Death.

Death inspires me - not that I am  downward spiralling, but because it inspires me to live more - making every moment count.  We're all dying, little by little, with the cells weakening, the fibres stretching and the heart getting closer to its last beat. Personally, I like that fact.  There is nothing more exhilarating than waking up every morning and going 'WOW! THIS IS IT! THIS IS REALLY IT! LETS HAVE A KICK-ASS DAY!' It helps me focus my mind wonderfully, makes me love vividly, work intensely, and realize that, in this amazing scheme of things, I really don't have time to sit around in my pyjamas, eating cereals at noon and watching re-runs of F.R.I.E.N.D.S.

If you feel I am sounding morbid here, lets think of death not as a release but as an incentive. The more focussed you are on your death, the more wholly you live your life. I don't believe in an afterlife. I guess that makes me a bad Hindu, and might be re-born as a dung-fly (only if I believed in that!).  Not trying to hurt the believers' religious sentiments, but I genuinely think afterlife is one of the biggest philosophical problem the earth faces. Everyone thinks they are getting a harp after death. 

Believing in an afterlife totally ruins up your living life. How? Underneath every day action and word, you think it doesn't really matter if you screw things up this time because you can all sort it out in some metaphysical plane. You will make it up with people you no longer talk to and become a better person, and lose that stomach flab in heaven. Oh, and learn to speak Japanese. After all, you will have time! It's eternity! So who cares what you do now? This is just some lacklustre waiting room you're going to be in for 20 minutes, with no wings at all, and are forced to walk around, on your feet, like pigs do. Heaven, the biggest waste of our time we ever invented, besides Buttersticks. 

So. Yes. We're all crumbling into the void, one cell at a time. We are disintegrating like sugar cubes in champagne. Then why do most men and women pretend  it isn't happening? Why do we often sit around and contemplate a future that doesn't even exists, instead of getting some stuff done and making it happen? I am a huge apostle for NOW.  And I totally love Robert De Niro's take on it - "Time goes on. So whatever you're going to do, do it. Do it now. Don't wait." This make me restless, but I am constantly curious about whats out there. I like picking life by its neck and shaking it, just to see what falls out of its pockets. There is a strange kind of joy in discovering something new - whether its accidentally finding a hidden street with amazing street art, or just striking up random conversations with absolute strangers. Or taking up Swing Dancing lessons next month.

I don't try new things just because I am scared that one day I might drop dead and my bucket-list would  be incomplete. Rumor has it that your life flashes by just before you die. If thats actually true, I would rather have mine worth an Oscar - she died doing what she likes the most. And that is something no harp or golden wings can ever replace.

What do you think your flash-by movie will be like?

The dangerous mind of a woman

Its a sunny Saturday and I am sitting at my favorite cafe soaking up in whatever vitaminD I could get for the next few days. I could go out for a walk but all I want to do is write. The mind is on fire! And I couldn't think of writing anything else than the complex mind of a woman.

As a teaser, last week I wrote few lines on my Facebook status to see the reaction on -  "If there was some kind of Psychic Helmet that you could put on, in order to read the women's thoughts, any men donning it would be instantly terrified by the previously concealed levels of female insanity it will reveal." Of course the men folk were interested to know whats in the mind of a woman so that they can  understand us. The women however kept silent, and I know exactly why. We are terrified of our own thoughts. 

Pick any situation in a woman's life and she has done so many 'test runs' in her head over it before it even existed, to see if it actually worked out or not. Like a computer running through algorithms. For example, we love to think that we are in love. Women are obsessed about the idea of love and relationships. They think about it all the time. Sometimes, when I tell men about the way women think about potential relationships, they start to look very, very alarmed. However, discuss the same thing with women, and they will give a shamed bark of recognition. No wonder it makes me laugh when I come across anecdotes like - women thinks from heart, and men thinks from head. I don't know who is fooling whom. The truth is men falls in love, women loves to think they are in love, at least in the beginning. The only exception to this rule will be if you are sharing the umbilical cord with us. But then our fertile imagination is not entirely our fault.

Language tells us exactly what we think of unattached woman - it's all there, in the difference between 'bachelors' and 'spinsters'. Bachelors have it all to play for. Spinsters must play for it all, and fast. The market demand tells you a woman's value: if she is single, she is unwanted, and therefore - should this state of affairs go on for any length of time - less desirable. Even though this is very prevalent in patriarchal societies in Asia and Africa, it is not entirely excluded from Westen societies. So given the importance women know is attached to them being attached, it is a little wonder why most women are obsessed with the idea of love, and relationships. Sadly most women gets so consumed by this fear of being unwanted, that they panic and get in all the wrong relationships to 'think they are in love'. The rest of us who loves to run free until we meet our equal in every aspect, are often shunned by our committed friends to be the 'spinster aunt' to their kids who they will visit on holidays. 

You can tell when a woman is with the wrong man, because she has so much to say about the fact that nothing is actually happening. We all have that friend. Before you have met him for the first time, she talked him up like he was a cross between Indiana Jones, Barack Obama and The Doctor. But when you finally meet him, he is actually the 'Bony King of Nowhere.com.' On the other hand when women find the right person, they just....disappear for months, and then resurface, eyes shiny, and usually few pounds heavier. And they are oddly quiet other than the "Its just good... I'm really happy." And that will usually be the end of the discussion. Usually forever. You stop talking about things when you've worked them out. You are no longer an observer, but a participant. You're too busy for this bullshit.

I used to talk a lot about my ex boyfriend to my friends. I became a total bore - I bet people ran away from me in parties, and friends went offline when I came online. At that time it felt like our relationship was a gigantic puzzle - a huge existential and emotional quiz that, if I apply myself enough to it, I will solve and gain the result of True Love. Of course now its easier to see that having common grounds over movie, music, food choices are not the main ingredients to be in a relationship when your core values are polar opposite. The whole thing looked good only in my head. Maybe thats why not many women die heart-broken because of failed relationships. Maybe because when its over in their head, its over forever. Just like that – flipping the switch off. And then something new catches our imagination.  

Being a woman is not easy, and there is no manual for it. We are not only judged on how we dress or conduct ourselves, but we are also judged about the way we think. I have been often told that most of my thoughts are NOT FEMININE. I guess its because I wear my mind on my sleeves rather than my heart. There is so much stuff to talk about and discuss, sadly very few people gets it or will ever understand the intensity of a good conversation.  The worst part is I can't discuss a woman's mind with other women, they will vehemently disagree to half the things I will say. As for men, they need to evolve into women to even talk about women's psyche. So taking refuge in books was my only option  - I devoured works of Dorothy Parker, Sylvia Plath, Germaine Greer, Gloria Steinem, but it was pretty unidimensional. They were all angry women who contemplated suicide at some point in their lives. I now, rather prefer Nancy Friday or Lady Gaga's views - no matter how shocking their revelations are,  they threw more light on female mind, sexuality and liberation. Yes, a woman's mind is a deep, dark and twisted land, where very few dares to tread on it. And we change it very often only because we are afraid that someone might get burnt by our thoughts. 

Sigmund Freud once said, "The great question that has never been answered, and which I have not yet been able to answer, despite my thirty years of research into the feminine soul is - What does a woman want?"

When he couldn't answer that question, dear reader, how will you?