A piece of me

 "Wings are important but so are the roots", said the dean of my college in her speech at one of the department functions. This led my classmate sitting beside me to ask, "what do you think is more important, wings or roots?" And all I said was "both". But that question stayed with me. As I lay in bed and reflected over my day the question came back to me. I couldn't pick one, but there was one image in the back of my mind. A flock of birds migrating. Maybe it was the word ‘wings’ that brought that image, but when I was thinking about the question, I remembered that although family or in this case my roots are a very strong value to me, I chose wings and the only thing I could relate it to was migrating birds. Birds choose to migrate when there is a lack of chances of survival. They migrate when the climate in their current living situation gets hard to live in or when the availability of food gets uncertain. They move to lands where they believe there...

 The quote "A canola flower never blooms alone, they bloom in a bunch." by Oh Ae-sun, the female protagonist from ' when life gives you tangerines' stood out to me. Back in Undergrad, one of my professors had said, "you are born alone and you die alone". It seemed so obvious, she further added that ofcourse you will have people in your life on the way, but in the end you do it all alone. So learn to be your person. Most of us take the latter as a absolute truth, I did it for sometime as well. Preparing myself to not have help. To do it all alone. And honestly it did help me get through some days. But, I did not come into this world with infinite energy and capabilities. I needed people. Ofcourse I am born alone and I will die alone, no one is going to be there every moment with me. But even as I was born there were doctors and nurses assuring I was born safely, there were parents teaching me to walk, talk, read, write, love. There were siblings, grandparents...

 Hello pal, I am... I would like to keep my identity anonymous until the end. Why? Because everyone hates me, whenever anyone sees me enter a room they run miles away or they push me and insult me and tell me to get out. It feels lonely sometimes. I have only tried to help others, to protect others but everyone perceives me as the problem. I dont know what you think of me, but before you know my name, please hear me out. Just once. I hate when someone mistreats you, when someone acts inhuman around you. I see it as a threat to your survival, like those people might walk right over you and you may allow it. Like the times your parents force you to do something you don't want to do, or when someone close to you can't seem to listen to what you are saying, no matter in what way you frame it or how loud you say it. They just can't hear you. I have always tried to be a guardian to others, trying to warn them whenever they face injustice or discrimination. I am definitely childli...

You are not the sun. It's unrealistic to believe you can and will show up hundred percent every day. That's not how you were designed; that's not how any person was designed. The sun appears full of energy every day, irrespective of the clouds. You can't and you don't have to show up fully always. Neither you nor your days are the same every day, and so you don't have to show up the same, at your best, every day in life and in your relationships. If you are able to do so consistently, there's a good chance you're compromising on yourself, your values, or your passions, which won't allow you to live authentically. It's not surprising that this doesn't make sense to many of you reading this, but think of it this way: too much sun will make a desert. So, you need the rain to keep it balanced, to keep it from becoming unlivable. Accepting this isn't easy, especially if you're brought up to believe that not showing up hundred percent means...

As a kid, I was always fascinated by rainbows. I saw them as a promise of better days to come, a reminder that things will get better and the future is bright. Growing up in Goa, my siblings and I would get excited spotting a rainbow in the sky after the rains. Monsoons weren't so bad after all! Rainbows have always amazed me. In the 10th standard, however, this phenomenon gave me a new lens to look at life and myself. As my science teacher taught us how rainbows are formed after the rain through the refraction of light, a philosophical interpretation popped up in my head. While my classmates listened, some doodling in their textbooks, I couldn't help but draw inspiration from the rainbow. All I could think about the whole time and perhaps the entire day was how, if one simple ray of sunlight can refract into seven beautiful colors, then won't I, being human, too have unimaginable capacity, potential, and talent? How could we limit ourselves or others to specific categories...

In december last year someone said, "welcome to adulthood, it only goes downhill from here". I didn't really give much thought to it. But lately as I reflect on the new relization that has dawned on me, those words keep coming back. Life feels like a cricket field lately. Especially when you reach your last year of college. All your childhood and teenage life, while playing gully cricket, all you can think of and want to do is playing in the big stadium. But when the upgrade happens, you get nervous. It feels scary. What makes it more scary is that, life is the bowler. And when you think it specialiazes only in spinning, it will start throwing you yokers. And when you just get used to yokers, it sends you some googly balls. If you think it has only three tricks up its sleeves trust me you are mistaken.  Life keeps upgrading it's bowling skills. And if you think someday you'll be in the stands or on the bowling side, here is something I realised and I would want to...