Step Into My Shoes..

2018 is going to be a complicated year. Here’s why. Last year, I had tried putting my Instagram profile on private. It lasted a few days before I decided privacy in social media isn't for me. For one, I am a story teller; I like telling stories about the places I have been to, things I love doing. Moreover, I have also found that I like people more when they are open about their lives in a balanced manner (which I believe is what I do). Now, my pictures are out there for anyone who cares to see. The question is, are there too many of them? This year, I have decided I will have a go at abstain-ism. Insta-stories have arrived just in the nick of time. I had resolutely resolved to not have any resolutions this year. My reason was, at this stage in life, you don’t have resolutions; you have checklists. But as the first month of the year is wearing down, my mind has been nagging me to set some resolutions, anything. Now here comes the complicated bit. As much as my mind...

I'm not a people person. And I'm not proud of it. My CV might say I am good with people but only I know how big of a lie that is. I mean if you come talk to me, I won't hiss and spit at you but I have been known to straight up pass people by on the street without so much as saying Hi or smiling. My reason being - I just don't like indulging in small talk, especially when I don't have to. You're from work, we'll talk at work. You're friend of a friend, we'll talk when that friend is around. We went to Uni together, that was so in the past - if we aren't in touch, then we probably shouldn't be. There are so many measures I take in order not to have to go through the pain of small talk with someone, you'd be amazed. It's not because I don't like you or anything. It's not just you. It's everybody. Here are a few of them- The classic whipping out my phone to check something out Looking the other way to...

"All your life you wait, and when it finally comes, and are you ready?" Along with December 2017 came a crushing realization that my resolutions for the year had remained only partly touched. I knew I still had a month but who was I kidding. My resolutions had wings and they had already perched themselves on the next year, impossible to achieve as they were in a mere four weeks' time. The mechanisms of my mind on the day the realization hit very hard will always remain a mystery to me but I remember feeling like a caged animal, desperate to do something, to find an escape from the helplessness. One of my resolutions had been to get inked. But hadn't that always been on my list, year after year? The first time, I wanted to have my name in Tengwar, just like Fernando Torres has. Then I wanted to get a clover (wishes, wishes). I also was keen on a tulip. Deathly Hallows perhaps? Ganesha, or a Saraswati Mantra. The options were plenty and not enough resolve. ...

Yesterday I had an epiphany. It involves my looks. It involves your looks. It involves how we all look like. First, background story. My mom once told me that I look good in my pictures. She let it hang there. She didn't have to mention "...as opposed to in real life" after the statement for me to know what it meant. To look at the positive side, it means I am photogenic. And to look at the negative side, it means that my pictures are clearly deceiving and if you've seen only my pictures you'll be left disappointed when you meet me irl. To look at the darker side, my mom, who's supposed to love me for what I am, still feels I'm uglier outside of my pictures, to put it blandly. O-kay. It is no news that almost everyone who's got even an ounce of vanity in them wants to take great pictures of themselves. And why not. I've only heard of one exception where this girl from YouTube talked about how she puts not-so-good pictures in her Tinde...

[picture courtesy : the Internet] Day 4. [Mount Cook] I should've learnt a lesson when I fell on my behind one too many times during that hike to Roy’s Peak, and got myself a proper hiking shoes. I should've learnt a lesson when the reality of Roy's Peak was marred too badly by our expectations, and set a realistic hope. I should've learnt a lesson when the weather report had said sunny and yet the visibility had been 0.5% at the peak, and not trusted the weather forecast of "some suns in the afternoon". I should've. I didn't. When we set out of Wanaka, the weather was sunny. So far so good. I meant to buy a pair of hiking shoes but then I thought we were going to do the Hooker VALLEY track; we won't be going too far up to even see snow. I had all but given up seeing lupins (what a silly dream it was), seeing a clear sky was proving to be miraculous. The drive from Wanaka to White Horse Hill Campsite, which is the starting point of th...

Something happened today. Me and a friend of mine, we went for a hike to one of the very popular places in Sydney called the Figure 8 Pool . The walk was pretty exhilarating. Royal National Park is extremely famous for the wonderful bushwalks and coastal walks with the ultra beautiful ocean views. The weather was very accommodating after a week long stint at rain and heat wave. It was our first time to the pools; all we knew about the place was a handful of pretty instagram pictures and one blog post. I knew instagram posts could be deceitful so I had decided to take this instant as every hyped thing that always comes up in my life by not being very excited and expecting the worst. The walk from Otford station up until the Burning Palms beach was beyond expectations. The Otford lookout and the Werrong Beach lookout took the cake for the day. I could go back to doing the walk just for them. The Palm Jungle was also surprisingly very enjoyable in a weird but adventurous w...

Imagine you are trapped inside a mobile cylindrical glass chamber. Everyone is. That is the norm. The only form of communication is gestures. While most people you know and interact with reside within a clear sort of glass container, the container that you grew up inside is a little cloudy; so much so that one can't see the inside very properly. Everyday, every time you have to interact with someone, they have a problem understanding you because they can't really make out your body movements. It's frustrating to say the least. It is not your fault that you arrived in a murky container. It's quite unfortunate that people must make fun of how abnormal your gestures come out across to them. It becomes so disheartening that you start communicating lesser and lesser until one day you just stop trying to reach out. You and your dirty container. That is the struggle of having speech impediment. As a child I more or less grew up with this condition. I don't have...