I consider myself as a blessed person. From day one of my life I've been provided with everything I've wanted and needed. I have incredible parents who never thought twice to make it a point that I had what made me happy; simultaneously knowing where to draw the line to prevent a spoiled and pampered child.
For most of my life I've lived away from my motherland. Away from tradition and custom; away from relatives; away from the general Indian thinking. I've been given the freedom that most Tamil parents don't give their daughters- in terms of education, career, or even lifestyle. I've been allowed to become what I've wanted and believe in whatever I've wanted to, as long as I wasn't pushing it to an extreme. And to be honest, they're extremely liberal, understanding and broad-minded for Tamil parents! Yet they're quite traditional. Amidst a very modern upbringing I was taught to speak Tamil at home; to admire traditional clothes; to observe festivals and auspicious days; and to appreciate my heritage and roots.
Being people who've lived half their lives abroad, I didn't think my parents were typically traditional people when it came to certain things. Marriage- to be more specific.
In spite of numerous attempts to understand the concept of an arranged marriage, I just can not get myself to see that it makes any sense. If I'm not mistaken, the person you're marrying is supposed to be your soul mate - the one you see yourself growing old with. All I'm saying is that how can you be asked to accept someone you don't really know as your soul mate? You may not even click with the person on so many levels. Then what? It's not like dating where you can call it quits because you feel you're not of like minds. So do you just accept your fate and live with someone who probably does not see life the way you do? (or vice versa)
All marriages that take place in my family are arranged. Even cousins who have been well educated and exposed to a fairly modern life have happily and willfully consented to arranged marriages. I on the other hand, do not see how I'd ever be able to accept it. Call it westernisation or a generation gap, it is beyond me how two people who don't know one another are decided by everyone else that they're 'made for each other'.
I know the clock is ticking and soon I'd be put in a spot where I'm going to have to battle it out with tradition and my personal beliefs. I don't want to give in, yet I don't want the very people who've given me so much liberty to regret how they've brought me up. I could mentally gear myself and somehow programme myself to accept that I will eventually have an arranged marriage. But I know for the rest of my life I'm going to be reminded that I was forced to do something I was against; something that I opposed and never believed in. And that would somewhat mean going against my own conscience.

Inner circle.

A lot of times we are defined by people we associate ourselves with.

This post might sound cliched in a lot of ways. But its amazing sometimes how we always throw aside the cliched things in life thinking just because we've heard it often, we've realised what they really mean.

Have you ever stopped to think what your friends really mean to you? Yes, they're nice, they're undersanding, they're supportive and all that jazz! You wouldn't be friends with them if they weren't all that!

Every person I'm friends with or consider as a friend is someone whom I've learned something from. Someone whom I think has helped me look at things differently or has changed my perception about something (for the better ofcourse), or simply made me realise something I never did in the past.
A couple of years ago, a friend of mine explained to me that he believed that no two people turned out to be friends 'just like that'. And that it was only because they are able to exchange something, that they're friends. He obviously wasn't implying something materialistic... neither did his remark have a sexual reference to it!
Anyway, I have to agree with what he said because I definitely do think that I learn so much from the people I consider as friends. (Although I don't think they learn much from me :p) And you'd be surprised how people whom you thought were ordinary and simple, probably have some of the most unusual ways of thinking.
I can be a bit vain sometimes and tend to judge people without knowing them; even though I try not to. Over the past couple of months I've made some friends whom I don't hang out with or have long conversations with to catch up on one another's lives over a cup of coffee. Yet I consider them my friends because over just a few months they've helped me look at certain things differently. They've brought some sort of meaning to something. It's nothing dramatic, it's nothing intense. And although these people don't have much significance in my personal life, I look forward to seeing them every week.
In an entire lifetime, there are a whole lot of people who walk in and out of your life. And it sucks to have people whom you thought you'd always be in touch with disappear from your radar. And I miss them quite a bit sometimes...but life goes on anyway. You meet new people, you learn new things, and before you know it, life changes and you've both moved on. And a new circle is formed. What matters I suppose is what you've learned from it all.

