Ishwarya's Blog, page 4

When I Refused To Love You

Feels like an aeon ago

Since I last saw you

Your hair is longer

Your eyes speak another language

Those clothes are new to your wardrobe

The tone of your voice is new to my ears

Where’s the girl I knew?

Where’s the girl who isn’t impervious to constant smiles?

You’re different

So very different

The memories bash my mind

How you loved holding my hand

How you took care of my happiness

How you protected my sanity

How you rooted me to your warmth

How you gave me a reason to laugh everyday

How you sky rocketed my mind to thousands of inspirations

How you shielded dark forces from penetrating my thoughts

How you loved me

How much you loved me

There is none left now

Not even cold leftovers

I’m staring at a concrete wall

The bright home is gone

The warm love is gone

No, wait

Not completely

Because they are all relative to me

Me, alone

You’re the bright home to everyone else

Is it you?

Or is it me?

Or is it my guilt ridden subconsciousness?

Which gives me this vision?

I know I ripped your heart out

I know I tossed it into the bin

You waited with tear streaked eyes

You waited with divinely blessed patience

Waited until I finished the deed

Before you said you had enough

You are a rational concrete wall

Reasoned with excuses

Seasoned with needed temper

To refuse your warmth

But you don’t show your temper

Your good heart isn’t allowing it

The heart I kicked away

The heart I didn’t want

But I never realised that I did

I never realised I couldn’t think sensibly without you

Loving you was the best luck knocking on my door

Loving you was the blessing of a beautiful life

I never realised that

Until now

Now that I look at what I’ve lost

I can’t aim for a second chance

I can’t aim to put the pieces back together

I can’t aim to never let you go again

Because there is solid proof of losing you completely

It’s there on your right hand

Flashing its imperious smirk at me

Mocking me

Dangling you in front of me

Diamond superglued to metal

Metal superglued to skin

Sealing my fate

Each tear of mine is a dark and lonely ocean

I’ve lost you, darling, I’ve lost you

I’ve lost you

She Thinks

She thinks no one likes her.

She thinks no one listens to her.

She thinks she is of no importance.

She thinks she is unattractive.

She thinks she only has one friend.

She thinks she’d rather throw up than talk out loud.

She thinks she’d rather dive under the table than laugh out loud.

She thinks she’s inferior.

She thinks she can’t impress anyone.

She thinks she can’t talk to me.

She thinks I don’t like her.

She thinks I’m intimidating.

She thinks I don’t notice how much she wants to talk to me.

She thinks I don’t notice the common likes we share.

She thinks I don’t notice how very similar we are.

She thinks I don’t know that.

She thinks the huge gang of girls at my beck and call are the only people I’ll hang out with.

She thinks I don’t want to become close to her.

She thinks I don’t want to adopt her as a sister.

She thinks I’m cold hearted.

She thinks I’m mean and horrible.

She thinks I don’t want to invite her to my house.

She thinks I don’t want to have girl time with her.

She thinks I don’t want to hang out with her.

She thinks I laugh at her and ridicule her.

She thinks I didn’t get jealous when I heard she took her best friend to her house.

She thinks I don’t envy her best friend for getting to be by her side all the time.

She thinks I don’t wish I could be her best friend.

She thinks I don’t admire her patience, integrity, intelligence, kindness and creativity.

She thinks I don’t think she’s one of the best people on the planet.

~ Views of a popular girl on a quiet girl on the sidelines

Flourishing In My Rebirth

Everything feels fresh

Everything feels new

All the links that exist

All the proof of my existence

All the places of my imprint

The products in my possession

Displayed in front of me

Sitting on my lap

Hugging my body

Snuggling into my hand

String together flashes of memories

When I was scarless and whole

A fine line has been drawn

With materialistic precision

Dividing the past from present

Each step I take

Each move I make

Each breath I take

Provokes thoughts of wonder

The possibility of accomplishment

Without accessories to aid

Free from precautionary measures

Empress of the qualification to jump and skip

Capability to devour even rocks

Fitness to lift heavy weights

State to be demanded of

Feels like an aeon ago

Yet it is all me

It has always been me

It will always be me

Me, the one I love most

Still has the spirit and grit

Still has the power and fitness

Still has everything I ever owned

I will always have them

I will rejuvenate the qualifications

I will strengthen the capabilities

I will sculpt the fitness

I will regain my state of power

Look at me

This is me

Flourishing in my rebirth

 

 

 

 

How Can People Not Care?

The attitude of simply refusing to care about other people’s welfare is currently cornering the market of humanity. Everywhere I turn, I see betrayal in all forms of existence, sometimes offering a coating to the much stronger word – thievery. Right from the cunning fruit sellers to the bad doctors who don’t let patients approach better doctors, they live to just con people out of their money.

