On Broken Souls and Olive Branches

I’ve been told I don’t try hard enough

I’ve been told it’s my fault things go wrong

They said I was weird and unfixable, with a sad little laugh

They said I don’t know what it takes at all

I’ve been told the problem lies in me

I’ve been told I’m no good

And I whole heartedly agree, because honestly

A year went by and I achieved nothing

It’s hard to find someone who gets it

Someone who feels what you feel

They might try on your shoes but they won’t fit

As comfortably as they seem to fit you

No matter how many olive branches you extend

Someone needs to be receptive there too

Broken people and broken relationships don’t mend

Not one their own, they need a lot of help too

I’m an introvert when it comes to feelings

That won’t ever change

I wish I could stay in my bubble and find some meaning

Meanwhile I’d let my ramblings comfort me in my head

It’s a new year but nothing feels different to me

I feel detached like I’ve always been

Broken people don’t heal themselves, you see

What’s worse, I feel like I’d never find my clarity

I Cheated and Felt Good

I’m guilty.

I’ve never had these …lapses. Never before. But I managed to slip up this one time.

I was home alone. He wasn’t around. The cat wasn’t around. The dog was with him. Everyone else was on holiday. Everyone but me. And when the cat is away…

The mouse will play. The girl will play. Argh. Ugh. Okay. Deep breath. Got a story to tell here. I’m sure you’re all like:

I’m gonna start from the beginning. I was unhappy. I didn’t like my routine, gym was frustrating the crap out of me and I couldn’t handle it anymore. It began one lazy Friday evening. I usually teach a batch of kids English on the weekends but my class had prior engagements that day, and they didn’t show up. What was a lonely woman to do? I logged in on to one fine app, started scrolling.

My, my.

All of that delicious, airbrushed looking skin. I could almost taste it through the screen. Yum. See, that’s how it started. With “this one little bite that couldn’t possibly hurt, could it?”

The thing with cheating, dear friends, is when you bite, you eventually start to fall. And with the falling comes the drowning. One weekend led to more weekends. One day of scrolling led to more days of scrolling. More days of cheating. You wouldn’t possibly know the satisfaction you get from giving into what you’re craving and before long, it becomes this addiction you can’t shake off.

One step forward, thirty billion steps back. You know it’s wrong, but it feels so good and you can’t stop.

And that’s how I cheated on my Keto. Happy April Fools’ Day, one day in advance.

Okay, PS: Swiggy and Zomato and other Food Delivery apps are really bad for you. Specially when you’re on Keto and you want to eat that box of beautiful, airbrushed looking donuts. Dear me. I think I broke Keto thrice and okay, it felt good but I guess I gotta uninstall all those apps now. I have zero restraint when I don’t have family around. Send help.

Actually Painful Stuff

Have you read Simon vs The Homo Sapiens Agenda? Becky Albertalli just casually throws a line in there about how exhausting blogging actually is. That’s the number one thing on our list today: blogging, on the daily, is painful. Painfully hard.

Is there anything harder than that? Yes. Challenges. The 365 day challenge. The gallon-of-water-a-day challenge. The no sugar diet challenge. The list goes on. Now don’t get me wrong – we love lists on this side of the Internet. We do. In fact, my blog seems to be filled with listy posts that people actually managed to read without falling asleep. So yay, go me. My point here, before I digress, is lists are hard to do. Both to make and to stick to. Also, I cannot tell you the number of lists that I have taped to my fridge. It’s more like a noticeboard that’s kind of screaming for help with things left unchecked. Life is mental. Life is batcrap mental. Send help.

You know what else is difficult? Trying to live with Indian parents whose maid just quit on them. Again, don’t get me wrong. My parents are wonderful people. It’s the maid that’s kind of super attached to her new grandkid and didn’t want to be a maid anymore but kind of needed the money – so long story short, she got found out stealing moolah from our wallets and tried to make us look bad and well, um, she quit. Maid culture is rampant in India. Your mum won’t miss you when you’re not around but she’s going to miss the maid. She’s going to be all depressed because she’s the ONLY person who’s working a nine to five job in the circle of other brown mommies, and has to come home and make her own tea. I think this bothers her more than anything else, making her own tea. She detests her own cooking. Go figure. And she won’t like it if you make tea for her because the maid simply does it better. Like holy wow.

