What Is Wrong!?

The world is changing as we know it. With more than 2 months gone in lockdown, it goes unsaid that things aren’t the same anymore and it won’t be same ever. Be it our mental health or the ‘health’ of the jobs that we have been doing, nothing will be the same ever again.

And since, in this blog post, I have decided to open up, let me give you a brief insight into my life right now, in May, 2020. I’ve no work (literally, ZERO), no money in my bank a/c and no matter how many phone-calls or emails I shoot, nothing seems to be working out. All I get as a ‘reply’ is either, “We’ll get back to you with work related query.”, or worse yet, no reply at all.

Frankly, I am not the kind of guy who generally discusses my problems with people, for I believe, everyone has their own share of issues and my issues are something that nobody would really be interesting in hearing. I don’t understand, whether to call it sheer bad luck or the fact that I’m cursed, but nothing seems to be working out in my favour at all.

Take, for example, the car window that was damaged for no apparent reason at all, when there were atleast 4 other bigger cars there parked right besides my car. Still, my small hatchback was targeted. For what? Next, I’ve been running pillar to post to get my Axis bank debit card to be renewed that expired back in the month of April, 2020. But, NOTHING has been done with regards to that either. The bank executives say, generally, they send a message or two well before a card expiration date (which, I agree to), but they fail to understand how I did not receive any message at all.

Plus, the fact that no new ATM card has yet been issue to my account is beyond even their comprehension. Earlier today, I paid my home-branch (which is a whole 20kms. from where my home is) a second visit in the last 7 days, and although I am generally a very optimistic guy, but here, I am absolutely hopeless! I know, for sure that I’d receive a call in a day or two mentioning that my ATM card couldn’t be issued because of some God forsaken reason!

I did not quite believe in luck or destiny before all this Coronavirus pandemic hit us all. Even then, I thoroughly believed in thinking ahead and thinking positive. But, I am slowly breaking down, to the point where I’m just letting everything go. It is not like I am losing hope or I am veering towards depression. Far from that, as a matter of fact. It’s just that strange feeling – the one where you stop arguing, or fighting for even what’s right. Yes, that’s exactly the kind of feeling I am having since the past couple of weeks or so.

I’ve no idea what the future holds for all of us, or for the entire mankind as a whole, but I really want all of us to be at a place from where we can look ahead and see a world where we can live and thrive. Right now, as I see it, every single day is such a massive struggle – right from pushing myself out of the bed to doing everything on a daily basis – every single task feels like an absolute chore, which I despise.

I’ve not had proper food for the past 2 and a half days now. There have been a lot of issues on the family front as well, that’s breaking me from within. But, you know what is the funniest thing in all this? That I cannot even show it to the outer world, for I know it is just no worth it!

I saw him cry…

Yes, I did witness him cry. Just now, moments back. He was looking at a framed family photograph when I was a kid, and just looking at that picture and speaking about when was this taken, his eyes went moist.

When you are young, you always feel your parents are absolutely invincible. For you, they are the “super-hero dads” and “wonder woman moms”. They can fix bruised knees, and any pain that you have with magical kisses. It’s like they make food appear out of nowhere and can turn the “evil monsters” lurking under the bed into whimsical fairy-dust. They are stronger than anything. They are invincible, immortal, untouchable. They just do not get hurt and their word is the law.

My dad has been an Army man and is physically fit even at the age of 70+. He is disciplined, organized, systematic, logical, energetic & sacrificing. I really have forever admired him for his intelligence & personality.

But after looking at his moist eyes, I wish I could just hug him. He started crying before even completing the sentence. My dad cried – the unbreakable, indomitable, rock-steady father that I envisioned to be a super-hero all my life had tears in his eyes. I felt it was more than just moist eyes – it was a painful release. I wished to support him, this time I wated to be the rock, the immortal, immovable, steadfast being. But looking at him, tears started to roll out of my eyes too inspite of all my efforts to control myself and support him.

I realized that my supr-hero dad is only human. An incredible, generous, loving, intelligent man. He has the same hopes & dreams, the same fears and drives and pains that anyone else has. He is a human, after all.

Frames from Sikkim || 2017

Sikkim has always been on my travel diary but somehow it eluded me for years.

Finally, during the month of June 2017, I finally could visit this amazing state. And what I saw literally blew me away. Sikkim is green, clean and all organic (the first & only state in this country!). It is so easy to fall in love with the place that one can’t help but marvel at the amazing natural beauty and the lush sub-tropical woodlands. Words will never be able to do justice to the place.

So, I present a few frames from Sikkim. I hope this gives you the motivation to pack your bags and leave. Sikkim is love. Sikkim is pure magic.

I failed. Again!

 

Tonight, I had slept early. Maybe I was tired or just wanted to rest, I am not sure. But, I fell asleep with the phone in my hand as is generally the case. If I am home, the phone is my friend and gives me constant company when I am not working. And then, an email notification suddenly woke me about 15 minutes back.

I failed tonight. Again. For the Nth time in my life, and each time I fail I lose a little bit of me. You see, a big project that I was working on and was absolutely sure I shall get to do, slipped through my hand tonight. Those 5 lines of email jolted me out of my peaceful sleep like an earthquake would! It’s not that such things haven’t happened in the past. Being in the creative industry, I have faced such failures time & again, but each time it happens, it feels like the first time. The result, essentially, is always the same – every time you fall short of achieving your goal, I fall back and go into deep self-critical role. And THEN, it becomes absolutely impossible and difficult to let go of all that negativity – the negative energy that I feel right at this moment about it all as I pen these words down (or rather, type this down).

As demotivated as I am right now, I think I need to boost my morale by building self-acceptance and through this blog post, I want to help everyone who has ever been through failure in their respective lives. I think, when we hold a negative perception of ourselves,  it is not surprising to feel lost, defeated and like a huge failure in life. Each obstacle, mistake or failure can seem like proof of what we already know, that we won’t succeed and that it is not okay. What we need to do when we feel demotivated or depressed is we need to learn to give priority to ourselves and value ourselves We need to focus on valuing who we are and NOT what you do.

During all these years working as a creative professional, I’ve also come to realize that when we look to our accomplishments for validations of whether we are “worthy” or not, our sense of feeling good about ourselves depends completely on those achievements of life, which, frankly speaking, is a little too harsh.

Yes, I feel terribly upset tonight, yes, I feel dejected & like I’ve failed big time but I also know that with self-acceptance and identifying the issues, I will be fine. I would, at this point in time, love to brag about having truly supportive & compassionate friends but truth be told – they are more like ‘acquaintances’ than friends; I have absolutely NO true friends whom I can fully trust or be open with about my issues. It’s not that I don’t have “friends”. But, those who really care are only a few (less than the number of fingers I have on one hand!). 🙂

At the end of the day, after some thought, self-pity and what not, I have come to realize that persistence is the key to anything in life, and each time I fail, I somehow motivate myself by different means after I am done feeling dejected. This time too, I need to do the same. I need to be persistent. With persistence, no matter what my goals are, I shall increase my chances of achieving them in life…

What a winter Expedition I had!

What an amazing winter expedition I had, with two of my close buddies – snow capped mountains all around, and temperatures dipping to -10 degrees celsius. THIS is precisely what we had come here for. Read the entire story and see the pictures HERE.