If I had a time machine

Me when I was 3-4 years old

What would I do if I had a time machine? Obviously I would travel in time, either in the future or in the past. I am still often skeptical about the ability of time machines to travel back in time, as much as I am skeptical about time machines themselves. Either ways, assuming time machines work and that I am in possession of a time machine, I would choose to travel back in time as opposed to traveling in the future. I like the present for several reasons which compels me too as believe that future would be great too. Unlike several human beings, I am not too inquisitive about knowing the future. Future is going to show up anyways. Instead I would rather go back in time and re-enjoy some lovely moments. I wish I could go back to the age of four where I was loved by one and all, not that people hate me now, but, those days as I hear from stories from parents and other relatives, were awesome. I was the apple of not just my parents’ eyes, but of most people in the family. I used to be extremely talkative. People in my family still remember those days. I used to even sing out aloud and needless to say, it used to sound disgusting even then J, but I had an aplomb during those days, which I very much miss. I never had a care in the world as to what others would think of me. I was able to talk to anyone and everyone, I was able to sing, jump around. Probably most children do it, but my parents had made recordings of all my talks during those days and when I hear them, I really wish I remained younger. I could always run around my parents with no responsibilities, no bounds on my thoughts or my talks or my actions. I had to study but not work; often my parents would feed me with delicious food. I was surrounded by people all the time, sometimes just because they wanted to amuse themselves talking to me. When I was bored, I could go out and play as opposed to breaking my head with a laptop. Above all, I didn’t have to use my brain too much and there was relaxation all in the air, no tension of insomnia, no tension of having to wake up soon in the morning, no stress of loneliness, no anxiety, no voices in the head. One thing I enjoyed the most about being a kid was the relief from stress of being atleast near to perfect. As I grew up, I have always had a stress about perfection. So given a time machine, I would go 22 years back in time when my life was so much more exciting and so much more interesting. Where in time would you go?

Celebrate Independence!

While today may just merely be a national holiday for some, for most Indians, today means a lot. This day marks the independence of our nation and the independence that we enjoy. While we keep taking from the nation, there is very little we give back to our nation. In all cases, I don't think it is fair on my part writing about giving back to the nation, because I am also one of those several irresponsible Indians who don't care much about giving back to the nation. But talking about independence, independence of nation was struggle by several freedom fighters and we succeeded. Meanwhile independence of our minds is still a constant struggle for most of us. We are bound by so many things in life. Take this for instance, I would like to study fine arts. But then the reason, I took up engineering and then Masters in Engineering Management and then the job with Deloitte was only because I wanted to make money and wanted to get myself a name in this so- called society. I was very well bound by my own thoughts and paradigms. So many us become lawyers, doctors because we either think that is the right thing to survive in this society, or because our parents wanted us to become lawyers. But few of us have independent thoughts and allow them their thoughts to remain so and follow their hearts and go on to do what they love to do in life. While I do understand that several of us are bound by situations like poverty, family issues etc where money is more important than our thoughts, but for all those people for whom it is possible to follow their hearts, independence of mind should be no struggle. While part of me feels I have taken the necessary steps towards following my heart by quitting my job and getting back to India, yet, I personally feel that I still have a long way to go and I would not forget the gratitude I should have for several good things in my life, including great parents and god of course because of whom, I can follow my heart and do things I love as opposed to doing things for society, for others etc. So many of us possess so many talents inside us and fail to nourish them because of a complacency within ourselves or because of the fear of being different or because of unforeseen circumstances. Parents and family play a major role in independence of our thoughts. For instance, several parents have paradigms that their kids' academic performance alone is an indicator of how good their kid is compared to other kids in the society and also feel it is an indicator of how good parents, they themselves are that they have provided great education to their kids. Some parents however instead of trying to find their own successes in their kids allow their kids to think independently and act accordingly. Independence definitely comes with responsibilities. Obviously if in the name of independent thoughts we know we are marching towards our own destruction, then there is no point in claiming any independence. So it is time to nourish, nurture and celebrate independence of both our nation and our minds.

A New Beginning!

I managed to reach India and quenched my sleep thirst too. After a long time, I was able to sit quietly and reflect upon how my life has been in the last couple of years and how I should I take it from here on. I had ample time back in the US too, to do this, but I could never even successfully attempt it, thanks to the million thoughts and voices that would flood my mind and make me lose it. Here in serenity, I was able to placidly think about what I am going to do in life going forward. While there is a lot of anxiety involved, this activity is definitely better than working in an office and feeling stuck and not being able to do anything about it. I was sitting and discussing my various thought out options with my mom today. I also looked for some volunteering opportunities so I could do some volunteer work to both feel good and also to while away some time with a sense of having done something worthwhile. While I have not yet completely decided what my future plans exactly are, yet, I am weighing my options carefully this time and I really want to do things which will make me happy and peaceful in the long run, unlike giving me a lot of money but stealing my peace of mind from me. That being said, I am off now to calculate my options for a new beginning.