Now, as if THAT wasn’t enough, there’s my most painful experience ever – having to wash my makeup brushes every Sunday. It’s a process. You gotta find your brushes first. Make a nice concoction with dishwashing fluid and olive oil, making sure you don’t mess up the ratio. Next, you need to clean the pink Sigma glove you use to swirl your brushes on, so the dirt comes out. And you’ve to do all of that without annoying your mum and her ritualistic Sunday-cooking frenzy. And then you’ve to leave the bushes to dry and put them back in their proper containers so they don’t look messy.

It’s tough being a woman. It is.

*THIS POST HAS BEEN WRITTEN IN JEST. TAKE ALL OF THIS WITH TEN PINCHES OF SALT. IF YOU ARE HYPERTENSIVE, TAKE IT WITH HALF A PINCH OF SALT.

Random Deep Thoughts

• I just found this article on some blog. You guys need to read it, right away.

Apparently Iceland’s declared religion as weapons of mass destruction. I found it extremely unreal, and soon enough, it was declared a hoax. Fake news. And that we all needed to chill. Well, obviously. I guess religion happened in the first place because people agreed to disagree. In a healthy way. Without deciding to bite each other’s heads off at every instance. But then the Internet happened, and people started misusing resources and here we are today, in 2019, with guns and bombs and heated debates, all going nowhere.

I wish people would stop taking things so casually.

• How did “cancel culture” get so popular? I get it, Jeffree Star is as iconic as it gets but he could use his platform to be a little more well, Jeffree.

• Is it just me, or does Billie Eilish seem to be channeling Avril Lavigne, circa 2002? Here’s Billie. The hair. The very unique voice. The music videos. The baggy clothes.

Tell me this doesn’t remind you of Lavigne. She was a seventeen at this point too, and she was a pop disruptor and she was hailed as Anti-Britney.

Mind. Blown.

• Unpopular opinion – Balenciaga is overrated. I mean, their stuff isn’t even cute.

Seriously, were they drunk while designing these shoes? I mean, who asked for this? Most importantly, who OKAYED this? It looks more like a freaking lawnmower than a shoe. Thank you, pass.

• Cooking is therapeutic. A clean station, chopping onions while channeling your inner Gordon Ramsey when you’re home alone is blissful. Take it from me. Oh my. Oh my. The sheer bliss of having produced a perfectly Instagram-y sunny side up egg is just… *bellissima*

I talk about 🥚 a lot on my blog. I need to stop. Y’all probably think I’m constantly gassy and weird. I’m not.

Do you happen to have a random thought right this second? Let me know!

What Happiness Feels Like

So you’ve seen it all. Heard it all. Your back, it’s now against the wall.

You’ve fallen so far down the rabbit hole, you can’t possibly fall any farther down.

Your heart was broken, you fixed it, someone broke it all over again.

One day you looked at your forehead in the mirror, and started smoothing out that frown.

That same day, you decided, you won’t let pain cut into your veins, you’d had enough.

That very moment, you decided, you were done with people and their words – oh such words.

That instant, a fire lit within you, and you with your wounded pride, you picked up the pieces.

Your individuality, it started to shine through, despite how, all this while it lay blurred.

Your frown, where was it, now? Your eyes crinkled up at the corners.

What people called “crow’s feet” and got Botoxed for, turned into your prized possession.

Your lips stretched into a smile, and you felt the iron cage around your heart break open.

Suddenly such a weight lifted and suddenly you never knew depression.

And for the first time in what feels like years, you’re breathing like you were meant to.

You feel unburdened, and it’s not because you’re rich, it’s not because there’s a new man.

You feel like a Phoenix, that’s risen from the ashes they left abandoned in the corner.

You’ve left behind all negative energy and you’re a new woman with a new plan.

You’re going to be unflinchingly yourself – shameless, bold, bad, manipulative – so be it.

They misunderstand you, you don’t care, you’re dealing with it like it’s not important at all.

You’re happy, and finally, nothing gets to you – this bubble around you, it protects you.

And this time you’re sure, that no matter what happens, this time you won’t fall.

The Sadistic Dad Monologues

“You’re crap.

No wait, you’re LOOSE crap.

You’re dumb.

You’re a waste of space.

You’re numb.

You’re flakier than breadcrumbs.

How long do I have to support you?

How long will you make me fend for you?

How long will I mend things for you?

Shut up and get to work.

Talking to you is so hard.

You never do what your mother and I want.

Talking to you is like talking to a corpse.

You’re just getting worse.

I wish you were never born.

I wish I could have killed you when you were young.

I wish I never spent a penny on you.

You’re just an investment gone wrong.

You’re brown trash and you only ever take and you take and you play your songs.

You’re filthy.

