Harry Potter Comes To India

When I was ten years ols, I wrote my first play 'Harry Potter Comes to India'. It was the story of Harry Potter coming to India after he finds out that the Dursleys have been abducted by Voldemort and Ron and Hermione are spending the holidays with an Indian Hogwarts student in her house in India. Of course, there was very little magic involved, because we barely had any props, let alone special affects, and our stage was the top of the staircase in our assembly hall, but the fact that I had put together thirty ten-year-old actors in one pla and made them memorize their lines and speak them on the day of the show still makes me proud.

The following year, I wrote another play called 'Jadoo and The World' for my English assessment. It was about Jadoo encountering five earthlings. The play was unsuccessful.

Then I wrote a play called 'To Be Or Not To Be'. I had just heard this Shakespeare line somewhere and had thought it would be a good name for a play even though it had no relevance to my play. It was about a popstar who gets AIDS. I played an AIDS patient in that. I was the dignified moralist of my school and barely twelve years old, and the fact that I had written a play about something like AIDS came as a shock to everybody. It took a lot of hard-work just to make the actors comfortable to enact a play with such a subject matter. The play wasn't very successful, but it was the only time in the history of the school that a student so young had written and directed a play like this.

Next, I wrote a play called 'Meeting Point'. It was set in Goa and was a combination of four love stories that were loosely connected. No, Salaam-E-Ishq had not released back then and I have never seen Love Actually, even though I know it has a similar story. A few months later, a French film called Paris Je'Taime (Paris, I Love You) was released which had a very 'Meeting Point' feel to it. The play was rejected by the other members of my group who decided to put up a slapstick comedy which flopped miserably. Besides, even if I had got my group members to act in my play, the teachers wouldn't have approved of such young kids being in a romantic play.

'Meeting Point' was the end of my career as a dramatist. The following year, when I was fourteen, I moved to Mumbai and never got a chance to put up another play.

My father had a much better resume as a child actor. In his days, kids were the Gods of extra-curricular activities. They did everything- singing, painting, dance, drama, decoration. My grandfather had an even more interesting childhood, full of activities.

These days, I don't see any child taking the initiative to do something extra. They are too busy with their Science Olympiads. People don't seem to realize that given the chance, they can do so many creative things, and thanks to the lack of encouragement, even children don't want to try new things. It is common to hear children say, "I don't have time".

Where did all the good days go? When did things go so wrong? Since when did children not have time? Since when did kids stop play-acting?

I don't have the answers, but I do know one thing- children are supposed to be tiny, whacky geniuses, not busy people in small bodies.

The Rajneeti of Mahabharat

I saw 'Rajneeti' yesterday. Even though I am sure it won't appeal to most people my age, I loved the movie, especially the rather feminist ending. It doesn't leave you feeling soft and warm, but it does make you realize what goes into all those elections that we read about.

My dad thinks 'Rajneeti' is like the 'Godfather', but I beg to differ.

I have never seen 'The Godfather', but after hearing its premise I think some analogies may be drawn between the two movies in question. But a better analogy can be drawn with somthing closer home- The Mahabharata. Here is why-

1) The movie begins with an unmarried girl from a political family giving birth to a baby boy, who is abandoned in a boat by Brij Gopal (Nana Patekar). The boy grows up to become Dalit leader Suraj (Ajay Devgan) who is also the adoptive son of the political family's driver. He is taken under the wing of Veerendra Pratap (Manoj Bajpai) after Veerendra's father denies him succession. This is a lot like when Draupadi's son (fathered by the Sun God) was abandoned and later taken under the wing of the Kauravas.

2) The rivalry between Manoj Bajpai and Arjun Rampal begins after Manoj's father has a heart attack and his declares Arjun his successor. This heart attack does in Rajneeti what Duryodhan's father's blindness did in Mahabharata. In fact, Manoj Bajpai's character seems inspired by Duryodhan.

4) In the end, after things get murkier between the two rival parties, Bharati goes to her long lost son Suraj and asks him to return to his 'family'. Draupadi had made a similar appeal in Mahabharata.