I see these fruit sellers come up to the door and attempt to coax us into buying the fruits but if you blink a second longer, into your basket goes one or two of the rotten ones the seller cleverly hides between the good ones you selected. This happens at the fruit market as well. How, just how? How in the world is the urge to sneak in a bad fruit provoked? Doesn’t the seller feel guilty at all? How does their hand not tremble as they commit this wrong?

Some colleges offer great hostel necessities as well as nutritious food of variety but there are also loads of colleges that don’t offer the necessities they initially boast of until the heavy cheque is handed over. No bus services for the students to get to the city’s bus station safely and no service of proper and healthy food which drains the students of healthy muscle, which mothers have to work on building up until their visit is over. Because of the lack of the balanced and delectable diet provision, students feel the urge to go out and eat, which isn’t good for their health either.

All that bulk of money they obtain from each students’ parents, can’t those colleges use them to provide basic amenities that will satisfy the health and safety of the students? Can’t they save the trust parents have on them? What’s the issue with providing red and white meat twice a week to supply the necessary protein? What are they doing with their gargantuan bank account?

There are more doctors than we can imagine who use their profession to con people out of their money alone. Money those people would have either hard earned or obtained through selling property and jewellery, which takes up a strength of will. Cunning doctors snatch them easily by luring those poor souls with the false promise of making everything all right. How can they do that? How can they be so heartless?

For the sake of money, they don’t let the patient go either. How the hell can a doctor supposed to specialise in general surgery know anything about the skeletal system or nervous system? Yet, they don’t allow the patients to approach an orthopaedic surgeon or neuro surgeon when they know one. Cause then the payment of that patient getting all better and leading a normal life will go to the other doctor. Educated deceive the uneducated very easily. How in the universe can anyone have the urge to destroy another person’s life?

And it’s not just the doctors specialising in something different from the patient’s problem. The doctors in the same field do the same thing! Take the field of orthopaedics (skeletal system) for example. There’s this inexperienced doctor just fresh out of his post graduate or PhD and he claims he knows everything there is to know about orthopaedics. Man, he can even perform a hip replacement surgery! He doesn’t let go of the patient who approaches him, thus damaging the particular bone in problem or has fractured even further before the poor soul or the family finally chase him away and approach a well experienced doctor, who takes the drastic measures to fix all the fresh damages before tending to the initial problem. These inexperienced doctors who live for money can even destroy the life of the patient completely if they don’t take up the warning sign seriously and have another better doctor save them.

Another way money is conned out of patients is by having them take all these scans that aren’t necessary for the problem they have, just so that they’ll pay the bill for the scans, as well has not discharging the patient at once when they are fit to go home, so that they’ll pay rent for the extra days.

Really, how?

I can’t fathom the mystery of the origin of this attitude.

How can you ever live with yourself after stealing someone’s money like this as well as damaging their lives? How can you betray the trust they place in you when they enter your hospital?

If you can’t do it, then ask the patient to approach another doctor who can do it. Why manacle them in your silly experiments? How can you play with someone’s life like that?

Destroying people’s lives and conning people out of their hard earned money is all over the place.

I frequently wonder about God’s actions every time I hear about another way of deceiving people. How is He able to tolerate all of this? What kind of punishments does He have karma shove back into those faces?

I am easily agitated and someone mature than me usually has to tell me to calm down when I want to yell at the atrocities, telling me to just follow the rightful principles I always live by and mind my own business for my peace. When I wonder, ‘Doesn’t that mean I don’t care as well?’ But no, I’m wrong. Cause God is taking care of everything and all we have to do is just trust Him alone.

Why do we have to interfere in His business?

 

Human Traits

Being born as a human comes with a package deal of a plethora of emotions, reactions and actions. Each comes with their own angle, flavour, percentage and intensity to set us apart from the other that it’s not just a DNA test to show proof of individuality.

Here are some notable human traits I’ve observed to be interesting, amusing, adorable as well as annoying.

Enjoy Yelling:

We all know at least one person who’s a tad crazy, mischievous, loud or talkative. They may irritate us with their habits but when we love that person, we actually enjoy telling them to stop that or shut up. Like, they may have OCD very bad, giving them the tendency to check if the gas is switched off at least five times before leaving the house, or check if the door is locked properly at least another five times before sitting in the car. The people who don’t have OCD enjoy making palm faces or rolling their eyes as they watch this person run back and forth.

That’s their crazy habit that cannot be changed and where’s the fun if you don’t tell them to stop that or shut up? You have to do that, even though it never works.

This is quite amusing.

Enjoy The Mess:

Some people are so clean that they need to have everything organised and in place. They can’t stand it if a room is spread with stuff, courtesy of the person who’s working there. But when that slobby person is absent for a while and the very room the clean person wanted to be tidy is tidy, they actually wish for the mess to be back there, which means they miss that slobby person very much and the house will look like a house only with the mess, the symbol of that person’s presence.

I find this trait adorable and interesting.