You’re vile.

You’re disgusting.

You’re as bitter as bile.

I wish you were dead.

And if you’re dying go kill yourself outside instead.”

This isn’t fiction. I’ve seen Dads treat their daughters this way. It’s bad enough to have dreams thrust upon a girl, and to have to deal with abuse isn’t something anyone has to go through. It’s a sin.

Everyday, I see kids with bruises, something their Dads gave them earlier – because the kid failed at math, or because the dad was drunk. Everyday I see a girl cry and have her dreams crushed because she has to live her parents’ dreams and doing something else would bring shame on the family. Marrying for love? Oh my. More shame.

When will this country change?

I’m thankful that it’s not the scene in every family, and that some of us have supportive parents but I wish these girls could live happy and not have to cry because they were born female. Having said that, I need to say I love you, Dad. Thanks for not being like this.

Just birthing a child doesn’t make you a Dad or a Mum. It just makes you a procreator. What makes you an actual parent is how human you act around your children. When you become a parent, please don’t be this way.

Good day, folks.

Things A 19 Year Old Taught Me

You know, sometimes you just meet people on the Internet and you take in their personality, and you think to yourself – “Bloody hell, what an amazing soul! Wish I was more like that!”

So I met Sabhyata, a design student, on Instagram, a couple months back. If you know me at all, you’d know that I never really talk about people unless I happen to admire/love/hate them in some way. And Sabhyata, she’s taught me a lot over the past couple of months. And I’m grateful. This post is by no means a promotion of ass-kissery (is that a word?) but a genuine appreciation for a beautiful person and something very different from all the ranting I normally do.

Today, I’m going to be raving.

So, who’s Sabhyata and why should you be following her on Instagram?

• She’s organized, in a different way.

Take this nineteen year old self-taught makeup lover, who posts crisp new content everyday, every single damn day. And that’s no mean feat because she’s got school, her chores, AND her feed to keep her busy and she manages everything so flawlessly it’s like she’s almost superhuman. She’s taught me how to manage my time better.

• She’s down to earth.

When you’re growing at the speed she’s growing, the attention gets to your head. The success gets to your head. Not for Sabhyata. I was watching her Instagram live and one thing she said touched my heart so much. Someone had asked her how it felt like, to have such a good number of followers in less than a year to which she replied – “Doesn’t matter whether I have 13 k or 100 k people following me, it’ll always be you guys watching me live at 2 in the morning, and I’ll still be like this.”

Again, this girl is only nineteen. Most teenagers don’t treat other people with the amount of love she does. And she doesn’t over do it either.

Also, she responds to every question. Doesn’t send a ♥️ emoji when someone slides into her DM with legit compliments and questions, and she’s always going to take time to hold an actual decent conversation with people.

She’s taught me to have my feet planted firmly on the ground.

• Friendship.

I talked about competition the other day. Sabhyata is her own competition, biggest critic and she’s everyone’s friend. One of my favorite one liners – “You’re my friend and I won’t ever respect you. Ahah. Why would I? We’re the same. And even if you get a Nobel prize, I’ll still have you as my friend who I’ll love. Not go on and say ah I respect you.”

Total gem, you guys. Total gem.

• Quality over Quantity.

Let’s talk about how professional she is. She learns as she grows and she posts content that’s super high quality too. I guess this is where blessing your feed originated from.

If you’re into makeup and you want to know why I’ve been fangirling so much go give her a follow @palletesandpaint on Instagram.

Can We Chill With The Competition?

What’s wrong with people? I mean seriously? Kris Jenner is single handedly causing population explosion, and with a million kids and a billion grandkids to boot, the crazy seems to be overflowing.

It’s not just them, though. It’s the whole planet.

Once upon a happier time, competition meant two little kids battling it out on opposing debate teams. But now? It’s something unhealthy, twisted, heck, it’s evil.

Between making frenzied google searches for things like “how to make someone love you back” and “how to tell if someone’s no longer into you” and “latest trends 2018”, I chanced upon this: nipple injections. Fillers, or whatever the crap. And I’m not kidding people, this is an actual Allure magazine article.

…competing against Kendall Jenner’s nipples. Now I’ve seen everything. Really. 2018 is the year of the bat-shit crazy and it’s here to stay. Sigh. I miss the times when we were all actually happy. Millennials aren’t happy, people. We always want something else. We crave, we crave, we compete unnecessarily and we give ourselves enough aneurysms to keep the rest of the doctors happy.

