The Public Diary

Don't worry. This is not a doctoral post that would go above your our head. Living in this body sometimes makes you wonder about the alternative ways in which this body could have formed, doesn't it? I call them 'Anatomical wonders', which these are not per se.  Or am I only one getting these weird thoughts? I hope not. Starting right from the childhood, just like any other kid on the block, I used to be scared of darkness. The transition from sleeping in a room with so-called 'zero watt bulb' lighting as a baby to sleeping in a completely dark room, relying merely on moonlight or may be street lights, instilled a sense of fear. Especially, if everybody else in the room is asleep but you aren't.  Add to it the fact that my sibling, with whom I used to share the quilt, had this habit of sleeping with the quilt covering her face all upto her head. It used to make me feel like the ghost would notice me outright. To solve this potential trouble, I too tried to ...

Somebody tell google to not keep expectations. They hurt. But I guess it's such a bad student. It keeps on notifying, "Expect rain around 8AM" and then be so brutal to my sentiments that all I can see out of the window is bright sunlight. Don't know how Google is dealing with its own life, given these high expectations.  Limited knowledge is a blessing in a way. Imagine the kind of scenarios Google would be evaluating, given it is aware of all kinds of diseases - the causes, symptoms and consequences. You don't have to know everything everytime. But this Google is stuck with endless knowledge base that is only growing  day by day  second by second, I must say.  And here we are. Still going into thought clouds and questioning ourselves endlessly in mere happenings of daily lives. For instance, a few weeks back I was afraid if I have kidney stones. I searched for its symptoms, I had one or two of them. I checked our anatomy and placement of kidneys, the pain was rou...

My nephew was taught to conserve the environment through plastic by his school teacher. Howsoever strange it may sound, I thought of giving it a shot. That you can help Mother Nature by putting used plastic to some more use. The idea didn't attract me initially, but I have this habit of reading everything printed on wrappers - from catchy slogans, ingredients to manufacturing addresses. On one such e-commerce company's wrapper was written a statement about buyback price of that wrapper being Rs. 15 per kg, if returned in a clean and dry state. (By virtue of experience in this field, I now know that it is mostly on 4 LDPE plastics.) The monetary reward led to the idea catching my fancy. I believe creative ways of making money give me a kick.  I was pumped by my sibling who enlightened me with the concept of eco-bricks. I was as naive as you at that time. So, I heard patiently. "You take an empty plastic bottle, stuff it with unrecyclable plastic wrappers. Keep on filling it...

I always stand firm with the quote that your surroundings and your company have a grave impact on you and your thought process.  Call it my flexibility or having an easily influenced mind but I get affected by the circumstances. For instance, I am a kid who has learnt numbers in English. I don't have a clear memory if I ever learnt them in other languages in written form. Somehow I knew how to say them in Hindi/Punjabi but only up to 38. If anyone passed on the contact number to me in Punjabi I would request them to say it in English.  The story started changing when one day I saw some random person telling out his number in Punjabi in one go to the other person who was at some distance. I was surprised that the other person was able to jot it down immediately without having to ask for repetition or confirmation, as is the case in English. Had it been said in English, it would have certainly taken him a bit longer to get the other person to feed it correctly. Then I enter...

I know I'm in a big, big illusion. And I'm dead sure that 90% of you would be completely taken aback if I tell you that sometimes I feel that I'm very funny. That I'm my own little version of a comedian. I often plan a sequence of events in my mind that may happen in future and how I'll ha ve a witty remark to counter the situation, which leads to a smile on my face. *Hopefully, they don't sound funny in only my mind.* But one thing that I'm fully aware of is that I can't be funny with all the people or in all the situations or at all times. I have so many criteria that should be in place to provide for my comic side to come out. For instance, people should be open-minded and not judgemental, they should be light-hearted and not take things seriously (but they should respect me and not make fun of me, otherwise they are out of my circle) , they should match my IQ level (for there are some who can't understand my one-liners sometimes) and...

I literally had to pause the ongoing video to put this thought into writing. Such was the intensity of flow. Are we having access to too much data? That we don't even know how to let the information seep in, to let the mind absorb it. How many of us have ever felt that even after using the internet for hours and hours, we haven't done really anything? In a flashback, it seems like our time has been wasted.   Recently, I was scrolling down whilst streaming online. Suddenly, I felt the need to keep a pen and paper by my side so that I could note down what all content is in the pipeline that I would play after the present one ends. That's what we are directed towards. We don't enjoy the journey but are only oriented towards the end result. We don't focus on the thing at hand. We are just rushing mindlessly.   Do you remember the answer to the last question that you had searched on google a few days back? I can spot the same searches being made more than once in my br...

Of late my mind has started telling me to stop being nice and kind, unfortunately. People start taking you lightly. Or worse, some even try to overpower you. Like they say: It's the age of kal-yuga .  On an almost daily basis, I come across people who have become so used to the idea of being dependent on others that they don't feel any shame in asking out for help each time they need a specific thing to be done.  I find it a bit absurd as I am the kind of person who would put in her best effort to get the thing done. Only when I'm at my wit's end and fail to find solution that I ask someone else for help.  But I guess, either other people are too social that they find a reason to converse through this way or they are too unapologetic in asking for things as soon as they hear of them. Irritated, once I deliberately didn't help a person seeing their shamelessly-laid-back attitude. I knew what was the required document but I acted as if I've never heard about it e...