Snobby Dancers:

At school or college, there’s always this group of girls who’re well known to be great dancers, always performing on the stage for every event. When they recruit other dancers if they need extra people, they leave out girls who wish they could be in the troupe as well but don’t satisfy the judges in the audition. During the main event, as those dancing girls get ready with outfits and makeup, they completely ignore the left out girls as well as other people if they talk to them.

This is offensive.

Overdo The Anticipation Build Up:

I’m talking about movie trailers here actually.

People have become obsessed with building hype that the very notion has turned into a warning sign now. Personally, I never look forward to a movie that gets drenched with the hype rain. As we know, empty vessels make much noise.

The hype obsession leads to bad trailers. Really, why format the entire movie into two minutes and just cut the climax off? I think almost every movie out there now charges all that money only for the last fifteen minutes, as the summary of the events leading up to that climax is right there on YouTube for free.

The overdose hype building trait is annoying.

Remember when trailers grabbed our attention within just thirty seconds, leading to great and memorable movies we still watch over and over?

Rant, Rant And Rant, Yet You’re Still There:

I’ve seen loads of people rant about how annoying and useless some social media is now and about the annoying things people do on it. Yet, they don’t delete their accounts. Seriously, why stress yourself like that?

If you don’t like it, just come out of it. Don’t just stay there and rant and complain how irritating and infuriating the people on your friends list are on it.

I find this trait very confusing.

Subtle Messages To Unrequited Feelings:

This one is very confusing as well as amusing.

There’s this person you’ve fallen in love with, and you’ve confessed to them. I like that you made that person know they’re the object of your genuine romantic feelings. But when that person hasn’t a clue of how to react or what to tell you or not sure how to say no and as a result, keeps silent, I don’t think it’s the right thing to do by giving a shout out to their attention by posting things like ‘I don’t need this, and I don’t care’ or ‘Waiting for someone is pointless. Nope, I am going to move on with my life’ on social media where so many other people can see it too.

If you want to forget about this person and want to move on, just do it. Don’t post subtle messages like that, which only prove the contrary.

 

 

Anyone Find This Fun?

Okay so how many of you like driving?

Yep, yep, I see some hands in the air.

So which one is it? You like to drive a bike or a scooter or a car?

All right, so now that you’ve had your pick, how fast do you like to go? If you ask me, I like to drive my Nashira – yes, that’s what I call my Honda Activa. I named my beautiful burgundy scooter in love of my protagonist who stars in my fantasy series. So I like to drive Nashira around, going to the groceries or wherever I can that doesn’t stray far from home, and sometimes take my friends or cousin sisters for a ride too. They climb up enthusiastically, in a Yay, I’m gonna ride behind Ishu. It’ll be fun! or Oh, thank God, I don’t have to drive today. I get to enjoy the view way. And then a few moments into the road, they usually tap my shoulder and go, ‘Sweetie, you’re a lovely person but is there any chance you can outstrip that bicycle that just pedalled past us?’

‘Nope,’ I reply. Because I never have any intention of letting that speedometer cross 40.

How do you like to drive? Do you enjoy the wind in your hair as you fly across the road or are you like me, keeping the speed below 40?

I think there are a certain number of people who love the former, applying the principle to two-wheelers as well as four-wheelers. I know how absolutely wonderful it must be to just step on it and have the kiss of nature caress your skin and hair. I mean, just look at the vision around you. People, buildings and animals flashing past. And when you’re on the highway, you have fields and other vehicles at high speed flashing past. The velocity accelerated can even dissolve your negative and dark thoughts, even if it is temporary.

I can understand why you would like to race the speed of wind.

It’s just so fun, isn’t it? Just damn cool and damn fun to watch the needle on the speedometer cross one huge number after the other.

But have you ever considered if racing the wind is actually worth it?

Have you considered going by the words, ‘Oh come on, let’s step on it a little more … What’s it gonna take?’ is really a sensible decision?

In one particular case, I’ll tell you what it’s gonna take.

It’s going to take away the freedom to walk for a while, an estimation of around a month and a half. Anyone find the idea of being bed-ridden for almost 50 days without being able to turn this way and that without hurting a fractured bone appealing? Anyone find that fun when it was just oh sooooooo fun to dash across the roads and highways?

Anyone find it’s fun to be locked up in the hospital – the keys being your fractured clavicle (collar bone), fractured spine and torn intestines – and stare up at the ceiling all day?

Anyone find it’s fun to go through three surgeries?

Anyone find it’s fun to not be able to get up and relieve your bladder and rectum inside the lavatory and watch as someone else cleans you up?

Anyone find it’s fun to not walk into the shower and soap your own body and shampoo your own hair instead of having to sigh and roll over for someone to wipe you down with a hot water soaked towel?

Anyone find it’s fun to have four tubes stuck into your body?

Anyone find it’s fun to starve for two or three days, waiting until the aftermath of the abdominal surgery deems you fit to eat?

Anyone find it’s fun to not be able to eat everything you ever want?

Anyone find it’s fun to not dance?

