With some help

Become a tod bit simple

Yet, it’s yours to make

Do these choices belong with me?

You can keep asking

I don’t want it with me

You can keep saying

But, those choices too don’t have a choice

They were given to you in deliberation

Even the choices look upto you, to get released

Hence, however hard it may be

Right or Wrong

Make the choice

Power of pressure

Pressure is subjective. A scolding could be a breaking point for me, while a full fledged assault could be for you. Hence, pressure is a powerful word. No one knows how much they can take until they lock eyes with the most frightening situation.

I’ve cracked handling pressure. Well, to some extent; Sometimes pressure does get onto me. But the best kind of pressure I can take is the sudden pressure - that blow in the back of the brain you get on a random Friday, that is the pressure I’m talking about. I tackle it by thinking it from the other side.

Question is the answer

“What’s the worst that can happen?”

is the question I ask if I’m panicking because of a problem I’m not able to solve. For example, if I’m given a task to be completed within a day and it had been two days with no progress, manager pings me for an emergency meeting, back of the mind I know it’s about the task, I start panicking. Thoughts in chaos, sweat drops forming under my neck, heart beat in zone 5, breathing like I’ve just run a marathon. In that moment, I ask myself THE question. What’s the worst? I start answering it from there. I might lose the job if it’s as bad as I’m feeling. Can I sustain it? Well, I have my home to go back. Not much debt. Guess I can manage until I get another. I don’t think I’m that bad that I won’t get another job ever. So, I’ll be fine even if this meeting goes to the worst possible extent.

This helps bring my vitals back to normal and think sanely. The whole drill helped me many times not only bring me out of panic, but also solve the immediate problem quickly. And guess what, I was never fired!

It’s not that bad

We generally fall into panic in such scenarios cause our fear takes over our logical brain. What if I lose my salary? Will I lose respect with my family? Will everyone laugh at me cause I make dumb decisions? Am I that horrible of a person? Don’t I really deserve a promotion or a raise? All these questions dance around cause you’ve heard one or the other from someone, saw it on a sad reel, or a youtuber ranted about it.

In all sense, you are fine most of the time. Probability of you getting fired or getting humiliated is quite low if you work well and have good friends. So next time you are facing the panic meeting room, ask the question. “What is the worst that can happen to me?”

When I go back

Even now, It’s not as if I’ve exited instagram fully. I install the app every Saturday to post about the new blog and also to catch up on any new photos my friends and family have posted; and the algorithm works like a charm when you come back after long breaks. As I scroll through my feed, almost every post is of someone I know and a post which I generally look upto. But hardly couple of posts later comes AI slop or random reel to hook me back onto the app. I turn it off.

The app generally stays on my phone for a day or two. Saturday night, as I hit the bed, I get this feeling that I’ve achieved the goal of not using instagram for a week, hence I’m entitled to the reward of using it for one night before I uninstall it again tomorrow. I don’t like that feeling.

Not a reward

As long as I reward myself of social media, it means I look upto it. That isn’t solving the fact that I don’t want to be within the circle of these apps. I plan to move away from that circle, but I subconsciously linger within the borders of that circle for the whole week looking to the point of hopping back in. Am I really pulled that hard back into the circle?

All this happens because I see the potential within, but not without. So, I started looking outside the circle. How did this help?

It helped me with my focus. A Lot.

Fooooocus

That’s a simple sentence, but for a guy who gets distracted very easily, is a strong sentence. I am able to focus on small and large goals quite well. It could be as easy as sleeping early to wake up early, or as hard as working on a dead set goal for eight hours in office. Whichever way I see it, I’ve gained a lot more focus in last couple of months. This also is trickling into me being calm rather than stressing out when things aren’t working out.

Then, what are the drawbacks, Rahul? There definitely should be drawbacks when you move out of all knowing god algorithm showing you the world topics within seconds.

I don’t get news instantly

Am I late?

It could be war or it could be tariffs. I’m at best late by couple of hours, at worst by a day. But, that isn’t a big deal. It was never a big deal to get the news slightly late - just these mega companies made us think it is.

