An Intolerant Conversation

“Are you intolerant? No? Ok then you must be anti-national . Sickular at least? None!! Ok, I know what you are, intellectual…umm pseudo-intellectual. “

“No I am just a common (wo)man.”

“Ohoo Aam aadmi … Kejriwal, muffler and jhhadu.”

“Grrrrr … I belong to no party. No saffron, no red, no green and of course no jhhadu-muffler. I am just baffled with all the new founded swear words like ‘sickular’ and ‘presstitute’. I am also disgusted with hate mongers. What do I do?”

“Oh! You are ignorant. Political unawareness is an equally heinous crime .You have no right to stay in this country. Oh! You are in IT. Of course you dream about foreign assignments and earning money and you watch movies in multiplex and buy branded clothes. You have left your parents behind in your home town and enjoying a life of luxury in India’s Silicon Valley. You are a hypocrite.”

“(Ashamed) Yeah, I reside in Bangalore and I have moved here for better opportunity. You can also read it as earning more money, but I had to with all the home loan, education loan etc. It’s only to lighten my parents burden – not to desert them or anything! I never thought of it this way – being a hypocrite in doing so. I mean I watch movies in multiplexes and sometimes I post check-ins in Facebook but being a hypocrite is pretending to be something or somebody when you are something else. In that way how am I a hypocrite?”

“Of course you are! You drive your own car to office and you crib about public transport. “

“Well, if I do not use my car the auto-walahs will charge me a fortune to drop me till the main road and then the bus tickets would be around 60 rupees to another bus stop from where I have to plead another auto fellow to drop me till office. By the time I reach office sweaty, exhausted and poorer by 150 rupees my manager would have already dropped me a “gentle” reminder about work ethics and punctuality. Dude I am helpless. ”

“So what? You are an Indian, offspring of the country which has churned its values out of suffering and penance. Change the system from inside, be the change yourself. Do not bad mouth the country like the anti-nationals or else you are free to leave.”

“Dude, you have been shouting ‘leave! Leave!’ from that time. Talk to my manager na! See if there is a project in Europe. If she gets my visa processed and sends me there I can see so many countries at the company’s expense 😛 ”

“(Disdainfully) See!! There you are. You all want to move out, go to some other place richer and cooler and criticize the mother land. And then you would compare our great mother land with a foreign country. Shame on you! “

“Look Boss, we are diverting from the topic. I hate it when I hear people around me shaming another religion. I hate it when losers commit suicide and the entire country debates on it. I hate it when beef eating is considered a social crime. I hate it when I see youths calling out for my country’s barbadi and I hate it when I see my social media is full of filth and mud-slinging by two groups which are divided by colors of politics/religion. I am becoming a bitter person too with all the hatred around me. Can there be an end to this ? ”

“These debates are due to political consciousness, which you ignorant fool will not understand. Beef eating is animal killing. How do you not consider it as a social crime? What do you do for animal welfare ?”

“Well, I feed five dogs every day. I donate in CUPA if there is a sick animal which needs treatment. I save a pup every time I see a group of rowdies throwing stones at it. ”

“Huh! Dogs!! India is a country of millions of poor people and a pseudo-intellectual is caring for dogs! “

“If you care so much for humans there are hundreds of NGOs which my fancy company at the silicon valley of India has a tie up with and they encourage us to share a part of our salary with them. We selfish, hypocrites do our part silently and not because a God or a book asked us to do so. Yes, we have very less time for ourselves and we watch movies in multiplexes but we do not forget to donate a smile every time we book a ticket on Book My Show. And for losers who commit suicide and the slogan freaks who wants to see the country’s end, please come and see how hard we work every day to please the clients we work for. It may sound all rosy from your damn university, but making your boss feel how much you respect her and appreciate her guidance or staying awake through the boring late night meetings and saying “yes” to whatever your client demands is a much more difficult task than it seems to be .”

Soliloquy: “My Muslim friend enjoys Holi as much as I enjoy their Eid Biriyanis. The Sanatana Dharma my forefathers preached talks about karma and Dhrama . Karma is our action while Dharma is our potential or capability (Please read Devdutt Pattanaik if you want an expert’s elaboration on this) . To those who spread hatred by obnoxious statements, their “karma”(Actions) clearly shows they have no “Dharma”(Potential , also known as religion in common tongue). For hypocrites like me, I am glad India has so many religions simply because I get leaves on those festival days and I get to eat an umpteenth variety of festival savories .In short, to hell with your criticism.”

