Protect Me From What I Want?

Frustrated; yet Hopeful!

If someone tells me this, and asks me to try finding an english word from the limited vocabulary I know of, I will use the word 'Bipolar' and this scares me to cries of the soul even as I continue typing every single character of this post.

I have forgotton account of the number of days since I have been coming back from work and end up feeling lonely in my own house, in my own room. For the longest I have been telling myself and few ears that I could that anything and everything wrong with my life is because of my bad Karma; and that God is testing me to extreme, That supreme power won't give me so much of pain if I could not handle it, or if I did not do this bad in my life. But its frustrating; it feels like every self belief being sucked out of my system now.

रब्बा मेरे कभी दर पे तेरे, कभी बुला तेरी चौकठ पे..

देदे और जो दर्द हो बाकी, रुला मुझे रज रज के..

Don't know how much of life is left for the saturation point of my inner cries. I don't want to sound like a whiny kid. Just yesterday only, I had those dreamy though at work that "Is this all really True or a Dream". Definitely not the first time and I hope it never ends because it does brings a smile on my face. I am living my dream and I hate co-relating my dream life with a "But". Its frustrating.

Over the past few days, even as I continue to feel completely shatteered at my helplessness to come out (pun intended) of my dilemma, I have been thinking of ways to share my true self. However questions continue to loom on in my mind, for instance:

Am I being selfish?

Will it be too much for others to accept?

Will I be accepted or will I only make my family really sad?

Will I end up inflicting a lifetime of worry?

How should I come out straight (pun again intended)? 

Should I continue my abstract writing?

Will a video sound dramatic, show off?

Who Am I really?

A recent simple and single thought of making a table of "what I like about myself and what I hate" had made me the most scared till date, I guess; even more than those memoirs I have previously penned or planned to pen. The scare is so deep as of now that I have been hastily trying to even ward off my thoughts feeling that I won't have anything to like about myself; anything that is visible to the world. Transient occupied for the physical part by being shallow?

I am just so tired. I think why me and why I can not be normal but..

Then I think of the two recent thoughts that have been helping me survive a severe breakdown.

First:

"Never act permanent decisions on temporary feelings"

However I am struggling really hard to know what really are my permanent feelings. Are my emotional outbursts temporary, because of loneliness and scared to go out in the world outside my cocoon and stop being scared of getting a bruise and just play like a child becuase its playing is what that every little child wants to, no matter how shabbily dressed or muddled up in dirt. Evening means playing.

Second: 

"Cinderella never asked for a prince. She asked for a night off and dress. Like not once did she says, "I want a prince to come and rescue me from my situation." She just wanted to look cute and turn the fuck up at the party."

The above is not a new thought I came across but don't know why I did not remember it. I mean, it speaks so much volume. Isn't it a most worthy extension of be getting love for being who you are, every ounce of yourself.

Writing every single word above is suddenly making full sense of the title of this blog. I only have to understand to whom is the title addressed to. It is a short film's title that must have given an nth view today, just before beginning this blog post, but somehow I felt I noticed little emotional moments I never did before. Maybe when I do the same with myself, I will know what really are my temporary feelings and what permanent self defining.

I am sure that day I will know what I want. Protect Me From What I Want, no more that day.

बस, और नहीं!

आज फिर सुबह की आज़ान सुनी.. वही ठीक ६ बजे.. लेकिन मैं अभी तक सो नहीं पाया.. आँखों में नींद भारी हुई हैं, लेकिन साँसों मे एक कर्कश सी है जो ना जीने दे रही है चैन की नींद के लिए, और ना ही सोने दे रही है हमेशा की ज़िंदगी के लिए..

जहाँ चाह, वहाँ राह... यह वह चार शब्द है जिनके साथ मैं 2015 की शुरुआत करना चाहता था. साल अच्छा शुरू हुआ, फिर थोड़ी अनसनजस का माहौल हुआ, फिर पुराने दोस्तों से मिलना हुआ, साथ में घूमना हुआ.. वक़्त ने भावुक किया तो जीने का पफिर मन किया.. दफ़्तर मे तकरार, तो शायद पहली बार घर मे माँ पर चिल्लाने के लिए सामने से माफी माँगी, बताते हुए कि किसी का गुस्सा किसी पर निकल गया.. जब लगा की सब सही जा रहा है, पहली बार... तो फिर मैं गिर गया | दिन व्यर्थ, सोच नष्ट और मन फिर रोने को तरस रहा है..

