“You can call yourself a writer if you write stuff.”
My first class after 4 years, and this is what my professor says. I am over the moon. I write. I write stuff. Am I a writer?
The irony is I still can’t call myself a writer. But this blog is not about my insecurities; it’s about the achievement of successfully moving to my dream country. It’s about the excitement of taking the first step toward my dream life. It’s about the nervousness while talking to new people and making new friends. It’s about all the mixed emotions that go through my mind all day long as I go about my day. And it’s about reaching my room at the end of the day and thinking, “Woah! I am in London, bro!”
As I approach being here in this foreign land for a month, I am giving myself time to process this significant change.
We are a bunch of 20-something humans, as predictable as any other 20-something on this planet. romanticizing life either as a coping mechanism or for the algorithm. But sometimes, romanticizing things does not help us accept a change and move along the way.
My mom always said we humans are like nomads. One day, we are somewhere and the very next poles away.
A month back, I was still at home, eating with my parents, fighting with my sister, sleeping in my comfortable bed, and with everyone I loved within a few feet. Everything was comfortable and known. But now, within a month, not only have I shifted continents, but I eat most nights alone watching a random show on Netflix, I have no one to fight about what series we should repeat watching with, I sleep in a boisterous bed, and everyone I love is a 24-hour plane ride away.
It took almost a month to process this. Hiding behind all the glamour and glitz of being in a new country, new environment, and new people was the painful realization that this ain’t a vacation, my friend! But now that it has hit getting out of it will be a bumpy ride.
But I will do it! I will get over it, and I am not gonna back down.
As they say, “Now you know.And knowing is half the battle…”
So, here goes nothing!
I will wake up tomorrow at 4 am, listen to “Mahalaya” (a Bengali thing; use Google if you don’t know) for 2 hours and then sleep some more. After that, I will go about my just like I have planned.
I have dreamt of this. I have planned this. And now I am doing it!
You know that feeling of pride after you’ve accomplished something you really thought would be difficult if not impossible? Yeah, I’m feeling that feeling and I am so very happy that I actually can’t believe I pulled it off!
So to give y’all a preview near the end of May, I was feeling extremely down and my physical body was fighting with my mental health. I was not doing the things I enjoyed, like reading, writing, dancing and all those things! I was just sitting and shaming myself for everything that I wasn’t and wasn’t doing.
Then one fine morning while working and scrolling Pinterest, I came across this challenge – 30 Days Glow Up Challenge. To be honest, the title had such a ring to it, I couldn’t help but check what it was all about! And surprisingly I loved the tasks enlisted in them. I thought to myself, why not give this a go? What worse that can happen? I might just leave it in the middle like every other thing these days! But at least I’ll try.
So I reached out to my cousin sister and asked her if she is interested. And without missing a beat she said yes! So we decided we’ll start it from June 1.
Day 1 itself was super cool. It was to make a Vision Board. Something I’ve never done and it was so much fun to do. Printing out pictures, quotes, making a scrap book kind of page with colorful chart papers. It made me feel like I was a kid again.
So on went the upcoming days of the challenges with different tasks everyday. Some challenging me to my extreme and forcing me out of my comfort zone, some easier than I’d ever thought.
In addition to the wonderful tasks, the amazing support of my cousin sister. She had my back all the while. It felt like such a beautiful experience and to be able to share it with her made it all the way more amazing.
I never thought doing something this simple would bring so much joy and would make me want to do it again and again.
I don’t know how much exactly we glowed up but I can for sure say it glowed up our inner self. It give a sense of purpose and immense pride thinking that if you put our heart into it we can accomplish anything and everything.
So today on day 30th the last ask of the glow up challenge was to journal my experience so here we go, this is my journal of the experience I had for the past 30 days which will always stay with me and remind me that I am capable!
Together we glow Brighter than the sun and moon Combined, we are love!
Yesterday night while scrolling through one of the most popular Social Media site Instagram, I came across something that scared me to hell. I am not a very out going person to begin with, it takes me time to voice my opinions. But this is the longest time that I have ever taken.
What I saw yesterday, at first created a stir in me. I felt a rage building up inside me but I was out of words to express it. Imagine, the best I am at, I lost those!