 

 

 

 

Priorities

People say I am addicted to Facebook. Though I don’t post pictures or share my thoughts frequently but I love to see updates from my social media friends or you can say peek into their lives. So I keep browsing Facebook up and down to see what interesting stuff my friends have posted, shared, liked etc. Sometimes I boil my blood on social issues and post some fiery comments and indulge into debates but that’s rare.

So the other day I was casually browsing and saw someone posted a quote “No one is ever so busy, it’s all about priorities.” The quote may sound cliché to many, but it struck me at a very tender part of my heart. There are so many times we call our best friends and our calls are unanswered. We expect a call back, we wait one weekend, the next, but still the return call doesn’t come.  Then we send a message “You never answer my calls.” I have got replies from my besties saying “I was busy in a meeting when you called, then I got busy house-hunting over the weekends, then I fell ill, I was about to call you this Sunday etc etc .”

If I were a teen and this best friend was my boyfriend, maybe I would have fought with him or broken up etc. But in your late twenties you hardly have flings, you have friends who you have befriended long time back and now you are carrying them with you like a default package of your life. Like your parents and in-laws, these friends become a part of you. So when you are boiling in anger or crying with joy you just type few numbers to share your thoughts with them and then, when you hear the rings ending up in an automated message you think “ya.. May be she is driving or cooking etc .”And all the moments from thence you check your inbox, WhatsApp, missed calls etc. But when weeks pass on and your inbox still do not have that familiar name, what do you do ? Start worrying? Yes, in the beginning we all worry. But what do we do when we discover that the reason for our worries is only the other person’s busy schedule? I guess, then we should understand that it’s time for us to move on, it’s time for us to reshuffle our priorities.

Lingo Bingo

Facebook Status update:

I had an awesome drive with my awesome hubby followed by an awesome movie. What an awesome day it was.

Awesome is the most loved adjective of this generation. Awesome movie, Awesome book, Awesome climate, Awesome ride, even awesome husband! I wondered what was going on in her mind. Was there a hint of commodification of the poor husband! Well masculinists will kill me for this. Don’t raise your eyebrows. Definitely masculinist is a word if feminist is one. We believe in equality. And if Kewl and Supah can be a welcome introduction in English dictionary then why not masculinist? Coming back to the topic, I scrolled down to take a glance at the comments to the above status. ‘Awwwwww’ with differing number of ws being the most common one. I was so awed at the awwwws and the awesome-nesses that I thought of making an exhaustive list of the most happening words of today’s lingo.

Awesome: Awesome is omnipresent. This is used to describe superlative degree of everything. Even spouses these days! The FB status is not a work of fiction at all. Best thing about awesome is, it can replace any adjective in English language. Beautiful evening  → Awesome evening, Loving husband  → Awesome hubby,Exciting trek  → Awesome trek, Incredible experience  → Awesome experience and so on. I have coined a term for this – ‘universal adjective’.

Awwww: Add more ws if you want to emphasize. It’s used to describe something cute. The number of ws increases with the extent to which one wishes to nag. Can be classified as a feminine lingo. Used mostly as comments to status messages describing awesomeness of something. If you like to behave like a nagging female go for it , else refrain .

Sweety pie/ munchkin/ sugar cup/honey bun :. 4 different words but they mean the same.  It’s like, you find something very adorable; so adorable that you get a giddy feeling from within. As if you are drooling over a blueberry cheese cake; the sight makes your heart melt and you have no better way to express your feeling than comparing it with a mouthwatering desert. Such cheesy endearments are often followed by an­ awwww. Like ‘Awwwww.. Such a sweety pie.’.

Kewl: Substitute of the word cool but has nothing to do with temperature. Depicts how trendy someone or something or some incident is. Like ‘Holiday in Las Vegas! How Kewl is that!’ . Also used as a gesture of approval. Like, someone tells you ‘I will send you all the documents within an hour’ and you reply ‘Ok.Kewl’.This word has the highest wannabe quotient. Extensively used by spiked haired dudes who love to shake their legs to honey sing’s numbers.

Duh : Annoyed? Irritated?somebody said  something obvious? It is so duh. This word is used often, but not by many and not as liberally as awesome and awww . Hence, using this word would still make you sound trendy in an un clichéd way.

