Selfie

I am amazed how some can regard taking a selfie....a mental disorder.it is in fact one the best things that make one feel better. even if this is now called a disorder i think this mental disorder is super healthy. you exactly know when to smile which side to look and when to press that button so that you will never end up with picture with closed eyes. the world is in your hand, the shot is under your own control. i am not chronic of selfies,but i like to take on of them one or twice when i am supper dressed or when i got anew haircut.there is no harm. In fact its the best way to capture that moment when u are alone and you have no one to capture it for you for life. A moment that you would want to remember and keep, selfie is your best friend.A beautiful sunny sunday afternoon and i got a nice haircut done and the only way i could capture both the events together was to take a selfie. Thanks to whoever patented the front camera :)

Flower Fields... :)

Went to the Carlsbad flower fields today up north San Diego. I took my roommate and her mom who is visiting her this summer to the fields. the place was so beautiful it really made me write it down for my memory. To farthest sight that one can see, there were only flowers.... of various colors  I kept repeating over and over again that it reminds me some bollywood movie where the lead actor and actress are in romantic walk. We enjoyed the longest stroll i have ever had in park or between nature alone!. Its was pleasurable soothing morning Sunday walk, between various fragrances and world of colors.it was one to remember as i had never witnessed such a place. Even today we Accidentally we landed at this place because her mothers friend from india told her about such a garden. Funny that natives of this country or even us never found out about these. All in all a day well spent between nature and clicking pictures, drinking shakes and picking strawberries...LOVE this city.. the city of san diego.

I am stuck in Traffic... or am the I traffic?

A funny observation, when we think we are stuck in traffic, but forget that everyone around us might be thinking the same.Its interesting that we easily blame the cause of our situation like traffic and choose to ignore that everyone at that moment with you that you blame is in the same boat as you are.

We make and become a part of a lot of these situations in one lifetime. We drive things like corruption and blame on the country as a whole and citizens for it being corrupted. We litter in case we do not find a dustbin and end up thinking one Friday night how dirty these roads are...

It brings back to the fundamental principal of cause and effect.

loneliness = healthiness?

“I think it’s very healthy to spend time alone. You need to know how to be alone and not be defined by another person.”

― Olivia Wilde

This got me thinking, it got me to introspect, if I was extremely unhealthy in my mind?

I always thought if people are able to define you it is good.I think they observe you at different situations judge you, notice your actions and reactions. Not just that they act as a stimulus that instigates your presence. i though truest proverb is that "Man is a social animal". Man real self is exhibited when he lives with human beings. he gets criticism, he gets appreciation.Then who else can be a better judge of you? I thought if people define you and weather that definition matches you own judgement about you or not, it is nonetheless the truest definition. A verdict that given by many and impartially. 

Even though if I spend time with my own self all the time, I believe that the real me comes into action when i am with people, it makes me talk, express, laugh and cry. It makes me use my brain, which analyses and observes. It gives me reasons to think and analyse. Weather my existence is acknowledged or not i feel i am more with myself around human nature I feel my senses have work to do. They respond, react, act, think observe, ignore and so much more. Unlike times when i am alone, and it becomes extremely difficult for me to find things to keep me busy. I have to deliberately think of things to ponder on, things that would keep me busy, things that would emulate the presence of humans like TV and movies.. My mind is complexly blank and for sure that is not the correct definition of my self. If olivia wild thinks its healthy to be alone, certainly I am super unhealthy according to her. My body my mind feels a self numbness and according to her definition of healthiness this can become super suffocating. 

I am not sure what thought to go with, i always thought i am healthier physically and mentally when around people. loneliness kills my mind. but may be i have trained it in the opposite way...!!!

One the eve of independence day...but away from home!

Jai hind... Missing home on such a day... what made me feel closer...was singing an old school song that I used to sing with my choir group...while sitting on my couch after ....work on the independence day eve...‪#‎worldatlarge‬

Tu zinda hai to zindagi ki jeet mein yaqeen kar,
agar kahin hai swarg to utaar la zameen par, Tu zinda hai...

Ye gham ke aur chaar din, sitam ke aur chaar din,
ye din bhi jaayenge ghuzar, ghuzar jaaye hazaar din.
kabhi to hogi is chaman pe bhi bahaar ki nazar,
agar kahin hai swarg to utaar la zameen par, Tu zinda hai...

Subah-o-shaam ke rang hue gagan ko choomkar
tu sun zameen gaa rahi hai kab se jhoom jhoom kar
tu aa mera singaar kar, tu aa mujhe haseen kar
agar kahin hai swarg toh utaar laa zameen par, Tu zinda hai..

