LEO TOLSTOY

Favourite quote <3

A terrible tiny tale.

This is my first attempt at a 25-word story a la Terrible Tiny Tale style.
Feedbacks are welcome. Just don't be a little too harsh :)


He hurried back home.
Pile of debris.
A trapped hand reached out.
Lifeless.

He could make a million bucks again.
But his wealth was gone.

STOP MALE BASHING.

I'm sure you all must have seen the #MyChoice video starring Deepika Padukone, as it is going viral over social media. A friend of mine asked me to watch it, as it was "amazing" in her words. And after watching it, I was just appalled. In my opinion, that video is horrible and disgusting, to say the least. For starters, why are they mixing two completely different things like adultery and feminism? That's just absurd.

I have always felt proud in thinking of myself as a feminist. And I'm sorry to say this, but that video which aims at "empowering women" has brought shame to numerous 'feminists' like me. Because it reeks of plain hypocrisy. And that's not the kind of world we hope to live in. 
 

Feminism is about advocating EQUAL rights for men and women. It does not aim at pulling down men. Such videos that target men are infact more damaging to the cause of women empowerment. (This link is of a counter-video to Deepika's #MyChoice. Honestly, I found it much better - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VhjOnXGXpHo)

Feminism has a lot of negative connotations attached to itself. Once and for all, it's not a battle of the genders. Not for me, atleast. We do not want to scare men away. We are not seeking to displace men from boardrooms and put them in the kitchen. We just want to be treated as equals, so that we can walk shoulder-to-shoulder with men, in any damn field. And above everything else, we just want to be respected.

I think one of the reasons why I am still a Potterhead (proudly so) is because I have unparalleled respect for Hermione. For me, she symbolises women empowerment. She doesn't believe in playing dumb and is in fact as talented as Harry and Ron, and helps them on the Horcrux hunt, as an equal. 

She's a smart, nerdy and a beautiful girl who falls for a guy who is probably not the "hero" of the story or 'The Chosen One', as they call it. She has the courage to make that kind of a choice. #HerChoice. That is feminism. That is women empowerment. She is the kind of girl I aspire to be.

IMAGES

So I'd like you all to read this quote that happens to be my favourite one from the show called "Desperate Housewives" (which is a really amazing show by the way, quite in contrast to its cheesy name)

“Cameras are simple tools designed to capture images. Images that tell us more about ourselves than we realize. They remind us of the long journey we’ve taken. The loved ones who traveled alongside of us. Those we lost along the way. And those waiting for us on the road ahead. Yes, cameras are tools designed to capture images. But in truth, they can capture so much more. They can uncover hidden longing of men who should no longer care. They can reveal the extraordinary secrets of the most ordinary marriages. Most amazing of all, cameras can quietly and clearly reveal to us our dreams. Dreams we didn’t even know we had.”

PUZZLED

Him and her.

They were like puzzle pieces,

Two very different shapes,
Both lost in a world of madness.

 

Complete misfits for the world they belonged to.

But look how they fitted together perfectly,

To form their very own masterpiece. 

CHOICES

I remember one day back in the 6^th grade, while exploring the library shacks, I came across the ‘Give Yourself Goosebumps’ series. I had read ‘Goosebumps’ previously, but this series was a tad bit different. Each book had a branching storyline which led to multiple endings. The readers could steer their own path throughout the course of the story. At least two choices were given regarding which page to turn to, depending on what the reader wants the main character to do.  

Let’s say if the protagonist is running away from a monster and there are two escape routes, one through the front door, the other involving a secret staircase.  (Or whatever. Let’s not get into details, it’s all hypothetical). So, we could essentially make the choice about how our story progresses. We were required to take our pick at the split-off point and on the bottom of the page was written something like this:
If you choose the front door, turn to page 48.

If you want to escape through the secret staircase, turn to page 75.

Whenever in school we had our weekly library period, I kept digging for more books in this special series. I loved the freedom it offered to choose our very own ending, vis-a-vis a taut and rigid storyline which we honestly have no option but to accept (either happily or grudgingly).

Yes, I used the word grudgingly. Well that's mainly because, personally, I do tend to get a bit sloppy and mawkish sometimes about certain characters of a novel. For starters, in the Harry Potter series, I felt betrayed to a certain extent by Ms. J. K. Rowling. Why did she have to kill Dobby? I mean, WHY? She could have killed Harry for all I care.

(FYI, I’m not the only one who mourned Dobby’s death. Apparently, there are Facebook pages and quite a few groups regarding the very same thing-https://www.facebook.com/pages/Dear-JK-Rowling-You-Crossed-the-LINE-BY-Killing-Dobby/207189572632967?sk=timeline)

Anyway, let’s come back to my (eccentric) liking for branched storylines. After I was usually done reading the book and reached a particular ending (out of the many possible ones), I always liked to wonder how the story would have turned out if I had made a different choice.  So I often re-read my Goosebumps book from a fresh perspective, by choosing a new path in comparison to the one I had previously selected.

 

Recently it struck me that our lives are just like that. Every once in a while we find ourselves staring at a fork in the road. It could be a crucial, yet highly complicated decision, which might just change the direction of the rudder of our lives.  Or a simple one for that matter. (refer to the picture)

(Pun intended.)

But the moment definitely comes for all of us, sooner or later. Life is all about the choices that we make. It offers us diverging roads (like branching storylines in Goosebumps) and how our life pans out is dependent on the road we choose.

And there might be times when we may want to go back on the choice that we made, that seemed so right at that point of time. After traversing a long stretch down that path, we might want to retrace our steps and instead just choose the other road and start afresh. But unlike the book wherein we need to flip just a couple of pages to get an alternative ending, life does not work that ways. It's much more complex and we cannot go back without causing some irreparable damage back on the way.

 

“The choice you make between hating and forgiving, can become the story of your life.”

- Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts

APATHY

 As time is passing by,

The world is turning sly.

In our wicked rat-race,

Who knows what we will be left to face?

That is such a disgrace!

We are writhing in pain,

In the thunderous rain,

Taking so much strain,

And pondering, will all the efforts of our ancestors go in vain?

With no one to pay any heed,

What is the current situation’s need?

Have we ever performed a selfless deed?

And we think of ourselves as ‘Driven to succeed’!

Together we shall weep,

The fruits of our deeds we have to reap.

With no time to sleep,

We need to think really deep.

Indifference to our own race is our heinous crime,

Nothing will change, even if we whine.

The situation is grim,

And our tolerance levels have filled up to the brim.

We need to be wise,

So that above the callousness, we can rise.