I came across a bunch of screenshots of conversations between a group of boys aged between 14-16/17, (who are, btw, minors still, in the eyes of law) talking about ‘Raping a Girl’ in a social media group named ‘Bois Locker Room.’ That’s not all, they shared filthy photographs of underage girls and used vulgar languages, objectified them, degarded them, edited their images and humiliated them. This regards to as child porn, which btw, is not only morally incorrect, but illegal under IPC Section 292, 293.
By the time, I could traverse through the whole story, the concerned post was deleted by the girl who shared and exposed these bastards due to some Instagram guidelines or so.
So, I found myself on Twitter. As most of you might know, anything that happens in the country/world it is already all over Twitter. I looked around, found some more screenshots of similar kind and went back at the girl’s account who exposed them. In an utter shock I found that these boys rather than apologising for what they have done, threatened the girl of raping her and even went to the extent of hacking the girls account and changing her password.
Kudos to all the girls who had the courage to stand up against these bastards and exposing them. They are tackling them legally now that Delhi Police and even the Delhi Commission for Women are involved. The DCW has taken a suo-moto cognisance against the case and sent out notice to Instagram and Deputy Comissioner of Police, Delhi.
While, they are dealing with these nuisance, I would like to take this time to express the utmost concern as a citizen and moreover as a women.
It took me a day to digest the whole fact and bring myself to write this.
A few things that I saw happening in the comment sections of the posts were the following. Firstly, victim-blaming. I mean, common, if not anything, we are pretty good at this, aren’t we?
Secondly, a set of people have been going on saying, “The rape didn’t take place, did it?” Wow, I didn’t know, we were sitting around for the rape to happen, and then start with the victim blaming again, “Where were the girls, what were they wearing!” or maybe just a candle light march, which btw, leads to nothing!
While these are not the only ones, a few other disgusting groups are defending the boys saying they are kids! Really? Kids? If that’s the case then, perhaps you need to take care of your kids too. ‘Cause maybe someday in the future your kids will do the same thing, but as parents you would have failed to teach them that if they do something wrong and as degradeful as this they would have to deal with the consequences.
And for those who are defending by saying, “Everyone has groups of these sorts.” I am sorry for bursting the bubble, but no, we don’t. We don’t have personal groups where we degrade men or women for that matter. And if you do, then you’re the part of the problem. Even if you don’t participate in the conversation or say anything distasteful, just your presence is wrong too. You should immediately remove yourself from the group and it utmost importance remove yourself from that kind of an environment.
Speaking about the problem, this is inherently in the patriarchial society we live in. Boys grow up believing that they have a right over women’s bodies like they are their properties to infest on. And if one does not comply, threaten her about ruining her life, either by raping or doing some other extremely dereogatory thing.
Toxic Masculinity, as we speak, is not chugging down beer after beer or playing a sport or having muscles and a beard, its much more and graver than we can think of.
Toxic Masculinity is ‘Lad Cuture‘, ‘Locker Room Talks‘ and treating women as sex objects, using “Boys will be Boys” to excuse themselve from anything wrong that they have done and much much more. This needs to stop.
All these has happened over Social Media, while it is definitely, no doubt, a very effective medium of getting through a larger audience but I believe there should be proper induction about using social media for kids of all gender and age. These boys had the audacity to call out disgusting names and things to the girls who did the right thing by exposing them and even going to the extent of hacking their accounts. What does it say about our way of imparting correct knowledge?
Also, talking of media’s role in this? Where is the Indian media? Where are the journalists who call themselves ‘Nationalists’ and shout sitting at the Air Conditioned studios? Where are the stories? Why is that only a handful of people, who are tech savvy and social media savvy know of the incident. This is an incident in the Capital City but hardly any media houses has taken it up, hardly anyone knows.
There is a lot to say, a lot to do, but I would end this with a simple question, when are we going to teach the real meaning of Masculinity to our boys? When would ‘Bro Code’ simply mean educating the ‘bros’ to respect women? It’s about time, isn’t it?
P. S. The pictures attached are the screenshots of the conversation I found of Instagram, I do not hold any rights regarding any pictures here.
My sister had once asked me, being an introvert why did I choose a career that involves a lot of talking and mingling with people?
Though, I could not give her a satisfactory answer, because all I could gather up and say, “It’s hell daunting and that I spoke to no one the first two weeks of my office.”
It’s true. The first few days in a new environment, an environment I have always wanted to be in was daunting and demanded a lot of courage from my end. I could hardly gather my introverted ass to ‘hi’ back to anyone who would smile looking at me.