Hazaar bhes dhar key aayi maut tere dwaar par
magar tujhey na chhal saki, chali gayi woh haar kar
nayi subah ke sang sadaa mile tujhe nayi umar
agar kahin hai swarg toh utaar laa zameen par, Tu zinda hai.....

Hamare caravan ko manzilon ka intezaar hai,
ye aandhiyon, ye bijaliyon ki peeth par sawar hai.
tu aa kadam mila ke chal, chalenge ek saath hum,
agar kahin hai swarg to utaar la zameen par, Tu zinda hai...

Some memories just bring back tear to your eyes... i still remember not clearly but faintly how we used participate in flag hoisting ceremonies at school and feel so proud to be an Indian, march pst those motivating speeches, chief guests... 

these moments bring beautiful memories of my school.. thanks to myparents... probably i will never thank them enough..for the school they gave us....

i am sitting some 10,000 miles away from nation and even a thought that its 15th aug in india makes me watch swades all over again...even though when in india i dint do much about celebrating this after i left school... but it irks me to do something sp when i sitting this far away from home! 

Time flies... and these feel like distant memories...

Mini Golfing

A game, a new one. Something meant for a different set of people, affluent and rich and I played it. Not intending to say i have become rich and have nothing else to do, but went ahead with my friends to try a mini version of it.Golf is the game. It funny what i thought about the game changed my perspective about over the trail from the 1st hole to the 18th one. I hated the game and was a firm believer it requires no brain and is waste of time. but it turned out to be pretty fun. It was useless at the 1st attempt , as I had absolutely no clue how to aim at that hole far away in a weird way looking from above. I have always played carom and there is way u aim. u close on eye and make an aim. and u strike ahead. but this was very funny in its own way . its about speed u hit and the angle u hit but without aiming. u hit by looking from above but the ball slides away to the hole. and slowly i piked up from the next hole on wards. I loved the game eventually though wasnt such a time waste i now know why affulent people love go play it. 

Sometimes

sometimes i wish , sometimes i pray,
sometimes i ask, sometimes everything is grey.
i wish before everything else could i could walk with you on the street
the street i wished i will walk with you. even though it looks its forever.
but still there is nothing that makes me believe never...
I know things take time and i envy feeling or possession i shall have in future already,
Not many would have done that. the feeling of being jealous of your future.but i live that feeling every moment joyously.
All i do is i pray, because i know i shall have whatever i say.
Its great to experience everything every journey. but i feel it with a sense incompleteness.
As i know i will be there again with you. the real happiness resides in experiencing
smiling around you and jumping around u.
Wish you were here. even before i can think you would be.

My treasure : The Pictures!

When days pass you just tend to forget what you have been doing in the past times, days and years. People always make fun of the fact that I take so many pictures where ever I go. While sitting or eating, walking or even while sleeping, maybe I am too attached to my life, and that’s why I want to keep every moment that I live, very close to me. I know these moments will never come back, but I had a sheer pleasure to be able to live these is greatest feeling and I want to capture them and hope when I see these pictures again I will be able to live them again. It’s easy to live things at moment and then forget about them, but if u possess a memory that weak you might as well make effort in the present to capture the instance with picture or better a video to revive that memory in future. You might not be able to re live it, but it’s your life and these things help in never letting you forget those precious moments. Like when people break up and they want to delete all pictures, it’s the same thing! I agree with the concept. You should do that if you don’t want to remember someone.. you should delete all the remains you have of that person or times together. As,  if you do not do that at that moment, no matter how much you try to forget, if you come across pictures or belongings you will remember most of the moments of the relationships. Well when talking about breakups, not all breakups are that bad if you don’t regret the relationships, then might as well keep the memories. You can see I am strictly against deleting pictures, unless things are really bad, because for me it’s your freaking life, you have lived it, why would you want to forget it.

Pictures would not be as successful in making you live life again, but they can make you brush up and remove the dust over that feeling and remind you of your life, and make you believe its not that a waste , that you think like it is at the end of an era. That is one feeling I have after every 5 years when I listen to more interesting stories about lives of people and their experiences, good for them they have really great memory and they relish this without capturing and narrate and spread the message in form of stories. Bad for me I become jealous, like my second nature, and tend to question my life, what have I been doing dude??? Looking at people and thier life’s like that, the only rescue for me is to get back home and see my old pictures, Where I LOOK HOTTER :P and lived and done as much fun , and some times more fun than other people. My picture database is something I treasure, it’s my biggest depression come back, thanks to advent of mobile phones it’s not that difficult anymore, now its not just about the touristy places that get clicked with the digital cameras. My phone helps me click the best of yogurt I have had and record a beautiful song sung by a guitarist at a Mexican restaurant. It literally helps me capture every moment of my life. I Wish like how Shubham keeps a “N”number of hard disks, (you see the alphabet N , you see it’s in capitals!!!) I want to emphasize really, he has “N” number of hard disks full of movies. I want to keep all the collection of my pictures of life safe in the hard disks, and these can be N+1, I do not mind.