Most of these news don’t affect me in such short span, cause my professional and personal life work in months and years. I am no intraday trader to lose lakhs in monetary value just because I saw the news fifteen minutes late; I’m just a regular 9 to 5 dude. But I do have a good circle of friends who ping me every once in a while talking about breaking news. Guess they are my news reporters.

Glad I’m out

All in all, I haven’t lost much and gained a lot. People who want to reach me out (or I want to reach out to) anyways are connected on WhatsApp - if not, a phone call away. Sending a reel a week to that friend with whom I haven’t spoken to in years anyways didn’t help me to be in contact. A phone call on a random holiday did it much better.

That made me remind of the story I wanted to write couple of years ago. Not a blog, but a full fledged novel. Well, like every other reader, I too went through the phase of ‘I want to become a writer’ and built a thesis around the book I wanted to write. I did start writing it on a Google doc before I’ve realised I’m way worse of a fiction writer (Well, non-fiction writing? Am I good?) than I’ve imagined myself to be.

The story is about my present self meeting my younger self in a dark, damp room. We both hold a book each. My book contains the self I portray to everyone - confident, intelligent, empathetic etc. The kid on the other side says his book has the true meaning of me. He says the book I’m holding is a mask above my true self. But that kid doesn’t even let me have a peek into his book cause he’s too scared that I might judge him. It’s quite ironic to think about the fact that my own younger self is scared of being judged by older self. That Irony is what I wanted to write about.

I tried building upon this plot - where it starts, how it starts, where it goes. I could never think of an end. Though I tried to end the story even before I started writing, none of the ends I’ve thought through were satisfactory. It truly is like how Stephen King said “A story is not like a statue which you are going to carve. The story is already there somewhere in the rock buried. You are just uncovering it.”

As I’ve said, I neither had the guts nor the patience to convert it into a book. Guess the statue was never to be revealed then, or was not to be revealed by me. So, here I am, putting it out into the universe, so that someone might pull it out of the ground.

But there were times where I get angry of my friend’s questions. I can explain once, if not twice, but also thrice if needed; but how many more times does he expect me to do it? How the heck are you not understanding this basic point? Do you even know any of the basics?

These days, I’ve stopped asking such questions. If I get angry of someone not understanding what I say, I’ll take a deep breath, breath out slowly, and smile. Cause, all of us are trying our best, and some of us are taking only two tomatoes, until I convince you need five.

Such a cruel world I must say. Efficiency is bombarded through us. Get it done faster. Learn the whole textbook in a single shot. Become rich overnight. Time is limited, run faster.

Yes! Time is limited - but that doesn’t mean it has to be counted in seconds. Time is counted in memories. Ten years down the lane, you won’t remember how quickly you’ve completed the homework on a random Thursday. You’ll only remember how good that english passage felt, that you read it hundreds of times. Time is of essence, and essence is to be felt - not calculated.

Some of us feel time differently. You might be fast, I might be slower than you, my friend could be the slowest of all. But, we all are trying to do something great our own way. We are building dynasties one brick at a time. If it means it has to be rebuilt again and again as per your liking, I’m here to take a deep breath and Smile.

Not all we do makes sense. We need to do things we don’t want to, cause it is how it should be done. These I accept. Though we don’t want to make some decisions, deep down it is the right decision. It’s like eating healthy is a no brainer and you hate to do it, but deep down you know it has to be done.

But, you realise these are correct decisions only when you understand who you are. If you are among a collection of people who smoke every day and give reasons as if it’s fine to smoke once a day, you don’t even question the problem. You don’t even realise there is a problem. But, when you are deep into the night, awake while the whole world is sleeping and start questioning some of your decisions, you shudder at some of them. You don’t know why, but you halt for a second in that doubt not knowing if the question itself is wrong, or if you are not able to find the answer. Those moments are where you find yourself.

