#1

I don't know if you can get jet lagged without changing time zones but I definitely was. I had a late night flight from Mumbai to Bangalore yesterday and for some reason that escapes me I decided to take the bus home. My back has forgotten the time when it didn't pain. But luckily I am a corporate slave which means no matter what happens, if I was on WFH for an ENTIRE week, I report on Monday being the best possible productive version of myself or else it will start affecting my work. I can't grasp when in the world we decided that Microsoft Office rules. Right from the Roman Empire to Times New Roman we've come a full depressing circle. As I slog to my desk so that I can open the laptop and start the slavery I spot you already at your desk. Guess you are getting autos on time now. You are glued to the display of your laptop. 

I settle down at my desk which is a meticulously planned 8 step routine so that everything I might need during the 8 hours onslaught is at an arm's reach. The daily huddle is the newest addition to the list of things that I find completely useless in this organization. It takes place at exactly 10 am which means I have to be ready with my yesterday's and today's to-do-list which I know will be ignored blatantly and an ad-hoc work which doesn't even exist presently will be piled on. And the day will continue as it usually does. 

But it also means that I have precisely 54 mins left to see if you missed me. The thing is, you might have but quoting you, "if you don't communicate, how am I ever going to know?" Why is it so important that you missed me? Well. The geniously stupid that I am I still need validation for our friendship. I have had enough destroyed equations that have left me void of even a single unit of trust. And you have done your absolute best to ensure that I don't even find it again. Not by actions, yet. Your words were enough. More importantly, your advice to not believe a single word that comes out of anyone's mouth other that yourself. Especially when it concerns emotional matters. 

By the time I pyscho-analyze the situation in my head and we only have 23 mins left now. I give up on the hope that you'd notice me by yourself as you seem to be laser focused on your screen. I get up from my seat with my reusable plastic bottle that I often leave back in the office in hand and move towards the canteen. All the while making sure that I don't turn my head in your direction even for a second. I get to the canteen successfully and let out of a sigh of relief. I don't want to seem too eager to talk to you. I don't want to seem like the one with attachment issues. I walk back to my seat in the anticipation that you might look up. Till I reach my row, I notice your face. For the first time I can't make out what is going through that devil brain of yours. Usually you are an open book to me. Or so I would like to believe. But not today. Something's changed. Your eyes reflect a shade of excitement I have rarely seen before. But your eyebrows are twitched as usual when all of the world is trying to irritate you and challenge your patience. That's mundane. 

Not taking the turn to my row I let go of my previous inhibitions and make it to your desk, taking a sip from my bottle before settling it down next to your laptop with a slight thud. This finally makes you aware of my existence. You are shocked. Almost frightened. Startled enough to not find the right words to greet me. 

"You.. you.. are back? Already?" you said.

"Umm.. I was supposed to be back today. Right?" I replied.

"Of course. It must have slipped my mind. You know how sir is on Mondays right?" you blurted out.

While you try to put on the weakest defense I have ever seen since Nuremberg, you are swift in locking your laptop which is highly unusual and you are out of your seat now. The same one I thought you are going to be buried in till death. I am unable to process what exactly is going on but it has a hint of familiarity. People get tensed before the doom. 

"Canteen?" that's all you manage to say.

"After you." I replied as usual. 

You are quite till we make it to the corner sofa. Over the 3 months that we've spent in this particular office I didn't quite understand how this became a spot for confrontations, secrets, gossip and news. I still didn't quite know that the last one was true. 

"I got to tell you something. I haven't told anyone yet. I just found out." 

You said as we settled in the sofa. My heart sank. I knew what was coming. I could now decode the excitement that I saw earlier. It all makes sense now. Why you didn't move from you seat all morning. The radio silent WhatsApp chat since Wednesday. All of it. But I put on a smile, nevertheless.

"You got into Crompton?" I asked fully aware of the answer and how it is going to make me feel.

"Yes! How did you know?" You shout in the lowest possible pitch.

"It shows. You are practically glowing" I snicker and pat you on your back. 

I replace the smirk with the most genuine smile that I can muster in the moment and I dare to ask you. 

"So, leaving us finally?" I let the words out and now they are true. It's not a figment of my imagination anymore.

"We'll see. How was home?" 

