To Explore Life Outside the Box or to Stay Within Your Limits
Dear Reader,
It’s been long since I sent you all a letter, isn’t it?
I have realized that it’s difficult for me to write my newsletter when I think of a lot of things like -
what can I even say to you all in a world that’s filled with information which can be accessed at the touch of a finger?
I then take a step back and procrastinate, until I find a brief momentary sliver of feeling okay… amidst which… I write.
Information is available at the touch of a finger, but life experience that alters you or moulds you doesn’t happen at the flick of a switch.
And information often does more harm than required.
I think of how everything needs to be “aesthetic” before we can post it on instagram - from the food we eat to the table we eat upon. The clothes need to be fashionable as per the latest trends. The house needs to be minimalistic. The cafes need to be Insta-worthy.
The comments on social media, too, are harsher than ever. If you put on make-up, you are asking for attention, and if you do not put on make-up you are a pick-me. Everything you do reeks of low self-worth, whether you post on LinkedIn or X or Instagram or never post anywhere at all.
The rebel inside me reminds me of simpler times when I would never agree to societal norms. I would show up in baggy clothes to college or tuitions and hardly wear make-up except from sunscreen, unless I would be going out for some special occasion. It wasn’t the best of my decisions but it was what I thought made me a rebel, a non-conformist. From writing articles on LGBTQ to not applying for the same companies or clubs and committees everybody else is.
No one was watching me but I was sure of sticking to my values - finding my own unique path my way without conforming to the mainstream.
All this sounds weird now, but it was what it was then.
But that silent rebellion took me places too. I remember, in my engineering college, women were only supposed to wear white salwar kameez for the Group Discussion and Personal Interview process for campus placements. The representatives of the first company that had come for placements had arrived and conducted a group discussion. I wore a pink shirt and a pair of black trousers and walked along my girls from the hostel to the venue.
It was my expression of being a rule breaker, of standing up for what I believe in. I felt it was regressive and restrictive to be wearing salwar kameez when we go out wearing jeans and shorts and skirts.
Women around me were not only impressed but they also said I would be placed right then and there. I did well in the group discussion and the interview that followed. Just like that, I was placed.
I was 21 years old and life was a movie.
I had asked a friend to photoshop my pic to fit on a table and chair that made me look like I was sitting at a corporate office. He did. It was funny but it was my vision board even before vision boards were a trendy topic on Instagram.
Today I make a shabby reel on Instagram and say to myself - that’s me, that’s who I am. I do not exist to impress anyone but me.
There are more stories and I will share them on another evening. Day by day, as we grow older, rebellion feels tiresome. You want to ask the world - will I be safer if I conform?
You flung your arms open like a little child eager to be lifted and held. And you ask - will I be loved if I hide myself, keep my head low, and just do what everyone else is doing?
And so, when I try to write the newsletter, the doubts and tiredness take over me and I wonder if I really am the writer you are looking for, weaving the perfect words you want to read.
I know coaches who write essays after essays on the same topic whether it is money or relationships or feminine energy or what not. They put up perfect templates on IG and share 3 newsletters on the same day.
I take a sip from my coffee and take a bite from my French toast. The cafe is full of people and no matter how many people have read my book, nobody knows me here.
I can be anything and anyone here. I can eat with my hands and ditch the fork and knife or I can stuff my face with food; no one will bat an eyelid. And so I can write… anything I wish to.
That was the whole purpose I started this letter with - not to coach you or give you a rulebook for life or to give you instructions on what you should or should not do. I started this because I wanted to share my life, my thoughts, my lessons, and hope that maybe, in this process, someone else feels seen and understood too.
That’s how I started writing poetry - for me first, and then for you.
They say, you can’t write your heart out with someone reading over your shoulder. Sometimes that someone is your own judgmental mind or the invisible audience you have thought would read your letter and judge your character. And this is why I take myself back to what I once said and wrote - Write like no one’s reading.
I am sitting at a cafe filled with people and surprisingly, no one’s reading over my shoulder as I write.
Text within this block will maintain its original spacing when published'You must be unintimidated by your own thoughts because if you write with someone looking over your shoulder, you'll never write.'- Nikki GiovanniWith love, as always,
This post is public so feel free to share it.
P.S. My sister sent me this Dobby meme today as a joke and I think it makes so much sense as a rebel in her 30s versus the Legally Blonde version of rebel in her 20s. :-D
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