My father says don’t love life so much, the only reason you are afraid of death is you love your life so much and stay so attached to it, you cling it. BUT, I am not afraid of death probably, I know I m living my life to best I can and I have proofs of that in form of these pictures. Any moment, if death shall take me I wouldn’t be afraid, no matter how attached I am to  life at present, I will cling on to death then for good.

180 days of faith! begin.

Its amusing to me that how one of the best conversations i have ever had, ( when i say best i mean interesting and the conversations in which i spend all the time i have and i still feel "dint we just start talking about it") are the ones which start from talking about personalities and stupidly enough about start signs. I get really excited if some one i am talking to is a scorpion too. Today the same things happened, this wasn't the 1st time when some one told me i am weird in a good way. I have always believed in putting forward my point, my thoughts in front of people strongly enough and people just listen and respond you are the 1st girl i have seen who is like that... or may be they would start like you are the 1st girl i have seen who believes in such thoughts..Its always nice to hear those statements, no matter how wrong they sounded right now because i left them open ended but they always sound nice when people say them after hearing me out, and they them with proud smile on thier face. Ok! i might not be making sense by now as to what i exactly wanted to say but yeah its just a nice feeling so i wanted to start with the thought. I was may be singing and working like how i am ... and he said "So Sonal dont you always stay happy", i always see you happy and smiling, I was shocked to hear that. Not that i am always sad. but it funny that my peers feel i am always super happy because i was just normal and working. But that's the truth , I might have my share of sadness and i might crib about stuff that presently going on in life i do appear to the worlds one of most happy people around.And i he just asked my my start sign. I said "Scorpio". As soon i said that there was this affirming smile on my bosses face.He said i knew there was something weird in you that's there in me too. I am also a scorpion. and now i like you more :). With so many instances in past that i have talked to him i have always felt like asking him what was his star sign , not that i believe in it so much. but yes i believe in one thing "The Scorpion Intuition". So like i said mannier times before in discussions with him i have felt probably he is a scorpion, but i never asked. but today may be he had the same intuition when he saw me singing may be. Its just about  karmic connection the discussion got stretched from just start sign and personalities to life and karma and suffering and then my favorite topic of Laws of Attraction in the world and how you can get what you wanted . As i talked about it i realized how weak i had become in my own belief of this philosophy. Some where within me i have given up already . I have started feeling believing in the totally opposite and that is just taking me no where. My mother in the end of the day re affirmed and reminded me that i always said i can get what i want if i really wanted and in past i have proved it, that got it. All i need to do is start believing and from today on wards i re affirm my faith .I start a count down to 180 days of FAITH!!!!Shall keep you posted as i have my prayer well posted!!

One of the best days of my life. though i miss a presence of my loved ones but at this time .. i am alone and i don't share time attention any thing. every feeling , every moment every time is mine.  I don't know what future has in store for me but presently every moment i live i want to capture that completely . I try to open my eyes as wide as i can and capture everything and then close them to store that view or moment for ever.


List of times I have felt Ecstatic.
1.Nitro @ six flags New Jersey

2. Stinson Beach View Point @Northern California SFO

3. Transformer 3D ride @ Universal studios Los Angeles

4. Tubing at Mission Bay San diego
5. The view at Shanon Doa Valley @ Maryland
6. Lurray Cavens @Maryland.
7 The Sky Deck Tower Chicago

Living with family and friends i used to wonder i hardly spend on myself. days and months used to go by when i used to think i haven't bought any chocolate for myself. I did big things with my money but those small things i would buy was always for my friends or family but never went out specially to buy a packet of chips for my own self.
Now Every time i go to a shop i pick a packet of chips and i know i am just buying it for myself.There is no one  else to share it with. Its my purchase of choclate and i have it in my hand not because some gave it to me today but because i felt like it and i had no else to get it for me.Every penny every cent spent is only on me only because there is no else to spend on me. and i am making efforts to fulfill me small relishes.

“When someone sees the same people every day, as had happened with him at the seminary, they wind up becoming a part of that person's life. And then they want the person to change. If someone isn't what others want them to be, the others become angry. Everyone seems to have a clear idea of how other people should lead their lives, but none about his or her own.” 
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist

Higher expectations!

