The Good, The Bad & The Lessons Learnt Along The Way

In my life, it has always been the small things that have really given me the bigger and better smiles, filled my days with heartwarming happiness and really made living this life worthwhile. It’s like the sense of achievement of correctly working out a super hard math problem but ironically nothing in life can be worked out. Really!

You just got to go with the flow and pray like-your-life-depended-on-it that in the end life will work itself out.

If you ever thought about your life as a 15 mark ICSE Board Essay Question, where you argue both sides of the case, then right now, I would like to rant some shit straight out of my head . . .

There is always the Good Times …

The proud look on your parents’ face when they think you have achieved something, the little appreciations by the closest of friends, the random thought of your favorite song lines doing live performances in your head the moment your mum starts yelling at you, the boy you love talks to you or just gazes at you for that nano-second eye contact giving your average day the look of a rock concert, a semi – lazy day when half your brain just wants to day dream and the other half waits to become the first half, the brilliant smile your grandma gives you the moment you walk through her doors like that just made her day, the extra chat with your closest friend after everyone has left the room, feeling like Superman on a fresh morning followed by Spiderman … Batman … and ending your day just being human …, the endless roaming on empty roads of an unknown place where no one comes out, being a part of those typical gossip sessions where everything gets so incredibly exaggerated resulting in endless laughs … tummy aches and the not so needed abs development!, eating at your favorite place and relishing every morsel like it was your last time there, a sudden shiver down your spine when you hear your favorite beats and you end up dancing like no ones watching and finally come the times when you have been really stupid, childish and all those adjectives you thought you had grown out of and never want to be associated with . . .

Then of course come the Bad Times …

When you found out time ran you out, and it has been doing it ever since you started running with it, when you never had an idea that things you owned started owning you, friends you loved to be with left without being with you, the boy you thought about at least once every hour could pass days without you, the things you are good at came in the way of learning things you weren’t good at, when you care about your close ones more than anyone else does to their own ones, when you find a greater comfort in a child’s eyes than the ones within your own age group, when you think life isn’t a fair deal and it treats everyone differently, when you know almost everything out there can give you pain and you have to chose what’s worth that pain . . .

And in the end, all you have are The Lessons You Learnt Along The Way . . .

When your faith in God strengthens every he ditches you, when you have stood tall in every tough time, so that when the happier times finally come you are better than before . . . And the day will come when it dawns on you that you should stop asking for things from God because what he can give you is always way more than what you can ask for . . .

I end this blog post today with the words of Imogen Heap – Song: Hide & Seek

“ Where are we? What the hell is going on?

The dust has only just begun to fall,

Crop circles in the carpet, sinking feeling.

Spin me around again and rub my eyes.

This can’t be happening.

When busy streets a mess with people

Would stop to hold their heads heavy”

My December

As the sun rises on the distant horizon of my city, I stand in my room balcony listening to the song "My December".  The first time I listened to it was in 2004, when I was in the eleventh grade standing exactly where I stood at the moment watching the sun rise. It was December, my favorite month of the year because the weather then is absolutely brilliant in Bangalore, not warm but not too cold either, but spread with a bit of chilliness but most of all because its the time of the year that I come back home, no matter where I am. In many ways, Decembers, are like winters, where birds dont chirp alot, people drink a little more coffee and talk a little less, mostly silent, a perfect time to ponder.

Decembers remind me of the year that was and the last month before the year that will be. Coincidently, I find myself here in this month, every single year taking in every moment of those foggy Bangalorean Nights . I remember, I could barely see a few meters and that helped mostly because who wanted to see any further anyway?

Its been eight long years and I am still listening to "My December" again after that first time I did, only difference being that now its July and I can't wait for another six months for December to come to write about it. A lot has changed since then, really ALOT and Im sure a lot has changed for you too since you heard "Your Song"for the first time. But when you really love a song, you are always reminded of that exact mood and how it made you feel the very first time, every time you go on to hear it. Eight years, wow, life hasn't slowed down one bit. I am still that girl, running around the city with a pocket full of dreams, waiting patiently for them to be fulfilled. After all these years,  I am still reminded of the streets I walked on; the people I liked; people I forgot and the people I had to forget; the people I never met again and the people I never wanted to meet again. The smiles I forced, the smiles they forced. Guess life is all about that, right from wanting to get away to wanting to come back.

A lot has happened in these eight years, I finished school, left home for college, got over with college, had my first salary, had my first date, traveled a reasonable part of the world, joined Facebook, joined Orkut, left Orkut, moved from listening to rock, then pop and now old Bollywood songs. Saw two anti - corruption movements in my country, experienced global recession, saw dictators fall and democracies rise. All in these eight years! .. so why call this just a song?

My December - listen to it.