Arianna

Tomorrow is always too late
This is how she feels about fate
The calendar, a date
A bundle of memories, the best way to relate

An early bird
“Why waste the morning, how absurd”
She listens but will always put her word
A daal rice girl
She’ll wear a frock and make a quiet twirl

Ari will burst out laughing about yesterdays joke
And suddenly cry, who knows what made her choke

She’ll work to save
Workout like a slave
Go dancing to the best rave

Arianna is your best friend
She’ll tell you when the
sales start and end
Eat a carb filled brunch
Followed by a salad for lunch

Endless bicep reps at the gym
But her arms will hurt when eyebrows she must trim
For a pic, hold her stomach in
She must look slim

Ari will say, “I have plans” when she’s eating ice cream in bed
Ari will cancel her plans when she gets a text “guess what he said?”

An expert at deciphering male micro expressions
She may tell you her darkest confessions
Will say, “yes” to mean “no”
Will smile when she’s sad
Will always trust her dad
Arianna is a little bit mad

Arianna lives in every home
That funny girl with a moustache made of froth and foam
We all have an Ari chromosome

Let it go / Let her go / Let go … more than just lyrics

I was listening to the radio just last week and I observed three different songs that have faired well on the charts this year. The world cup song by Shakira uses “Let go”, albeit sounding like “Lego”, Frozen.. I don’t need to tell you, you can probably hear it resonating in your ears and if not any child in the world aged between 3 and 8 will happily sing it to you and lastly “Let Her Go” by Passenger. I’m sure there must be others that have adapted these magic words in their lyrics, but my radio station has played these relentlessly on loop almost. 

These words got me thinking, perhaps that’s what lyrics do, play games with your head. In this case however I was positively inspired to apply these simple words in my own life.

Recently someone shared her experience about a good friend not being so good anymore. Well, to be honest my theory has always been that people don’t actually change; we only get to know them better over time. I find solace in this theory, as it suspends the progression of negative energy towards these people who make us unhappy. How dare they have control over our happiness? Also, I certainly do not wish to emit a pessimistic flow towards them; this does not favour my karmic foundations either. 

Every human being, including you and I go through a metamorphosis every “x” number of years. In this transformation we actually go through what I call a detox process of discovering ourselves and what it is that we truly want, who we want to be, where is our life heading etc. The symptoms of this process include being a complete asshole or bitch for as long as this period lasts. I apologise for the language, but truly there is no better way of putting it. The problem is the repercussions this has on the people closest to the victim. They are so colossal; sometimes they can lead to relationships being destroyed forever. 

I have learnt that “letting go” of these good friends for as long as it takes is the only way we can firstly save clouds and thunderstorms of negative energy in our perfectly stable lives and secondly you can give those people their space and time to rediscover themselves. 

It’s all very easy to write this down and preach my theory, but in practice it really does feel like you are cutting off one of your fingers and your fist is suddenly mutilated. It has to be one of the hardest steps to take in life. 

Nevertheless, the benefits of doing this are far more worthwhile as you save yourself humiliation, feeling belittled by this person you cannot recognize anymore, unloved, invisible, unwanted and the list goes on. How and why did this happen, you wonder? It’s got to be my fault you often conclude. Err… NO it’s far from your fault and you are simply a victim of circumstance. In fact, the best thing you can do for this person is NOT being there. 

I have tested this theory to the tee and let me tell you it works. Your value in that person’s life is doubled over time, and let me remind you that you once upon a time before this person entered your life, you still breathed and survived didn’t you? You are not the life support machine for this person and neither should they make you feel needy and desperate if they are not around for you. 

I want to emphasise that as an honest and genuine human being you are dutiful towards the needs of your closest people and if they openly tell you that they need to be left alone, well we really must respect that. 

On the other hand you may find that the person is simply taking you for a ride and it’s merely a twisted tactic for them to distance you from their life without having the courage or grit to openly confront the situation. I pity this cowardice and if this is the case, well darling you definitely need to let go! The worst karma one can perform is playing with someone’s feelings. Now since karma is quite the bitch and never pardons anyone, you can sit back and relax, the circle always comes around. 

I dedicate this article to a friend who has suffered a lot recently and although Thoughts is officially not publishing for the summer, I did feel it my duty to nourish my readers a little bit. Let go my lovelies, for added baggage is always an extra cost to pay for and frankly I’d rather use the money and spend it elsewhere. 