And it is different for different people. Someone might like spending money on books cause it makes them intelligent or happy, while others love saving every penny not even having a tea outside. It is our self, hence we are unique. But finding ourself is crucial. Only when you understand the actions, is when you can rest. Until then, you might throw away food just because everyone around us is doing the same.

Finding yourself is hard, holding onto yourself is even harder. In today’s day and age, everyone around is trying to beat you down. It might not be because they enjoy it, but they might have lived that way. Still, when others stir up your emotions and you crack, you can’t make decisions by yourself. And when that happens, you need a well-wisher you can rely on. Confusion is personal, and it can’t creep that easily onto people who are close to you. Their emotions run separate, yet they can decide for you cause they know who you are.

Relying on others is the toughest. We are taught to solve problems by ourselves. We are never taught how to rely on people. But, when your internal emotions are in chaos, trying to solve problem creates more problems. You are to sit idle while your friend or partner takes over. Need not regret the decision, cause you will stand strong for them later. Right now though, sitting silent is better than creating chaos.

I can’t put what had been going through my mind, and all this revelation started in just couple of minutes. In those minutes, I went into denial, then acceptance, then portrayal of a different self of me. In those mere minutes, I lost a part of me which I am not able to find back. Since then, I feel more neutral to all emotions, including pain, fear, happiness, guilt and regret. All of these have come down drastically to settle into a silent pond.

The older me might’ve kept searching for those emotions. But, I don’t even feel right searching for them. It feels as if I am meant to be here. To go through pain isn’t wrong, but necessary to understand myself.

No joke, I’ve been searching for a quote which describes where I am in this moment. None captures. It’s like I’m looking for that one Instagram reel which appeared only for a second and now is lost for eternity. But, I will try to put my experience in a single statement.

To grow is to feel the pain fully. Not to understand, but to just feel it to the core

I am not even at a state to judge any of my situations right now. Everything right or wrong, just is. That’s it - it just is. I am here to see it through, not to change the course. To be honest, this isn’t hard. This is sad; cause I never felt so open to all I am seeing.

All of what I’ve written seems vague, and I’m sorry for that. But I really am not able to put them to words. One thing I did understand which I can put in words though. If you want to grow fast, you have to pick the hardest path. If you want to catapult the farthest compared to others, you need to pull back on the rubber as hard as you can before release. But in all this process, you might have to sacrifice something. Maybe the catapult itself will be broken to push you forward, but you need to be ready for it.

Greatest sacrifices create the strongest warriors

There could be million reasons I could be fat - but do I want to become fit is the question. If yes, then I have to own it. Me loving sweets or not being able to cook, doesn’t make me fit. They just silence the person about the topic in that moment. Ultimately I’m still fat. Achievement is a lot of hard work and it could mean that I can’t blame anyone else but myself.

Step one in achieving goals is accepting the facts. My resting heart rate is 47 bpm. Quite low compared to many. I can first accept it as a fact - having low heart rate means I don’t burn much calories throughout the day. If I need to lose weight, I have to workout. There is no other choice. Next, eat less calories. Even if it means less fried food or less sweets, it’s fine. Two years down the lane I won’t miss the sweets I’m skipping today, but I’ll definitely feel guilty if I’m not fit.

All this boils down to taking ownership. My life is being steered by me alone. Though there are family, friends and colleagues helping me on the way, I hold the steering wheel. Do I want to steer through rough waters to reach the destination faster, steer through calm waters to reach the destination slower, or don’t have to steer at all and let the ocean decide where I have to go, resides with me. Unless I take hold of my ship, I just drift through other’s blames and compliments.

Did I lose weight? Oh yes! I did. Do I miss eating comfort food? Sometimes, but not much. Do people still thing I’m fat? Yes, but there are also people who think I’ve slimmed down. Do I get affected by those? Nope; I now have a strong grip on which way should my ship go. Even if I don’t reach the destination, it’ll be on my call.

As I was reading my book, I got the drink on my table. That looked classy. Nice. I’ve put the straw inside the glass, gave couple of stirs hearing to the peaceful clinking sound of ice and took my first sip. Then I realised, I don’t like black coffee.

