Stranger

I always knew that no person will relate to another, through and through. No one can entirely feel like home, because your own thoughts are the only ones you'll always be comfortable with. No matter how understanding a second person seems, as you dig deeper into the dirt, after some distance, you will always hit hard, unyielding stone. And that's how far a person will relate to you. No one can entirely be your own. There's always a point beyond which the rose petals and sweet words turn into gunshots and painful wounds.
None of this scares me.
But what happens when you find those unfamiliar stanger pieces that you can never relate to, in your own heart?

My city

Hyderabad, the place that I call home. I've lived here for the greater part of my life, and really, to me, there's no place like home. I've gone to school here, coached for admission into a college here, and I'm pretty sure this is where I'll stay for most of my life. And I'd have it no other way.

Being a big foodie, the thing I love most about Hyderabad is the food. If I sat down to make a list of all the restaurants I've been to in Hyderabad, I'm sure that list is going to have more than forty items, and I still have a bunch of places on mind that left to explore. There's no dearth of types of places to eat, or variety of food. Hyderabadi Paradise biryani to Australian Eagle Boys pizza; I don't think there's anything you don't get here.

Also it's an excellent tourist spot, something that's worth showing off to your friends from elsewhere when they come to visit you. It's a great place to shop, right from international brands in Forum mall, down to vendors selling jhumkas on carts at Sultan bazaar, there's everything you need at every corner.

The roads are usually great. It's a real treat to drive alongside Hussain Sagar with your windows down, with your most loved friends after midnight. The chilly breeze, coupled with the beautiful scenery and the speed; that's been one of my favourite experiences of all time! Also, the center of the city is always busy, with most of the main roads relatively populated even at late hours, making it pretty safe to be out at any time. Of course, the roads have been rather distorted since a year, because of the big project that's coming up- the Metro! I can't wait. It's going to be my hero; I hate driving in traffic.

In terms of connections, Hyderabad is a highly developed city. There are groups and programs for people of every passion. All you need to do is search for people to pursue your interests with. There are book reading clubs and travel-lovers associations, all of which could keep pulling you back from your regular monotonous life and reminding you keep it relaxed.

What astonishes me most about this city is it's extreme diversity. You can see a colony of extravagant, classy mansions, and it's nothing to be surprised about if you find a slum in a lane just adjacent to it. There's a place I could name for every mood- places to party all night on new year's eve, and places to resort to just for the sake of their serenity. People of so many different religions and mother tongues stay here, and that's what makes it the best. You have the chance to make the most diverse group of friends. I feel there's something about every Hyderabadi, of all economic backgrounds and cultures, that makes them feel like they're from home; my own.

Hyderabad is made of great, too. Just as is Lionel Messi, Tata motors, and their association! Read more about this at:
http://madeofgreat.tatamotors.com/

You let him come close
You let him be near
You passively let him peel off a layer
And let him see a bit more of you
Of what he calls your beauty.
He delicately removes another
You let him get a good enough look
And let him admire your splendor
He's astonished.
You're bubbling inside with zeal
You don't let it show
 But a little leaks out
As a spark in your eye.
You gently slip another layer off
Pure, transparent and clear
The real you.
Where you're so dreadfully vulnerable
Exposed, with nothing left to hide.
That's when he'll look closely enough
To find your flaws
And then you suddenly realize
This wasn't beautiful.
You're naked; It's disgraceful.

My grandmother

In a time and place where girls weren't encouraged to do much other than braid each other's hair and learn to cook so that they could keep their future husbands happy, my grandmother was always in competition with her brothers in academics. She's a graduate, and that's not even the most stunning part. She remembers so much of what she learnt more than fifty years ago, better than what I read and revised yesterday; that's the level of passion with which she studied. She didn't just read, write and get a degree, she learnt, which is something that many of us aren't even trying to do these days.


At 16, she was forced to give up the MBBS seat that she had earned. Soon enough, she was married off and had two kids who she defensively loves and admires more than any other in the entire world. While most other mothers at the time believed that comparing children with others was the sole mode of motivating them, my grandmother never made that mistake. She never let her kids feel lesser than any other, and that mantra worked like a charm.
She made sure that both her kids were as highly successful as she could imagine to be possible, and at the same time has never ceased to be a friend in need to them.
From a young age, her husband was bedridden with a problem in his backbone, and from then onwards, she took the responsibility to be the backbone of her family. From waking her kids up in the middle of the night to study to feeding and cleaning her husband, she did it all on her own.
She's the definition of strength; she has the super-human drive to keep going, to keep living and pushing each day towards a goal. She's the biggest reservoir of energy i've seen around; even at seventy years of age, she's always excited and more full of life than i've ever been. Always ready to help, sometimes even by force, she makes sure that she's made herself useful wherever she goes.
She's always been the biggest role model to me; the manifestation that life is best when you keep going on no matter what happens. That all you need to do it shake things off and move on, focusing on all the things that keep you happy and keep you going.
My grandmother is made of great. :)

This post was written for the indiblogger contest #madeofgreat. To know more, visit:
What do you think of Tata Motors' association with Lionel Messi? Do answer in the comments below!


http://madeofgreat.tatamotors.com/
smile emoticon

The best things in my life

Dancing in the shower, to songs that're playing in my own head. Dad's hug. A loose, baggy T-shirt. Smiling wide at myself in the mirror. Having the prettiest Mom. A good book and a warm blanket. Rubbing out pencil marks with a good quality eraser. Holding someone's warm hand. A long walk in the rain. A perfect selfie. Tucking myself into bed after a long day. The smell of petrol. Managing to be neat till the end of the first page of a brand new book. Letting my soft, freshly washed hair graze my cheek while I sit under the fan on a Sunday morning.Writing a happy blog post.
Those are the best things in my life.
Do you know yours?

"I keep up with the trend; I've got the guts to try everything that comes my way, and I'm proud of that."
"I stick to my own style, irrespective of the changing times, and I'm proud of that."
"I don't give a shit about style and that's my style. I'm proud of that."
"I'm so smart, I'm an all rounder and I got into medical school, and I'm proud of that."
"I'm as dumb as a doorknob, and yet I worked hard and made it into medical school, and I'm proud of that."
You can take pride in just about anything. Maybe all that matters is just how much you want to be proud, because apparently you can be proud of anything; even just being brave in the face of failure. People are even proud of being proud in spite of nothing to take pride in- that's an achievement. And I've got to say, it's probably the hardest one of them all.

How many times can you get away with wishing for a duster to clean your dirty slate?
How many pages are you allowed to turn before you actually manage to keep one of them neat all the way through?
It isn't enough if you just learn from your mistakes and tell people that you have no regrets. At the end of your life, all you'd have made are mistakes, and excuses to justify those mistakes. And you'd have lost everything that meant even a little bit to you, to each mistake on the way. 
A life with that kind of an end doesn't isn't a beautiful journey; those mistakes aren't experiences. They're just bullshit.