मैं कौन हूँ ?? मैं ही क्यूँ ?? मेरी किस्मत मे ही ये क्यूँ ?? आज फिर एक बार जीवन पर रोक लगाने का बुज़दिल ख़याल आया.. रोना चाहता हूँ, जी भर कर ज़िंदगी को कोसना चाहता हूँ .. थक गया हूँ बार बार उठकर कर.. अब बस, अब और हिम्मत नही है मेरे आत्मा मे. हे वाहेगुरू, अब और इम्तेहान मत लो.. प्लीज़ यह बंद करो | "करम कर, फल की चिंता ना कर"... इस सोच को ज़िंदगी बनाई थी, और अभी भी इसी के साथ जी रहा हूँ | अपने साथ हुए हर बुरे , मेरे मन की विपरीत निर्णय को मैने अपने किसी ग़लत कर्म का भोग माना, लेकिन अब तो सासें भी तक गयी है.. इतना बुरा मैं नही. इतना बुरा मैं नही हूँ |

छठी कक्षा मे था जब से आपने ज़िंदगी मे इंतेहाँ पर इंतेहाँ रखे .. अकेला जी कर, सपनो की दुनिया मे खोया रहकर ज़िंदगी के सबसे नाज़ुक पल जीये. एक 12 साल का बच्चा था मैं.. क्या ग़लती की थी मैने जो ज़िंदगी मे इतना रोना, इतने मुश्किल पल लिख दिए ?? हाँ, नहीं भूलूंगा की खुशियों के पलों मे भी कोई कमी नही रखी | ज़िंदगी मे मुझे बहुत कुछ मिला, घरवालों से, दोस्तों और दुनिया से... उस सब के लिए तहे दिल से शुक्रिया... लेकिन अब और नही.. मुझे मेरी खुशियाँ बनाने का जितना हक और जज़्बा और लगान है, उतना ही मुझे अपने लिए दर्द सहने की शम्ता तैय करनी की आज़ादी भी दे दो, हे वाहेगुरू |

मैं जीना चाहता हू एक आम ज़िंदगी..

मैं मान चुका हूँ मैं समलैंगिक हूँ... कोई गिला शिकवा नही किसी से की क्यूँ किसी ने मुझे नही रोका इस ज़िंदगी में आते समय... जो मैं हूँ, मैं वही हूँ, भविष्या किसी ने नही देखा. यह ना कोई बिमारी है, ना ही मेरा निजी चुनाव .. किसी ने मुझे ना ही इस ज़िंदगी मे धखेला, ना ही मैं अपनी मर्ज़ी से ऐसा बना हूँ .. जिस तरह हमारी साँसों पर, और दिल की धड़कन पर कोई नियंत्रण नही, ठीक वेज़ी ही संलेंगिक होना या ना होना, अपने ही लिंग के इंसान के लिए शारीरिक भावना होना किसी के नियंत्रण मे नही... यह तो बस रीफ्लेक्स ऐक्शन है.. शूध हिन्दी मे बोलें तो "अनैच्छिक क्रिया"... अपनी छाया से जिस तरह नही भगा जा सकता, उसी तरह "अनैच्छिक क्रिया" पर भी कोई संतुलन नहीं.

पहले लगता था कि दुनिया के सामने मैं एक मुखौटा पह्न कर रहता हूँ, लेकिन अब ऐसा लगता है की मुखौटा तो कोई नही लेकिन आधा अधूरा सच दिल दिमाग़ आत्मा मे पानी से आधे भरे घड़े की तरह छलके जा रहा है. रोज़ शीशे मे देखता हूँ और अपने आप को नही पहचान पाता, हर तस्वीर एक धुंधली परछाई की तरह लगती है. अपने आप से मिलना चाहता हूँ, ढूँढना कचाहता हूँ "भवदीप" को. एक दर सता रहा है हर लम्हा की कहीं भूल ना जाऊं मैं हूँ कौन.

