THE GOOD LIFE

So, do it. Decide. Is this the life you want to live? Is this the person you want to love? Is this the best you can be? Can you be stronger? Kinder? More compassionate? Decide. Breathe in. Breathe out and decide. It is in these moments of decision after all, that our fortunes are made. Stay quiet because silence/loneliness when accepted is a gift from bounty that will help us in finding our treasure.

But, one of the risks of being quiet is that the other people can fill your silence with their own interpretation: you’re bored. You’re depressed. You’re shy. You’re stuck up. You’re judgmental. When others can’t read us, they write their own story- not always the one we choose or that’s true to who we are.

Sometimes, I just sit with myself and recount all the kisses, all the laughs, all the nights and all the days that I’ve squandered. Sometimes, I just sit down to ignite my soul with the passion that sometimes appears lost or disillusioned. Sometimes, I ask myself tough questions and bury my soul with guilt. Guilt of being nice to people who always took me for granted and made me doubt my self-worth, guilt of dreaming about my future life goals, career goals and relationship goals when I see them broken into pieces the day after and, guilt of not succeeding to please everyone I like at all times.

Guilt that terrifies me and you is made up of sixty five percent water.  And everyone you love is made of stardust, and I know sometimes you can’t even breathe deeply, and the night sky is no home. You’ve cried yourself to sleep enough times that you’re down to your last two percent, but nothing is infinite. Not even loss. You’re made of the sea and the stars, and one day you’re going to find yourself again. Trust me.

The most beautiful people to be around are the ones with open minds. The ones who will tell you that sorrow is just as wonderful as bliss and that at any moment, you can be whoever you want to be and love whoever and whatever you want to love- whether it is religion or the same sex or drinking or pain. Sit at bars and linger in coffee shops just to find these kinds of people. Without knowing it, they’re slowly changing the world.

Love your partner unconditionally but follow your own unique dreams and goals simultaneously. Find a partner who gets tangled in your dreams and falls into your wishes. Wonder through the depths of your desires, and crawl in to the smallest part of your emotions. Get lost in your goals, and find your way back with the knowledge that your mate backs you. Dance with your secrets and hold hands with your memories, always.

Do what you love wholeheartedly, and money will follow. Clubs get old. Every different weekend, wear a new outfit but make sure that you hang around with the same people. Hold onto them. Stop competing for everyone’s attention. Just pick one out of the lot and stick with him/her. Splurging is overrated. Take that money and build your empire and not just your closet. Stop mistreating those who love you and care. If he or she sees beyond your faults and past, KEEP THEM.

In the end, you only need one man to love you. But him to love you free like a wildfire, crazy like the moon, always like tomorrow, sudden like an inhale and overcoming like the tides. All you need is only one man and all of this.

FEMINISM

Canopy of men cover us, and simultaneously throw all the paint on our face as if we be the canvas. After all, who doesn’t like to be colored? But a deeper question is, who likes to be colored in someone else’s preferred shades? I love blue. My father and all my brothers and all my uncles and all my male friends compel me to splash myself into red because they like it. Shouldn’t I disown them all? They keep an eye on me perpetually to ensure that no one raises their eye over me. Dear men (of this nature), take your eyes off me and you’ll solve half of our problems. Otherwise, rehne do… tumse naa ho paega (leave it… you won’t be able to stop it). We’re innate of a nation where harming a cow is a non-bailable offence and raping a woman has to be proved as an offence first (which takes approximately 7 years in the court) and after this, punishment can be abated on bail.

Feminism isn’t about asking a housewife to work to ‘earn’ a living. It is about allowing the women in your house to make their own choices. It revolves around allowing a wife to go childless if she doesn’t look forward to be a mother and comfort her with the thought that her decision doesn’t make her any less of a woman. It disseminates around those fathers who take fatherhood seriously. They don’t tell their sons, “Don’t be such a girl!” when they shed a few tears or wince in pain. It flings around raising men as human beings with a genderless soul and not as responsibility deprived tumors grown around a penis. It flings from the hearts of those people who don’t mock a girl with hair growth on her body barring head, if she fancies not shaving them off. Feminism isn’t about coercing women to take up sports, or fire on that runway. It’s about countenancing them to be the hell they’re instinctively and pull it off for a lifetime.

And did anyone notice where I ruined that feminism till now? When I say “allowing the women”, “countenancing them” and so on; I make myself sound a hypocrite. Why should they seek for consent?!! They shouldn’t.

More than any other nation, India needs feminism because if a girl can’t cook she shouldn’t have to. India needs feminism because a bride shouldn’t pay (read: dowry) a guy to marry her. India needs feminism because Indian women should realize that you can like a man a whole lot and still turn around and say a NO to him. Remember, a good woman knows her worth. She should know whether there’s any potential of growth together or not.

Above all, it is for the so called fairer sex to cognize that they’ve much more to offer to the world than stay bogged down by not being labelled as pretty or beautiful. Stay faithful yet detached. Stay committed yet relaxed. Love everyone and yet no one. Stay gentle and yet tough. Stay passionate and platonic. In short, stay predictable in your unpredictability. Stay obsessed with becoming a woman comfortable in your own skin.

Conclusively, I apologize to all the women whom I’ve called pretty before calling them brave or resilient. I made it sound like something you’re born with is the most you’ve to be proud of. Being a woman, I’m well aware that your heart must have crushed mountains on so many occasions and you would’ve chuckled on the outside during the trying times. I don’t mean to say that you aren’t pretty but what I mean to establish as a way of life is you’re so much more than that.

A weak man can never keep a strong woman, he doesn’t know what to do with her and a real woman can do it all by herself but a real man won’t let her. A woman who doesn’t ask for anything deserves everything.