Anyone find it’s fun have a shooting pain pierce the side of your thigh if you so as much shifted your body the wrong way?

Anyone find it’s fun to throw up bile juice thrice a night, losing all your sleep to the punches your abdomen is receiving from God-Knows-What?

Anyone find it’s fun to have people leave your side to go home after they just had a laugh with you beside your hospital bed? Anyone find it’s fun to desperately wish you could jump off the bed and go home as well?

Anyone find it’s fun to miss out on group tours and a close sister’s wedding because you are not supposed to travel or climb stairs?

Anyone find it’s fun to look at photos of yourself looking radiant and standing on your feet as you’re just lying there on the bed, not in any position to sit up?

Anyone find it’s fun to watch videos of yourself dancing and skipping around while you’re in no position to let the soles of your feet touch the floor?

Anyone find it’s fun to look at the clear, perfect and scarless skin of your neck and collarbone in photos while sporting a dark mark from the seatbelt scraping against the exact spot as well as a surgery?

Anyone find it’s fun to have another set of tubes stuck inside you as a result of a second abdominal surgery? Anyone find it’s fun to restrain throwing a tantrum to get them out of you this instant, knowing it would be of no use?

Anyone find it’s fun to put up with a most annoying and unmanageable agony in your throat every time you swallow because you have a tube down your nose that goes through the food pipe down to your stomach?

Anyone find it’s fun to fist your hands and clench your jaws as you tell yourself not to scratch the itching skin underneath all that surgical dressing?

Anyone find it’s fun to not be able to take it and cry silently as they remove a very strong dressing, the process which feels like a hundred pins are stabbing your skin at the same time?

Anyone find it’s fun to control a scream as a wad of gauze soaked in anti-bacterial liquid swipes across the row of staples on your stomach, making them pierce the muscle underneath?

Anyone find it’s oh soooo fun to be thrilled by the speed of the vehicle you’re driving now?

