Alia Bhatt.
Every movie of hers that I see (let's leave out Student of the Year) moves something inside of me in a way that never fades away. It's amazing how someone can be so dedicated to their work. I've watched three of her four movies that are said to revolve around a very, very profound message.
It makes me think. There's so many things left to do with this world before it becomes perfect; there's so much that still needs work. There are so many things that one can think about and work on, that it puts me to shame when I think of the amount of time I spend over thinking paltry issues and planning frivolous events, the amount of time I waste imagining conversations that never have and never will happen.
There's so much to dream of, there's so much to change. There's so many in need, and there's so many who can give. Why does everyone "grow up" and "think practically" instead of rooting for the greater good, more and more as they grow? Why does growing up have to be equivalent to becoming selfish?
Why is it so hard to break through the norms of society and lend a hand; to pick up a shovel and start cleaning, even if your time here is enough only to clean up a little part in a little corner of the entire mess? Even if you were born in a cleaner part of the world? Why isn't being privileged enough of a reason to feel a responsibility?
What about those who do dream of great things, but are silenced by villains that never even seem to be like they are? Why do they advise to find the happiness in smaller things, to those that can see the bigger picture, and those that care enough to make a difference to it? Why do all mouths that talk, also eat; why don't they feed?
Each time a person looks at me and my intentions incredulously, it makes me wonder if I am wrong; if I will change, to "grow up" and "be practical". Nothing terrifies me more than that single thought.
I'm already twenty two; it's been five years since I started having such thoughts. There's so much to be done and I haven't done anything, and that eats me up. Time doesn't stop for any noble cause. Life is shortening every second, and things just aren't moving fast enough for me to keep up with it.

I never relate to it when people say "Ah, I miss my childhood."
In fact, I want to get ahead sooner, and see if I really could be all that I've dreamt to be.
Twenty two years gone by, and nothing is in motion yet. All the big dreams, all the wild desires; I know I'm on the way, but this just isn't going fast enough for me.
I know I shouldn't raise my hopes, but what's the fun if you don't expect and wait eagerly for it?
I lead such a regular life right now, doing nothing for anyone but myself, day in and day out. I want something bigger; I want journalists calling me and asking for my interview. I want people in awe of how radical I can be. I want to do things that make a difference to the greater good, and I don't want to waste my life on anything less than that. I don't want to a single moment not doing something that I'll cherish.
The worst thing I can imagine happening is changing my mind. I'm always being told that I will settle for less, that I'll have to; that everyone does.
But I'm going to fight those voices with all my might, as long as I can, because why should I set lower goals for myself than the absolute extreme?

I should stop writing traveling posts.
But they're just happening to me these days. Even on what was supposed to be the most theistic and annoying trip of years, I managed to find something that moves me.
We saw a touch-me-not plant, which is the first of the amazing things that happened. It still surprises me that they actually shrivel away from your touch; reminds me of a certain friend I have :D I finally got to see something that my mom's always told me first hand stories from her childhood about.
And then we saw windmills- no, not far off in the distance on some mountain like we normally do, we saw the parts being carried on trucks. A single vane was longer than the longest truck I ever remember to have seen. We drove past it at around 100 kmph while it was stationery, and still took us a good three or four seconds to reach the end, where the vane was sticking out a few metres longer than the truck. How amusing that I used to make tiny paper windmills when I was a kid and think they were magnificent creation; if only I'd known the magnificence of they were depicting.
We even happened to see a Primary Health Centre and a Centre of Excellence. I hate reading Community Medicine, but I honestly wanted to get off the car and check out those places, and see more of what I'd been reading about all along. In postings we do the same thing, but this was different; it was a real Primary Health Centre in a real village! I felt so Julia Roberts-y from Eat, Pray, Love in my own country.
Stepping right into fog after a homam at six a.m. was pretty surprising too. We shivered as the cold hit us right down to beneath our skin, but didn't leave because we couldn't believe how unexpectedly beautiful it was. Who would've thought I'd get amazing pics in this trip? My little cousin turned into quite the photographer.
Sitting in the backseat of an Innova alone with the rest of my family asleep, taking pictures of random mountains and houses and motorcyles along the highway- this feels like a small preview into how my much awaited big-girl trip all alone is going to feel.  My friends say that a trip alone would only make you think and then overthink, making you depressed. Au contraire, I'm having the best time of my life alone; it's how I've always liked to be.