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© Aditi Tiwari 2024

Respect > Love

Two of my friends asked me, "Are you pissed?" "Are you alright" just because I didn't reply to them the way I usually do. I subscribe to the theory that my mood shouldn't define someone else's. I don't like being the person who can't look outside of their selfish world. But the past few days have been different. Being 22 isn't as easy as I thought it'd be when I was maybe 16. I just wanted to be 22 then. And now I just want to be sixteen again. To be that naïve and innocent. I have had this chat with myself lately about how I can no longer expect anyone to be good to me just because I am good to them. I guess it is a human tendency to not care about the people who care about us and always want the one who doesn't want us. The friends I am behaving rudely to genuinely care about me, but I am helping out another friend who felt so guilty about taking my help. Do you know why did she feel guilty? Because there is no friendship left there. We used to be really good friends, but we can't even speak to each other on the phone now. I don't know if she's afraid of it getting overboard again. I know what I am so scared of, though. I am afraid of myself. There might not be a lot of people I can cross oceans for. But there are some, and once I have reached that stage in any equation, it is damn difficult for me to retract myself. Trust me, and I tried hating her. I even now keep reminding myself of the moments she made me feel like shit. But I help her when she doesn't even need my help. That's how much I respect that person. And that is something I have come to realize. It is not about wanting to do something for a bond because you want it to last longer. Because I know there is nothing left in this bond. The shade of grey that it is stuck in is the awkward formal talking to each other just because it is too damn difficult to let go. And there's always this assurance that if everyone else disappoints, there's one person you can most definitely trust. And it is difficult to let go of someone you can depend upon and who has proved it time and again. But that doesn't in any way mean that you can abuse that vulnerability. It takes guts to talk to someone you have shut down so many times previously. It takes a lot of effort to recognize that you judged a person wrong and treated her worse. And it takes immense strength to talk to that person again. And you need to respect that. You need to understand that while it might be hard on the receiving end, the burden of guilt is always more significant on the other side. It is your unsaid responsibility not to let them feel that burden. Because if you respect a bond enough, you will always allow the person to go. The realization is not easy that their happiness lies outside of you, but it is essential to accept it. We must realize all who we meet aren't meant to stay in our lives forever. And it doesn't happen overnight. All of us love challenging the universe and working against it, but trust me, the universe knows better. And it is of paramount importance to realize that you don't lose a person just because you don't have the same kind of bond with them. You need to understand that bonds and equations and relationships keep redefining themselves at every point in time. I believe that if someone is happy staying close to me and being involved in my life internally, they can do that. But I am a strong proponent that if someone is comfortable being out of life but still wants to talk to me, it does not always cause they want something from me. It may be that. But it might also be because the closer you are, the more you hurt. Being detached is peaceful to an extent. It might not be fulfilling, and there may be times when you feel hurt and lost, but it is still significant. You can't blame someone for protecting themselves. Detached equations are just another coping mechanism. But always ensure respect in any equation cause you can easily do away without much love, but you will reach nowhere without respect. And that's why maybe I may not seem alright to some people cause I re-evaluated my stance on equations and reacted accordingly. 

Refresh.

Distance will tell you the real meaning of closeness. Surprisingly enough this was a post of a meme page that struck a cord and made me write this one. Well those were my exact thoughts at 1.57 am when I was endlessly scrolling my Instagram. I had just finished reading yet another blog for CAT preparation and come to think of it I guess I've spend more time reading these blogs than actually implementing what I read. Life right now is actually going pretty well to be writing. Given that I only write when I am facing and emotional turmoil or a nervous breakdown. I am quite sorted with my prep though it might not be as much as those blogs recommended I feel that I am in a comfortable position. I have started reading novels again. Chetan Bhagat. I hope that still counts as reading. I've been watching an ceaseless array of movies of every possible genre. And also I've been reading business related articles which I find really intriguing. I've been meaning to add some more things to my reading list and will do that hopefully in the coming week. But these are the things that I've always been pretty comfortable around. The real change still remains to maintain the balanced emotional quotient. For quite some time now I've felt that the more detached you are from people the lesser are the chances of getting hurt by them. But then you crave that intimacy at some point. When you have something great to celebrate or a shoulder to cry on or to blow off steam so you don't get anxious again. If you are maintaining a distance you can't just abuse it when you like. Being detached also means that you'd have to go through all of the above stuff on your own. But let me tell you something, however sad it might seem it is really empowering to not feel that need for someone to be there for you 24*7. That does not mean that I have given up on humanity altogether. Instead, I have taken time from way-too-involved friendship and devoted it to some which might actually have a chance to be great someday. I have reconnected with a couple of school friends who seem to be genuinely interested to listen to what I have to say rather than brag about that personal lives all day long. Plus it's so refreshing to have a change of topic in conversations. To learn something new other than stupid nonsensical gossip. At the end if the day what matters is who you wanna talk to and who wants to listen to you talk. Rather than just waiting for their turn to speak. Cheers!