Snapshot Mumbai

Vada pav hawkers

A landscape that shares millionaires and paupers

Bollywood love songs and religious bhajans

Resonating in and out of rickshaws

The smell of paan

Beetle leaves freshly sit on roadside marble slabs

Sweltering heat

Uneven roads, gymnastics for my feet

Every road crossing is like a leap of faith

Shiny Parle toffee wrappers

An entire shelf of toothpaste boxes

Stainless steel tiffins

A haberdashery that stocks from pots to pins

A disabled child with the biggest smile

No traffic light is free from the hijras putting you on trial

Cannot help but peak at the Mid-day headlines

The boy sells between the vehicle aisles

Twelve kilometers per hour, I’ll still be here for a while

Street food cravings

My stomach’s not smart to tolerate these ravings

I see the carts and their coconut shavings

Buttered bread aromas fill the evening pandemonium

Torrents of cinemagoers in perfect harmonium

Incense vapors initiate the working day

Car horns serve as the soundtrack for any vehicle to find their way

Thousands of commuters in and out of trains

Nothing stops these Mumbaikers, least of all the rains

The smart often labeled unreasonable

Black magic baba most reasonable

Behind the glamour and glitz of the silver screen

Lies the maddening life of the common man

His muffled scream

A long soothing drive

Where else but on Marine Drive

Unveils the real life documentary

Obscenities hard to bear

A growing plague

It’s here, it’s everywhere

 A city that never runs out of gas

A kaleidoscopic vignette

You don’t always give to then get

Love, hate, love, hate

Ho jaega… a city where a lot is left to fate

Museum of the Mind

There is actually a place in Rome called the Museum of the Mind, and although it’s what used to be a mental institution; today gives a tour of the mental illnesses that used to be treated at this hospital. One is supposed to learn and empathise with what is referred to as not a normal society of individuals. The ideology behind this museum is that if once you have crossed the doors and gone inside, you will not turn back. It’s referred to as stepping “InSide Out”. I have not visited this exhibition centre but only reading about it makes me think twice about whether I will be able to tolerate what I will see. A mental pathology can indeed be very overwhelming and often if you are exposed to it for long periods can make you question your own sanity.  Today one shouldn’t assume it solely a relationship between the patient and the caretaker / professional, but actually a third window needs to be opened. I am referring to the awareness in society about such ailments and the ability to empathise and include such patients in our society.

All these feelings made me wonder about the definition of “normal”. If you suffer any form of diagnosed mental pathology, you are placed in the not normal bracket. These patients have unfortunately been diagnosed with such disorders and have suffered them due to genetic disorders, mental injuries or malformations that have harmed their cognitive reasoning. They must live with it forever and the Museum tells us success as well as failure stories of such patients.

However, it is my belief that over time and due to many reasons, madness is out there and closer to us than ever before. The reasons can include the fizzy drink and junk food culture, pressures of a more narcissistic environment that we all belong to (the attention seeking selfie society) and also a better detection of research being done in this field by the many mental health clinicians. We are all in one way or another a little bit “crazy”. It is not necessarily a “crazy” that precisely needs medical treatment, because mostly our own levels of resilience are what help us to combat such episodes.

Old age used to be the explanation to natural degenerative process of the human brain and it has been accepted for years that old people suffer from such conditions. Sadly this is not the truth anymore. A study done on children in 1957 for the detection of anxiety disorders, compared to the children today showed considerably higher levels of anxiety than previous generations. Another study comparing university students in America from 1982 and 2006 also depicted students being more narcissistic in the latter cohorts. The positive side of these studies proves that what was considered as psychologically normal before has now got a mental illness label of some sort to it, which broadens the number of people who are affected by one disorder or another, albeit in a very subtle form. This helps to identify the root at an earlier stage and therefore prevent it getting worse and controlling it better.

However, doesn’t this also mean we have turned into a culture more open to detecting a mental illness within ourselves and less tolerant to seeing it in others? Our environment has made us more self involved and far more insecure than previous generations, this is giving rise to the bigger problem or I even choose to call it the disease of the 21^st century. The American Psychiatric Association even labelled selfie as a mental disorder, because really what it means is people refusing to grow up and seeking approval or a compliment everyday. If you quickly detect the main symptoms of any mental disorder such as anxiety or any type of depression, there are two adjectives that loudly speak out. 1) The need for attention.  2) Insecurity, which is satiated by approval from others. When one takes 20 selfies a day and posts them on any network, that person is 1) seeking attention and 2) fishing or a compliment to make themselves feel better. It is not harmful to take a selfie because I also agree an image speaks louder than words and a picture of me smiling is far more effective than me saying, “I’m happy” on my status. Let me give you some shocking data from 2013. 21 million pictures uploaded to Instagram received the hash tag label  #selfie and 51 million received #me. I’m just saying!

If you cannot classify this as a mental illness (an on-going love affair with yourself) then what can be scarier? We advocate that love for ourselves is important to have a happy and satisfied life, but in this obsession for self -love we are losing sight of others and the more real mental illnesses that truly are a concern for our society.

I want to finish off by briefly addressing a symptom that again we are suffering from more and more in this quest to seek perfection within ourselves. When was the last time you didn’t judge someone for the money they spend, their eating habits, for their appearance, for their material choices, for the music they listen to and the list is never ending. The truth is our obsession with judging others is simply a reflection of an unsatisfied life that we lead ourselves. I read a very interesting article on this subject and there was a list of harmful situations that can be a consequence of judgmental behavior. I would like to share this list and see if you can observe how some of these unpleasantries are signs of this ongoing personal love affair that I have mentioned earlier.

Taken from: http://zenhabits.net/judgy/

I am very ignorant of what the person is going through.

I don’t understand the situation.

I have unrealistic expectations of people.

I think I’m superior to other people.

I’m not grateful.

I’m being self-centered.

I’m not being curious, but instead I close off all learning.

I can’t really help the situation from a place of judgment.

Therefore, before looking into the museum of other people’s minds, perhaps it’s more important to seek into your own museum and begin to question your own normality up close!

Colourful Globe

I Write

I write to release the angry oceans within me
I write to feed you words that you sometimes cannot see
I write because my voice at times has lost the will to fight
Words can be so heavy and so light
I fly freely like a beautiful kite

I write to bleed myself dry
Words fill wounds
A literary cry

I write because I am not an artist
My pen is my brush
My words my sketch

I write to add fuel to my fire
Accentuate my desire
It's my trampoline to get me higher

I write to tell you what you are thinking
What you missed when you were blinking
You tell me my words ignite your senses
Steal your torrid reflections
Arouse your palpitations

I write
I give words their due
Some I conjoin
Others disjoin

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