LOL/LMAO/ROFL : Lol = Laugh out loud. . LOL is modified further to LOLzzzzz , extra z for increased loudness of laughter .LMAO =Laughing my arse off(I would love to see arses falling off due to laughter), ROFL – Rolling on the floor laughing ,TGIF-Thank God it’s Friday, TTYL-Talk to you later, TY-Thank you. Inspired by this, the other day I told my friend Hey HAND! , and he gave me a bizarre look. “Arey dumb fella! Have a Nice day. Itna bhi nahi jante. Duh ! “

Ma : if you thought I was talking about my mother you definitely need to upgrade yourself to the state of the art linguistics. Ma means my. Replace the y in my with an a (Poor y ), and there you go. Similar words in this category like Supah for Super, Dahling for darling , gal for girl are used sparingly. I don’t think I need to elaborate much on their meaning and usage.

My bad : Used (Read over used) by IT geeks who along with their acumen on cutting edge technology have a very ‘Kewl’ vocabulary .This word is equivalent to ‘It’s my mistake’. If you are in IT, this phrase is a must have in your vocabulary.

How’s you : Now, this is my favorite one. First time I had heard this I pitied the fella for having a poor grammar education at school. I never had a doubt on “you”’s plurality, so I blindly followed ‘how are you’ , ‘where are you’ , ‘what are you up to’ and so on like a norm. So the first instance of “how’s you” was ignored just like other grammatical disasters such as ‘I dint got’, ‘You didn’t told me’ etc. Then, one fine day I realized .No, it’s my bad (see how typically an IT geek I am) , ‘How are you’ is now obsolete and How’s you is the new school grammar.

This is not the end. This list could go on forever, but to speak the truth this is all I can think of right now. Do you think I have not done justice to the trend setting words and have missed out on few important ones? Please add on if you have more in mind.

Happy Women’s Day

Do you clean your house? No? Oh come on ,don’t lie, dust allergy is just an excuse!
Oh your husband does all the cleaning

#amazed/shocked/disappointed#

What do you do then?
#Sigh#
and “you have fallen in my eyes” look.

Happy women’s day to those beautiful ladies who often fall in the eyes of society for not being able to carry out their fundamental duties.

And thanks to all those men (my dear husband being one of them) who provide constant emotional support to these fallen ladies by cleaning the carpet.

Is this what you call Life?

Splash! And the white shirt was stained with the same shade of brown which is often shown on advertisements of popular washing powders on TV. Unfortunately, unlike those TV Ads, he neither had a washing machine nor a caring wife at home to put an end to his agony.  He thought he would rather go home and call it a day.  He flicked his half burnt cigarette and chuckled. It was half past 4 in the evening and he had a long day ahead of him. A long day, full of fake smiles and false promises which never ended before 10 at night.  A long day, which always ended with lot of emails and a lonely sigh.  A long day , followed by a  series of beautiful dreams which soothed his soul while he transitioned to the next long day.

He chuckled, “Is this what you call life!” , he thought. A cliché of a thought which crosses our mind every day.  A thought which cramps our mind and makes us snap at everyone who love us making them think the same way, “Is this what you call life? “

A Stale Love Story

Her lovely face looked lovelier with the smile she wore. Her eyes spoke the truth about her through the thick lashes. She looked bright, optimistic. The pair of smart jeans, big dialed watch on her wrist seemed perfect for the day. Stilettos would be ideal for the evening. “Do I look fat?”, “Do I look clumsy in the heels”, “Will he like me in these”, and several questions bothered her despite her close to flawless self. Quickly, she brushed her hair and looked into the mirror, one last time, to re assure herself of her beauty. She frowned, something, some thing was not correct she thought, may be it was nervousness.

They walked hand in hand, several miles, through beautiful gardens, undulated valleys. Her feet ached in the stilettos but she could not leave his hand. She had vowed. They crossed mountains and deep gorges. Sometimes she fell and cut her knees while sometimes he sprained his leg .Her mascara smudged and developed into dark circles under her eyes as they fought the beasts in the tropical forests. Yet, they walked, with the usual habit of walking, despite every hurdle that came on their way. They wandered around the world crossing sand dunes to surfs, when finally they reached a shore. A calm, peaceful sandy shore it was. He was tired, she was fatigued but more than everything she was happy, she felt she was home.  “Let us live here, happily ever after” she said. He could not hear her as he was already asleep; the long journey had taken its toll on him. He slept peacefully while she waited, for him to wake up. She waited for days, months for him to wake up and hold her hands again. She refused to leave his side and sat still, waiting.

When he woke up it was spring, he looked good and healthy. His head still rested on her lap, “The world looked promising”, he muttered.  The sleep had worked magic on him .It was no less than a new birth he thought and looked into her eyes.

