Allow Ann to Babble, Please!

In Greek mythology, Icarus is famous for his greed- for the defiance of his father's rules which ultimately resulted in his own death. According to the myths, Daedalus, a mythical inventor and father of Icarus, created wings made out of feathers and wax to escape their imprisonment in Crete. Daedalus had given strict warnings to his son about the flight- "Let me warn you, Icarus, to take the middle way, in case the moisture weighs down your wings, if you fly too low, or if you fly too high, the sun scorches them. Travel between the extremes"-  Ovid, VIII They left Crete with Icarus agreeing to these rules but upon reaching the island of Samos, Icarus turned arrogant and felt an intense desire to fly towards heaven. And so he did. Ignoring every single one of his father's warnings, he flew closer and closer to the sun. The wax of his wings melted. He found out soon enough that he could no longer fly. And he fell. He fell down into the ocean where death awaited him with...

Have you ever had an opinion about something that was mocked and laughed at by others who held different views on the topic? Have you ever contemplated changing your opinion just because those other people told you that you were in the wrong? Then let me narrate a story to you real quick. Vasily Aleksandrovich Arkhipov- yeah, you might not have heard this name ever in your life but trust me when I say that he's the reason you're alive and well today. Arkhipov was a Soviet Naval officer who was credited by Thomas S. Blanton in 2002 as "the man who saved the world." On 27th October, 1962, during the period of the Cold War, a nuclear-armed Foxtrot-class submarine B-59 was located near Cuba by a group of 11 US Navy destroyers and the aircraft carrier USS Randolph. Even though the submarine was in international waters, the US Navy started dropping depth chargers which were intended to force the submarine to rise to the surface for identification. By that time, the contact ...

Medusa is not a name that is unpopular with people. The gorgon with snakes for heads in Greek mythology who was crazy and cruel, turning people into stone until she was put to stop by the mighty Perseus- that's the perception a lot of people have of her. But all in all, she was just a victim. She was no monster. She was only painted as one. As one of the Gorgon sisters, Medusa was born beautiful and kind. She devoted herself to a life of celibacy and became a priestess to her beloved goddess, Athena. The requirement to be a priestess was to be a virgin and devote their life to the goddess and that's exactly what Medusa did. But one day, Poseidon, the Sea God who also has a deep sense of hatred and enmity towards Athena, saw Medusa and cast his evil eyes of lust upon her. Even though Medusa rejected his sexual advances against her purity, he did not heed her. He raped her. He raped her on the very steps of Athena's temple to further humiliate the goddess. And Medusa, left we...

Dead Poets Society is one of my favourite movies of all time. Released in 1989, this movie is a reminder to everyone to be their authentic selves and to allow others to be their authentic selves. Through the character of Neil Perry, it shows the turmoil of being restricted from doing something that means the world to you. Let me elaborate. And if you've not yet watched this movie, well- spoilers ahead. Neil Perry is one of the students at an elite all-boys preparatory school. He is pressurized by his father who is always breathing down his neck to make him excel academically. But academics is not where his heart lies. It is in theatre. He has an immense love for acting and wishes to make a career out of it. But his father never understood this. So, without his father's knowledge and with the encouragement of his English teacher, John Keating, Neil auditions for a local production of 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. "For the first time in my whole life, I know what ...

 There's this poem by Ellen Bass that goes- And I think that's exactly the way to get through life. There are a great deal of curveballs coming our way throughout the course of our existence. And the most grave fact is that it's a one-lane road. You have to face them, whether you want to or not. Some situations might affect you so badly that you think you cannot take anything anymore. But you have to. Even through the grief and the pain- you have to. There's a song by Hozier called 'All Things End' in which he says- "If there was anyone to ever get through this life with their heart still intact, they didn't do it right." Only the things that we love have the power to obliterate us. If we lose something we never really valued in the first place, we wouldn't be so desolate over it. If someone we never really cared for decides to walk out of our lives for good, our only thought would be "good riddance". The intensity of the pain you fee...

 As I've mentioned in one of my blogs before, I have a guitar sitting back at my home, covered in dust and spider webs, because I gave up on learning it even though I took great interest in it initially. I also have this sketchbook which doesn't have more than ten pages drawn sitting in the drawer of my study table in my room. There are many things I've wanted to accomplish in life. But I've always put them off or stopped doing them in the middle of doing them because of some reason or the other. This has left a lot of my dreams hanging.  For as long as I can remember, I've always loved to write. In my school, I was the insufferable favourite student of all my English teachers and my classmates used to hate me at times for it. I've always found writing to be a healthy outlet for my emotions and feelings. I was never all that good at speech. I stuttered and fumbled, and I still do. But when I write, I can express things perfectly, just how I want them to be expre...