I freaking forgot the fact that I pick coffee with milk just because I love coffee sweet but hate it black. But from my second sip, I ignored that fact.

I might not like black coffee in general. That doesn’t mean I need to reject this drink in front of me. I’ve ordered it to try something new. Something new doesn’t mean good all the time. It could be not-good too. But I picked something new to take that chance.

Taking chances is what I’ve lacked because I’ve been trained to not disturb if it’s already good enough. If cappuccino is good enough, why to disturb that decision. Why should I even take the chance of ruining it, right?

Choice isn’t about ruining your old one, but to stumble on an even better one. One drink ruined, one meal not enjoyed, one book getting bored, one movie getting slacked, one job getting fired, one investment getting dumped, one relationship getting hurt. All these were choices made not because you could hit the bottom, but to find something even more incredible than present. If this one didn’t work, that’s fine; There’s always another. If that failed too, that’s fine too. One more go.

Only when I step out of comfort zone is when I can find better comfort zones. This process will definitely include harsh zones. One harsh zone doesn’t mean everything is worse. Gold buried deep down, but you have to dig through rocks. One speck of gold could make all that digging worth it.

PS: Ignore the bad setup of the picture. I got the idea for this blog after I completed the drink and I couldn’t click another one.

I did enjoy some before, but the prospect that it might not be a good event and it might ruin a big chunk of my predictable day pulls me away from them. Hence I’ve mostly been reading books by myself or talking to friends who has a predictable character.

I thought I’ll give it a try this time and went for the event. Starting 6 30 in the evening till 11 in the night, I even forgot I have a dopamine production facility in my pocket. It was a group of about twenty people playing a board game called “Catan”. Though it was my first time playing the game, and though I’ve lost, I loved being present in those moments.

I thought being with predictable people is better than taking the chance of going out. I suppose it’s the other way around.

Only when I meet new people is when I realise life’s much more than calmness. It could be sadness, happiness, jealousy, grit, silence, sincerity, anger, resentment, and a million other things. We are here to experience everything. We are not to be with predicticality, but to be with just people.

Guess I’ve grown to love the comfort. Comfort’s my safe space. Nothing’s wrong with a safe space. Still, every once in a while, only if I look out for new friends will I have a chance of growing my safe space. I can always come back home. But I can also bring new people in.

We are innately designed to look for flaws. It could be learnings from family, learnings from society or just ancestral DNA to should ourselves as superior the moment we meet a new person. Though we don’t accept it, we look for flaws all the time. We are fast to categorise how the other person is below us. This happens with media too. If you see an article headlined “Bill Gates donated a billion dollars to charity” you might think it as meh. But if you read “Bill Gates uses his donations not to pay taxes” we are quick to open the article and see how he’s much worse than we are.

Well, I don’t have any problem with an article, but with how we all perceive these flaws in general. First of all, what we DON’T LIKE becomes a FLAW. If you don’t like chicken, someone eating chicken becomes a flaw. As simple as that. We perceive ourselves to be the highest being among beings.

Broadly speaking, none of us think there’s any downside to it. On the contrary, it becomes an upside to bitch about them among your peers. But these “Radar for flaws” dripped into my daily life one drop at a time.

My cousin sleeps are 8pm. That’s a hard fact. Whatever the world hits him with, he doesn’t give a damn about it; he has to hit bed by eight. No joke, this pissed me off whenever we wanted to go out for dinner at nine — he was the first to say no. He might suggest that he’ll stay back this time. But I want it to be a night of all, not a night of all minus one cousin. But slowly I’ve tried accepting it as a fact rather than a flaw. If we need to go out, we just need to plan it such that we’re back by eight. It’s as simple as that. If we can’t make it before eight, then maybe we can postpone the plan to another day or it’s fine if we go by ourselves if my cousin says so.