Acme!

Today marked a pinnacle point in my life. I submitted my resignation at work this afternoon. While I could go into details of what provoked me into quitting my job suddenly today, I personally don't want to discuss about my well my ex- firm here. I always felt that I was not the employment material, probably because of my very nature and the type of person I am. I am more of the person who would rather do something which is all mine, like run my own business or conduct research or may be sit and counsel people but not fit for being employed by somebody and working under them. I am not the strongest self these days and did cry this afternoon following the submission of the resignation email, but I feel much better since evening. I got inspired to write this blog post  from a blog buddy's blog post (http://kaushiknarasimhan.blogspot.com/2008/11/flight-to-freedom.html) which upon reading, made me feel was written for me, considering my present state of mind. I am soon on my way to catching the flight to my freedom. While this resignation may not really be an end of US forever for me, however for the time being it definitely is, even if I am coming back to the in coming years. As of now, I want to go back home and rejuvenate myself and fill up my creative well again and enjoy my freedom. I am tired of losing my mind and losing my sense of self and reality, my confidence and several of my abilities. It may be unfair to put all the blame for my emotional unhealthiness on the US, but for the time being it is convenient for me. I have been away from home for almost 8 years now, but my life changed completely after coming to the US. I came here chasing my dreams of higher studies, completed it successfully. Then I wanted a job with an H1B visa, and I was one of the first few in my class during Masters to get a job and that too with one of the Big Four Consulting firm. But none of these probably gave me peace of mind or a sense of satisfaction and as a matter of fact the effects on me were only depressing. The sense of freedom I had while I was a student since I loved studies and loved what I was doing was almost never there. There was of course a lot of money, but that was overwhelming too, and all I did was throwing around money extravagantly. Money is an important part of life, but I have lived, experienced and now totally believe my thoughts which I have always had, that money is not going to bring you happiness, money is not going to take your loneliness away from you, money is not going to shower you with love and support when you need it. I am sure this is a marking a new beginning in my life. My ticket to freedom is now just a day away.

Cough and depression

I am in a total rambling mood right now and planning to BS all over this blog post.There is already sufficient depression in my life and adding fuel to the fire is cold I caught in Harrisburg over the weekend, I don't know how. Theraflu, NyQuil , DayQuil, Tylenol Extra Strength and what not, nothing really seems to be helping though. Life sucks in the US, not that I don't catch cold in India. I have a defective nose - a deviated septum and sinusitis too and no wonder, catching cold takes less than seconds for me, but it takes sometimes weeks together to get rid of it. But coming back to catching cold in India. Doctors are definitely more accessible and easy to get to as compared to the US and I am sure people living in the US would agree. You have to call a doctor and wait for an appointment even if your illness is being very difficult to manage. Meanwhile in India, as much as we criticize the huge queues of people waiting in the doctors' clinics, there is always access to a doctor when you need it. I began this blog post by connecting depression and cold. I would be a great candidate to discuss depression in detail, infact I might be able to dedicate one whole blog to it, but that is not the point here. When you have a cold, you feel stuck and you feel low, particularly because you are not sick to the core of being bedridden, but at the sametime normal functioning becomes really difficult which is what happens when you are depressed too. You keep hoping for things to be fine one day just like you wait to get rid of the cold soon. When I have a cold, I find everything gloomy, dull and sad completely similar to how I feel when I am depressed. I feel like doing nothing, but at the same time, I find it difficult to sleep or speak. There are outbursts in the form of sneezes which can be compared to emotional outbursts and there could be constant coughing which can be compared to periods of constant crying in depression. I guess I  am rambling endlessly about cold and depression because right now, I am stuck up with both depression and cold. Cold is being helped by medicines and as for depression, I have found a good solution for it, which will be implemented soon and I will post about it on my blog. I am moving closer to my road of freedom.

The Morning after rain!