Anyone who has ever been a people-pleaser in their lives knows how hard it is to say the word 'no'. It's just two words. One syllable. But somehow, uttering this seems too complex- too complicated. When someone comes up to you and asks for something you know you don't have the time, space or mind to give and yet- YET- that one single word fails to rise up your throat to be spilled out into the open. Yeah, that's called lacking boundaries. It's great to be a selfless person. To always give to everyone without expecting anything in return is not an easy feat. To be kind to people who have been unkind to you and to make others happy even at the cost of your own is something that only a person with a truly big heart can do. But let me warn you, it will eat away at you. Let's take an instance where you're a glass of water filled to the brim. To quench others' thirst you're just giving yourself away. "It's okay. Drink from me", you reply ...

Let me start off by telling you some good news. It has passed and you will never experience that again. Now let me tell you a bad one. It has passed and you will never experience that again. There are instances we wish we could freeze and frame forever. Like, even when you're living in it, you will feel a kind of ache within yourself over the fact that it will end at one point in time. And there are other moments you just want to get done with and leave the whole thing behind. You've had enough. It has drained you to the point where you want to be rid of it as soon as possible. This is life- a remix tape of the same two scenarios over and over again. This is life until your death. The highs and lows are a part of our existence. We cannot choose to keep the good part and avoid the bad. We have to learn to balance it both. We should cherish the good moments and enjoy them to the best of our capability whether it is with our loved ones or by ourselves. Learn to live in the moment....

  The Lunatic of Etretat by Hugues Merle (1871) Merle is a French writer who is known best for portraying sentimental subjects in paintings. But this art piece- The Lunatic of Etretat- strays from this technique and is known for the intensity and the dynamic of the emotions it represents. The exact meaning of this art piece is still a topic of debate amongst its admirers. As a direct interpretation, this painting is viewed as the anguish of a mother who has lost her child. The empty yet rage-filled look in her eyes and the log wrapped in a blanket and tied with a bonnet can be taken as symbols of the grief the woman holds over her loss. Even the name of the painting hints at this meaning. But considering the fact that this painting was made after the Franco-Prussian war, people say that the woman may symbolize France and the log would be the lost territory. My initial interpretation of this painting is the former notion. Yes, the symbolism of the war makes sense but I'd like to vie...

 I remember this particular day I was feeling very downcast. I do not recall the exact reason for feeling so but something had happened and it was weighing down on me so bad. I remember sitting alone on a bench at the railway station with tears in my eyes. I was holding them back as best as I could, trying to act normal in a public space. That's when an old lady tripped and fell to the ground a little beside me. As it was the far end of the platform, there were not many people around. I instantly got to my feet and went to help that poor woman as any human being might have done in that scenario. A man who stood nearby also came forward to help her up. As she was able to stand back upon her feet, she looked me in the eyes and just broke out in tears. It was quite shocking to me at first- to have an old woman sobbing against me so violently. That man tried to calm her down but I could form no word to soothe her. I was still stunned. I honestly did not know what to do. We led her to t...

Do you think when you are on your deathbed taking the last few breaths of your life, you will be satisfied with the way you have lived? A rather grave way of starting a blog but tell me, do you think you will be able to say your life was worth living at the end of it all, no matter what you had gone through? If you want to answer yes to these questions, then try to live without regret. Remember, better an oops than a what if. I came across this Wikipedia article that talked about the top five regrets of the dying. According to Bronnie Ware, the five most common regrets shared by people nearing death were: "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me." "I wish I hadn't worked so hard." "I wish I'd had the courage to express my feelings." "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends." "I wish that I had let myself be happier." Change is an important component in our lives. No o...

"Somewhere right now, your future woman of the year is probably sitting in a piano lesson or in a girls' choir. Today, right now- we need to take care of her." - Taylor Swift upon winning the Billboard 'Woman of the Year' award in 2014. "At that exact moment, an eleven-year-old girl in California really was taking piano lessons and really was in a girls' choir. And this year she's been named 'Woman of the Year' at the age of seventeen. Her name is Billie." - Taylor Swift after Billie Eilish won the Billboard 'Woman of the Year' award in 2019. Surely, you have a dream. Be it minuscule or humongous, you have one. Be it clear or messy, you definitely have one. Humans dream. It's just what we do. There's at least one thing that we want to achieve in life- and that thing might vary from person to person. Your "dream" might seem like a mocking piece to some other person but to you, it's your driving force. And I te...