Normally, I don’t take up topical issues as the subject of my blog posts. Because, usually, I don’t have very strong opinions and even if I do, I don’t want to get involved in mud-slinging. Why disturb personal equation with anyone over third party issues? I would simply nod away on debatable issues, without even letting the other party take any hint of my disagreement.  So, when I was scrolling through the news feed of a prominent site, this issue kept resurfacing after a day or two, creating buzz time and again. Scratching your brains as to what could be the path-breaking news story that made me make mention of it here? Farmers protest? Maybe but enough is being said about it - in media, on social media, in half-page newspaper editorials and where not? Also, given the fact that I’m a staunch (P)Modi-hater, even if I take it up, it would be too one-sided, tilted in the favour of farmers, obviously. Disclaimer for what lies ahead:   It’s not fandom that’s speaking. For I’m not...

Has it ever happened to you that you didn't indulge in a particular activity because for long you have been claiming to be not doing it? Sometimes we start behaving in a specific way because we have been telling others that we act like that always, irrespective of the fact that we want to turn the tables. Illusory truth effect started ringing in my mind while I was writing this, which says that false information seems to be true due to repeated exposure. For instance, there are people who say, "We don't have the habit of clicking many pictures." They may deny it even if someone else asks them to get clicked, although in one corner of their heart they do want to be clicked. Coming upon me, 'I don't take siesta' is one of the statements that I take pride in. But even if I'll be feeling sleepy on any given afternoon, I don't think I'll be able to catch my daytime nap because of the claims that I've been openly and proudly claiming. O...

My patriotism post has been interpreted by most as a war of languages between Hindi and Punjabi, no matter how hard I tried to shield the underlying thought. But the truth might be different from what got portrayed. So, clarification: I don't have any problem with any of the languages. I am fluent in all three of them, namely English (yes, even it was slightly referred to in the so-called controversial post but I guess all the focus was shifted to the other two), Hindi and Punjabi. ( Disclaimer : These are not in order of my liking towards them, but I just put them in alphabetical order.)  I can switch to any of them as per need of  the hour. In fact, nowadays I'm often switching between languages even amidst the sentence. That a part of my sentence is being spoken in one language and the other part in another; which I admit is not a good trait as per linguistics. The whole habit generated from the fact that I belong to a Punjabi speaking family having...

Second thoughts are nowadays a common phenomenon in my brain. Be it about my routine life activities; or more closely about my writing abilities. People often (though not so often) upon reading my blog tell me that I write well (Should have I eaten the humble pie or not?). Like always, I don’t take them seriously enough. I always have had this belief that it’s not the quality of my writing that is making them shower a few words of praise but the lack of bloggers in their circle. So they are just acknowledging someone who has chosen to opt for this so-called ‘extra-ordinary’ hobby. People who know me personally know how fed up I’m of life and how blessings like ‘Live long’ seem like a curse to me. I can remember that once I was asking God for ‘ Clarity of mind’ and not anything substantial. I fail to understand how can demons like Hirnyakashyap ask for being indestructible. I wonder if it's a newly found problem that needs to get addressed because in my case it...

We celebrated our 73rd Independence Day recently. I admit it was less of a celebration of the marked day and more of ‘enjoying and  lazing around on  any other holiday,’ except for the few counted ones who must have wholeheartedly organized and attended the functions held at the respective institutes and workplaces. I’m not trying to question their patriotic fervour; one should love and respect their country. But how correct is it to hold only one’s value right and criticize others for not having the same beliefs? My views are directed towards state-level patriotism (for I don’t have guts to speak against this nation especially in today’s times where anti-national wave runs high among the citizens).  “I Disapprove of What You Say, But I Will Defend to the Death Your Right to Say It.” A beautifully articulated quote by  Evelyn Beatrice Hal.   However, I would like to add to it ".... in whatsoever way you want to." (Of course, as long as it doesn't c...

Why are all of us in the quest of being the smartest? Why do we feel the need to prove ourselves right, no matter what? “We don’t listen to understand; we listen to reply,” I read a quote somewhere. We nourish in ourselves the vibe of ‘I-know-it-all’. Or more prominently ‘I’m always correct’. We are ready to counter the argument even before listening to it till the end. All of us encounter a bunch of people who find it hard to accept their mistakes. Almost everyone tries to avert taking the blame by conveniently passing it off to the closest person available. Do I need to say that we ourselves are included in the same lot? I’m sure even we’re guilty of the same offence. After all, we are not godly creatures who are perfect. “Thankfully, at least one of them admitted this fact,” God must be saying on seeing my confession. All of this is despite everyone knowing the fact that HUMANS ARE FALLIBLE. God knows who we are trying to fool. One of the people at my offi...

Since its election time, I don't intend to support and publicize any particular party but I certainly am trying to restrain from BJP, particularly Modi. So I tried to perfectly time this post amidst the code of conduct. There cannot be an any better point of time to bash these Modi days. Rather than launching any substantial manifesto apart from ‘upcoming good days’ (or 15 Lacs in each account), all his propaganda during the electioneering of 2014 was based upon highlighting the shortcomings of the opposite party and all that he could do to show others in bad light; ‘How I’m less bad than others’ or popularly called A figure among cyphers . I wonder if the much-needed goodness that was promised during the campaigning days ever came. Just attractive scheme names are what we got in general, signifying more of drum beating and below than par implementation.  ‘Swachh Bharat’ logo found a place on our currency, although the ‘Clean Ganga’ project still awaits its comple...