As I started accepting them as facts, my life had become quite easy. “He won’t wake up early for sunrise? It’s fine. I can go by myself” “ She can’t eat non-veg on Saturdays? Well, we just have to plan the party on a non-Saturday”. Going with their flow to understand them better, rather than complaining that they aren’t in my flow, made sense.

Implementing this with new people was easy; It’s a lot harder with people I’ve travelled for years or decades. Again, it’s not impossible, it’s just hard. There are always ways to make, those who’ve travelled with me for better part of my life, happy; and accepting them as is, becomes the first step.

I’ve heard people say that I can write anywhere, need not be at a cafe. There were times where I’ve tried writing at home but just couldn’t focus. I took a lot of time to accept the fact that I lose focus quickly.

Well, I’ve realised it long ago; But acceptance took time. There is a difference in those two, which changed the course of how I look at myself. It’s like a kid realising a sharp object is harmful because his parent told him so, yet keeps playing with it. Only when he’s hurt by it is when he accepts that it’s harmful and avoids such objects.

Focus for me was same. But accepting something unique to you when everyone else around seems to ignore it, is harder. Becoming aware of my distracted mind took years to understand. Hence I’ve created a routine which works for me.

Whenever you have a problem and ask an expert for a solution, most of the times the answer will be “It depends on you”. That’s the most frustrating statement to hear when you are seeking for a straight forward solution. But I’ve realised the beauty in it recently while I made up my mind to write a blog every week.

To achieve it, I had to do whatever works for me. So I formulated a routine and ironed it one week at a time.

The whole week, I look for a cafe; On Saturday I go to the cafe alone to read and write.

I don't have any other plan for the whole Saturday. I sit for close to four hours to get into the groove to write, by first reading for an hour, think for about ten minutes and then start writing. Is this a long routine for a small blog? Maybe. But I wanted my blog to come out well for me to carry that satisfaction until next Saturday.

That I’m able to achieve only if I take it slow.

“Why is that dog thin?”

“Who is that man talking to?”

“Why is this road black?”

“Why is that kid digging in sand like me?”

“Why am I not human?”

“Where does this road go?”

There was never a small or a big question. He was a questionnaire whole day everyday.

Why stop there? He wanted to do everything every other being is doing around him. Ride a bike. Yell at a car. Throw stones back at people. Run. Hide. Howl late in the night.

His group of friends are mostly elder than him, cause pups were never able to either get permission to play with him or his games were too scary for small minds. Group of five. (There should be six. But that coward seems to have left to a different group on the other road).

One late evening, a guy was running as the pup sat in the middle of the road. “Well, he’s anyways running on the side of the road. Why should I be moving if I’m not on the way,” the pup thinks. That runner didn’t bother too, but intrigue took over. He stopped, turned back to see the pup. Not a muscle moved since when he sat there. Pup looked back at him.

“Why is he looking at me? Looks like a brawl. I’m always ready for one. No wait, he’s smiling. Who smiles before a brawl? I will show him my mightiest muscles so that he gets scared. Why did he bring that white slab in front of his face? Guess he’s scared to see me buffed up. Now he’s smiling looking at the slab. Should I just run to him and grab that slab with my well trained jaw. Well, I won’t lose my stance. Let him feel the power of my stare. Seems like he got scared and ran away”

“Wait. Before he ran, he said something. Well, I was preparing war strategies while he said it. What did he say? I only heard the word Mighty”

“Anyways, I’ll go back to my quest of becoming the best dog on this road. Let the gang on the next road get scared of my roar once I get it”

I’ve been thinking about this encounter for a while; go through it every time I see the shop. That kid might’ve thought me to be one of those mad customers who yells all the time and even forgot about it. But I held onto the question. “Was yelling at him the right choice?” The instant answer the other half of my brain gave was, yes. Taking care of an item I took so much time and effort in buying and maintaining is valid. This is why people don’t give their valuables to others; I shouldn’t too. But then, why does the question come back again and again? What was I missing?