Aditi 💫 

Southside Serpents

 It's been a while and I thought I'd scribble something so that this blog isn't dead neither is my liking towards writing. So I'd been watching Riverdale again because I kinda skimmed it the last time and regardless of all the drama that the show has which is a lot, the thing that stand outs every time is the friendship. May it be Veronica & Betty or Archie & Jughead or even Cheryl at times that's the thing I love the most about the show. How no matter how hard it gets they all stuck together. 

Real life friendships are often more dramatic than a teen show. And it just gets complicated over the years. Like you think you know someone but you never know what time reveals. Well I have had my fair share of friendships and all I know about them is I enjoyed them. All of them.

Whether it is my childhood friends whom I had know since I knew there was a subject called Social Studies or some whom I met on a train journey and never met again because what are the odds of that happening but every one of my friendship taught me something valuable about life a lot more that any of the textbooks ever could.

While some taught me that no matter what may happen we'd find our way back to each other anyway. Even if we didn't talk daily or didn't exactly know what was happening with the other person right now it didn't matter. Cause we knew that the moment one of us needs the other we are just a phone call away. And that kinda trust didn't develop overnight. It took years of fighting, bitching, hating each other to say the least but at the end realizing that we are all on the same team because we are our favorite kinda people. And that's the thing about school friends no matter how many friends you make after them, their place in your life remains unchallenged, forever.

Then there are some people who we have nothing in common with. You aren't the same age. You don't go to the same school. Heck you don't have the same interests but somehow those are the exact reason you are friends with such people. They challenge you to do something new. They break the monotony. And believe me when things go down in the above paradise, these friends are the one who make you see clearly. From needing a different POV to watching a film of a genre who never thought you were going to, these people are exactly what make life fun.

Friendships teach you how much it means when a person trusts you. Counts on you. And loves to have you around. It teaches you that its okay to not be perfect cause if you were heck bitch we wont be friends. But most of all it teaches us how to get trough life enjoying and cherishing every moment, how you are never alone in this strange world and how if you ever killed someone or did something more stupid not that I think killing someone is stupid (Its fascinating) all of your dumbass friends won't let you go down and enjoy prison alone.

Nostalgia

Revisiting the old moments is much more than what could be put in just a single word. Sometimes when we look behind we can't really believe that all that cringe worthy stuff was actually done by us and it creeps us out till no limits. But sometimes a few moments are so priceless that whenever we reminisce those we just don't seem to get enough. 

I sometimes miss the person I was. Especially in like 7th or 8th grade. That carefree spirit. No regrets of the past no future expectations. Just looking forward to everyday and making the best out of it. Life used to revolve around some friends, some shows and some books. School felt more like home than home. Life was easy back then or it still is. I guess all that's changed is me. 

As we grow up we tend to over complicate things. Life is still the same. All that's left to do is not let the 12 year old get pressurized by the unnecessary worrying of the 20 year old. 

After having caught a fleeting moment of nostalgia today I'll try to be the old me who knew to find happiness in small moments of life. Who didn't ponder too much on what other think of her. Who used to live life as it is. Who made sure that no day passed without being an awesome memory to look back upon. And most importantly who didn't fear dreaming and believing that they'll come true. 

- Aditi Tiwari 

The Middle

Beginnings and endings are the easiest, it's the damned middle that has all the hardships. Think about a 100m sprint. You know the beginning. You have practiced it a thousand times. And you know the end. You've dreamt about it forever. But it's the middle that decides who'll win the race. The right acceleration at the right moment and the continuous fight for breath to keep giving your 100% are the real challenge. Life isn't much different and people neither.