I, mostly, remained at my desk working on the given stories assigned to me. I even had my lunch there, watching YouTube. Imagine, how sad I must have been.
But, truth be spoken, I wasn’t sad or depressed or anxious.
I was being me, my normal introverted self.
Until, one day, my team leader poked me out of mind saying my writing did not make sense and whatever I was writing was not up to the mark. Well, here, you need to know one thing about me, I, may seem like a chill girl, but if you question my ability I make sure to remove even a single doubt left in.
I came back from the office that evening, didn’t change, saw a development in a story and immediately wrote on it and without a second thought sent that to my leader. It was 11:30 pm.
And soon after, I got a reply from her, that the piece I wrote is absolutely perfect and will be published the next morning.
It was exactly 12:15, I was sitting in the balcony, January breeze was flowing and my roommate and I were smoking up, when she asked, “Why did you choose Journalism?”
The same question, my sister had asked.
I turned to her, put my hair in a bun, and said, “When I was asked in the interview what is my weakness, I had told the interviewer, I was an Introvert. It is hard for me to mingle with people easily. To which, she had asked, then how do you plan on executing your projects, which will require a lot of work you’re uncomfortable with? Why choose this profession? I had answered as firmly as I could, yes it will be hard, uncomfortable, and daunting, but I can do it, I want to do it. It has been a dream. Throw me out of my comfort zone, I will look out for the stars to come out victorious.”
My roommate smiled at me and said, “You just did.”
I reflected for a moment and realized what I was doing wrong. Being silent or taking my time to settle in had got everybody thinking of me as a naive kid, who probably didn’t end up in the right place. But, I was exactly where I wanted to be.
It took me a while to comprehend, there is always a cost you have to pay in order to get closer to your dreams.
I just paid mine.
“Quiet people have the loudest minds.” Stephen Hawking
It’s been roughly 40-41 days that Indian Government declared a nationwide lockdown. With the growing concerns of Coronavirus cases in every other state, almost every individual is in self quarantine for more than a month. Stuck at home, working from home, schooling online.
The world, as a society isn’t really very accustomed to this home-boundedness. We have had our freedom and liberty to move around, go to offices, schools, parks, resturants and spending a good amount of time outside our houses.
This sudden imposition by the governments around the world, in the beginning acted pretty well. People were happy to have the time to spend with their families, spouses, kids.
I was too.
Fortunately for me, with the intention of giving a surprise visit, I came to Kolkata a week before the lockdown was announced. It was supposed to be a three day visit, but due to the growing cases and a few other concerns, I had to stay back. I had planned to fly out the next week but by that time, my office declared work from home for all, so my parents advised to not back, until the mess gets over.
So I did.
I was quite happy actually. I got to spend time with my parents, got to be in my pyjamas and work from home, eat my mom’s tasty meals and got plenty of time to catch up on my sleep and laziness.
Spent my days working, and nights watching movies and speaking relentlessly to my boyfriend, who btw, is in the US (he is student there).
Well, it was all good in the hood, but gradually this was becoming tiring with the same boring routine. But I maintained by sanity somehow, until day before yesterday, when I heard one of my favourite actors was hospitalised due to his ailing health. The news just couldn’t ‘sink in’ in me.
The next morning brought in the news of his death, that created a lump in my throat. I know, he was an actor, someone I never met, yet his death affected me in a way as if he was so close to me.
It was almost unreal to me.
He was just an artist, and you could tell no more about the person than what he showed or portrayed in the films. He was the kind of artist who played the boy next door, with those humbling eyes and ever so charming smile.
And strangely there was a pit in my chest, a void, which I tried shuting out by doing what makes me feel my heart beating again, dance!
But, with two more death news, I felt this black cloud hovering over my head. I did not feel like waking up from my bed, constantly felt tired and sleepy.
I just realized, this locdown is definitely doing great for Mother Nature and we can defeat the virus by staying at home, but it is also mentally very taxing. It is taking a toll on me now. I don’t feel too excited about stuff anymore. It has become like a routine, get up, take a bath, eat, watch films, lunch, workout/dance, and back to watching films.
I have no words that will help anyone or even myself, for that matter, how to overcome this. I myself am in the pit right now and it does not seem pretty at all. But hoping we recover soon from all of these and resume our normal lives.