...Just a random realisation from some of the patterns in my life.

A summer love.

Exhilarating.
Blissful.
Pulsating.
Dreamy.
Addictive.

And it's over.
Soon.
Too soon.

Short and sweet.
If only it could be lived forever...

Because the world revolves around me...

Of late I've been hearing the word "future" a lot. Whether it's from my parents who are incessantly planning for good of the family, or from some news channel that discusses what lies for its nation in the year/years ahead.
That sort of got me thinking about myself and what my 'future' would be like. Is there a predecided future that awaits to unfold for me? If so, I can't help but think that that means I have no free will over my life. So technically, I don't decide my future- contradictory to what we've heard all our lives of how we are the architects of our lives.

Let's say I'm meant to die in 2059- due to the turn of a million events that take place from today. So everything in the next 50 years have to take place exactly the way they've been decided to happen, without any variation whatsoever, just so that today- 50 years from now- I'm dead! For this to occur everyone else in the world also has to do exactly what they have to do. If someone so much so sneezes at the wrong time - that would prove my creator's plan wrong. (which by the way would mean that the world does revolve around me!)

So if life has to go on for the next 50 years exactly the way it has been decided by the Divine force, then do any of us really have free will? Is the so called future being dictated and are we all going to do only those specific things and nothing more or less? Or do we have free will?-like we've always believed we did. Are there really random events that defy what's already been decided?

If I have free will, then I'd do something that's not been predicted yet- which would mean I won't die in exactly 50 years. I could die before or after- no one knows. But if I don't have free will, and I just think I do, then every event in the universe is a mathematical progression of every previous event. Which means there's actually only one fixed way of everything turning out. So for those who can "see the future", they'd know what my next 50 years are going to be like- because I must die after that- otherwise it would be proving the Divine force wrong.

So it's either free will or "the future". Because if there was any degree of free will, then a different set of events would take place than the ones that should for me to actually die in 2059. Which would mean that no psychic would be able to ever predict when I actually die. Is the future static then? Because for the people who claim to have the genuine ability to predict the future, the future has to be something that's static. Something that's already there and therefore they have the ability to see it.

I'd think its a conflicting possibility altogether. You can choose to agree with whatever works best for you. However, next time someone tells you to stop being so full of yourself because the world does not revolve around you, tell them to think again- because it most probably does!

Thought of my thoughts.

After nearly half a decade of procrastinating the start of my blog, here I am doing the needful at the start of a new year. If this act could decide the fate of my year ahead as a promising one, I'd be thrilled. Because I know that the fact that I'm up at 4:20AM, munching on the last bits of vanilla fudge from some Christmas give away and watching random episodes of Scrubs, might not exactly be the ideal way to kick start the new year. Nonetheless, I choose to hope otherwise.
I don't know why I finally decided to give my blog a chance. And I certainly don't think I'm going to be one of those dedicated bloggers who post regularly- knowing my mastered skills of laziness and procrastination. But at least I have one less thing to do before I die now!
Apparently your brain is only as good as your thoughts in it. If that holds true, I've got to admit, I must have a pretty darn good brain! And judging by the number of thoughts running through my brain at any given point, my brain should be pretty tired by now too! I've had a number of people (including an astrologer I was forcefully taken to!) tell me that I think too much and that I have way too many random thoughts running through my mind all the time. Well I won't deny this simple truth about me. Especially the random part of it. Believe me, it's as random as it gets in here!
So, I thought why not put these random thoughts to some use by sharing them with some lovey random people. And in the bargain improve my writing skills; lest I should want to pursue one of my many childhood ambitions of becoming a revolutionary writer!
So here's my blog. The start of hopefully something that will be relatively insightful (or at least entertaining) to someone. And I think I'd like to incorporate in my New year's resolution that I'd try to be regular with my posts- that is, the randomness of my thoughts.

Happy New Year.