexplainable. I felt this strange sense of calm. Seeing Meredith out there, attempting to get her life back on track after her husband’s untimely death, helped me realize the idea 'Life Moves On.'
I had never imagined myself as a person who would admit that a show saved her life but Grey’s Anatomy did.
Meredith and Derek had me convinced about the idea of true love and forever and all those things and the first thought I had when he died was “Wow! True love definitely doesn’t exist!” and it broke me a little because after all the effort I had taken in making myself reach this destination of less realist and more romantic, this death move was a road in the opposite direction.
The next two episodes changed that. 

So the fear I had when I realised that the person I love, might leave me like that someday, was replaced with this feeling that I will survive it, nevertheless, I will deal with it because my favourite character, has seen worse.

I began watching this show, for the surgeons and before I knew it, in all my relationships, I could see traces of the show. While I had friends criticizing the show for being dramatic, sexual and even annoying I couldn’t care less, because what Grey’s means to me, no person, life coach, counselor can ever be.

“People can be broken, sure,” Meredith says. “But any surgeon knows, what’s broken can be mended.”

These lines brought tears to my eyes because this line summed up the journey that I ended up taking with this show. I learned how to take my time to heal when I was hurt, I realized how I had to put myself out there, ask someone to pick me and choose me, and stay strong even if I wasn’t. It made me realize that being a career woman is just not wrong (Here is looking at you, Dr.Yang). It made me embrace my twistedness. It made me accept my dark side, my sort of emotional-less side, my inability of feeling emotions when people in my family died, but crazy tears when my mother’s friend died. It made me realize that I don’t have to be good, happy, and perfect at all times. I can be less shiny and happy than my college friend and that makes me no less of a person.

On a very personal note, Grey’s has made me feel comfortable in my own skin. Every time I struggle with feeling insecure, disappointed, self-doubt and these terrible feelings of self-loathing, I watch an episode, and it makes me feel less alone. Less scared of the overpowering sense of depression.

Thank you, Grey’s, for bringing me back to life on my dead days.
The 40-second dance party is always nothing short of magic.

Lessons I learned this week.

(Written on 3rd May)

My mother lost one of her college friends this Monday, in an avalanche on the Everest base camp, due to the earthquake in Nepal.

Though I had never met the lady, her death shook me, in ways I had never imagined.

I spent an entire day in an almost dazed state trying to absorb her death. Trying my best to move towards acceptance.

I shall not go into details about things her achievements but she was definitely someone who was living her life. Someone who was squeezing life out of each moment of her life. Maybe that is the reason why her death made such an astonishing impact on me. 

Kashmiris have a phrase ‘shamshan varag gasun’ which literally translated means the lessons you learn about the volatility and vulnerability of life, its nothingness are just more of a momentary realization which fade away as soon as one leaves the crematorium.

My plan, is to not let the lesson, its effect, leave me once I leave this crematorium, where not just her, but the numerous lives lost in the earthquake have been laid to rest.

The volatility of life, is a paradoxical concept, it reminds me that my existence is finite, but the potential for greatness in me, and each human being, is infinite.

Unfortunately, we keep forgetting this, and tend to lose ourselves in the monotony, drudgery of everyday life. I do not mean quit your job and go backpacking around the world, but if that is where your calling lies, do not let anything stop you. Take risks, be thankful for the opportunities, but do not spend one waking minute of your existence, wishing you were someone else or wishing you were somewhere else, If you find yourself doing either of the two, stop not till you find what makes you tick. Squeeze each drop of sensation, the feeling of being alive from your live.

Make the most of your limited time because dying with some vague, tingling sensation of fulfillment will/ must be much better than ending a life that you never lived in the first place.

As Charles Bukowski said, “find what you love and let it kill you.”

Nothingness of life, might seem abstractly, contrary to what I just asked of you (i.e absolute involvement in life) but it is almost in tandem with the same. It is more of the chalk that you use to draw the boundary around how involved you are in life. Perishability, holds true for every animate object.

These are things I never want to forget but as an envelope to this rather long letter of life lessons, what I learnt can be summed up rather concisely by this alteration to Carpe Diem. Seize the day, before it seizes you.

She undid her bun. She undid her bun.

It was an unusual obsession,
Something you wouldn't realise till it was pointed out.
Her bun.
Her locks were evasive, while they stayed in that bun.
Black, brown or orange.
No one ever found out.
It seemed fairly normal,
like a sweater made of yarn,
That her hair was never open,
but always in that bun.
"Damned bun!" He thought,
Dreamed each night of black molten lava pouring and gracing her shoulders, if she ever undid her bun.
Her reasons were misleading,
The sweltering heat, she said
But only she knew the bun was,
Where she hid her hurt instead.
The bun held all the stories, she hadn't spoken about.
The bun held all the fury, she had never let out.
The bun held all the pain, that peirced through her pores.
The bun held all the sorrows, that on her heart had left sores. 
The bun held all the failed dreams, like pollen in a dandelion.
The fear of being found out, the fear of being discovered
And her hair never left the bun.
And then one day she thought, she could undo the bun for him,
Facing him she stood, gathering all her courage,
Closed her eyes because this,
Would feel like pulling a molar out with callipers without any anaesthesia.
She felt something loosen, a wall break down,
The dam had been broken & the water came swirling out.
But her hands hadn't moved, hadn't even touched the bun;
Aghast,
She opened her eyes and saw the satisfaction written on his visage.

He had only tugged at the stick holding her bun.

Inspiration

I recently joined a summer school in my city for want of a better way to spend my vacation. I'm being honest in admitting that I partially expected this course to be an unmitigated disaster of sorts (I feared the course would be miles above sub normal levels and I'd end up feeling like a fish in a lake, staring at the trees on the banks, trying to figure  how the process of climbing works.)
This post is actually an adulation for the most brilliant teacher I've got a chance to learn from.
It is not entirely about how he made, the most complex concepts easily graspable but about how his affection for each one of us seemed devoid of any partiality (Indian education system, I hope you're listening), how his level of informality and approachability made the class feel like it belonged to our individual comfort zones.
Right from taking efforts to memorising our names to relating Fordism with a Charlie Chaplin clip he just made International Political Economy seem not even vaguely as intimidating as it really is.
10 days in this class and I've never been more sure of pursuing IPE in my future.

Despite being the daughter of a teacher, I've never entirely respected the profession (I've dutifully respected the professionals involved though, no matter what.)
I would actually want to thank him for lifting the veil off the absolute beauty of teaching.
For making me realise that imparting knowledge is noble and joyous. For making me feel that if tomorrow, I end up teaching, it would probably be one of the best things that could happen to me.
Thank you Gonzo.
PS brownie points for the "shant ho jaye."