  Let me start by asking you a very famous question. You see the picture above, right? Is the water in that glass half empty or half full?  Now, the common notion is that if you say half empty, you are a pessimistic person and if you say half full, you are rather optimistic. But I tell you, this is just a complete blunder. You see, to answer if the glass is half empty or half full, one has to be aware of its initial state. If water is poured into an empty glass, then it's safe to say that the glass is half full now. But if half the water in the glass was drunk or poured out, then the glass is half empty now. Let me get to the point without beating around the bush much. It's perspective that truly matters. It's whether the glass was first full or empty that can provide an apt answer. A person who has been drained of everything in him being pessimistic is not a surprise. At the same time. someone who has embodied resilience being optimistic in nature is quite natural. Optimi...

I heard this quote, "Just because you love someone doesn't mean they feel loved by you" and I haven't been the same ever since. That single line shifted my perspective on a whole lot of things. Allow me to explain. Generally, there are five main universal love languages- words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, acts of service and receiving/giving gifts. This concept is explained in Gary Chapman's book, "The 5 Love Languages" which was first published in 1992. You may argue that there are several more and yes, you're right. But let's assume this to be the base of it all for now. Now, take the instance of a ten-year-old kid from a rich family who gets everything he wishes for no matter how costly or rare it is. Yes, the fact that his parents are showering him with those gifts would make him happy but imagine a scenario where he has a dance performance at school and neither of his parents show up to support him because they're busy m...

Today, me and my friends performed a dance for E-Ministry's Farewell party. Now, am I a member of E-Ministry? No. Did I have any role in their work all through this year? Also, no. But one of my friends is a member of it and she asked us to perform for this event as a group. At first, I was hesitant. As we started practising, that hesitancy only grew. I kept messing up all through our practice sessions and it took me a lot of time to even get simple steps correct because I've never really danced for events all that much, especially not to the kind of songs we chose for this particular event. But somehow, with the motivation from my friends, I stuck through until the end and I'm quite satisfied with the result. No, it wasn't perfect. It was far from it, actually. We messed up a lot during it. But when I left that stage and sat back down on the chair, I felt.. happy. I felt happy that I did not let my fear make me miss out on this opportunity. I felt content that I was ab...

When people used to tell me that time flies and that it waits for nobody, I never used to believe them completely. Because then, I was so immersed in the lengthy days I spent in class and the boring hours I laid awake in my bed at night not knowing what to do. But now when I reflect upon it all, what I deemed to be an ample amount of time was actually nothing at all. Because it did, in fact, pass me by too quick. I was just blind to it. I studied in the same school from kindergarten to tenth grade. That place is like my own home to me. I don't quite remember when I changed schools for eleventh and twelfth grade. The line of distinction between them is too blurry in my memory. I don't remember thinking that my time there would end and I would be rooted in another place for two years. And when I settled in that new place, I was plucked away once again. What I thought would be two prolonged years of my existence just passed by like a gentle breeze and before I knew it, I was enrol...

  "Existence has no meaning, and this is meaningful." This is the sum and essence of Emil Cioran's paradox. He was a Romanian writer and philosopher who is known for his intensely pessimistic reflections on human existence. His works seek to question and defy all that is conventional in society. One of the recurring themes in Cioran's writing is the concept of 'lucid despair.' He argues that facing the reality of human existence without delusion or false hope is the only real response to life's inherent absurdity and suffering. Yes, hope is the one thing that keeps all of us going. As human beings, it's normal to have hope, even if it is so very little in many difficult situations. But to hold out hope is to be crushed under the expectation of it. To make meaning out of everything and anything and to treat it all as a sign makes a disappointment out of every situation when it doesn't meet our expectations. This proves that existence has no meaning ...

There's this notion in existence that equates strength to brutality and I just completely disagree with that with every fibre of my being. Allow me to explain. Brutality- savagery- cruelty- they're never marks of strength. They'll never be marks of strength. To be so emotionally frail that the only way you can exert dominance over another person is through physical combat is not strength- it's weakness. Strength isn't clenched fists or bloody teeth. Strength isn't bruised knuckles or broken bones. True strength is gentle like a slow breeze instead of the howling wind people perceive it to be. True strength is more of a whisper than a shout. Strength is allowing yourself to understand a situation and handle it in a rational manner without resorting to any sort of violence. Strength is hearing out every single perspective on the issue while at the same time not viewing yourself in a lesser light or thinking that your side of it is inferior to the others. No. Don...

