What you
require is a realignment in your thinking as the self-help books go. Sometimes,
you need to find stories of survival that are quite different from what you
have known and it requires a good deal of strength to come unscathed out of a
crumbled world. But you need words, stories, narratives and strategies that
helped you survive. These words become reminders that you have survived and
that you have learnt how to create new worlds out the remnants. What I say is
that you need to realign your world from whatever pieces are left of you and
build a new perspective that will help you in being happy.10
There are times when you want a happy ending in
life either with the one you had married or with the one you love but when
these thoughts strike you already make into some form of a fiction and you are
already under the impression that happy endings are part of fiction and not
life. You need memories of the past to make you understand that most of life
are repeated experiences as Coelho says teaching things that one is not ready
to learn. When I was younger, I was much fascinated by the connections between
fiction and real life. There are times when you feel that your life resembles
fiction and sometimes fiction is so life-like.
This year I have observed the rituals of moving on to the new year and done some introspection at the end of it. In some places, they call it a year ending ritual of moving inward and thinking about what all plans you might have for your next year. These plans could deal with materialistic aims or spiritual goals. For me, I have always wanted to write a book and what I scribble down I want to edit and create a book that can be read by a general reader with curiosity.
I haven't written like this in a long time with
only a few lines a day. This year, I got myself a diary with a
green cover that says Save Our Trees, Save Our Earth. I am thinking of
switching to the virtual format though as this business of writing down
thoughts has become too tedious.
As I told you, this last year has been one of
good fortune for various reasons. One doubts every year whether one has learnt
enough. This life has been full of ups and downs, at times with nothing to
bring in happiness. Despite troubles, one has survived though not overcome the
obstacles that life threw in its paths. And regarding the blank pages, they can
inspire a dull spirit by bringing back life. I felt something come alive within
me as I stared at the fresh-scented blank pages and the urge to fill them took
over every other feeling that I was having and I took my pen and started
writing.
When I was much younger, I wanted to become a
writer and I filled in all the blank pages that I saw. I learnt new words and
ways of writing but never thought of putting my mind to writing a journal down.
What I feel is that may be, I lacked the determination that was needed to
publish a book or create one. But every day was filled with reading books that
was of interest to the self with plenty of pages that contained my thoughts.
Now, I still have words with me and the urge to
fill blank pages with them. I wonder at life’s decisions and whether I have
taken them right. Most of the time, I struggle with life and memory and words
but when good memories come to my mind, I scribble them down into some pieces
of fiction and that is what has been on my mind lately. Though these thoughts
might be good or bad, I started a journal to scribble about them.
The sight of a blank page is very appealing to me and I want to write something interesting to read later on. What I have always felt on rereading own words is the interesting manner in which such words clearly depict the growth of an individual. Though I may not have achieved anything significant, I feel that on rereading it is like looking at yourself from outside and like the inner life of a stranger.
I have not written anything fictional for quite some time and I think this is something that comes back with a blank page, the urge to write and to record a few thoughts. It would be really good if I can spare time to start writing every day. That would be a remarkable achievement to start recording whatever you want.
I think it is good to start writing and fill it with details. I think it is time to connect the pieces together and start writing the book called Journal of a Female Quixote. May be expand it on the lines of Bridget Jones Diary and get it published.
I have begun writing in this beautiful new book, in a diary with a green cover, ready to inhabit the creative space that is offered by the blank pages. As I said earlier, writing in a diary is often like baring yourself before the one you love, without any inhibitions and without self-consciousness. I want my lover to admire the beauty of my curves, the tiny details that make my body apart, with its moles and warts. Just like that, I want you to take in my writing with all its beauty and its flaws, completely, unconditionally. So, off to revealing my heart thoughts to my confidante.
Writing in a journal often means that you are offering yourself, baring
yourself without any kind of censure. In some of the diary writing years,
I have thought of publishing mine but it never happened that way because I was
too busy with many things and my journal writing endeavours mostly fizzled out
before the end of January. This year I want to write a journal that is worth publishing
and want to create positive changes in all spheres of life
I like beginning my New Year with a little bit of introspection. Here, I am sitting with my pen and diary while the rest of the family is sleeping. For me, writing is a way of life and I love confiding in my diary almost every day unless overwhelmed with a busy work life. This year, like almost all the years that I have gone by I want to begin with a holistic goal setting of improving every part of my life including the emotional, spiritual, physical and financial spheres of life.
The New Year began quietly at 0001 while I was busy writing in my journal. This has been my habit for the last many years when I have found happiness in journaling about the passing year and the coming one. Unlike childhood, when the New Year began with prayers in the church with the Midnight Mass, the years since my marriage in 2008 have been blessed with midnight musings and nothing else. I have jumped like the proverbial monkey from faith to spirituality to religion to nonbelieving all the time and its hardly news that I don't go to church any longer though I am spiritual and read religious books of all kinds. There are sounds of firecrackers coming from the neighbourhood and every year, it has been a special New Year with the people singing Te Deum at the midnight mass.
Beneath the banyan tree, a woman sat singing some ragas. She was singing in her melodious voice some songs that invited the monsoons. The land was dried up and the sky devoid of any trace of rain and the people draped in cottons gathered around with the sun scorching their brown skins.
The ragas reverberated in the blazing summers and were offered to the gods of the sky and the wind and the people remembered all the occasions when the land was blessed with rain in the scorching summer season. The children from the village played by the dried up temple pond, thinking of the days where they splashed in the cool water, sat idly in the cool recesses of the rocks, or sat chattering with the juice of ripe mangoes oozing on their hands and faces.
The singer went on singing and the people listened to the songs that praised the advent of the rains: oh you rain; much awaited the boon of heavens that brings joy to the earth, solace to the people, oh you rain, come with thunder and lightning and soak our brown skins with delight. Oh rain, the fulfilment of forecasts and incessant prayers, I invoke you in the names of the barren earth, the dried up rivers and lakes, the animals and birds, the silent trees and the people on earth.
The rains were invoked to end the blazing afternoons of summer heat with the first drops of summer rain and you set the warm smell of earth rising and you bedeck trees with jewels like brides, from furnace hot afternoons to nights of restless pace. It is for the rains, incense is burnt and prayers chanted and it is for you, the comforter on hot summer days. The land and the people waited for the comfort offered by the summer rains. However, the singer went on crooning the rain songs and soon and suddenly a wind blew over the land. The trees began to sway with the gust of wind and grey clouds rose to silhouette the sky with hints of a sudden outburst.
Then it started raining heavily. With the advent of the rain clouds, the entire city rejoiced as the wait was over. The days of drought are finally over and the soft rain pelted over the crowd with bolts of thunder and lightning. The people received in open hands stretched to skies what the heavens granted as comfort from the scorching heat of Indian summer. The rain fell over the land and the people danced in the rain with the beaming children screaming with delight when the droplets of rain drenched their brown bodies. The singer sat drenched still humming the megh malhar raga.
You have sang of the seasons of silence, remembrance and eternal sunshine. The heart has learnt its lesson and found solace in the coincidences that life brings.
You feel scared of the word planning and you drift through life without any plans or outline. There are moments when the heart celebrates its little victories and cries with pure delight at plain finished tasks that are in no way special.
The seasons remain and you have learnt to
count the years in a way that is surprising-one that is dependent on memories
and not on years. The heart longs for its lost seasons- youth, love, beauty and
intellect- and celebrates through recounting one’s lost glory.
According to Chinese astrology , 2025 was the Year of the Green Wood Snake . Next year, 2026 is going to be an Year of the Fire Horse . The ...