Looking out, with the sun in my eye
At the wide roads that fly by,
Oh, these sceneries that make me sigh
Right now, this is where I could just die.

Stuck between science and what's not.

Being a medical student in a family that doesn't know the difference between cytoplasm and conjunctiva, there's one dilemma I often find myself in; which works better? Science or belief? Superstition or logic?
Of course the answer is obvious, but is it really? Medicine has only one constant, and that is that there's really nothing constant. What works for a person doesn't work for another, and what works some is nothing short of medical miracle. There are always exceptions to every rule and explanations to why things don't work the way they're supposed to. As a mediocre third year student just stuck at the bottom of the ladder, dreading the possibility each day that I might simply fall off of it instead of going up, I didn't have a right over it to make definite statements, but from where I stand, medicine isn't math. It's really smack in the middle of science, logic, art, common sense, variation, psychology and the unknown.
To make matters more perplexed than ever, my mother practices alternative medicine. Nothing's confused me more than to watch it work; HOW DOES IT HAPPEN? It makes no sense! The confidence is stunning, as is the finality with which such assertive statements are made about something that is criticised by so many officials.
I've read about it; nothing about it feels based on concrete evidence. There's proof that homeopathy doesn't work. There've been hundreds of trials and systematic studies that have resulted in official evidence to say so; I've countless stories of the uselessness and even dangers of it, heard countless people take a jab at those who believe in it.
If only I could claim heartfully that it doesn't work. There's no denying that I am a tiny bit ashamed of myself every time I wonder if maybe, just maybe, it does? How can a doctor believe in what seems to be the opposite of her own subject?
But, no one bothers to explain the things I've seen, with my own eyes. A first hand experience always means more to you than papers which say your experiences are false. My experiences are false? What does that even mean?
How many success stories can you dismiss as "just by chance" or "a miracle"?
Of course there are explanations- the placebo effect, the effect of psychology on health that's constituted a whole new branch of study called "Health Psychology", the role of beliefs; all these things definitely do have a part in medicine. But really, do those things explain every case that's been treated by faith, by superstition or by alternative medicine?
"I believe there's place for prayer, but it's outside the OR." I was always one to believe that, but what do you say when you've seen it work alone, without an OR? And honestly, when it comes down to a choice, how many of us wouldn't try the easier way out, even if we don't believe in it, just to take a shot in the dark and see if by some miracle, it really does work? Especially when the standard, tested and formulated way is proven to be clearly less than 100% effective with quite a few undesirable after effects, very few would jump into it readily when there's a possibility of an alternative.
It took me being a theist, then an atheist to finally turn agnostic; there's so much satisfaction in just being able to say "I don't know. These things are much beyond the human race and no one has a right to claim they're one hundred percent correct, because there will always be someone else to prove them wrong in some or the other way. These are the debates which always seem to reach an end but are like an asymptote."
And maybe that will forever be my final verdict on this as well.

What is this world, like a two faced Professor Quirrel, the one that's usually visible, timid and at our mercy always, only to turn around and unmask the evils that it's ridden with, hunger, poverty, and inequality? What is this world, pleasant as long as you make it to be, yet also unsettling as you let it be?
What is this world, where people readily lend you a hand and give you their all, even without reciprocation, yet people can be abodes of jealousy, anger, hatredand vindictiveness? What is this world, where sometimes, both these kinds of people are found in the same person?
What is this world, where nothing stays constant; everything is dynamic. It's gone before you blink, and when you open your eyes again it's irrevocable- though only till you next blink again.
What is this world where there's no good or bad, only better or worse, though it changes based on where you're looking at it from?
How do people manage to find even a smidgen of constancy in such a world? And is that at all something to strive to achieve? 