I don't know the Mahabharata like the back of my hand, but if I had, I would probably have been able to draw more similarities.

The truth is that epics are called epics for a reason and even in the age of multiplexes and 3D, they can form the basis for great movies.

Book trailer

We all know about movie trailers but what about book trailers.

I have written a book called 'Afterlife' and I made a trailer for it. It has clippings from Miley Cyrus' The Last Song in it because I needed some beach scenes. Here, take a look:


Do you like it? Do you think my book could be published by looking at this trailer?

I also made a cast list and a synopsis for the book if it were to be made into a movie.

Time for a new beginning!

Board Results are finally in and I did well enough to study whatever subject I want. but now it's time to move on and look to the future because I know that the exams I will have to take hereafter are the ones that will shape my life. It is funny how you feel that the biggest challenge is the challenge right in front of you and when it is overcome, you feel that it wasn't a challenged at all!

I Hate Love Stories

I hate love stories. They show us pretty pictures of how wonderful life can be if you find somebody perfect for yourselves and tempt us to a blissful state which doesn't exist at all. As a result of this, people (mainly female teenagers) lead unhappy lives due to repeated failure in attaining something (that is, their own perfect love story) which doesn't exist in the first place.

So all the lovesick teenagers out there, here's a question for you: have you ever wondered why love stories end the way they do?

Possible Ending #1: Death Of Protagonists

Take, for example, Romeo and Juliet. Both of them die in the end. Heer and Ranjha meet the same end. Sohni and Mahiwal? Same old story. There is a story from the Andaman and Nicobar islands called 'Tatara-Vamiro katha' in which male protagonist Tatara's sword splits the earth in two and Tatara dies when he cannot make it to either of the two halves.

Possible Ending #2: Happily Ever After

This is the stuff of fairy tales. Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel, Sleeping Beauty- all of them ended with the prince and the damsel in distress both getting what they wanted. The atmosphere created by these endings is so warm, fuzzy and cuddly that readers (most of which are not over three years of age) start expecting the same ending from their lives.

Possible Ending #3: The Jane Austen Marriage Ending

Jane Austen, although old, was a very modern writer. Despite my hatred for love stories, I like all the Jane Austen novels, not only because these are romantic comedies which still form the basis for many movies, but also because she never underestimated the power of money and a big mansion when it came to choosing a husband. These stories always end with the haughty female protagonist marrying the rich, misunderstood male protagonists and becoming the mistress in what looks like a five-star hotel.

Possible Ending #4: The Twilight Ending

These days, Twilight is ruling the world. I think it is an old-world romance set in the modern world and can never represent teenagers of today, but who am I to say anything when the book has sold 87 million copies (Okay, I admit it. Four of those copies were bought by me.) The ending to the Twilight series is mainly the conclusion of the love triangle, with Bella choosing Edward over Jacob (and Jacob imprinting on a baby and forgetting all about Bella). If the love story involves three people, it usually ends like this, with the girl choosing 'what her heart wants' and not what is good for her. Not that hairy werewolves who burst out of their clothes every time they change form are good for anyone, but still.

Now, come back to my question: why do love stories end the way they do?

The answer is pretty simple- Because that's how people want it to end!

For example, Romeo and Juliet had to die in the end because nobody wanted their families to patch up and attend a lavish wedding, because then the story would become as mundane as that of Chetan Bhagat's '2 States'. So, Shakespeare thought it was much better for both of them to die so that readers admire their rather romantic sacrifice. But isn't death a little risky? I mean, how can you be so sure that you are going to meet on the other side? What if Romeo fell for another hot dead girl and forgot about Juliet? That wouldn't be good.

And then there's the happily ever after. Well, here's the thing- Happily Ever Afters suck! Once you get your perfect ending, there will be nothing left to want and then, there will be no reason to live. And besides, is it right for a young girl's dream to be to get rescued by a charming prince? There are way better dreams one could have.

Jane Austen may have been modern and honest about her views on the society's obsession with money and marriage. But what happen after the main characters marry? Do their kids have stomach infection and drive them crazy? Does the boy become bankrupt and the girl leave him? Hmmm..... Lots to wonder.