                  Some years back when I was in the first year of my engineering, during an English class we were asked to do creative writing and the topic was 'The Morning after rain". Since it was a creative writing assignment, I knew I could associate the topic to anything that came to my mind when I read out the topic aloud and start writing, which is exactly what I did. May be it was a homesickness season or may be it is that I am always homesick when I am all alone and away from home, whatever it was, 'The Morning after rain' reminded me of my tears when I was leaving New Delhi to go to Engineering College in Thanjavur. Needless to say, that was the first time I was going away from home, away from my mom :(. As I was leaving for the airport with my dad who was accompanying me to Chennai and then to the college, both me and my mom couldn't control over tears and burst out literally pouring a rain of tears. I knew my mom would have been crying all that day too, as for me, I was crying all through my flight. It was an evening flight and I reached Chennai, where I was again crying and my mouth didn't bother tasting even a single morsel of food served as dinner and I was busy crying. It was just tears all over the place. I cried all night and somehow my eyes got dead tired at one point and I slept off unknowingly at some point. It was like it had rained all night and the next morning, there was no rain anymore, I was calm and my eyes had gotten drained and no more tears were coming. I was all quiet and my eyes were hurting thanks to all the crying the previous night and my eyes felt like the ground which was exhausted of putting up with all the downpour of rain over it all night. I didn't cry beyond that point, but my mind was like a barren land, and after that slowly my mind got trained to be like that barren land which would get some rain in the form of my tears and but despite the rain never had any greenery what so ever. Somehow I got used to living away from home. 

                Then it was time to come to the US, I had ambitions to fulfill and they were the only thing on my mind and homesickness was stowed away in some corner. But over the last year, I have come to realize that I have been pretty much fooling myself like so many of us, avoiding thoughts of homesickness and loneliness. India trip was a huge catalyst in making me realize how lonely I am in the US, with boyfriend living far off and parents living far off and me having everyone, yet feeling lonely. After coming back from India, I seem to be once again coming back to the same situation I was in the first semester of Engineering where I used to cry because of loneliness. May be having a lot of friends helps people live away from home, but a reserved person that I am, I have limited number of friends. But even then deep inside, people living away from home obviously miss home a lot. Some people manage to live away from home, like I have been doing for almost 7 years now, but there is a difference, homesickness being more manageable when you have some ambitions to look to, or having a lot of friends and spending time with them. But US has made me such a loner that the only people I talk to are parents, boyfriend, three-four close friends. Ever since I returned from my India trip, I am still waiting for that morning after rain.

Religionism annoys me!

India trip particularly the 1 week visit to Chennai has been pretty exhaustive, but not too bad considering that I am not a huge fan of Chennai. As I have been growing up, my idea of god has changed quite a lot. I was at the Srirangam temple day before yesterday morning and something caught my attention inside the premises - the line " Only Hindus allowed beyond this point." The very first voice in my head exclaimed that the line was so racist. May be that was not perfectly said, but I meant to say that we claim that god is one and we openly practice religionism to the highest degree. Choices and beliefs are personal to people as I always say. People may choose to marry people of the religion they choose and may choose to follow religious practices and cultural beliefs based on their wishes. But to me, religious places should be accessible and allow the entry of any person irrespective of their race, color, caste, creed, religion and what not. As they taught us in school, when animals enter such places, we don't really throw them out or restrict their entry based on their religion or caste, then why not treat humans equally. I keep hearing from people in India about how people now are getting more and more broadminded and caste-ism, religionism, etc are slowly seeing extinction. But I don't think I would agree completely. No matter how much we claim, that these things don't exist anymore, yet, these are pretty much existent though in a smaller degree. I am not a lot into sociology, but from a layman perspective religionism exists everywhere. One morning in US, I was on a call with my mom and suddenly there was a knock on the door and I was hesitant but still went ahead and opened the door. A family of three was at the door. These people asked me some useless questions and voices in my head were screaming, " come to the point now!". Then the female says she wants to introduce me to Christianity and about me me converting into a Christian. I was completely annoyed. I mean why force people to convert to a different religion? It sucks completely. Meanwhile in India, people still are losing their minds over religions.  It is hard sometimes for masses to accept that ultimately we are still human beings. May be because we have a so- called sixth sense and since we are humans and each one of us different in our own ways; we tend to segregate ourselves based on religion. It is pretty much human nature to associate and categorize ourselves, but excessive zealousness towards one particular category which kind of portrays an addiction isn't good for the very human existence. As we move forward in time, aren't we supposed to develop ourselves and improve anything currently existent? Shouldn't we be moving towards broadmindedness? Shouldn't institutions which some people blindly follow, teach people better things? Shouldn't these teach people that god is one, and that religion is just a mere categorization and doesn't necessarily portray people as being different as in some high and some low. There has to be a realization that all this is not going to bring any good to anybody and there has to be a change in the mindset of people. Ignorance may be bliss but not for these kind of social issues.