To be- the process of being- it is tiring and agonizing at times. To be a human is to be struck down by life at each and every turn you take. To be a human is to live with a heavy heart and a raging soul over the things you've lost and the people you've had to let go. And obviously, this may lead to a very significant question- 'Is it all really worth it?' Is it? Is life worth enduring? Is life really worth living? Wouldn't death be more of a lovely option? To be or not to be? I'm not sure if I can give a definite answer to that question. But I know.. I know that I feel at peace when I lay my head on my mother's lap as she weaves her fingers through my hair strands. I know that I feel content when my father picks up my plate and hand-feeds me the food because, to him, I'm still his little girl. I know that I feel not so lonely when my brother barges into my room and messes up things a little to annoy me- his love language that I've always grumbled at...

Today's blog is once again inspired by a spectacular performance put up by the Malayalam Crew of Theatre No.59 at MCC on Day 2 of the Theatre night. This play, titled 'Rithu', was such an emotional masterpiece that it brought almost the entirety of Anderson Hall (where this event was taking place) to its feet. And God, did even a standing ovation seem far too less of a credit that could be given to the act that was put up on stage.  Here, we could see 'Malik', a fifth-grade student from an ordinary working-class family in Kerala, filled with a sense of curiosity about the differences between the male and the female anatomy. When he raises this doubt to his parents, he is shunned and silenced. So he decides to take a peek into the girls' washroom at his school so that he can understand why girls sit down when they pass urine, unlike boys who stand. But he is caught by a teacher of his and is brought to the principal who beats him and shames him, demanding his par...

To love art is to be maddened by it. This is a notion that has always been in my head since I watched a particular movie which I will talk about later on. First of all, I'd like to deal with the thing that inspired me to choose this topic for today. It was Day 1 of Theatre No.59 (a well-acclaimed drama group) Night at MCC. The Hindi Crew put on a show, titled 'Kala', dealing with the theme that I've mentioned in the title- the over-obsessed artist trope. The protagonist, Sneha, is a dance student at her own mother's classical dance academy. She strives to be a good enough student for her mother but she is bested by another student named Nishta at every turn. The fact that Sneha is unable to reach her mother's expectations and perfect the art causes strain in her family dynamic, making her mother angry with her which in turn makes her father angry at her mother. This causes the mother to leave her father for another guy and her father ends up hanging himself. Mad...

Mindless scrolling through Instagram reels can be a gravely addictive habit that eats away at one's brain. But sometimes, the content on there is useful one way or the other. An example of that is today's blog itself. It was inspired by one such reel- or in particular, one sentence from that reel that caught me in a chokehold, enough for me to put the phone down and stare at the ceiling, pondering over it for almost half an hour. It goes-  "Let it die with the dignity it deserves." In this particular video, it was about a romantic relationship that had ended. But I think it can be applied to all sorts of relationships we have with all sorts of people. Allow me to explain. As human beings, when we love something, we grow attached to it. We grow attached to it to the extent that we think we'll have it for ourselves throughout the whole course of our lives. But sometimes, things don't go as we initially planned. Sometimes we'll have to watch all the plans and...

"Nothing is original, there's nothing left to say You won't be the first or be the last to bleed Every broken heart as far as your eye can see It's a copy of a copy of a copy." -Louis Tomlinson ('A Copy of a Copy of a Copy', an Unreleased Song) Do you think you're entirely unique- every single part of you? Do you think all that surrounds you are one of a kind? If so, then you're terribly wrong. Everything is an imitation of something else. We humans were made as an imitation of God in His own image (as the biblical narrative goes, that is.) We humans, creatures of high intellect and high productive capabilities, have made a great deal of inventions over time but all these inventions are just progressions of things that already exist in nature. Even the topic I chose today is inspired from a lecture by one of my professors and the above comparisons that I drew out are his own. Yes, everything is a copy of a copy of a copy. Everything in this world i...

Today, in class, one of my professors narrated an endearing story of how his son clings to his feet every single morning, refusing to let him come to college. Thus, he has to take the back door and come all the way to the front to put on his socks and shoes and then leave unnoticed or he'd be late for work. In the hectic mind of getting to college on time, this act of his (three-year-old, I think?!) son might cause some distress and irritation in him. But he told us that at the same time, it is something he cherishes because he knows it won't last forever. There will come a time when his little son won't need his dad as much as he does now. And that is a fact that no parent in this world wants to come to terms with. Now that I come to think about it, isn't everything in this world fleeting? Nothing we hold dear to our hearts has roots. They float. They float among us, aside us, above us, below us and inside us. We can superglue nothing to ourselves because nothing stays...