Then comes the situation with love triangles. Any person at the center of this non-geometrical triangle would probably never choose either suitor because he/she would be enjoying the double attention and the fight for him/her way too much. That's just how egotistical and self-centered people usually are!

Last but not the least, in real life, people aren't the way they are in stories. For example, can you imagine Edward Cullen going to his eight-hour job and coming back home late in the evening and losing his bronze hair as it gets older. And if Edwards had really been like that, would Bella, who has a strange obsession with beauty, ever fall in love with him? i don't think so.

But there is some good news for all those who have just had their romantic bubble burst- real life is way more interesting than 'happily ever after'.

Throughout your life, different people are going to love you in different ways. If you did happen to come across romantic love, it would not be worth losing all the other forms of love you have in your life. So open your eyes! Don't chase after the kind of love you have only read about. You won't find it, it will find you. In the meantime, enjoy all the other forms of love coming from your people and in the end, you will have your own 'happily ever after'.

Why Settle For Settlement?

I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I- I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

-Robert Frost (English poet, 1874-1963)

Imagine yourself ten years from now. What would be the things you would want to have? Perhaps a big apartment, an air conditioner, some good furniture and of course, a family of your own. From this angle the future seems to be perfect.

Now picture a different scenario. Ten years from now, you could be living in a cramped room, with only a table fan and a mattress and you could be unmarried.

Which of the above scenarios would you rather choose?

I bet you would choose the first one. But consider this- ten years from now, you are going to be about twenty-eight years old (if I am right about the demographic this blog caters to). At this age, would it be better for you to have everything in your life sorted out or would it be better to struggle for your dream? If you choose the latter, a lot of hardships are guaranteed, but when you are young and energetic, hardships are supposed to be part of your life. Why is it that we want to play it safe with all our life choices so that we are fully settled by the time we hit thirty years of age? Why do we want to be done with every experience and live like a sixty-five year old when we still have youthful zeal in us?

Well, the answer to these questions will be given differently by different people.

Most boys would say upon much pondering that when you are seventeen, you don't know what exactly you want to do with the rest of your life and so it is best to just take the path that has been taken a million times by others. This path is tried and tested and since the people who had taken it have turned out to have comfortable lives, this path is the obvious choice. Even if some boy has a strong dream, he may be scared to give up the luxuries of his upper-middle class life to follow it.

Girls would have a different answer which they may not express (thanks to the spread of pseudo-feminism). The truth is that even today girls have to chose between family and career. By the time she is thirty, she is expected to have a complete family of four. She has been taught to believe that it is not going to matter how successful she is until she has her own family. Its okay for her to be jobless, but not unmarried. Face it, people. Try being an Indian girl for a week and you will say that these observations of mine are correct. In such a situation, how can a girl pursue her dreams and take risks. And what's the point anyways if she is going to end up becoming somebody's wife?

But think about what Robert Frost said. He said that he took the road less travelled and that was what made all the difference. Whether this difference was positive or negative has been left for the reader to decide, but what matters is that there is a difference. Someone who chooses the road less travelled chooses to live with a difference. He/she chooses to live the life of his/her choice, even if this path has been described by Robert Frost as follows- '...... as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear.......'

Today, make your choice, take your route, carve your niche and face the hardships that come along the way. Chances are that one day you will saying with a relieved sigh that you took the road less travelled by and that was what made all the difference.

Let's Watch A Movie With A Real Lead Actress

I watched the Oscars a few days ago. I must say that I liked them, especially because they showed clippings of the movie-making process when the award nominations for the technical and creative categories were announced. They actually showed the designs for the 'Young Victioria' before it got the award for Best Costume Design. The lead characters from the Best Animated Feature nominations even spoke a few lines and they were funny despite not being human.

One thing that I noticed while watching the Oscars was that all the women nominated for Best Actress had the real lead role in their respective movies. Carey Mulligan from An Education played a London schoolgirl, Meryl Streep from Julie &Julia played the famous cook Julia Child, Sandra Bullock (who actually won) played a suburban woman who adopts a black teenager in The Blind Side, Helen Mirren played Leo Tolstoy's wife in The Last Station and Gabourey Sidibe played an abused teenager in Precious. When I say that they had real lead roles, I mean that they were the lead in movies which told the stories of interesting woman. They were not part of the show, they were the show. It is good to know that there still are filmmakers who consider the lives of women worthy of cinematic reflection.