रो रो कर तक गया हूँ, अब तो दूसरों की अपने परिवार के सामने आने की कहानी पड़ने देखने से भी दर लगता है. हर पल अपने कमरे मे काटने को दौड़ता है. मैं ज़िम्मेदारी से भागना नही चाहता. मैं अपने सपने, अपने बचपन के हर मासूम और निष्कपट सपने को पूरा करना चाहता हूँ.. अपने परिवार को खुश देखना चाहता हूँ.. दुनिया मे खुशी लाने की अपनी महत्वकाँशा को सच करना चाहता हूँ.

पता नहीं मेरे शब्दों का कोई सार निकले किसी और के लिए, लेकिन यह मेरे मन की भड़ास नही, यह मेरे सासों की चीख है जो बाहर आना चाहती है. गुस्सा है जो ख़तम होना चाहता है. दर्द है जो भागना चाहता है.. दूर, बहुत दूर..

अब और नहीं.. बस, और नहीं!

The Storage Room

Sitting in that very room that defines my understanding of loneliness in life as much as it describes the birth of the untamed dreamer in me, it's like an emotional ride of being myself. I was probably in eighth or night standard, on the thresh hold of my puberty, both sexual as well as emotional,  and we had moved on the new furnished first floor residence from the second floor where we were initially living for many years. It was then when I started finding my recluse hours here. No one questioned me, I never questioned myself. It was like my dug out from the outside world. I try to think, think real deep, why I first thought of this room as my saving grace but I never get it. It was just that this was available, empty and I just wanted an escape from everyone around me. There have been umpteenth times when I have wished had there been someone to sit with me and talk to me about being the recluse, but it never happened and this past has only been stuffed into a similar figurative room that has piled up to a clustered storage room.

I remember coming in my room of comfort and escape just after having my lunch on returning home from school. It had the old bed (which is now sold), the old study table (which is still here), the old Almira of my mother (which still finds a space here) and me. The empty walls were being used to design crazy simple stuffs I like, from stars and balloons to (in huge scribble) VIVA!. It was 2002, about 12 years ago!!

My school days were routine - come back from school by 2:15 in afternoon, eat lunch, change, move upstairs, stay here, go down in evening for milk, return upstairs, stay here, go back down again for dinner and sleep. This started changing to taking my school bag upstairs and doing home work here and then studying for tests in the room, then bringing that rickety old transistor to the new audio-cassette-CD-radio player to upstairs and dancing like a lost but free soul in the confines of this hollow rectangular room. I even shagged for the first time here; not to mention the mute cries I screamed my heart out. The number of times I dream designed and redesigned this room's architecture is unparalleled.

It's been 12 years since. I may have moved out, but the stuffs still lay piled and even many new memories and unsaid thoughts that never let me go and grew from the sapling sown in this room. And the dreams that once made me live through my loneliness have now started to tie, bog me down so hard that its difficult to watch my favorite television shows, movies and music videos.

I don't remember when I last went through a normal TV viewing time at home, alone or with someone from the family, when while watching it I did not rush back in my mind to my dreams and how perfect they were, compared to the imperfect life being flashed in front of me. A work colleague had remarked in jest to me that how nothing is good for me when I was talking about Finding Fanny movie. Now the film is not perfect, per-say, but how a rank stranger who has little idea about my personal life is able to catch my trait so minutely does makes me cringe.

I do not say I want to be mysterious, someone no one can decipher. That is long over in the past and I have moved on to just wishing being simple, living simple. But I surely does not want to be a cynic. Being simple, now it feels, is easy. I really don't know if it was initially difficult as I am not able to jog those old thoughts right now. But how do I not be a cynic without losing the sight to see how things can really be perfect? I am finding it difficult; even more as I write it down that I seem to have turned towards pseudo perfection, a word I feel I am the first in the world to coin and not a good thing about it.