How appropriate it would have been if she looked into his eyes too, smitten, head over heels in love all over again. They never fought, they never cheated on each other, and a happy ending was inevitable.

 

#Sigh#

 

She shut her eyes in horror as their eyes met, what was it that she saw in his eyes? Was it malice, deception, cowardice; was it death, or indifference? He was taken aback by her behavior and she…She wept all night, she wept in the disgusting manner in which every woman cries when her soul is broken. She wept till her eyes swelled and blurred her vision.

 

She wept, till he was gone in his sailed boat, a thousand light years away from her.

 

 

Glimpses

It is the fifth time the sky changed its color today. The early morning crimson turned dazzling white in few hours and then shifting shades from blue to black, smiled a toothy grin through the thick long white beard of clouds by noon. The occasional downpours in the city have created small pools and puddles here and there. The passers by jumped, hopped, skipped their way across the murk. Geeta watched these events with the concentration of watching a movie and with the involvement of having played a part in it. She watched the bikes rave, the trucks roar. She watched the handsome couples with awe. She watched the yellow taxis and the thick jowled police man with indifference, as if they were part of the landscape since the banyan tree at the corner of the street was. The sound of Tagore’s melodies and the smell of Jasmine filled the air.

The signal changed its color too, from green to red. Promptly, Geeta tied her rough copper brown hair, infested with lice into a lose ponytail near her nape, settled her ragged clothes and plunged into the slumber of midday traffic with packets of jasmine scented incense sticks. Knocking on the tainted glasses with practiced fingers and crying out memorized lines to promote her incense sticks, she disappeared in the maze of vehicles, people and deception.

Back to blogging

How many of you believe that one needs an inspiration to become a writer? I know it is clichéd but I am confident most of us do believe in this inspiration behind writing. I think, in simple words this inspiration, means nothing more or less than an appropriate ‘reason’ or ‘purpose’ which writhes you to write . You are getting me wrong if are thinking I am going to talk about the acclaimed writers and how they were inspired to create masterpieces. I am actually talking about casual writers like me who are do not want to become a writer, but feels ecstatic to share their little world with a select few .I am talking about myself and the impetus which once made me write my blogs are fading away as I am growing up.

You may call it oversimplified, but by ‘writer’ I mean, one who can pen down certain words which not only speak of what the writer feels but also echo the unspoken words of many other hearts. One who is capable of choosing just the correct word from the ocean of vocabulary and placing it in just the correct place which makes the reader feel ‘I exactly wanted to say so… exactly this’. I do not want to nag much on analyzing what the word ‘writer’ means because I started writing this piece as my confession to the readers of my blog.

This happened to me few days back when I read one of my friend’s blog. I felt, how could she so easily and so appropriately capture the shapeless elements of my subconscious in her little note? How could she read my mind, decode cryptic thoughts and translate them in plain English! I am sure my friend is smiling her usual way while she is reading this. Coming back to my point, more than a lack of inspiration I felt a lack of reason to write. This is why I refrained from it since long. I wasn’t finding a correct topic to talk on, and then as I read something written by somebody I felt ‘This is a thought stealer, I was just about to write this if this person hadn’t’. Sometimes though, I felt myself swelling with thoughts, but all of those were jumbled ones, not ready to be on paper. Also, at times I began writing and could not find a suitable end to it; this is a very common thing with me. I do not understand how to conclude when I start something and I go overboard describing something and stretching unnecessarily. Like now, this agenda less piece has lost quite its charm without a suitable ending! Well, I tried to unscramble what I felt lately, because somebody told me you should have the heart to write and words would choose you .I just gave a shot at writing once again.

Midnight’s Story

The city seems to be sparkling at midnight. Is this the pre Diwali pomp or is it always like this. Remya wondered while she settled the Saree on her left shoulder. Durga Puja celebrations are just over, and the city is waiting to get decked up into her Diwali look. Remya chuckled. This city has bedazzled her always; since the day she had stepped in here in search of a living.

2 years back when she could hardly utter a word in Bengali or Hindi till today, this city seems to amaze her. Remya believes that this city has a twin soul. One, that is warm and welcoming and the other harsh and cruel. This city has given her a livelihood and in lieu of that has snatched everything else from her. Initial days were tough indeed but now she has accepted her fate.