And that brings me to the Indian film industry. Over the past few years, I have noticed a steep decline in the number of lead actresses in our country. Most of the new actresses are former models who just look pretty but I doubt that they would be able to carry a movie on their own shoulders without having a big actor around. Even the characters they potray are bland and one dimensional. Many of them potray young women whose only purpose in life is to live for other people, especially their leading man. The good actresses, who may score a little low on beauty but are more talented than all Bollywood actors put together, are forced to do art films which are beautiful creations that do rounds of film festivals but never make it to multiplexes.

Remember Rani Mukherjee in Black or Karishma Kapoor in Fiza? Where did all the movies about beautiful, strong, independent yet feminine women go? Does this mean that the psyche of most Indians which like to have women in the kitchen or in a beauty pageant has trickled its way into the movie halls and now we are forced to watch women be treated as mere glamour dolls? Why can't we think of women who have brains and several shades to their characters? Are all such women dead, or have we just forgotten to look at women as something different and deeper than what we perceive them to be?

I am going to keep waiting for a good Indian movie about the life of a woman (and no, Priyanka Chopra walking down the ram in Fashion does not count). Meanwhile, here is a movie I suggest you watch. It's called The Runaways and it stars Kristen Stewart (you may know her from Twilight) and Dakota Fanning (who was the little girl in War Of The Worlds). The Runaways were the first all-girl rock band in the 1970s. Their members were mere teenagers when the band reached its height of fame. This fame, although notoriously short-lived, opened the doors for many girl singers, and the fact that you see Madonna and Britney Spears or even Sunidhi Chauhan on TV today is thanks to this band. Even though these girls were controversial and their life included scandals like drug addiction, the very fact that they chose to assert themselves through their music and played the electric guitar and the drums instead of softer instruments like the piano is interesting. These were women who refused to conform and lived an unconventional life. They thought like no man could. They were also the singers of a song called 'Cherry Bomb' which I think is the mother of all teen anthems.

Below is a trailer of The Runaways and a video of the song 'Cherry Bomb'.






And by the way, I am pretty sure that there are a lot of wonderful, inspiring women in India whose lives could be the subject of movies. We did give the world a great movie called Mother India, didn't we? Khoon Bhari Maang was a Bollywood movie, right? This means that even Bollywood can make dazzling movies about women. Until such a movie comes, enjoy this video from Mother India:

Change Things In India Before Becoming American

On Sunday, I read a column on high-heels. Yes, one page in an Indian weekly was wasted over an article about high-heels, which by the way very few people can afford in our country.

Over the years, I have observed that English periodicals have a thing for publishing articles about stuff that most Indians cannot afford. For example, how many people can actually afford to live in a five-star hotel? So why do we have columns dedicated solely to five-star hotels?

And then, there are movies which have absolutely nothing to do with Indian society. Let's take 'Wake Up Sid' as an example. Photography is not a viable career option in India (unfortunately). Why would a girl come to Mumbai from Kolkata to become a writer when there are more magazines and journals published in West Bengal than in Maharashtra? Nobody can buy a cheap flat near Marine Drive. And by the way, nowhere in India do platonic friends live with each other the way Sid and Ayesha did. Evidently, 'Wake Up Sid' is a Hindi movie, but is purely American in its ways.

Truth is, we are slowly detaching ourselves from our society. We are trying to be American, when we are actually Indian. We dream of the freedom that youth in the west already has. We dream of the luxury that most Indians do not have. I actually think this is a good things, but not completely.

Let us try to be Indians for a change. Isn't that better than hanging out at forbidden clubs and then taunting divorced women for not being able to handle relationships? Let us first try to respect people of all professions and not think of domestic servants and sweepers as people who are meant to disappear into the background once they are done serving us. We do respect a waitress' profession when the waitress is played by someone like Julia Roberts. Maybe then we can think about unviable professions like photography and writing. Maybe we should try taking the responsibility that comes with freedom before actually experiencing the perks of freedom. Maybe we should change things in India before becoming pseudo-American.