I find my life is a lot easier the lower I keep my expectations... Its been proven time an again. You act with others just as you want others to behave with you. Your behavior towards some one is summation of your personality, your upbringing and a part of it also because of that is how you would want the other to be with you. Alot of times it happens when u think giving a gift to some one, the 1st thing that comes to your mind is something you would like to get. Most of us also go right ahead and do those things for others for we expect them to back to us, primarily because we would love it. A relationship is always about giving and taking. You give in order to expect the same thing from the other . You show hope in others distress in order to expect the other to serve the ray of hope when you are in need. You transfer information to others and tell them about updates in life, and of course to expect they would tell you about their own. But during this phase of give and take , doing action to expect a reaction we forget that that people are different. every one does not think on the same lines. every one has a set of priority list that cast on to. They might not think the future you expect is of importance right now. But you are not wrong in expecting and neither is the other wrong in not giving. The other can also be on this side of table some time and he would also face his own set of disappointments when you do not live up to their expectations. This happens and its healthy, both share each others set of disappointments and life is balanced and healthy.

What screws up the whole situation when you try and impose your expectations on others . when others disappoint you and prove them that you expected something else. You contest the behavior and you explicitly underlay what wanted and have done or said if you were in this position. By laying down your expectation on table you just cement yourself as control freak who would want the other to behave as a robot. when you try and explain them to the other person it comes out as some one who crazy. some one who expects you to behave the way you want them to behave some one who either wants to know everything or some one who either wants to know future. and after asking such predominantly stupid question there area set of answers you would expect. If you do not get those answers or actions from the other you think they committed a crime . The other becomes a criminal because you would have not done the same thing you would have acted the way you expecting the other to act like. But little do we forget we would act like that only because we know what to act like. They are at the beginning our expectations and we ourselves very well know what we want.

Little does the other know that thing is important for you and they need to pay attention towards it just like the way want them to pay attention. Next comes the phase of over explicit explanation of what u require and that kills it all. you are just mocked at and thought of why would you think that the other would do that. you just become this little annoying person who would always search for what you want forgetting the others works in own way.

Trying to fulfill others expectations also brings another episode of changing your personality forward in any relationship. which is worse i do not even want to go there.

All i think and always take away after every disappointment you get is You can't expect everyone to have the same dedication as you. you are different, like every one else. you might work hard and express in one area the other might to brilliantly well in something else but basing any relationship future on failure of any sort of expectations is wrong. Every one would work around their priority list of actions and causes they have to make. to expect them to make our list as their priority is injustice. Like i said no one is as perfect as you are !

smile...

what happens when u walk down the corridor and you smile..People give back a smile full of belief that they think you are warm. and you smile and exchange a hello and compliment on new hair cut to the lady who makes your coffee everyday... and she gives you a cup brim filled coffee and lets you know.. I hope you like extra shot i gave you one

without you even asking for it

Always Available-Web //// Busy- Real time!

You are not alone anymore and there is not one person around you to keep you from staying alone.I remember the days when i used to walk on the road and listen to music and feel music is my best friend even when i am alone.i was shocked to realize I am a part of this generation who acknowledges more to the other side of the electronic device.I entered and I noticed around 17 people in the college shuttle to just about metro station. I say it would be a journey of 10 min or so..All were sitting equally spaced and many got in together in a group and but chose to sit separately of course because there was enough space in the bus or may be because they dint want to engage in any conversation of any sorts for they had to be busy with the little device in hand the mobile phone!

I don't want to sound like those elderly non techi uptight generation who hate technology and have not been able to accept gadgets in to their life or the ones who really look down upon people who they think are posing to be modern. But sincerely the feeling was so true when I entered i was alone. but to my amazement none in the bus were. one was making a face looking at the Mobile screen , another was smiling looking the mobile screen, one was reading something maybe(i assume), another as typing non stop.They were all in tandem with the outer world, none of them even flipped to look up who is sitting next to them. none of them cared to strike a eye contact with anyone or pass a smile back. they were busy maintaining social contact online. I bet if the other person no matter how random it might be is on the screen of your mobile on your Facebook app you know it all, but if the very next day that alien person enters the same bus and sits next to you, you wouldn't even know.

Probably something that was thought as a gadget to keep people busy, to fill up the emptiness, the void is getting to keep people occupied for no reason. Its making people not look out and see the beautiful ride and pleasant weather while travelling in the bus. Its taking away people skills and adding to their qualifications typing skills. may be with these smartphone getting better everyday what we would eventually loose upon are the people skills.

