To the Girl Approaching her 30s

Author: bondgal_rulz /

You were to finally stop being clumsy. Be a corporate crocodile draped in starched cotton sarees breaking the glass ceiling at work. Have lustrous hair that is longer than your utility bills and thicker than most relationships people have. And about to entangle yourself in the holy ties of matrimony with the man of your dreams whom you met during one of your solo sojourns across Eastern Europe. And acne! It was supposed to be the ghost of Christmas Past!

That was the plan. And while you were busy planning, life happened.

Work is all about striving for that elusive high rating from one year to another. One small mistake is enough to make you contemplate if you’re in the right field. Your exes are happily married. So are your friends, your cousins, and practically everyone else you know. And life is a daily struggle of being on the right side of BMI. Between the essential and not-so-essential expenses, all that is left for travel can only take you as far as Rishikesh. You are staying in a shared accommodation with two other girls who automatically know it was you when they see another broken glass.

You spend Friday nights curled up in front of your laptop watching re-runs of Gilmore Girls, too scared that the Ross-Rachel reunion at the end of F.R.I.E.N.D.S. will make you pick up your phone and call him. You call him anyway. It’s just one phone call, you rationalize. And then, as you hear the very words you dreaded, something inside you dies. The ache still lingers when you wake up the next morning. You now decide to take charge and refuse to wallow in self-pity and finally go out with the guy who’s been eyeing you. One thing leads to another and you spend the night at his. This time, the morning brings with it a different type of ache. You try recalling the last night and as you do, you realise this was yet another mistake. “When will you ever learn?” -  you shout out into the empty room. You spend the rest of the day going through all those messages which you have been procrastinating to delete.

You find yourself wishing you weren’t yourself. Thoughts of disappearing into oblivion feel like a necessity rather than a whim. How great would it be if you could just limbo into sleep and never get up. What was the point after all, in just…existing…like this?

In that dark hour when you hate yourself more than anyone else in the world, take a deep breath. And another. Till the stream of tears dries up and the valley of angst fills up. Tell yourself it’s going to be alright. Repeat it till you believe it. Because it will be alright. You think you are the only one who has goofed up. You’re not. I too have made that call. Texted the wrong person. Woken up with regrets. Still do. Harboured the green monster towards an ex who has found love again while I slept with a pillow for company. So yes, we all make mistakes. And we all think we are the only ones. But we are not.

So please, don’t be so hard on yourself. Don’t stop giving it all you have. Love passionately. More passionately than you ever have before. Dream so big that it makes you dizzy. Don’t let the fear of failure stop you. There is so much you have done. And so much more that is left to do. You have your most glorious years ahead of you. 30 years from now, you’ll be wishing you were here again. So don’t waste this time wallowing in self-pity.

Make every day count. Pick up that yoga mat. Enrol in the art workshop you always thought was a great way to spend Sundays. Indulge in comfort reading. Go for a walk. Explore your city, your neighbourhood. Feed strays. Binge watch movies and TV series. Work on that business plan. Write your song. And most importantly, make mistakes. Take chances. No point in wondering “what-if” for the rest of your life.  

And please remember it's alriight to be alone. Your life does not need to revolve around someone and nor does some one else's needs to revolve around you. There is enough time left for that to happen.

For now, be the object of your own affection. Not because, no one else can love you.

But because life is infinitely better with that gorgeous smile of yours. Because you deserve to live life to its fullest and make memories so wild that you'll be coolest grandparent people will ever know.

Relax, it's only your end-20’s.

You're going to be alright.

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Of Lonely Mornings....

Author: bondgal_rulz /

It’s one of those mornings when suppressed thoughts take over me and the silence around me drowns me in itself

When every song in my playlist, however happy it is, leaves a gaping melancholy in my heart

It doesn’t make me depressed or even sad, just makes me ponder and wonder, what if….

And I think of things I know I cannot and will not do, and smile to myself imagining myself free of the expectations I find myself buried under

Today, neither the alarm clock nor the ringing cell phone is able to make me hurry out of the unkempt bed

The damp pillow makes me realize how tough last night was

But this morning, this is what I live for – leaving everything behind, with just my music and thoughts, at the shore of the roaring sea – taking solace in my freedom, even if temporary 

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Stars

Author: bondgal_rulz / Labels: , , , ,



In the biting cold night, he showed her the shooting star. "Damn! You should've pointed earlier!”, she exclaimed, in half anger and half disappointment.
He resolved that he'll confess his feelings to her, if another one comes by.
The clock ticked by, slowly depriving everyone but him of the hope of another sighting. "Let's go", she pleaded after everyone else had left.
"Not yet, there will be another one tonight."
"Yeah riiiiig
"Look there!"
"Where? What? OMG!! Shooting star!!" she turned around to see him making a wish with his eyes closed.
"Damn! Why didn't I think of making a wish!"
"Because I made one for the both of us", he said staring right in to her eyes.
The stars had aligned to bring them together that day.
Today was a different story though. Their respective stars' alignment was apparently the reason they could not be with each other, forever.

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Of fireflies and stars in our eyes

Author: bondgal_rulz / Labels: , , , ,

Grassroutes and the Fireflies festival was something I had been hearing of even before I had shifted to Mumbai in August 2013. So when my best buddy from the capital was in town, it was not even a matter of discussion that we would be heading there.