Think Of A Character

When I was young, I was a huge fan of the Powerpuff Girls. I even made a huge poster of them, which continues to grace the living room wall in my Delhi flat even though it has been ten years. On one of the episodes, I saw Blossom, Bubbles and Buttercup making up an imaginary friend. This imaginary friend was created by them because they, being 'real people', could not fight against an evil 'imaginary friend' created by one of their lonely classmates, who despite being imaginary was starting to take over the classroom.

So what are imaginary friends? Imaginary friends, also known as 'imaginary companions' are pretend characters often created by children. Imaginary friends often function as tutelaries (or perform a tutelary function) when they are engaged by the child in play activity. Imaginary friends may exist for the child into adolescence and sometimes adulthood. Imaginary friends often have elaborate personalities and behaviors. Although they may seem very real to their creators, studies have shown that children understand that their imaginary friends are not real.

But if expert opinion were to be taken, we would know that i has been theorized that children with imaginary companions may develop language skills and retain knowledge faster than children without them, which may be because these children get more linguistic practice while carrying out "conversations" with their imaginary friends than their peers get. Some psychologists have suggested that children simply retain but stop speaking about imaginary friends, due to adult expectations and peer pressure.

I never had an imaginary friend. In fact, I don't think any Indian kid has an imaginary friend and even if some creative kid does, he won't tell anybody about it. The reason is pretty simple. In India, people think that if your life involves anything which is larger than life or cannot be seen, you are crazy. We are very liberal about calling people 'crazy'. Going to the psychiatrist or getting some therapy is equivalent to social suicide. Maybe that is why many people who really suffer from mental disorders hesitate to get medical help before it is too late....

Anyways, imaginary friends have been used by many writers, graphic novelists and film-makers. Chances are, no matter which newspaper you subscribe, you have at least once seen the 'Calvin and Hobbes' comic script. It follows the humorous antics of Calvin, a highly precocious and adventurous six-year-old boy, and Hobbes, his sardonic stuffed tiger. Hobbes is Calvin's imaginary friend. He appears to be real only when he is with Calvin and is portrayed as a stuffed animal when other people like Calvin's family members are around.



The only example of an imaginary friend in Indian media is Jai's imaginary friend from the old TV show (one of my favourite TV shows of all time, by the way) Just Mohabbat, which starred Vatsal Seth (the actor last seen in Toh Baat Pakki). In this TV show, Jai is always accompanied by an imaginary friend whose name I have now forgotten, who gives him advice and is an integral part of his life.

Even though I never had an imaginary friend, I have always been good at creating characters in my head. Five years ago, I wrote a novel called 'Space Travellers'. As the name suggests, it was about aliens and UFOs and stuff like that. But to add my own twist to it, the story was centred by me around ICUP (Interplanetary Council Of Universal Protection), a fictitious organization I had based on the UN. The only difference was that besides having members from all countries, it also had members from all planets. This novel of mine was never published.

For this book, I had depicted 'Plutoites', that is inhabitants of Pluto, as grown people who despite being adults look, speak and dress like babies. Since Pluto was considered a planet back then, and was hence deemed as the smallest planet, I decided the Plutoites shouls be the smallest people. The Jupiterians, that is inhabitants of Jupiter, were the complete opposite. They were giants with booming voices and gaits like armymen.

Over the years, I have created at least hundred characters and written stories about them. These characters have kept me better company than some people from my real life. That is why I don't need Facebook and Twitter and thousands of friends in the virtual world. My 'virtual' friends are safely locked in my head and no, they can never be cyber criminals.

Decline Of The Handwriting

Do you have any idea what your mother's handwriting looks like? Or your father's? When was the last time you read a secret note from your best friend?

There was a time when handwriting meant a lot to people. Ancient Roman handwriting styles included Roman cursive, and the more calligraphic rustic capitals and square capitals, the latter of which forms the basis for modern capital letters and was used in stone inscriptions. In India, the inscriptions from the Harappan civilisation and Indus Valley civilisation give us some serious insights into our past.