This pseudo perfection is crippling me even more rampantly ever since I got promoted to the post of a trainee employee in my first job in my dream career of journalism. It makes me sniff smile as much as it amuses me my level of thinking. From no more pocket-money (the stipend I was getting as a paid intern was like a pocket monthly allowance only) to having to withdraw money from my salary in my saving's account in the bank to thinking about savings for the future and maintaining proper documents for the income tax returns, life seems to have turned around so much in just one promotion that it is is unbelievable. Sweet but something even I never thought is possible to feel. Two months over as an employee and the change has yet to settle in for my every week-off has been fucked up in thoughts surrounding it and no one to share it. Thereby all these fears are piling up in that old storage room.

However, a first among many firsts is how I would like this road to my life journey be. I have to stop piling secrets, especially with most being completely unwarranted. Every new moment I will live will be a virgin and it can be be fucked up or made love to - all by my own actions. For past is a journey we travel to live in present all the way to a future that lies in out own actions. How many times I have moved randomly thinking about this day and now a little bump in acceptance is making to regret the dream. This is so not done. The storage room is to be cleared and by my own actions.

 

I'm gonna give all my secrets away...

Khoon Chala...

Few days ago, over a casual desk conversation, a friend in my department at work remarked what his father told him about success and failure. He said that failure is not having to succeed in delivering the required effort." The sentence may be very simple and straight forward but so was my remark. After acknowledging the truth in the sentence, I added that the definition of failure is different for different people. What may be failure for one, just might be a learning experience for the other.

I have always, as far as I can recall, tried, if not fully-confident, stuck with "every so-called failure is an experience to improve and succeed" statement. It have never been easy. To be brutally honest, a part of me dies with every failure. I try to 'rise from the ashes' and get back to a new beginning but it has never been easy. Its heartbreaking and there have been so many painful heartbreaks that I have lost the ability to cry over it now.

I try to begin anew, looking to find omens for that new beginning time period. It is sometimes reminiscent of an old history, or with an aim to achieve a particular number of days a goal or just about anything amusing I can film so that I can "equate" that new beginning as "written in destiny". But despite hundreds of such "omens", every failure (read, FAILURE) is killing for exactly one reason - TIME LOST, HISTORY RECORDED and TOO MANY INSANELY AMBITIOUS GOALS STILL HANGING IN PERPETUAL SUICIDAL UNCERTAINTY.

I do know that I am so not the only one facing this dilemma but then again my ambitions are also just that - MY! So I have no right to compare myself with anyone else; lest I am okay with the current state of life that success fails to entice me. That is so never going to be.

So from this very moment - will I rise to the success?? will I make omens instead of trying to find ones?? will I absolutely stop to sound whinny in my thoughts and I writing??

Its all in my mind. Why must I even get myself to be struck at cross-roads of failure and success when there has absolutely not a single moment in my ambitious life I can remember when I did not know I will get struck at such crossroad if I move ahead with A particular thing!!!

This memoir, this rambling of whining thoughts just has to end here. Sit up, accept the face of truth and start making omens. Stop thinking who I want to be, start believing what I want to do. The destination is just future but its the journey that is present.

कुछ कर गुज़रने को खून चला, खून चला..
आंखों के शीशे मे उतरने को खून चला..

बदन से तपक कर.. ज़मीन से लिपट कर..
गलिओं से रास्तों से उभरकर.. उमड़कर..
नये रंग भरने को खून चला, खून चला..

खुली सी चोट लेकर.. बड़ी सी टीस लेकर..
आहिस्ता.. आहिस्ता..

सवालों की उंगली.. जवाबों की मुठ्ठी..
संग लेकर.. खून चला..

Listening Chinese Whispers

My childhood is full of games, outdoor yet bored games, that I used to play with the neighborhood kids - no matter our age difference. It was not about the gender pressure, nor about any competitive status quo of group type. All of us from a group of adjacent houses; we were all in it together. These childhood memories include hop-scotch (aka stapoo), piththoo, maaram-pitti (aka ball-the-opponent), gilli-danda, chhupan-chhupai (aka hide and seek), nariyal pani, ghar-ghar (aka house), vish-amrit and many more.