The fear that's within.

There's something unsettling on my mind and I just can't figure out exactly what it is. Nowadays it feels like I've lost my knack for writing; it was my first impulsive go-to before, but it isn't the same anymore. I'm scared that I'm not good at it, which is rather sad, because that's never what I meant to be. Why am I afraid of not being good at it when that never was the point anyway? Maybe because I suddenly find that it should have been, that there should have been a bit more direction to it than for it to always stay a useless ability? That maybe there's no place for you in this big, bad world if you have nothing amazing to contribute to it?
There's so many things to be afraid of around us, and that scares me. It's suddenly hit me that the magnitude of danger that chance could land us in, at any point of time is far more than I could ever fathom; how can anyone ever be happy (unless by distraction) when there's always the fear of something huge, something sudden that can change everything? How do we manage to enjoy each day while we're surrounded by such dark things that are so much bigger than us? Of course there's always the fear of not being loved or accepted, the fear of failure and the fear of rejection but those are the smallest fears now; or are they? How do you measure the size of something without anything bigger to measure it with? If I were to become paralysed, would I trade being lovable and accepted for limbs that would work again? The answer seems obvious. But then again, it doesn't.
Worse than anything before, there's the fear of the unknown. Looks like I've been hurled out of my teens two years too late, because until recently, I was sure I knew everything. I really don't; I don't even know the different ways I could be messing up, if every waking moment I spend, if every random conversation I have with every random person is a step closer to digging my own grave- If all I'm doing out here, all the time, is just making my own future worse for myself. Even every moment spent in absolute silence and dormancy could be regretted for having been whiled away, and every moment of action and unrest could be regretted for having been carried out wrong. Do I lie back and let myself sail in the direction of least resistance? Or have I already been led astray enough; do I take a stance to make a difference, even though I'm not sure of the right way to go?
What do you do about all the things you hate about yourself? The simple answer is "change yourself" but of course that's not as easily done as said; stepping out of comfort zones is something that really puts you out in the open, open to be struck by lighting or to be scorched in the sun or simply to implode from within. Every time I step out, I run back in because I've either failed or I'm scared of it.
I adore the people who go through life with ease; ninety-five percent of me believes that they're pretending, that it's an act and they're just better at presenting themselves neatly, but even if it's just that, my admiration for their poise has no limits. How do you live among such fears without paying attention to them and worrying, thinking of a million different possibilities and turning into a visibly disorganised mess? How do you form opinions that won't drastically change when you see something that contradicts your previously carefully formulated suppositions? How do you manage to stay silent until you're sure you're right; how do you know when to be sure you're right? How do you manage to tame all your personalities to look like a single one?
As clichéd as it may seem, maybe sometimes all we need is distraction. Maybe we need some affection, a hug, or just a smile that puts you at ease. Maybe all we ever need is to be constantly distracted so we don't have to look at what we're up against, at how lucky we are every moment that we're spared, and how those moments are probably numbered, maybe ending sooner than we hope for...

This post is something that's very close to my heart; something that I think everyday, all the time. Something that I have a tendency to live by, even if it gets me nowhere.
Why don't we sing loudly, mindless of how we sound? Why can't we just sing because it feels good to let out what's in the heart? Why don't apply nailpolish for the love of painting, watching the colours smoothen out on a nail, spread evenly into perfection? Why can't we dance because our body yearns to be free, rather than for  performance and appreciation? Why don't we paint what our mind leads us to, why do we always get so caught up in making a masterpiece? Why does the finish line of everything always have to be in mind while on the journey? I wish I could learn only the parts of medicine that interest me and let the rest go. I wish i didn't have to learn things by heart and make an effort to remember them; I wish I didn't worry about the exam when I study. I wish I didn't have to make excuses for my exam scores, like they're a measure of my intelligence. I wish I could visit a beautiful place and bask in the glory of it's scenic charm, without being troubled by ideas of how I could pose to get a perfect picture. I wish we did things for ourselves.
I wish what mattered more than the result was intent and interest.