What you see above is an example of classic American business handwriting known as Spencerian script.

Gandhiji was one of the many great men to lay emphasis on good handwriting. But despite the success of Lage Raho Munnabhai, nobody seems to acknowledge the beauty and grace of good handwriting anymore. The beautiful calligraphic script that people once prided themselves for have now turned into clumsy scrawls, as you can see below:



When I was younger, I won an award for good hadwriting for two consecutive years. The school I went to back then, i.e. Birla Vidya Niketan in New Delhi, even organized annual handwriting contests for young children. Back then, I never realized the importance of this, but today I know why a hand-written letter looks and feels so much better than an e-mail written in a computer-made font.

There are many people who say that e-mails and computers are just a way of saving paper. We don't want our beloved trees to be felled, do we? But such notions take the attention from more obvious causes of deforestation such as large-scale industrialization in forest areas, wastage of paper and aversion towards recycled paper. If schools made it mandatory for students to use recycled paper notebooks, a lot of paper could be saved. But no. Teachers are way too bothered about the relatively darker shade of recycled paper. So, now most people think that e-mails and phone texts are the solution to deforestation (seen that Idea ad with Abhishek Bachchan as a tree?). But this has led to the disappearance of the traditional culture of handwriting. Today, most teenagers are more comfortable writing e-mails than letters. What if you have a relative living in some part of West Bengal which does not have internet connection? What do you do in such a situation? Break off all ties with them because picking up a pen and writing a letter is too cumbersome for you?

Today, we don't know what our best friend's handwriting is like. Gone are the days when people wrote emotional notes to their loved ones. Today we have generic smileys which convey emotions. Whether or not you are truly smiling, the same smiley will appear on the computer screen. The art of expressing one's emotions through writing has been on the decline because ready-made 'emoticons' are just a click away.

Did you know how much the disappearance of handwriting has hurt the art and business of penmanship? In the United States, starting in the late 19th century, there were cries that handwriting was being neglected due to the typewriter. By the 21st century, blame was being attached to the use of computers. Linked to this decline in penmanship has been a decrease from two hours per day in penmanship instruction during the 19th century to less than an hour per semester in 2007.

And what about our history? How will our future generations (if they ever get a chance to grace this planet given the constant threats of the end of the world being presented by movies like '2012' and 'I Am Legend') ever get to know anything about our lives? We have not made strong monuments which will stand the test of time. Not only that, we won't have inscriptions and scripts written by us which give a detailed account of our lives and practices. What do you expect them to do? Access our Facebook or Twitter page thousand years from now? But won't our internet accounts expire by then and won't our posts and blogs become irrelevant once new technology comes in?

Thankfully, there are still some people who understand the value of good handwriting. Throughout most British oriented countries such as Nepal, Competitions are held almost everyday as penmanship is an important asset of every student. These competitions carefully analyze the handwriting of the competitor and chooses the one with most ease, neatness, and beauty.

Next Valentine's Day- a festival which has lost all meaning and become a commercialized affair- try writing a handwritten note to all the people you love. Next Diwali, make a card and just write 'Happy Diwali' inside it. Next Christmas, pick up a sparkly red pen and make a 'Merry Christmas' note to your friend. Write a letter to your friend living in another city and experience the excitement of waiting for a reply. I assure you, these events will become just a little bit more exhilarating.

Ever wondered what I look like?

When you can't see someone's face, you come up with so many ideas about how one might look. We claim to know how to determine someone else's appearance just because we know a few things about them. We also sometimes claim to know how to 'face read', that is to know what a person is like from the inside by just looking at what is on the outside. But the truth is, all this is impossible. No, seriously. Have you ever seen Shakespeare? Okay, so he was a great playwright and all and he was probably beautiful on the inside, but on the outside, he was just a bald, skinny dude. Insides and Outsides have no connection at all. What you guys (those rare few who actually read my non-tweeting, over 140 characters long posts) see is what is inside of me. You see what I think and you see what I want you to know. But there is someone on the outside too. And when I am not thinking about the glories of marathons, Board Exams, Indian obsession with white skin, the lack of good TV shows and all such stuff, I actually think of very inconsequential things. So, do you want to know what I look like?