 It was a beautiful Saturday morning with the fashionably late rains giving us company and us girls having spent the night before more talking than sleeping were a good one hour late ourselves. With the excitement that only an impending travel can create, we left the maximum city for greener pastures (quite literally!) 
Now, having stayed in Delhi for the most part of my life and travelled to Himalayas for every summer vacation, the Sahyadris often fail at inspiring awe in me. But the drive to the Vanjulshet (one of the three hamlets where Grassroutes has set up camp) kept a sleep-deprived me from closing my eyes for even a fraction of a second. It took me considerable effort to believe that there could be so many shades of green just a few hundred kilometers from Mumbai. I could feel the cool breeze in my lungs and in my heart. 


The welcome to the village was an event in itself. The villagers who happened to be Grassroutes volunteers made us wear “netaji” caps, put tilak on our foreheads, and gave us pretty wild flowers. And as almost always happens with us, we burst out in fits of laughter and made an instant bond with them. 
To our immense surprise, the dorm style stay we had opted for turned out to be quite comfortable. The bed sheets and blankets looked as good as new and everything was spick and span. There were 2 washrooms with no lights, and the water had to filled in a bucket before we did our business. But this was just about the only slight discomfort.

The locals had prepared the most delicious Maharashtrian food I had ever had – some simple but very yum potatoes, black grams, and rice with curry. Eating the authentic  food in the villagers’ houses did indeed give us a feeling of experiencing the “true” village feel. But more than that, the realization that we will not be given spoons to eat the rice with was the penultimate rustic experience. 

By this time it had been a few hours since we had been without any network, so we took a small hill-top trek (called Vodafone trek) from where we could see the whole village and at the same time get connected to the species who gave birth to us. 

The hill top was at another level itself. The vast expanse of nature outside slowly filled in the even vast expanse of nothingness inside. The romantic weather and the picturesque locale took less than a couple minutes to get my inner Bollywood self out. Conversation flowed as easy as the breeze. Time became just a four letter word. 

Feeling rejuvenated with our small trek, we set off with the rest of the group for a river trek. On the way, we plucked and ate some wild berries (karaunda) and the yummiest and sweetest mangoes I have had till date, straight off the trees! Truth be told we got a little over excited and used our umbrellas too to reach the not-so-low-hanging fruits. 
Though the river was called Udham, it was anything but that. The water was stagnant but clear nonetheless. We dipped our feet in the water and enjoyed the sweet mangoes, while waiting for fish to come and nibble at our feet. Never happned, as Inir (Grassroutes founder and dream enabler) pointed out that we were way too unstable to attract any fish. Inir was kind enough to let me know that I sucked at sucking mangoes and was sporting enough to teach us how to skip stones in water. My friend and I competed for the maximum number of skips and set the world record for the maximum number of dhaps anyone ever has made. The uphill trek was a not-very-gentle reminder of the shameful state of our fitness. Stopping every now and then to catch our breath, we finally managed to get back to the village. 

All through our interactions with the guides, volunteers, ladies who made food for us, and random kids the warmth they exuded was unbelievable. What was super fascinating was that one of the guides (Dutta) was extremely confident and well-versed with the scientific names of different plants. This same guy when asked for “aam” by a Canadian, gave a blank look. Only when the Canadian said he wanted mangoes, did Dutta realize what was being asked for. I was happy for this bunch of guys to be around as the Canadian gave me company for sucking at eating mangoes with hands, and a friend of his kept me company in thinking that the low-height door will stretch itself out when we walk through it and thus banging my head. 

A super heavy dinner of puran poli later, we set foot for what was to be the most awesomest part of the trip. Having never ever seen a firefly in my life, my excitement levels were approaching infinity. We stood on the road with darkness around us and waited for the fireflies to begin their mating game. A spark here and a glow there were soon followed by their synchronized blink-blink all around. Amongst us was a chap who seemed to attract fireflies to his body, but it did not end there, these fireflies once settled on his palm, arms, etc. went on to mate with each other RIGHT THERE. Talk about bam wham thank you ma’am.
We soon broke off into smaller groups in search of the light within to be illuminated by the lights emanating from these luminous beings. On our way, with Inir’s help we spotted a couple of constellations and something that resembled a UFO. Deep in the valley was a tree which seemed ablaze with light even from afar. With quickened steps and lowered voices, we hastened towards that tree to see the magic up and close. And magic indeed it was! In the tree, there were twinkling little stars all over. The scene had rendered us all speechless. A group of 15 odd youngsters simply staring at those lights without speaking so much as a word is testimony that we were all in a trance. Some sat, others stood – all in silence – trying to absorb as much beauty as we could before returning to our mundane city life and lights.
The following day, we were given a slice-of-village-life experience by participating in wood chopping, cereal grinding, running after goats. An old bad-ass lady, completely trolled me by neatly slicing a thick wood branch in 2 with two big strokes of the axe, with which I had been struggling for over five minutes. We also took a look at the local elementary school and were pleased to see the infrastructure available. Some mandatory selfies later, we decided to head back to the city with a resolve to come back to this place next year.  

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