When I bought my bikes, I knew I’ll love riding it. As months went by, I’ve realised something else. More than me riding, I liked giving rides to people on it. Even more, I loved how it made people smile when they rode it. Though I got scared giving it to people imagining the worst scenarios of what might happen if they don’t drive it well, I liked giving it to their inner kids. We boys grow up looking at a cool bike on a road every once in a while thinking we will ride such a bike someday. I’ve made it happen not only for myself, but for many around me too which makes the bike even more special.

Well, the tyre shop owner’s boy might’ve had the same dream of driving one someday. He it in front of of his eyes and grabbed the opportunity. It’s easy to say ‘He should’ve asked’ rather than ‘I should’ve smiled’.

I’ve been thinking how many such instances are happening in my life everyday where I give more importance to material than people. Plenty. But the real question is “Why?”. Why have we become such materialists?

I’ve answered it with a single word “Capitalism”. Maybe companies have moulded us in a way to cherish the products more than people. But putting blame on an entity I don’t control feels like saying it’s not my fault. Is yelling at a kid, looking heart-fully at a dream bike, not my fault? It is. It’s all my responsibility to take my happiness into my own hands. It’s all our responsibility to treat people more lovingly than your premium bag, People don’t want to ruin the thing. They just want to experience it once, feel the happiness for a second or two before they move on with their lives.

I argue, letting people create happiness through your products will create a story around your product and makes it even more memorable. From a premium bike, it becomes a bike which made a kid smile and look at you with tears of hope.

It isn’t that I am not thinking of doing it now. I know I have to do it now. Still I plan to do it later in the day, or I regret that I didn’t do it at the earlier part of the day when I was free. I am still free now. What is stopping me?

It could be laziness. I am lazy to do it so I keep procrastinating. But it isn’t the laziness alone. It is part of the problem. Maybe I find peace in the aspect that “I can do” instead of “I will do”.

Can we do anything we believe? Yes. Should we do everything we believe? No. Doing everything makes us too diverted, and at least I don’t have enough focus to do a million things. That means I need to select one thing. But the moment I select one thing, I lose the hope that I can do everything.

This had been bugging me for a while. What am I good at? Writing, Teaching, Coding; might not be the best, but good enough. But, do I want to be a full time writer? I don’t have enough experience in writing. Do I want to be a full time teacher? Even if I love it, I don’t think I can earn as much as a coder. Do I want to be a full time coder then? Maybe I could be a breakthrough writer if I concentrate enough.

Rather than the answer, I love to remain in the question. If I am nothing, I am everything. But, it is more the other way around. The harder I hold onto the question, the more time I’m losing to become one. I should be one. I can’t be none.

That stuck to a corner in my brain for long. Another quote I read reignited that thought.

The fact that we already choose an option from bunch yet we go through the confusion, is fascinating and real. Let’s take an example as simple as picking between tea and coffee. The moment you see the options, you already know which one you want. Yet, you go through the confusion with a deep discussion on what to choose. Both sides will have what you like and what you don’t, and you start weighing them one by one. Logical animal is what you think you are. But you are just a confused carrot.

Confused reality

Life is an ocean of confusion. Options make us dizzy but those are what we want. Options make us think we are deciding with mind. Filter out the opportunities and pick the best. But there is another machine running within, which already picked the option. You are just weighing out more and more features towards that option to pick it.

This might not be true everywhere. But wherever your emotional energy is needed, it is true. And weirdly, this isn’t about the options themselves, but the deeper meaning within them. Whenever we pick an option to which we need to devote a part of our life, there is a part of us which goes with it. Picking the option which your soul is yearning for is tough. Let me explain it through my own experience.

An Apple Watch story

I always wanted to try Apple Watch. Through watching launch videos, reviews on YouTube and family friends telling how good it is, I always wanted to own one. But, just as my sister was buying it for me, one doubt kept poking from within.