So, this is me. Not very impressive, I know. I am not thin, or tall or very beautiful. But this is who I am. Can't help it can I?

I don't pay as much attention to my appearance as some of my friend do. I like jeans and a T-shirt and have a serious no-frills policy. But I am allowed to indulge in fashion therapy when I get sad or start feeling ugly and/or insecure about my weight. For example, I have a habit of going through the pages of an abandoned issue of 'In Style' that I had picked up from an airport (if you are really moralistic, you would probably think this can be certified as stealing). But the thing is, I can never be like one of those people who grace the pages of glossy magazines. I am no Aishwarya Rai. I can't be Angelina Jolie. Heck, I am not even Kristen Stewart from 'Twilight' (Bella is not supposed to be gorgeous, remember?). But I am me. Am I happy? Yes I am, because I would much rather be an ugly original than a breathtakingly beautiful lookalike.


This is my outside. My inner side is something you must already be familiar with. As you can see, I like to think and I like to talk and I have an opinion on pretty much everything. Right now, I have an opinion about depletion of finite resources. I mean, think of it this way- if we keep using too much resources, powerful countries are going to bombard the little ones to gobble up any amount of resource that is left, be it water, forests or oil. And the generation which will witness this will not be the next one, but this one. The end is coming sooner than we had expected.

See, I have opinions about issues big people from all over the world go all the way to Copenhagen to discuss.

I guess what I am trying to say is that one thing does not make a person. On the outside, I look absolutely normal. Nobody pays much attention to me when I am out on the streets because I look like everyone else. But this tiny detail does not say much about me, because on the inside, I am different from others. At the end of the day, we are all unique and it is a combination of our inner self and outer facade that makes us so.

Make Some Noise! Have Something To Say!

My blog isn't the most popular. It's not even minorly popular. In a world where people do not have any patience for anything more than the 140 characters that Twitter allows per tweet, it is no surprise that longer blog post are slowly losing relevance. But tell me- doesn't it take a big genius to accommodate the whole issue of Indians' obsession with white skin or the marvels of the Navi Mumbai marathon in 140 words? Maybe it is only right for people to expect that I will keep it short and snappy if I aspire to take up some of the precious time of those who read my blog, but hey! I am just sixteen. I still don't have the genius it takes to write down all I want to say in 140 words! Honestly, I have been getting a lot of lectures from my dad too. He says that if I want to become the writer I dream of becoming, I need to lessen the number of words that get transferred from my keyboard to the computer screen. He is right. But what can I do? I just have so much to say!


And I bet that you have a lot to say too. If you are reading a blog like mine, there is no way that you have no opinion. Isn't it important for others to know what you have to say? It sounds big, but I really think that there are a lot of young, educated people in India, and honestly, they are the only ones who can make a difference. I want to be responsible for at least 1 per cent of that change. Up until now, it looks like I am not very successful. My blog does not have too many readers, and it have zero postages in the comments sections. So help me fulfill my dream. Make some noise. Tell me what you think and leave a comment after you read a post. Maybe I will get a glimpse of that small percentage of Indian teenagers who actually care about something.

The Day I Ran

I used to run when I was very young. I had even scored a silver medal in a zonal championship in Delhi. But then things happened. I grew up. I had to study and I gained more weight. It must seem strange to any fifty-five year old that a teenager could have left anything because of the burden of circumstances, but in today’s world in which pressures come from all directions, it happens. But then we all know at the back of our mind that pressures have to be handled and that was why I started running again. Some would say it was bad timing, because I was in class X and the Board exams were around the corner. But I think that if I would have waited longer, maybe I would never have started running again and perhaps I would have had to face my worst nightmare of becoming fat at twenty.

I lost in a few races in school. As usual, I had to bear a lot of jokes and taunts. I even cried in the bathroom for five minutes. But when I came back home, I went downstairs and ran around my building twenty times. The only regret I had was that I now had no chance to prove that I could run.