One such game, whiich was mostly played when we tired to run, just wanted to sit yet laugh together was Chinese Whisperer, or as we called it growing up - KAANA PHOOSI.

It was one game where we deliberately made up sentences to confuse the other, one that would even more confuse the last-in-line participant. The more the confusion, the crazier we would all laugh and laugh inhibited. However, the main rule of the game was - words once spoken, won't be repeated again, even if its to correct oneself.

Life is like being in a 'chinese whisper moment' when travelling in Delhi Metro. And I travel in it very frequently. So I, or for that matter everyone, especially those traveling by themselves, are always participant to our childhood game every moment in Delhi Metro. Some whispers amuse you, some keep you smiling all along and yet few times it does irritate or even disgust you.

Like just now (as I write this memoir), this guy (probably in his college and definitely straight) standing next to me with his friends just randomly sang a line from a song to himself - a song which for me is my song for my latest crush.

"zindgi de dite tenu saare hakk ve.."

And he has repeated it once, apart from singing few more lines, again during the metro ride. Both these moments will definitely keep me smiling to my heart's content. *bliss* :)

However, these unsolicited chinese whisper in metro unknowingly also helps one grow and mature.

As an individual, I have been the most wreck when it comes to my physical being. Not that anyone challenged me on same course, just that I have too many dreams and goals to threaten me. Yet, I am no quitter. I maybe emulating tortoise walk but I am walking good.

This post holds its sapling from this conversation between a girl and a guy I 'overheard' in metro on way to office. Both, dressed sharply in white shirt and black trousers, seemed like first year students of MBA, who just started their post-grad classes and, as my imagination psyched, they seemed on returning back from one of the many MBA colleges in Rohini. Oh and yes, both were very good looking - the girl had this neat and long hair, perfectly tied over her head and then let lose behind and the guy, very attractive body, not cut but definitely healthy and toned, and face and very simple yet sexy hair, wavy up the front, a style I would have loved to have my hands feel. Very MnB, not dark but everything and both the guy and girl together surely looked a picture couple. (Oh, I am being so sane. :p )

Despite their features, which as I stated in the beginning how much appearance mattered to me, it was their conversation that took me to deep thinking. They were talking about making friends in class - for the guy!

For the vane me, I would have blindly thought of the guy to have made good friends easily, but he was talking about not finding 'the' guy classmate with whom he can bond as friend. The girl suggested a guy, whom she had interacted few times and he replied back with a dishearten sigh as if he was questioning his own 'friendship' capabilities.

Being a chinese whisperer aide to the two's conversation really held my mind. As to how much of my run for vanity justified and whether my social need for friendship really needs matching the high standard of physical looks.

In school, the looks part never did matter. In fact in college, where I liked shopping for clothes and bags and footwear, I did it all because I my heart liked it. If I have to strongly analyse my first run towards vanity, it was when I joined PG course in Media, because it was all about camera, and looks and achieving that perfect frame. In a sense, I was of the same (visualised) age as the two I was over hearing. Hmm..

But as I think about it now, it was the very same time, i.e. joining Media industry, when I became all-on-my-own. No family support, except financially which again I only took to the extent as I was dependent. I sacrificed every shopping need, every flamboyance and maybe my fun personality.

Was I right in going the path I went. I did struggle a lot, mostly emotionally and psychologically and everything I really never wanted and would have hoped for a edit in past.

Yet I can never let go that it is my this struggle that has shaped what I am right now. I don't really like all things from my past but I must never regret it. Friendship is very important, in every relationship, and I am sure my being a chinese whisperer aide ain't that bad, even if it was the twos look that caught my attention.