[image error]Do you find this fun now? 

~~~~~

If I save at least one person from going through all that by the message I wanted to convey, nothing can make me happier.

 

 

Interviewing Myself

Hey, guys, I decided to do something a little different for today. I’ve received a couple of awards for this blog as well as my previous one, which contained some interesting questions that I liked answering. Answering questions and expressing my views are always something I enjoy, so I decided, hey, why don’t I interview myself?

The questions I was attracted to for this are from this source, because I really couldn’t think of them myself, and these were especially targeted at girls, but you know, looking at the ones that I chose below, I think these can be universal.

Okay so here we go.

How quickly do I jump to conclusions about people?

When I meet or look at a person for the first time, I analyse how they smile at me or other people. If I see their smile reaching their eyes, I know that’s definitely genuine and have no qualms that they’ll be a joy to have a talk with. It’s always the smile for me. A super bright smile, and I stamp them being social, kind and warm. A small smile, and I figure they’re either socially awkward or shy or just full of themselves. No smile at all and I guess they’re going through something they want no one in the room to know or they are shy, once again, or, once again, full of themselves.

It takes around ten or fifteen seconds for me to jump to conclusions.

When does time pass fast for me and when does it pass slow?

This question applies perfectly to what I went through the last two months. Every hour felt like a day while on the bed 24/7 as well as while I was in the hospital. But as soon as I was on my feet and back home and following my regular routine, every hour’s flashing past. Time’s never enough for me when I’m in my element, that I stare at other people weird when they’re like, ‘Jeez, life’s so boring.’ I’ve never dragged through days like the time at the hospital and I never ever want to do that again.

What’s something that I’ve never been able to do well?

Mind games – I think this weakness owes to how I automatically feel insecure before even having a go at it. The thing is, I scare easily, and when I find the first few steps challenging, I have an urge to give up and that leads to my mind not being able to relax and believing in myself that I can show the puzzle or challenge who’s boss.

Handling machines – Oh this one goes a long way. Machines work perfectly fine in the hands of someone else but not in the long run with me.

And I do have a knack of beating around the bush and complicating stuff when there’s such a simple solution in front of my eyes. This trait works for the author part of me actually, as I should put my characters through confrontations if I want an interesting story.

What do I wish people would stop asking me?

This is a really good question, because the one thing I wish people would stop asking me is, ‘Why are you so thin? Why do you keep working out? Why can’t you put on weight?’

All right that’s three questions, but they’re inter-related.

I really, really don’t like it when people comment on my body frame and ask me to rectify it. Because the fact is, I do eat well and I just like working out to maintain a body shape that I like and I feel easy in. I’m so used to being this way that a slight modification can hinder my activities. And for no reason or no one will I listen to people if they ask me to put on weight or stop working out. And the funny thing is that I’m not thin at all, just lean. Thin is an anorexic term and in my vocabulary, that’s an unhealthy word. I don’t like having ‘unhealthy’ have any relation with me.

However, everyone who ever shot those three questions at me now know that my workout regime and one of the gifts of working out – active body cells – helped me through the huge challenge I went through, speeding up recovery.

I also remember my cousin sisters staring at me in astonishment last year when I was the only one among our blood donation group to sit up immediately and jump off the bed after my turn was over, walking around them as they lay down until the dizziness passed. Exercise helps us in ways we can never imagine, guys, so please, please take up workouts and cardio seriously.

What is something that I think people are only pretending to like or are deluding themselves into liking?

Now let’s see … That would be – usage of profanities in normal, simple conversation by young adults.

I certainly hate profanities and vulgar expletives. I don’t use them and cringe when someone even uses them when they’re angry. And when I see these young guys and girls using the ‘f’amous yet in‘f’amous, one in particular i‘f’ you know what I’m talking about, in every single sentence, all I feel like doing is empty soap liquid into their mouths to clean it.

They’ve deluded themselves into thinking that part of vocabulary from the West is uber cool and just badass, when that word only exists in the vocabulary of the most roguish people. Civilised and sensible young adults from the United Kingdom or the United States don’t use them.

It’s not a term one usually hears in a civilized conversation – Hermione Granger.

What weird smell do I really enjoy?

Ooh, I love this question!

Because my answer is sure to raise your eyebrows.

The weird smell I enjoy is of dust. Yes, you read that right. I like the smell of dust. I had fun the last couple of days, because we shifted houses and while everything was being packed into boxes, large amounts of dust powdered the floor and I just loved that smell.

I also love the smell of a room that’s dumpy and locked up for so long. There’s an underground storage room in my maternal grandparents’ home and I sometimes open the door and climb down the staircase just to sniff it. Everyone else stares at me when I do that and say, ‘Get out of there right now! God!’

When I was five, I used to nibble on the bricks of one of our houses in the UK, just because they walled a small entrance hall that’s always shut after we go into the house. I couldn’t control myself because the closed and chilly smell of that room was weirdly good.

What do I think people automatically assume about me when they look at me?

This has two answers, both contrasting each other. While I was in my teens, I think people always considered me as easy to step on and walk all over.

And after I came to college, judging by everything my friends wrote in my diary, most people assumed I was difficult to talk to and that I’d never be friends with them, much to my amusement. I’d never in my wildest dreams ever thought someone would think, Oh look how cool she looks. She won’t ever be friends with someone like me, as a first impression of me. They’d been surprised when they realised they were mistaken.

What do I think about in the shower?