I was wrong. The truth is that sometimes there is a second chance, and for me it came in the form of the Navi Mumbai marathon held on 24th January, 2010. I had missed the previous marathon and I was hell bent upon going this time. I hadn’t prepared much because I had a score of 9.5/20 in Geography and I was spending most of my time solving sample papers. But the truth was that I wasn’t studying through 24 hours anyways, which meant that I did have time and that I could prepare.
I was late for the marathon. I had a pair of shoes which had torn soles, but I wore them because I had forgotten to tell my parents to buy new ones and also because my personal belief is that old things are softer to touch. I thought I was doing a big thing. I was finally getting to prove that I could do it. I was going to run almost five kilometers, which some of my people thought would be impossible because I am a girl and because I have the wrong body type. And I was doing all this even though I had 150 pages of Geography notes to study as soon as I got back home.
Once again, I was wrong. I was surprised to see that at least 1/3 of the participants were female. Many of them did not seem to have any experience but they were still doing it. There were people who were running for a cause, whether it be delayed justice or the need to save the earth. They weren’t just running for themselves. I was further proven wrong when I saw the 2km event for senior citizens. One of the first ones to cross the finish line in that even was an elderly woman who seemed fitter than I do! And as soon as all the senior citizens finished the race, they started dancing merrily. There are some people who think they can’t do a lot of things because they were born girls and others who think that once they are old, they have nothing to run towards. They are wrong. There can be a finish line to cross even if you are seventy only if you want it to be there. I decided that this was how I wanted to age- with my wrinkly feet covered in running shoes.

When my event began, I was happy to see how many people just wanted to start running. They took off at full speed. Some of them stumbled, but they got up and got back to work. My own father, who is fifty-five years old was ahead of me by the time we crossed the one kilometer line. I thanked God. At least I had good genes. Even I left many people behind, mostly men and boys. My old, torn shoes started giving me trouble in the end when the balls of my feet seemed like they were brushing against the rough surface of the road. Due to a knee injury I had suffered while doing step ups a month ago, my legs ached terribly. I had to walk but I didn’t stop. Actually, I didn’t see anybody stop.

When I saw the finish line, I ran faster than should have been possible because I really wanted to get ahead of all the people who were level with me. Of course, my father, who has some stiff joints and is over four times my age, had finished the race ten minutes before me, done his stretching exercises and was already back on his feet. Some people took pictures of me. My first marathon was over. I had gone from Fortune Hotel to Vashi Station and back.

The only thing which disappointed me was that I was given water in disposable plastic cups, hundreds of which had already littered the roadside, under a tree which had a placard saying ‘Say No To Plastics’ because this marathon was a run against global warming. Oh, well. You gain some, you lose some.
I don’t know much about my future. I don’t know what my score in the Board Exams will be. I don’t know if we can control global warming. I don’t even know what time I will wake up tomorrow morning. But I do know that I will be in the Navi Mumbai Marathon next year.

End Of My Fifteenth Year

On the sixteenth of January, I officially turned sixteen. Most people celebrate birthdays. I loathe them because they tell you that you are now closer to death by a definable measure of time. Think about it- wouldn't it be better if we could all age willingly? I see my life being cut short because there is so little time left. As an Indian, I am expected to have a degree in engineering and become the CEO of a multinational company by the time I am thirty! My life seems to be like a car running on train's wheels. It wants to go slower. It wants to freely explore places other than the stations that fall on the way. It wants to take detours and meet local people along the way. And it wants time to utilize its youth to chase dreams before old-age grips in such a way that there is no other choice but to take the much-trodden path. But you know what? None of this is possible because after all, the wheels are that of a train's. And the train wheels will get me to the destination a little too quick.

But who can stop the hands of a clock? Not me, not you, not anybody. So the best we can do is utilize every moment of our time. I actually washed all the dishes the other night and discovered that I still had enough time to learn five pages of Geography notes. As far as our dreams are concerned, maybe it is better to just keep chasing them (3 Idiots, anyone?). Because after all, the truth is that time is under our control and it moves the way we want it to.