Me being a fan of mechanical-analog watches, will a smart watch with absolutely no soul, which I have to charge everyday, which pings my wrist everytime there’s notification, be a perfect fit? Even through all the contemplation, I got the watch. I even shared these thoughts with one of my friends before getting the watch, but it was just a casual conversation. But, I did enjoy wearing it all the time. After a month, one sleepless night I realised, though I love technology, I don’t like wearing such a lifeless watch. Watching my wrist, I felt it to be so bland. I shared the same with that friend on that night and I clearly remember what reply I got

I remember you sharing the same concern when you were getting the watch. Guess you are just not a smart watch guy, and that’s fine.

I’m thankful to that friend the most. Even today, I know I love smart watches but I also know I don’t like owning one.

Underlying soul

I took the decision of liking a mechanical watch not because of the fact that it is manual, but I like the underlying fact that it had less features and has only one task of telling time; unlike a smart watch with a million features. I like these two different products for two different reasons and now know which to pick.

As I look back, I know every single time I took a good decision, I didn’t filter it through logic but through heart. Does that mean our heart should run our life?

I don’t think so too. However much I like watches, I can’t buy all mechanical watches on this planet making me bankrupt. There is a thin line and I’m finding that line increasingly well with one mantra

That worked extremely well starting with my Garmin watch. Though I don’t like a smart watch and it didn’t financially make sense too to buy a fitness watch, that purchase paid off big time by helping me in my fitness journey in the long run. And I’m pretty sure it’ll pay off much better in coming years.

Credit to my friends too in helping me find my line everyday, not by talking from their perspective, but talking sense through my perspective.

I enjoy it

Still, it’s hard. Picking an option with long term goal all the time is a lot harder than what I’ve written. But, I’m liking the process. I like to pick one and go through the internal dialogue of, "Is this what I need". There is always a learning through every choice.

As I came out for tea, instantly I knew something was off. Maybe my energy is a bit down than normal, or it’s the cold kicking in. I couldn’t pin point what it was. As I started walking, I’ve realised I’m calm and can think through though the traffic on road is honking and people around me are talking loud. That’s definitely not normal. It’s not me, it’s the Weather.

I looked at the sky. Grey stretch all around, no clouds, subtle mist floating in the air plopping onto my cheeks neatly, the cooler air without much breeze. This is the weather I love, and I started speaking back to it.

I grabbed my bag and started walking towards the mall. It is there that I look at books at the bookstore and write for a while. The road to the mall is the busiest in the city and I hate honking sounds. Music lets me enjoy the walk. Today, though the traffic is more than normal, I was walking with no music. I was looking not at the cars or people, but at the grey sky.

The whole experience feel sad. I could feel the cool temperature on my face, the greyness getting darker as minutes pass and leaves bustling to the subtle breeze. It could be combination of all these, or just the air around me talking.

I don’t know why the air’s sad, but I want to be with it. I don’t have a reason to be with sadness, or that I have something to share back. I want to be present with it, all my senses open to listening to what the air says.

Is the weather getting better as it talks? I am not sure. It’s almost sunset and the sky is getting darker every minute. I can’t rely on vision cause yhe light’s going away. Just the breeze around me is real now.

To be frank, I don’t even want to know if I’m making any difference. I don’t want a conclusion. I just want to sit outside and let it talk. I’ll be here to listen.

This had been disturbing me, but I held back from writing it thinking I might not do enough justice to the story if I don’t write it good. The part I missed is the fact that I was doing injustice not writing about it in the first place; and the story kept nibbling within, forcing to get out of me.

Before I start, I would like to make some points clear. One, not in a million years can I write it the way a woman can cause I have’t been through the pain; I am trying to put everything I’ve heard into words as best as I could. Two, I can’t and won’t share any of the stories I’ve heard; those are private and I have no intention to hurt anyone by making them public. Three, this blog hopefully makes everyone realise we are here to help in a world of hell.

Let’s repeat what I said. 9 out of 10 girls around us were hurt physically so bad, they are living in fear to a degree. None of this can be detected just from looking at their expressions, having a casual talk with them or even being their best friend. That one story where a guy mishandled a girl is deep within them, that room in their heart is dark and stale from not letting out any part of sadness. I’ve heard one by one only after they chose to break the walls of that room. I could see how hard it was to bring it out, but they realised it had to be shared with someone for them to get relieved from the burden.