Most people take important decisions in the shower or they think about the next song to sing or they think about their flaws and how to rectify them or they think about how to talk to their crush or have any deep philosophical insight or about the movie they saw recently.

I think about getting through my bath without slipping on the tiles and landing on my rear, hurting myself.

 

So there’s my little self-interview.

Feel free to answer the same questions in the comment section below, I’d love to read your views and opinions.

Have a great day ahead.

Jai Shree Krishna

Best,

Deepika

Challenging Time or Sanity?

Hey there, guys, how are you all? It’s been more than a while since I refreshed my blog page with a new post. Aside from the fact I didn’t find an appealing topic to write about, I didn’t have the proper situation and condition to write anything in the first place. So how are you all? Everyone good? Everyone safe, happy and healthy? Cause that’s always the most important.

Lately, I went through a phase that inevitably had me restricted of food twice, one week each. To get my system to adapt to food again, I started off with liquid diets, followed up by a gentle solid diet. Both times, I progressed to eating my favourite homemade meals and now I’m fine but during those phases, I was overcome by the most strangest addiction.

The first time I went through this, I craved dearly for a bite of chicken or noodles, but in that situation, that was a whimsical part of my hunger, since my body and conscience knew I was in no fit state to digest a heavy meal like that. The dominant and pragmatic part always danced for joy when my taste buds hugged each grain of steamed rice, each drop of pulse gravy and each bite of boiled egg. I savoured food like I’d never savoured it before. I was always thinking about what I will eat next, a stark contrast to how I usually am. Since I’m like I need food to live, most of my attention is always on the next activity I can do, whether it may be writing or reading or working out or catching a new movie. It’s only once in a while I pull up a recipe from the internet and try it out at home. I do have cravings for my favourites but I’m not exactly what you call a foodie. For me, it’s always a controlled meal and a constant alert that I don’t eat too much of fat, determined to maintain my shape and health.

But in my restricted situation, I realised how much I really do love food and I yearned to eat. I was hungry almost all the time and I kept dreaming about the different types of things I could eat in that small restricted diet chart. I even thought back to several situations I didn’t eat an extra piece of chicken or an extra slice of pizza or an extra plate of biriyani or an extra cup of ice-cream … you get the idea. And I mentally hit myself for it, wondering what on earth I was thinking.

But mind you, this isn’t the strange addiction I mentioned earlier.

All of this craving led me to looking up some movie scenes from YouTube. Can you guess what those were? Yes, I was remembering all the scenes I could of people having breakfast or dinner or lunch, so that I could look at what was in the plates. But those weren’t as crystal clear as I wanted them to be. It takes only five seconds or less for such activity in a movie.

Then my attention zoomed to spaghetti and I started looking up people cooking spaghetti and meatballs, staring starry eyed and listening to the musical sound of the meat sizzling in the pan. In one of the videos, the lady chef forked some at the end and that’s when I cocked my head to one side, having an epiphany.

[image error]

It wasn’t the cooking process I wanted to watch, after all.

And this is where my strange addiction started.

If anyone goes through my watch history on my YouTube app, all they’ll find is crazy – not to mention insane – videos of people stuffing their faces with ramen, chicken, fast food … basically, all the high calorie food you can ever think of.

I found some popular YouTubers whose channel was created solely for this and went through their uploads, choosing the ones I wanted to watch and aside from one of them eating a large pan without any time schedule, a few others always set the timer and wolfed down alarmingly large quantities. They competed with the element of time as well as another human being.

The one who ate large panfuls without any timer challenged herself only once in a while. It’s nice to watch her, cause not only is she adorable, she eats neatly inside a cutely decorated room and combines her meals with vlogs. But a lot of other people always set a timer and inhaled tremendously alarming amounts of calories to beat the clock.

Initially, I felt almost satisfied watching people challenge themselves to eat large quantities of food my stomach can’t afford to take in at the moment, because all I wanted was to eat and when it’s a food challenge, people have no time to talk for a vlog and concentrate on the plate alone.

But after my meal intake improved and I started eating the homemade meals I wanted, my stomach and mental state felt very happy and I finally came to my senses. Then I started wondering, ‘What exactly is to be gained out of torturing the jaws, oesophagus and stomach like that? Why can’t those people just enjoy every bite?’

I feel so guilty for wanting to watch such dangerous activity.

All these food challenges … All that perspiration while battling to grind each mouthful to paste with just one chew … All the agony that’s obviously administered to the body … Why?

I’m surprised the ones who challenged themselves too much are still able to upload more videos.

I started to become very concerned for their health. I mean, it may look like they could conquer the world right now but what kind of side effects or worse, what if something major happens to their digestive system in the future? It’s not like they’re challenging themselves to eat ten jumbo plates of spinach or vegetables or fruits. The entire jumbo platter contains pizza, pasta, chicken, meat … all the mega calories. And they’re all mostly dry food, which makes it harder to masticate and swallow.

Ten burgers in ten minutes?

Ramen enough for five people ingested in five minutes?

A feast for ten people inhaled by one person in half an hour?

[image error]

Dear God.

None of them are homemade, or at least completely homemade. They’re all from fast food joints and other food outlets, loaded with all the empty calories that can make a beeline to clog the arteries. I’ve also seen people challenge themselves to eat extremely spicy food, so much spicy that you can feel steam coming out of your own ears just by watching them. You can see how obvious it is that they are struggling with the burning sensation in their mouth and throat, even going to the extent of drinking no water or milk in between. Some people said milk only increases the spice, I don’t know about that, though.

But why, just why?

Just to get cheers and more subscribers?

I couldn’t believe that I wanted to watch ominous food challenges like that, cause on the contrary, it’s very nice to watch someone have a variety of food in front of them and take their time eating each bite, chewing properly and enjoying each moment of it.