She could sense that she was not in safe hands the moment she stepped out of kanakpura ; but, what else could she do? She was in 9^th standard when she had eloped with Rahim khan’s son Ali. Ali’s father Rahim ran a grocery shop at Kanakpura, Ali worked as a construction worker in Bangalore. Remya had lived happily for few days with him in a small house at Shivajinagar. If Ali hadn’t absconded from Bangalore on that treacherous night she would have never got back to Kanakpura.

Remya had anxiously waited for Ali to come back for over a month. Her wait lasted till the last grain of rice in her kitchen store. She had no choice but to return to Kanakpura after lodging a police complaint.

Well, it’s been a long while now. She still wonders if Ali had willingly deserted her or was he really in trouble. Everything is a mystery to her still. Her entire life had been a mystery. Otherwise, how could her own father ask her to go and live with her maternal uncle at Kolkata, when he was well aware of his notoriety? Or may be Ramareddy thought that his brother in law would spare his own niece. Or probably he didn’t have anything better to do for her daughter when the entire village was about to outcast his entire family.

Remya lit a cigarette. This is one thing that reduces her agitation which arises when she thinks of her past life. A puff or two brings her back from being the village girl Remya to the urban Roma which she now calls herself. She dragged the smoke and closed her eyes in relief. Its almost 15 minutes past 12 , this dimly lit corner of park street is almost deserted .On the other side of the street stood  few other women , just like her . 

Suddenly her phone rang. Must be Swapan Sen , the pimp who had helped her during the tough times when her uncle had left her at Sonagachhi.

–          Hello Roma? – A voice from the other side had anxiety in the tone

–          Yes. Tell me what is it.

–          Customer hai. Are you interested?

–          Yes . Where should I come? Said Roma. It’s been 2 days that she hasn’t earned a penny. She was somewhat relieved by the offer.

–          They are in Park Street it self. In a bar out there.

–          They ? What do you mean by they?

–          They means there are 3 of them. But only one would want to spend the night with you

–          Hmm.. That’s better. I hope you know that I do not accept certain offers even for more money.

–          Yes darling . I know that. Now you listen to me. They have a car. I will come along with them .We will pick you from Park Street  and I would get down at Ruby, they will take you to Dhakuria. Ok?

–          Ok fine.

 

The speedometer read 120 at eastern bypass. Remya was on the backseat with Swapan and Mohanish. Shamak was on the driver’s seat and Debayan sat beside him. Shamak was piss drunk. He tried hard to keep the car straight. He would not have sat behind the steering wheel if either Debayan or Mohanish knew to drive. ‘Hopeless people’ , he thought . He could see the girl in the mirror but tried hard not to look at her as he was sure that he would then surely meet an accident if not for drunken driving.

They reached Dhakuia at 1:30. Swapan had dropped off at Ruby. She hadn’t spoken to any of these drunken men even once on her way. She was disgusted by the way Mohanish threw up couple of times out of the window on the other side.  She often faces customers who are drunk, but it is easy to manage one drunken man. There were three horribly drunken men in the car. So, she chose not to open her mouth as she thought that would invite trouble. She thought to herself, Once she gets into business she would have to deal with only one of them(though she still wondered who it would be) and that would be easier to manage.

The Dhakuria apartment is a two roomed flat. Debayan’s sister usually stays here .But after her marriage this place stays empty. Debayan is an MBA student. Shamak, Mohanish and Debayan were friends from the engineering days. Shamak, a Delhi resident, is working here in a bank after completing his MBA and Mohanish works in a firm since he had completed his Btech.

As they entered the house, Shamak sped to the wash room. Mohan flung his body on the sofa. Debayan eased on the couch, while Remya stood at the corner settling her Jazzy Saree. She wasn’t very slim yet possessed an attractive figure. Though dusky, she had sharp features .There was an uncomfortable silence in the room.

–          Aap us room me jake thoda araam kijiye. “Please go to the other room and rest for a while”, Debayan was the first one to speak and break the uneasiness.

–          Ahh.. Ok. Can I get a glass of water ?

–          Oh sure. Please go to the other room, I will get it for you.

 She entered the master bedroom. The bed had white bed spread covering it. The window drapes looked quite expensive. Within minutes Debayan entered with a glass of water. She smiled at him and stretched her hand and to her dismay, instead of handing the glass over to her he splashed the water on her. Within split seconds Debayan sprang over her. The torture continued for half an hour. She was bruised, and lay there on the white satin bedsheet like a dead fish. After Debayan’s adrenalin rush came into control entered Mohanish. She squealed, in protest and in pain. But Mohanish threw few thousand rupee notes on her. Before she could understand what is going on, Mohanish thrust himself in her. She screamed out in pain, anger , They jostled for a few minutes after which she slapped him with all the fury she had against her ex- husband Ali, all the anger she had against her father and the hatred she had for her uncle who had brought her into this business. Mohan was probably taken aback at the prostitute’s attitude and left her. She didn’t intend to slap him. She thought may be she should apologize but before she could say anything Mohanish left the room and within few minutes returned with Shamak.