Almost all of those stories were from their childhood. That’s worse. Woman are hurt when they were in their most vulnerable and are made to carry the weight their whole life. From forcing a girl when she was alone at home, blackmailing her not to share it with anyone, the weight gradually increases every year until someone has to show enough care to break it out.

I never thought this to be a problem in my lifetime. I always thought these to be once-upon-a-time issues. The truth, it’s higher now than before. More educated the people, more rebellious the actions. And the worst of it all, it will be even higher in coming years. Social media unlocked no freedom; on the contrary, it unlocked fear. None of the problems are solved by posting them; it only gives the spotlight on the person. Either the victim or the culprit gets the full light, not the freaking problem. It’s as simple as “Like this post if you support woman safety”, where we like that post and move on. That Like counts to the post and the Instagram channel, nothing towards the problem your closest friend face when she had to walk home limping cause a senior took advantage of the innocence.

It’s horrible, sad, scary but none of the emotions count in the moment. We are to open up our emotional space to broken woman, only then they break open the rotten story out into us.

Even woman number 10 might be having a story which didn’t come out yet. Maybe every single girl is harassed to some degree at some point. Maybe this world is 0% safe and 100% cruel. But it isn’t 100% deaf. We all can hear those stories from girls around us and bear the weight along.

I even love books for the same reason. These aren’t self propelling and are slow. Very slow. And I like slow. I like to own a single pen for years, refilling it every week by myself from an ink bottle, cleaning it every month so that it works smoothly, putting it back in the same box I got it delivered in. Though I don’t own a mechanical watch, I like the fact that it has to be manually wound every day for it not to stop working. All of these deliberate actions, which takes time and patience.

They live with you. They work only if you take care of them regularly. “But Rahul, even a ball point pen needs a refill every couple of months, and change of battery in a quartz watch every year or two.” Yup, but they don’t live with you. The watch keeps ticking for a year though it’s in a shelf. The pen still works even after two months of not writing. Not a Fountain pen and a Mechanical watch. The life in them keeps ticking away if you don’t show love. In Fountain pen, nib dries out in mere days, so as in a mechanical watch energy drains away in hours. It’s as if these two are waiting to be picked again from the point you put them down.

Many argue we need things which free up our time to be productive. Well my productivity comes out when I’m slow and dragging. If you see me running all over to complete tasks, that’s what I’m doing, just completing them. Only when I am gazing a slowly rotating fan or walking slowing looking at an empty road, is when I’m thinking through a difficult problem. The slowness helps me go through the thoughts, filter the required ones and plan my problem through. And we miss it. We all miss it.

It might go as a sugar scooper for today. Tomorrow, maybe an upgrade to a soup sipper. The next day, back to scoop salt. A down, then up, then down. At end of every task, ends up in the sink to make it shiny, clean and ready for the next task. But this spoon shows some promise. It is resilient. The scratches show it had been through tough times, still it sits ready for the ultimate task. Maybe today, a hundred days from today or a decade later. This spoon doesn’t seem like others which are just bunched up in a glass to be used for anything. This spoon isn’t for anything. It is for one thing and all the other tasks are just waiting period for that one thing.

Maybe that one thing had already passed and the spoon is in its retirement. Yet it doesn’t show any weakness. The resilience is strong. Maybe a task of a lifetime was already done, still the spoon likes to climb higher. So, an ever higher purpose is being bestowed upon as we speak and it’s waiting; for that next bigger purpose.

Will the spoon retire at least after that? Doesn’t look so. After that higher purpose, maybe it is cleaned, dried and still shows promise. The waiter thinks, “Should I even send it for anything higher? This spoon had already been through so much. I could buy a new one with modern design and a different material.” Well, spoons can’t talk. Yet the waiter is attracted to the resilience of this spoon. Maybe on more try? Just this time?

Spoon doesn’t say no.