Between DMs that go something like this

to women treating their boyfriends like pieces of vintage Louis Vuitton luggage, I’m so done. All I want right now, is for me to be able to dump everything and just get away to a cosy little place with no people and no cell phone reception.

Can we please do that? Thanks.

Nipple fillers. God!

Does Money Solve Things?

Isn’t it crazy? The number of times we use “I” in a day? Subconsciously, we’re only constantly thinking of ourselves. Our lives, jobs, waistline, first-world issues like a broken fingernail.

Ever stopped to wonder what was going on with the rest of the world? Heck, ever wondered what was going on with the rest of your neighborhood? I’ve noticed a pattern. People are SO quick to be empathetic when a celebrity falls sick. Or when a celebrity gets slapped behind bars. I’m talking about Salman Khan, of course. He’s killed people and he’s poached blackbucks and he’s managed to get acquitted and now he’s managed to get bail.

Which makes me wonder – is money all that powerful?

At this rate, people would end up buying college degrees and have no knowledge about a thing at all. People would pay off income tax officers and exemptions from paying how much tax they should actually be paying. It’s scary that things like unfair justice can be bought these days. Oh wait, they’re already doing that. I mean, do people not have integrity anymore?

Maybe that’s why there’s a steep decline in actual, solid relationships and a steady incline in the sugar daddy situation. He pays for your crap and makes you Paris Hilton and you get to be the Kim Kardashian to his very much older Ray J. I don’t even know what’s up with me this morning. Maybe this is why I should stop reading the newspaper. It’s making kids believe that money can solve every which problem and that’s why they’re resorting to stupid headless ideas just to make money.

I saw this girl ask if she can sell her body to her ex boyfriend for allowance since her parents don’t give her money. Is this even normal? Or is this prostitution? Can anyone explain? Do people not realize that the more you yearn for, the worse it gets? Other people get jealous, and it leads to more problems than one can ever handle. I don’t think money really solves all problems. It just makes you nastier. But that’s just my opinion. It’s okay to be financially comfortable on your own terms. NOT okay to use it to exploit others.

I’m done with this country. Time to leave. I’ll be back with a nice post tomorrow, I swear. It won’t be so morbid. Have a good day, you guys.

Confessions of a Loner, Again

I’m a loner. I’ve always been. At some point, it started to feel like routine. I mean, even Voldemort has his Death Eaters. So he wasn’t really completely alone; but I don’t even have anyone. Emotionally. I mean, it’s not like I don’t wish for people to come talk to me: it’s just that I’ve gotten used to the whole idea of being on my own so much that I’m okay with being alone and lonely. And I don’t even tell my partner about it.

Not that I haven’t tried – because I have. But you know how it gets, yeah? You don’t want to annoy the other person and you end up bottling things. So what I do instead is come on here and blog and let it out. Therapy is pricey – I can buy some new eyelashes with that money – but blogging is free and I get to get things off my chest, so yes, I like to rant on here.

I pretend that I’m happy. Actually, I’m not. I don’t feel anything anymore. It’s been a while since I’ve felt this way: completely empty, neutral, almost lifeless. Going through my daily schedule like a robot in rhythm. But I’ve learned a lot over the past couple of years. No one is going to be there for you. Not even the person you get married to. It’s you that’s always got your back so each time you feel completely alone, you’ve gotta remember that you have your arms to give yourself a hug. I know that’s probably the most morbid thing your heard all day, but I actually do this on a daily basis.

When I was a little girl, I had dreams too.

I wanted to have a fairytale wedding and all the cliches that came with it. A perfect husband who loved me, treated me like a freaking princess and got me whatever I wanted – all I had to do was drop subtle hints. But then life happened and I realized that none of that matters. No one is going to listen to your subtle hints. You’ve to get yourself what you want. It’s almost wrong to depend on someone else. Even once in a while. And forget about being treated like a princess. I’m happy with being treated like a human being. That’s more than just enough. Isn’t it funny how dreams die before you even realize they’re dead?

I’ve gotten really good at giving advice. I hate seeing other people unhappy because I can see myself reflected in them and that breaks my heart.

There were times when I used to be happy that I had people to text me and check on me: but now? I’m so comfort being on my own it scares my mum sometimes. I’m serious, if I had a choice and if cults weren’t creepy, I’d have joined some ashram, picked celibacy and turned into a yogi. I’d even give up lipstick. But I’d be at peace. No cellphone. Maybe I could just go away and try to drown. I’d feel nothing still. Just calm.

Why do I feel this way?

But I’m okay. This is just fiction and I’m okay.