I did grew mature from my habit to being a non-welcome participant in kaana-phoosi, a childhood game which become even more dearer now. Who would have though my sneaky nasty habit would mature me someday. :p O:)

Dream it, Ink it

“Learn to recognise the omens, and follow them”

- THE ALCHEMIST

There is nothing that can drive one crazy, as it is our Dreams. The sometimes seemingly-reality, mostly an inner quest is what actually drives one to live. Call it being selfish but every step of ours is taken with a dream to achieve its completion. No matter how small or inconsequential for the people around us, it is only us who know how much every single of the psychological reality kills one to see it a reality. For someone like me, who has a proven track record of remembering most of his dreams, if not all, they do form a very vital part of my life.

However, without over-thinking (which I am much known and cautioned about) I also want to add that there are few things about life which I always find amusing. One of it is thinking about something, something not the usual run of the mill, and then having the real life almost responding to back to me reminding of that recent old thought.

I had spent a good part of my last late night browsing on my laptop checking many a tattoos  to get ideas of a few that I am determined to ink on my healthy body which I am planning to build up physically, mentally and psychologically by my 26th Birthday this August. Saved a few pics, that aroused me in different manners, for a future reference too. However I woke up without any after thoughts about same. I slept late till 2 in the afternoon, being an off day from work and most owing to me shutting my eyes only after 6-7ish in morning. By the time I took my place for my lunch, after a super late breakfast, I had switched on the television flipping straight to a movie channel. HBO was about to begin airing I AM NUMBER FOUR and since I have seen it to much enjoyment before, I decided to check out once again.

Sticking with the film was a very normal decision, though much to my surprise the film got me to see science fiction ink ideas, with the main protagonist FOUR getting inked with the death marks indicating the end of the previous three before him. There was nothing about a "TATTOO" in it, but the mark which was later seen in few other scenes were really enthusing for the adventurous me.

Should I be taking it as a sign that I must not hesitate over the society. To be brutally honest I know it will make me more confident of myself and there is nothing wrong in it. More so because I am not just getting it straight away. I have a goal to achieve, a deadline to adhere and all for a healthy cause.

I have to stop finding new auspicious beginnings, its only one life that I am living and it was started way before. Now is the present and that is the place to be auspicious with my words and actions. The Tattoo is not the goal but it surely underlines a lot of aspirations and that outlook for life which reads that live is both a virtuous and vicious circle. What I will sow will be the only determining factor of what I will reap. And a reality for Inked dreams means I must seep a positive me right here, right now. Only I can make my life either a virtuous cycle or a vicious failure.

As Professor Dumbledore said it very rightly, “It is not our abilities that make us who we are...it is our choices!”

My June De'Jour

"The simpler you say it, the more eloquent it is."

New beginnings are always a moment to savour. They can be any time what with famous saying, "Jab jaago, tabhi savera." However in the life and times of M/s Bhavdeep Singh Chadha alias BSC, these moments grab a special mention with the clichéd calender dates.

June has already dawned upon me as I write this little musings; with a beacon of hope that that this will just not be a run of the miss, okay-so-what-I-bruised-again-I-will-collect-pieces-together-and-start-anew day. Too many flips are seen, experienced and shagged off. I really don't know what I want from other people, from the future specials and I must stop thinking about it and just experience life as it comes through. I can just be happy with myself, smiling and effervescent, the metaphorical child in me always up for game and yet understandably in conscious control.

No more 50 shades fucked up, as I make way to complete the novel it is completing me. Whether I like it or not, bits and parts in any direction, it sure is making me move ahead.

Health and mind is what will keep me sane. I sure don't promise any future that is not just me and life is so just not going to ever be just me. Building blocks by block from every day, sharing all my fears and concerns (must stop calling it 'negativity') in the Blog. Indeed it will be a while, hopefully blissfully soon, when I don't have to beat any bush and write each and every thought in the simplest syllable that can be." For I just recently came across the header quote which is must for me to begin loving to write and write quality.

I love my work, I will keep on working to improve, sincerely and diligently. Not stagnation, only broaden my work approach. Show the calmness of my mind and thoughts in my health. For,

"Success beings with a fellow's will. It's all in a state of mind. Life's battles don't always go to the stronger or faster man. But sooner or later the man who wins is the one who thinks he can"

As for True Love,

Hey I just met you... And this is crazy...

But here's my number... So call me maybe...