But what’s the entire point of savaging the exact same food, torturing yourself in the process, to get attention and applause?

And they also do challenges based on crazy recommendations from their subscribers.

It’s truly a gift and blessing to feel hungry and to eat. Why abuse it this way? Why abuse the perfectly beautiful digestive system?

What do you think about all these food challenges, guys? You think they’re completely insane and unhealthy?

Hope you have a great day ahead!

Best,

Deepika

 

 

Difference Between Reading As A Reader And As A Writer

For the past few years, ever since I authored my works, I’ve been noticing a clear contrast to the way I look at a book. It seems there are two people in me when it comes to that: The reader and the writer.

I’ve been only a reader till I was 16 and when you’re like that, you only thoroughly enjoy the book, going, ‘Oh wow, what’s going to happen next?’, ‘Uh oh, no, don’t do that! Come on!’, ‘What a genius!’, ‘What. An. Idiot.’ … So basically, you keep talking to yourself as the book talks to you.

But once you shape-shift into the writer, it’s like a microscope is attached to your eyes. You don’t just enjoy the book or the re-read. You start scanning and examining it.

Let’s look more into this.

As A Reader:

You link yourself with the main character as you travel through the pages with them, regardless of whether you like the book or not.

As your interest in the book grows, you eagerly await the next chapter, enjoying the style of writing, the dialogues and the scenes, which are the main drives to keep you seated – or rather on the edge of it.

You feel emotional, ranging to all dimensions of the spectrum. Sometimes you want to give the protagonist a hug, sometimes you feel like bursting with happiness for them, sometimes you want to yell at them, and sometimes you’re constantly apologising to them because you’re too much in love with their love interests.

You love how you learn new words, phrases, idioms and adages.

If you’re best friend is as much of a reader as you and you enjoy similar books, the same as well, several inside jokes pertaining to the notable dialogues can be created. Your chats are so much fun to read through later.

You’re enriched with more understanding of how to use commas, quotation marks, colons, semi-colons, hyphens, the decent amount of full stops to denote a pause, when to use full capitals to show the person is either excited or mad, when to use italics to differentiate thoughts and stressed words from the normal style narrative. Because as far as I know, it’s not that fun when you have to learn these things for an exam. Books were the only teacher to show me how to make essays and short stories look pretty and decent on the paper. And I do all I can to make sure my presentation is pretty and decent for my eyes.

A milestone in your grammar. Your fluency in speech and confidence about the language gives you more backbone in front of a mike that’s in front of a shocking number of eyes that are on you.

As A Writer:

Now, this, is when things get interesting, weird and turn you into a scientist – we can call ourselves that, right? Right.

Whatever you enjoyed about your favourite book, everything, shines this blinding flash of light at you. You reach for your super glasses that can split every single colour in it into a clear distinction and there you sit staring, analysing the photons, neutrons and electrons that make them up.

The designs.

The patterns.

The entire matrix.

Researching one atom after the other.

How did this character start off and what has she/he given to the readers by the end?

Have they worked on their flaws?

What kind of flaws do they have?

Are those flaws appealing to the audience?

Are these flaws rational? Acceptable? Amusing? Irritating? Boring? Mundane?

Wait, are these flaws stereotypical? And if they are, is there a way to make them seem interesting? Words can work magic in astonishing ways.

But I can’t overestimate my writing skills like that. I’ll have to get *enter trusted friend’s name* to take a look at this. (A trusted best friend always points out ‘Meh, that’s tacky’ moments and scenes at the right places of the manuscript)

What’s the trick in crafting the protagonist’s attractiveness? Cause the words that give us the physical description have little to do with how the thoughts, actions and socialising habits influence the reader.

Did the author write this with a very well planned rough draft propped up beside her/him or did she/he just write whatever came to mind by shutting out the entire world?

Which technique is most appealing? Planning your novel or going on with the flow of what strikes you in the moment?

How did the author manage to distract me from the real unexpected villain? Cause in most books, you can predict who is the ultimate evil mind the moment they make their entrance in the story and all you want to do is bang your head against your desk.

What did the trick of having me sit up all night curled on the sofa with the book and close it thinking how this was so worth ditching my sleep?

How does the author make feelings and emotional moments captivating? Is there a particular acceptable length or amount permitted to brooding, reminiscing and breaking down and handling all of it that’s enough to melt hearts? Cause I know I otherwise can’t stand too much of emotions.

How did the author know how and when to reveal what to reveal to turn the tables around or give a huge twist to the story?

How did the author know how to tie all loose ends? Give an ending of satisfaction?

What made the author choose the title for the book?

How many characters apart from the main ones are here? What’s a reasonable amount? Who are the most valid? How has it been proved they are valid?

How has comic relief been given? How has it been made funny?

What makes this woman/man to be an intimidating villain? What makes us hate her/him so much?

How’s the story been written? Style of writing plays a humungous part in keeping the reader hooked. How has an otherwise bland scene crafted to be interesting?

And it goes on …

As you can see, reading as a writer is a motorway and reading as a reader is just a road in the street.

I may have excluded some points from both. I’d love to have the comment section own a lively and free atmosphere of colourful opinions contributed by your experiences of reading as a reader and as a writer so please feel free to share your thoughts.

Have a great day ahead!

Best,

Deepika

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Personal Taste, The Perfect Taste

Well, hello there, guys, how are you all? It’s been a long time since I’ve updated my blog and I feel terrible for not being able to clear some of my scheduled activities every day to sit down on a fresh page and spill out my thoughts or inspiration. But it’s not like I forgot actually, because there were loads of moments I drove my brain down lanes to give me a great idea to write on, the lanes which ended up being cul-de-sacs.

