A Reluctant Philosopher

Have you ever been in your child's world? An over the pizza chat with my friend, after a crazy round of running around the pizzeria behind my 2-year-old Friend: "When do you think, this craziness stops" Me (instantly): " After the school dulls their creativity"  When I am not obsessing about my parenting responsibilities, it is a delight to look at my 2-year-old. She can create games out of nothing and endlessly engage herself creating-destroying-recreating, as long as her basic needs of food and rest are addressed. My friend and me, we often keep marveling that this undoubtedly is the best age. You are never bored, tired or exhausted. I mention this friend especially because the two of us spent our growing years right from the open creativity to stifled creativity years together. Looking at my 2 years old it gives us a chance to re-live those years of mindless, unabashed creativity.

Last week, I had very little or absolutely no time for myself. When you are working and managing a hyperactive 2-year-old, not having any personal time leaves you exhausted and demotivated. Which made me ponder, what thought would get me back on my feet, energized and raring to go the next morning. What is the purpose that drives me beyond my daily exhaustion? Though I am yet to find the answer, I did seek a path Capitalist quest always leaves one feeling inadequate, A spiritual quest (quest of the mind) always leaves one energized and wanting for more. A quest of the material, of the power of name and fame, can never make you fully happy. Wherever you reach, you would always find yourself not having enough. But with a spiritual quest, a quest of the mind, wherever you reach you find yourself full of all that you have gathered till then and makes you feel whole Both the quests have infinite possibilities but one makes you feel half empty, the other makes you feel half fu...

I have been wondering, that all these years when I had so much time and space in my life, why did I discover the love for writing only recently. Why did it take a good 30 years for me to find this fun hobby? Discounting the first 10-13 years they are just a blur when you think back. Teenage is when you start building a personality of your own, 20's is the time when you structure it and finally by the time I hit 30 I had reached a certain level of comfort with who I am. So I found out what I really enjoy doing when I got really comfortable with who I am and I have a feeling that this one will sustain. Which makes me curious that by the time I hit 40 I would have absolute acceptance of who I am and what I can be, what interesting aspects would that bring about in my life. A thought to ponder. I recently came across a couple of articles about writing, which said keep writing whenever you find the time and another one about passion which said keep sharing few snippets of your ...

After my recent brush with Nothingness, I realized the beauty of our mind. Considering my recent and new found love for writing, I used the nothing time to wander around the field of writing. While thinking about the source of content for writing, I hit upon the idea of fiction and writing fiction. I love stories and have been an avid consumer of fiction. The best fiction is that which completely engulfs you right from start to end. But the thought that made me realize the beauty of our mind is the idea of creating fiction. Fiction is a realm which allows your mind to wander around anywhere. The possibility is immense and one is only limited by their imagination. The thought that just by playing around with your mind you can create any content and reach any corners of the universe got me really excited. I have started appreciating all the writers who wrote the amazing content which filled my childhood. Champak, Billu, Pinki, Asterix Obelix, Tinkle, Enid Blyton Books, Nancy Dre...

In our recent visit to my Husband's village, we had plenty of time to do nothing. With our daily office-home-life routine our life is filled with so many things that we find it really difficult when we encounter nothing. But my 2-year-old had the best time. Kids are unperturbed by nothing, they absolutely love it. She filled her entire nothing time with so many things that for the two days that we were there she slept like a log, a rarity when we are at home in Hyderabad. Also, she loved that everyone else along with her also had nothing to do. So she could do nothing with everyone around. For a change I tried to enjoy the nothing too, it wasn't easy for me. Every time I encountered the nothing , I tried to look for things that I could obsess about , like my daughters next meal, next shower, next something that I can cook up and so on. But a couple of times I made an attempt to soak in the nothingness. Just do nothing and stare. Think nothing and be. Say nothing and list...

I am obsessed about perfection, if I cannot achieve perfection then I perfect the art of displaying perfection. Either way, things have to be perfect. Turning 30 has put me thinking about all the aspects of my life necessary and unnecessary. As per the minimalist philosophy, which I want to bring about in all aspects of my life, one needs to weed out the unnecessary to leave time for the necessary. To achieve that I started with identifying the mistakes that I committed, how they have impacted my life course until now, how to course correct. I have not reached a stage to openly write about my mistakes, but I wanted to write about the process of identifying mistakes. Frankly, this is not an easy process and especially for a perfectionist like me. I refuse to accept that I committed any mistakes. My thought process- If a mistake is done, then you look for ways to justify why you did it instead of accepting that it was a mistake. You build mental stories to brainwash you...

Since the time I have had a daughter, every time I interact with a kid elder than her I keep wondering how will she be at that age, what will be my reaction to her questions or maybe non-questions. Recently I was speaking to a 10 year, all the articles about early onset of maturity in kids is true. I met this kid when she was a bubbly, naughty 4 years old and then met her directly 6 years later. What a transformation :O Initially, I just could not relate to her, I refused to believe that she the same kid I had met 6 years ago. She was tall, calm extremely quiet and slightly lost as she was unable to understand whom can she interact with. I got talking to her and she told me that she is the quietest girl in her class, which I was unable to digest having seen her earlier, that she had very selected friends to whom she spoke to but doesn't speak to about everything. Me: Then whom do you speak to about everything? She: Hmmm, to my brain Now that is the most thoughtful answ...

Mid-Life crisis is a phase which almost everyone undergoes, but no one ever wants to. It is also very difficult to spot when it actually hits you, but on an average, it hits an individual sometime between late 20's to Mid 30's. In one way or the other, it has hit me and I want to define what it looks like. Midlife crisis is a phase in your life where you have gone through one cycle of Love, Career, Relationships, Income and do not have the same excitement as you had the first time to go over this cycle again.  When you start out initially you keep going with the assumption that after you have completed one cycle of Love, Career, Relationships, Income your life would have changed significantly and you will never have to go through this cycle ever again. The point Midlife crisis actually hits and causes a sense of doom is when you realize that it may take several cycles for your life to change or it may never change at all. (Definition of change would vary from individua...

Now that's funny because I was never smoking in the first place. I recently came across the book Allen Carrs EASYWAY to stop smoking. This book is truly a gem, which also speaks why it is a number 1 bestseller for stopping smoking. As a non-smoker, I found this book equally engaging and I was hooked to it till the end. What made me read the book is because it is not so much about Smoking and its ill effects but about the Habit which in small quantities and occasionally does not cause any harm, but it's sustained exposure can cause significant harm and irreversible health impacts. Also, he doesn't try to persuade the reader by using scare tactics or by forcing them to stop, he uses a method which I would call 'Dealing with your subconscious and slowly associating it with your conscious' to stop the Habit. Throughout the time I was reading the book, I was thinking about my Sugar addiction and how I have tried to stop it multiple times, just to start it again. H...

I have a 2-year-old most amazing daughter. I am proud of everything that she does, doesn't do and can speak endlessly about her to whoever is ready to listen. But then this blog is not about her, it is about me and my journey into babyhood. Motherhood is always depicted as the most pious feeling a women can experience. Popular media like Karan Johar's K3G to the bachpan ke 'gay (read cow) humari mata hai' essays have made us believe that there is nothing purer than the mother-child bond. Like all couple's after the initial few years of our relationship, we looked forward to having a baby. A creation which is entirely our own, a creation which is part him and part me, a creation which we build ground up. In reality, all the things above are really nice for literature, movies, poetry and pre-baby couples but the truth is far from above. According to me Motherhood, especially the early years are nature's way of telling you - Haha ' You just got trolled...