The girl has seen many men in her business, but this was the first time she saw someone like Shamak. His eyes were red, with lust and rage. He vigorously puffed the cigarette which he held. His face personified vengeance. He stared at her like an animal looks at its prey. The girl shuddered. She clasped the white bed sheet in her fist. Shamak looked at the girl for a moment and passed a delirious smile. As if he was setting his grounds before assaulting her. He held her by her hair with all his might and burnt her on multiple places with the cigarette. ‘What do you think of yourself .You whore.’ He yelled. He kept slapping her till he was tired. She tried to escape, cried yelled, pled but had to succumb to the man, who left her bruised, burnt and blue before he stopped. She just wept and said ‘I just think I am a human being .Main Randi hoon, Janwar Nahi’. “I may be a prostitute but not an animal,” and by saying this she collapsed.

She was splitting in pain. Yet she opened her eyes to check where she was. She found herself lying on her bed in her small room in Shobhabazaar. Who would have brought her back home? She wondered but did not have the strength to enquire. She could identify few known faces around her. She looked around and closed her eyes in horror at the sight of a silhouette behind the window. Though Shamak or any of his friends were not around, she closed her eyes in terror and murmured ‘I may be a prostitute but not an animal. Please spare me the assault’.

Fear of the dark

When I was young I used to be afraid of the dark. My dad used to tell me then “What are you afraid of, my child? There isn’t anything scary out there”. Despite that, the fear used to persist. I used to shudder when asked to bring something from the dark room. I am still not sure what exactly freaked me so much then. May be I was scared that there could be a ghost inside the room or a dangerous beast ready to pounce on me as soon as I enter.

Now, when I think about those days, I wonder, why the paranoia of being attacked by malign things disappeared in day light. What was so typical about darkness that caused a tremor to go through my bowels? Probably, I, as a kid had a notion that ghosts are afraid of light as I am of the dark or may be something else. May be the grimacing face of darkness itself was the reason of the apprehension. Darkness brings with it an uncertainty of what lurks inside it.  It is like stepping into an unknown world, blindfolded. The skepticism of stepping into a sordid place where you may be slandered or may be put under spells so that you remain there, imprisoned for the rest of your life and  never be able come back to your known world.

With the years I have overcome the fear of darkness; I am no longer scared to venture into unlit corners but there are a lot of other things which frighten me now. Fear of losing a friend, fear of not being able to meet expectations, fear of growing old, fear of hurting somebody or getting hurt myself ; though the list is enormous there is a parity between these fear and skepticism. I find a connection between the juvenile darkness phobias, the adolescent panic of examinations and the quarter life insecurity of losing friends.

The common element in this wide range of fear factors is its contingency. Being unaware of the consequences of an action is the reason of apprehension. There is a large canvas inside our head where we draw pictures of the future. We try to foresee what is going to happen next and capture it in our head and when we are not certain enough of what actually is going to happen we go wild with our imagination and paint ugly and strange things on that ‘canvas inside the head’ . These images are sometimes influenced by experiences from the past and sometimes born solely out of imagination. A dark tunnel scares a child because darkness creates a suspicion in a child’s mind about what could be inside, so the child paints ugly monsters on the canvas inside his head and gives birth to a phobia. I am often afraid of examinations because I do not know what is going to happen if I fail. So the colors of my imagination splash on my subconscious to create hideous pictures of people giving me a cold shoulder, ridiculing me, looking at me with disdain because I have failed. Not knowing how life would look without a particular friend fills the canvas with strokes of gray and black and pictures of malevolent creatures with heavy eyes and sinister smile dancing a savage dance in circles.

There are times when we paint beautiful images as well and when we do it more often we call ourselves optimists. Now, I am not afraid of the dark anymore, so do I qualify as an optimist? Well, not really. It is just that, sometimes we do not create any picture at all and this makes us indifferent. The canvas remains white and our mind doesn’t predict whether the outcome of our future action would be harsh or would prove to be benevolent. A blank canvas doesn’t make us courageous; it just helps us ignore the inevitable that waits for us.