Ah well.

There’s nothing a writer can do at once when you bang headlong into cul-de-sacs, because you have to wait patiently to see whether it’s an illusion that actually turns out to be a gate or not. I didn’t stress on them much and distracted myself, waiting for the perfect idea when just last week, I revisited a folder on my hard drive, after so long, that contained a sitcom I loved immediately on watching it three years ago.

And I thought to myself, well it’s certainly been a while since I blogged any reviews, either for a book (this category is currently been taken care of on my Goodreads) or a movie, so why don’t I blog one for Personal Taste?

[image error]

I don’t know how many of you guys have heard about this or watched it, but I’ll give you an intro nevertheless.

Okay, so Personal Taste is a Korean drama that was released back in 2010, starring Lee Min Ho and Son Ye Jin. I trust anyone who’s in school or college or have recently graduated from both are aware that Korean dramas are incredibly famous among peer groups, especially girls. Aside from being popular in fellow Asian countries, these sitcoms are a huge hit in India, at least a handful, and especially the ones starring the Korean actor – Lee Min Ho – as far as I know.

I had no idea about Korean dramas while I was in college, since all I loved were Indian mythological shows, one of which I narrated to a close friend every day. That show was Devon Ke Dev – Mahadev and my friend never saw it on screen, because she loved my narration of it too much that she always painted her imagination with how I described each scene and wanted to know about the progression of the story from me alone. If this isn’t an honour to the way I tell a story, I don’t know what is.

A year after I graduated and decided to stay home as a full time writer, another best friend of mine interested me to watch a Korean drama, titled You Are Beautiful, at her house and it was such a beautifully and humourously created motion picture that I couldn’t resist finding out what happens after I came back home, finishing it within the weekend.

I came to know about Lee Min Ho and his fame later on and decided to give one of his dramas a try. I regretted choosing my first choice, since I couldn’t go as far as six episodes or so, and scrolled through the rest of his drama list to find out what the fuss was about. That’s when I came across Personal Taste that had a funny blurb and I clicked on episode one immediately, which had me laughing my head off after 10 p.m., when everyone else had gone to bed.

A sixteen episode sitcom, one hour each, Personal Taste circles around two protagonists who are located at the opposite ends of the spectrum. The male lead, a take-no-nonsense, ambitious and intelligent architect of common sense and few words; and the female lead, a scatterbrained klutz of a furniture designer whose physical appearance, house, financial situation and life is a complete mess.

[image error]

Park Gae-In, the female lead, suffers the brunt of her personality in episode one and though it has the potential to infuriate other viewers for the heroine being so silly and an impossible pushover, all I felt was ‘Poor lamb. I hope something good happens to her soon.’

[image error]

Enter Jeon Jin Ho, the male lead, whose suaveness is taken to a dashing level by the actor. I state this is Lee Min Ho’s best character of all, since I don’t think anyone else could have pulled off the character or his costumes that well. Sorry, Gu Jun-Pyo fans.

Now, Jin Ho is not even the last person to pay any attention to Gae-In or her mess but circumstances force them into the same picture that culminates in Gae-In thinking the dude is – much to his horror – gay.

This leads to a stream of hilarious scenes but Jin Ho uses her misunderstanding to his advantage, since Gae-In lives in a house whose secret contains his possible breakthrough in his architect career. Remember I mentioned him being ambitious? He’s ready to turn Earth over to nab that contract for the famous to-be-constructed art gallery and elevate the financial situation of his small firm, while battling heads on with his nemesis, whose father would have robbed Jin Ho’s father of his company and home.

As Jin Ho becomes a room renter and puts up with Gae-In and forces her to maintain a clean atmosphere in the house so humans can breathe, she, still under the false impression, confides in him as she would do to a close girl friend and earns his empathy. As the two lead characters impress us with the way they develop a bond and friendship, tension slowly mounts as they become attached to each other, with Jin Ho inevitably falling for the sweet lamb.

But he walks on eggshells at the same time, weighing a pack of deception he feels incredibly guilty about on his shoulders.

When I finished watching Personal Taste, I gave a round of applause at the screen for the incredible sequence of events, character etching, flavour of the emotions, and the style they were emoted. True, the story was dragged here and there but you forget all about it with the help of the truly amazing cast. Everyone, and I mean everyone, fit into their roles like they were meant for them. Compassion, love, friendship, evilness, deceitfulness, humour, ridiculousness, bitchiness, you name it – they were all delivered perfectly. I totally love the costume selection, especially for the male and female lead, which is most important.

I decided to watch Boys Over Flowers two days ago, currently ten episodes through, on recalling how a few of my friends and cousin sisters still gush over it and used to tell me to watch it several times before, and though Jeon Jin Ho will always overshadow Gu Jun Pyo in my opinion, I really do enjoy the classy and rich motion picture as well as the endless cuteness of the female lead and the constant banter with the male lead. My bestie told me the JunPyo-JanDi sequence is a little similar to Ross and Rachel’s – Will They? Won’t They? – and I kind of see what she meant.

While Boys Over Flowers is a Cinderella flavoured story of high school teenagers that has been creatively dealt with fantasy situations, without the fairy godmother or fairy tale creatures, Personal Taste takes on adult issues with each person struggling to find some justice for their lives. Since Lee Min Ho is the common lead in both sitcoms, it’s impressive to see the stark contrast he’s delivered between the childish and rash Gu Jun Pyo (There are times I think Jun Pyo is a doofus but an adorable one at that. And I also think straight hair suits him better than curls) and level minded and mature Jeon Jin Ho. The one common trait that exists is the love and compassion they have for their ladyloves.

I’d recommend Personal Taste to anyone and if any of you have seen this sitcom before, please feel free to drop your opinions and reviews in the comment section below.

~~~~~    

Click here to follow Deepika Kumaaraguru on Goodreads