When you begin to know a person, it's all flowers and rainbows. You start getting to know each other. The very basics. All you know about a person in the start is what they've told you. There are so many people in our life that we know only till the beginning stage. Think about it, your classmates, your colleagues, your bosses. What you know about them is strictly limited to the details they want you to know. But it's our choice to know a person beyond this. That's the gap between acquaintance and friend. We start asking questions and judging the response. It is still the answers that we know but to the questions we specifically asked. We start learning things that shape our perception  about the person. And that's when it gets tough. When we develop a liking towards a person. 

You wouldn't mind if your acquaintance took a day to reply to your message but if your friend does the same you start questioning their position. We think of all sorts of possibilities when in reality maybe he's just been really busy completing a deadline. The point I am trying to make is as a person starts getting closer to you, you start setting some unconscious standards about their behaviour. And also you start noticing the little variations in the person's personality. Your knowledge about your friends now is not comprised of what they've let on but of what you've observed. We start expecting certain things. We start getting hurt by things that are in reality nom existent. And this is where most friendships get complicated. Rather than perceiving things as they are we start comparing them. We start over thinking minute issues that could have been easily resolved if they were ever brought up by anyone of us. It's this utter state of dilemma when we like our friend a lot but also are in a constant fear of betrayal. The things are as simple as they were at the start but we have reached the rocky middle. 

We just need to remind ourselves of the reason why we thought that this person could be more than just an acquaintance. We need to put aside our assumption of things and try to look at the reality of them. We need to cast aside the false standards set by everyone else and remind ourselves of all the good times we had in the beginning. We need to ponder upon the fact that if the person is so special and important to us then why should we let trivial issues in the way of our relation. I am not saying that there aren't relationships and friendships that must be ended for our betterment. I am just saying that we must not lose hope just because the going got tough. 

As we aim at simplifying things, the simpler they seems to appear. Complications are results of trying to do things before their right time. 

Individuality

02.01.2020

Thursday

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It the world full of tags and mentions people really forget who they are. It doesn't count as a new year if you don't post a pic of it tagging your best buds who in reality you don't even see that often. You are a bore if you saw the latest TV series but didn't put a snap of their logo on your story on the day it released. It is not considered travelling anymore if you don't upload a picture with a geotag. 

I've been there and done that. Trust me, the FOMO caught up with me as well until one day it dawned upon me that the moments I live will be exactly the same even if I don't post it online. We live in a world where you are judged by how you portray your life on your social media account. Like from the DMs to the CCs everything is judged and a superficial report card is made out of the no. of likes you got on a recent post or the no. of followers you have. But submitting to my FOMO I continued to do the above nevertheless. 

I was at a party and someone came up to me and said, "Hey how's your best friend?" Although, I had no recollection whatsoever of sharing this very detail with her. I just gave her a blank look and she remarked, "People know you by your stories (the uploaded ones of course) nowadays and not by who you really are." And I was left stunned. Because it was actually true. People who didn't meet me 24*7 had only my social media activities to judge me by and for them my life is just what I upload. And that's when all of my social media accounts went cold. For a while. 

In that moment of introspection, I thought to myself, Do I really wanna share what I pt up there or I have caught the viral FOMO? And the answer was affirmative. 

You are what you are. What somebody else thinks of you should not matter to you. Not even the slightest. They haven't had the same life as you did. They haven't seen the same storms. They haven't felt the same energy as you did and even if they did, they have no right to judge you. Nor should you care for their judgement as well. 

The human race exists because we all are different from each other. In the way we think. The way we act. And we should be proud of that. Own who you are and let the world decipher and gaze in awe to what a fantastic mess you are. It doesn't matter if you go out thrice in a week or not at all. It doesn't matter if everyone else is complaining about season 8 and you haven't even heard the name of the infamous GoT.  It doesn't matter if you still prefer Sheila ki Jawaani over Taki Taki. You know why? Because it is who you really are and not some borrowed personality made up to impress a world that can't appreciate the reality. 

In a world full of hashtags be a symbol you like the most. ™

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© Aditi Tiwari 2019.