Now, if you read through all of it, then thank you so much for sticking through with this ranting.
I am undoubtedly very proud of who I am, what I have become and what I will be.
But, when my awkwardness embarrasses you and I am counting till 3, I won’t embarrass myself anymore. So I’ll increase the number, in order to escape telling you…
I am an Introvert!
Have you all ever looked at an ‘Introvert’ carefully?
Though you did not think twice to generalise us with a few facts.
Yes, we despise small talks and we hate phone calls. We don’t party all night long or talk to random strangers in coffee shops.
Yes, social situations scare the shit out of us and anxiety’s an old friend we like to bring along everywhere.
Yes, texting is our forte but we are a bundle of mess when it comes to calls or meetups.
But, we also hate less, love more. Talk less, listen more. Take less, give more.
No, I don’t mean extroverts don’t do all these. I mean, we invest ourselves to all the little things we care about. They may be very small in quantity but they are more precious than our whole lives.
We are all those above things, but we are mostly, late night wine-sipping, joint-smoking, alone types. Yes, we also know how to have fun ‘our way‘.
We are mid afternoon rants on meaning of life and existence. Long arguements on which is better chocolate cake or cheescake, while we end up ordering both.
Solitude is not being lonely for us.
We find ourselves in our own ways, sipping chai over our favourite Bollywood songs. We are the stardust on full moon nights. We are gorgeous sunsets, far away yet so close.
We have accepted whatever you called us- shy and awkward and docile, ranting out Socializing 101’s for us but, we don’t shy away from loving ourselves, even if that means to be the first one tapping love on my own Instagram pictures!
When most of my friends around me were hit by the puberty truck and were busy getting all slim and pretty, I found myself in XL clothes and full of negativity about my body.
Growing up, I was a pretty thin kid, you know. I was into yoga and classical dance, I hardly needed anything else to keep me fit even when I ate 8 pieces of luchi.
I had a very well balanced figure until 9th standard hit. Suddenly, I started gaining weight and quite fast. Somehow my metabolism slowed way down but I kept eating to my heart’s content. I was not really bothered by the way I looked, not until now.
By the time I passed 12th standard, I was full of hate comments from everyone about my protruding belly and the double chin.
Funnily enough, I did not stop dancing, still this sudden weight gain, now started making me conscious.
I started wearing loose fitting clothes, nothing body hugging, less dresses and more tee shirts hiding and hating every part of my body that I should have loved.
But, better late than never, I went to a doctor for a consultation, and I was diagnosed with PCOS, Poly-cystic Ovary Syndrome. I was not familiar with the term so I looked it up, did some research. The doctor himself recommended me with a dietary change and a regular dose of exercise.
I followed the diet religiously. Took an hour walks every evening. Danced as much as I could with full energy. But things like loosing weight, especially when you have PCOS takes time.
In the meantime, I happen to cross paths with a few people, who changed my perspective completely.
I had both positive and negative people.
On one hand, when I was struggling with the irregularity of my periods and weight gain, certain people took a dig on me about my weight every chance they got.
At the time, I myself was not sure how to love my body, how to worship it. So every comment went straight to my head and heart and I found myself drowning in an ocean of hatred.
I hated my body, every inch, every curve of it, with all my heart.
Depression got a hold of me.
I found myself spending most of my time in my room, and less and less amidst the crowd.
Slowly and gradually two of my closest friends held my back and walked me through the phase. They showed me, I was making progress. And also, having a slim figure is not the goal, living a healthy life is.
I started falling in love with, every picture, every curve. Every kilo that I shed, reminded me, my love was winning against my immense hatred for my body.
I held myself up after that hefty fall. I found myself slowly learning to love thy curves.
I accepted, I was curvy and that I liked it, actually loved it. And I deserved no less love than any of my skinny friends.
Though I have gained the bunch of weight I once lost, but deep down somewhere I know I will loose it once again.
I still am bombarded with all sorts of hateful comments about my body, but now I know how to deal with the haters and the hatred.
And when , once n a while they do get to my head, I know I an count on those two three people I call friends to have my back.
I, now, wear my scars like a crown.
“You should know you’re beautiful just the way you are And you don’t have to change a thing, the world could change its heart.” ~ Alessia Cara
So, to more messy hairs, double chins and crooked teeth.
curlytales 