Day 30: Embracing the Broken – Stuttgart to Paris

It’s been days now since I wrote my last blog – not out of the lack of thinking-time but because sometimes I don’t find a charging spot in a train (my laptop battery sucks big time) or sometimes I am too sleepy when I reach my hostel after all the sight-seeing of the day.[Right now I am typing while sitting on the train to Paris from Stuttgart]

Life has changed or maybe, I have changed. Only a few days earlier we were thinking of our student exchange program, planning of the places we would visit – Vienna, Paris, Santorini, etc; And now we are here living that dream of ours we had seen from before joining an MBA program.

Oh, how I love myself to have dared to take this trip despite all the initial doubts of mine and worries of my loved ones. Oh, how I love myself today that I am almost a nomad traveling from one place to another, sleeping in trains, making a living room in train stations, with my backpack that has sufficient clothes to last me for two months.

Of course, it isn’t a piece of cake all the time. We can’t make calls when we want to, I can’t eat whatever I lay my eyes on; my stuffs get lost or misplaced all the time. In the last 30 days, I have lost not only my clothes and jacket but I have also managed to spill water on both my phones, spoiling their circuits so that even three repairing shops have given up on trying repairing them. I bought the cheapest phone available in the market only a few days back so that I can still attend calls and take a photo or two for memories’ sake. And the selfie-stick my sister gifted me for my solo travel? Broken, that too.

It’s disheartening at times when I have to let go of material possessions I adored. It’s disheartening when bad things happen, when I have to carry so much luggage around which is so unlike me, when I sometimes don’t get a hostel to stay and have to worry about where and how to spend the night, and now that the blisters on my feet are taking forever to heal.

But above all the disappointments, the small failures, I guess the bigger picture still remains the same – that here I am, finally embracing life, embracing myself with every broken pieces of my soul. For I dare not repair the broken to let the scars remain, I decide to let the broken forget it was ever broken, so that if it heals, let it be, if it doesn’t let it be. Let it be.

Curious Case of the Open Backdoor

What does a backdoor mean to you? In matters related to computers, a backdoor is something that breaches security measures and accesses private data without your permission- some means hackers would use. In matters of real estate, a backdoor is a door at the rear end of a house or building. Leaving it open would often mean keeping the house insecure as one would seldom be guarding that end unless when close to it. Leaving it open would also give one the chance to run away from the backdoor when someone uninvited unwanted is at the front door. So, what does backdoor mean when it comes to your life goals? It's something on the similar lines- Every time you devise a plan B, you are creating a backdoor in your life and leaving it open. Your life goals could be anything - that career option, that job offer, that relationship, that marriage proposal, that transfer letter, anything significant, and anything that makes you wonder how it would turn out, anything where the future is uncertai...

Ablaze Within ...

It was either for the scorching sunrise that hurt her eyes or the cold breeze that blew scratching the fresh wounds on her arms, but Disha could tell that her friend had tears in her eyes for some reason or the other. “Nothing,” Razia said, when confronted by Disha, hiding her eyes as she wiped her tears with her hands. “Got paid?” Disha enquired. “Yes.” Lied Razia while walking towards the place she has been calling home from the past couple of years. She headed for the bathroom as she entered her room where two girls were sitting, one smoking a cigarette while the other wearing make-up in front of the broken mirror in the room. Razia cleaned her skirt that was smeared with her blood. She wasn’t prepared for it. After all it was that 14- year old’s first time. Not the first time that she had been “ridden” by men, nor the first time that she bled while bearing the intolerable pain the men gave her, but for the first time that she painlessly bled indicating a cycle o...

"Are You a Lesbian?"

“Are you a lesbian?” A friend of mine once asked me mockingly when we were discussing about my aversion from some (“some” not “all”) kind of men. “No. But does it matter?” I asked her scornfully. No, I wasn’t bothered that I was asked a question about my sexuality. But what I didn’t understand was that is being a lesbian a matter to be jeered about? What if I was one? Wouldn’t I be hurt and embarrassed that my sexuality was just mocked at? Why are the words “gay” or “lesbian” used as slangs? Another incident, that took place a couple of years back, was when I was teasing two girl friends of mine, accusing them of having an affair. I considered it as normal as teasing a guy and a girl. One of them found it so disrespectful that she, instead of simply denying the fact, chided that she isn’t of such “third class” standard. I later discussed the small argument that we had, with her, trying to make my point that being a lesbian or a transgender doesn’t define anyone’s cla...

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