I dont know how embarrassed i was that i looked up to notice this myself, or what i have done in that respect to not loose my human emotional self in order not to transform into a freak who is "always available" on the other side of the web and never in person.

But i do know i was the part of the same crowd until one fine day my phone battery drained out and i could not help but look around and observe this.

Screwing Affirmation!

Most of the times you end up hurting the one who is closest to you, you find out reasons to trouble and hurt the other, you never see yourself as a sadist, but may be you are. I have reasons why we do it. We do it for something, a reason very starkly opposite to the action exhibited. the reasons may be are purely sadistic but they are for affirmations. Affirmation that are important for us to keep us going. Different are the things when presence is enough for affirmations, the "reasons" that are now are not required when there is presence. The actions that are "now" are not required when there is presence. But to come to think of it the ways might be wrong but the intentions are always correct. Its not easy to deliver affirmations without presence. Its all in the belief and conscience. Its for you to believe , stronger you believe longer you can survive without repetitive affirmations. But its like a vicious circle the belief becomes stronger only after repeated affirmations.Lesser the affirmations lesser the belief. Nothing might be wrong but you would think ways to achieve it and then store it. Time and circumstances can make you selfish and you end up doing thing to keep your thinking process at place, no matter if you end up distorting the calmness of the others thinking process. In the long run if you see this way of extraction of affirmations does not good.even if you receive them you know you needed them and worked towards in order to extract them. May be you dint deserve them, may be the fixing of "emotions" the fixing of distorted feelings that you have to do toward the other after this extraction takes it away from you this achieved affirmation anyway.It serves no purpose as in hearts of hearts you know it dint come to you naturally. wish we could learn from this, but knowing this fact boils up more craving to extract the real affirmation and eventually screwing even the real ones you saved for good times!

.

why Men need "their" space alone more than women...? Have you ever thought about it with a little emphasis on the fact that this requirement of men is so important that they urge to try and fulfill this at every moment in their life.. Even if they go out together they would be away. Most of the times they try to portray this feeling as a Running away from women, but I sincerely doubt that.

colours!

I am sure i like colors so much that they reside in ever part of me. they are there in everything that belongs to me , from clothes to accessories even this blog. It just that i never noticed. Sometimes things that are just a part of you, you don't notice and people make you realize. I never hated colors but its recently i observed i for god saken might be in love with them enough that that they reside in every part of me. May be if you sit with yourself you would realize there are so many things you would just do... which you wont even think about twice because they are just You! but to notice with a nuance , they are these special idiosyncrasies which make you... the you! People may observe them for you and tell you more about them for you to put a finger on! Well they are good or bad i am not sure but because they are so much a part of you , you never imagined yourself without them.., if you do may be it would some one else and not you!

I consciously piked black and grey in my life and always thought i had enough of it and that's what i was always left with to remember but i forget what all i piked unconsciously .... its may be everything i need i pick yup unconsciously in life. and all that i want i work towards it consciously all that i wish i should have had... i make it a point to work towards it and thats why i remember it. but somethings just come naturally to you and you dont work towards them... to realize later that you already have them.

A new reason!

Sometimes everything around you brings you down, and every action of yours is worth doubting. you dont think twice and fall for the action and later repent. you do things all together all of sudden and they all bring you down. every word spoken by people around... the weather the actions the circumstances the news the songs the time ....everything seems wrong. the world around just seems so wrong. against you! or may be with you in commotion!

And specially for people like me bringing myself back to the good life becomes totally out of question for the kind of difficult person i am. A hug works but not always! Cardamom may be but not the best thing!

And unusually so.. you feel all better after a stupid video which you might have seen a 100 times , you have nothing to do with it but still it brings back the you in you!

it just happened with me... so much so that i made my loved dead blog alive again, i have missed you so much and its time i spend time with you again.... that video just worked i dont know how... sometimes the life takes 360 degree turn and the state of mind which was worlds apart comes together and you feel yourself.. but i wonder just by a video... ?? i dont know may I just need a new reason every time!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2e6ZPQrusN4 :) Thanks!

accustomed

Bombay easily has lost more lives to terrorist bombs than any other city. And we are yet to see a single memorial for the dead. It is just about getting back to normal self now, the fear even though it persists but I feel it now lurks some where in the background . The city has gone through this shock What can you say about a city that is in such tearing hurry to forget its dead?If it was not so, may be they would stop living and the city would come a standstill. what scares me is the feeling that they must have become accustomed to unwanted readiness to accept a loss of near dear one anytime. Wouldn't that make them loose an important part of emotional quotient.Becoming shock proof to emotions and being emotionless are two different things. the only fear that resides in me that i seeing them become the latter in order to achieve the threshold of being shock proof.