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If you're lonely when you're alone, you're in bad company.

I write about things, a lot of things but I share only those that I want the world to know. Like out of the zillion things that go in my head every day that I want to do and I end up doing only a few, at times not even a few because, in the end, I am a human being with no supernatural powers that I can multi-task like a superwoman.(If only I had a few more robots like me with the same amount of AI, life would be so much simpler)

I have a choice, like everyone else, secrets to keep and things to express. Like you have a choice of reading this post or not? Many of my friends and people I know find my posts too long to read, I get a lot of comments like “Bro it’s too long, will read sometime later, or Bro this is too deep and philosophical for me to understand” and so, maybe they never read it, or maybe they can never understand the depths of it. But I am glad there is an audience out there who somehow manages to take few minutes out of their life to read what I have to say. I appreciate you; your time and I feel overwhelmed by your views and take on my writings. My writings are going to make sense only when you have the intellect and a broad mind to think beyond the obvious.If you think I am being completely honest with you about how and what I feel, I may or may not be. Well, I leave it up to you how you perceive it and what you take out of it.

Well, my today’s piece is all about celebrating your alone time. Basically talking about why people make it a big deal if a girl goes out alone, to eat, watch a movie or on a date with herself. So a couple of days back I went to watch “Dear Zindagi”. I asked all my friends if anyone was free so that they could tag along, unfortunately, because of prior reservations they couldn’t. I asked my parents if they could bear the fact of watching this particular movie for me, but damn again the movie critics, my mother follows, fucked my one and only chance. But I was too adamant on watching the movie, maybe because of the kind of background it had to which I could connect somehow. Plus it was something different from the typical Bollywood romantic- action drama, which sickens me. So I decided, fuck this shit, I am going to watch it alone like I used to, all this while.

I have been out of my hometown for 5 years now, I know how to live alone, manage things on my own, and I am learning every day to be better at it. So basically going out alone happened when I was in college. Btw I never mentioned for the people who don’t know me I am a Fashion designer, graduate from NIFT (National Institute of Fashion Technology) Gandhinagar, Gujarat. So yeah, being in a design institute, spending four years of your life in a place like NIFT taught me a lot of what I am today. It changed me into a person who is much more open, much more understanding, much more capable with the experience of dealing with people who come to NIFT with such diverse cultures, mind frames. So imagine a person with much more of everything, every personality trait, every emotion, yeah that’s me.
                                                   So yeah college made me wander a lot of times, times when I had friends, times when I had myself. This took a while, to get used to being by me. Being a politician’s daughter, I have always been safeguarded and pampered, this continues even now when I visit home. Till school time, I was a kind of person, always surrounded by books, timetables, study plans, family and friends, basically I was living in my very own comfort zone created by my parents. The thought of being alone never occurred to me until NIFT happened. With that, I started travelling a lot, mostly alone without letting anyone know where I was, the kind of happiness that brought me couldn’t be explained in words. I became so comfortable being with myself that I never felt the need to be with someone to do something in life. I felt I was sufficient enough. 

Having said that, I will jump over to the movie part where I left off (I go off the topic a lot of times, mind that). My parents have never liked the fact of me going out alone; they feel I have some mental sickness. They ask me why do you have to go alone? Who goes out alone? Where are your friends now?I feel like answering all their questions with a lot of reasoning and logic but then I finally end up saying in a very simple way, “I have to watch the movie, I am not going to talk in between, why is a second person required, anyway?”
Somehow I tricked them into believing me that I am going out with a friend because for their sake I booked two tickets online. The ticket was just 100 bucks; I could afford to spend another 100 because it was an assurance that nobody could stop me now. See I found a way to keep everyone happy. KUDOS!!

Well, this is not the first time I was judged seen coming alone to a theatre. But I will explain the normal questions that arise in the mind of our normal janta when they see a girl outing alone. So as I enter the premises, I see few people having a good look at me that happens when you are a girl. I see people checking me out top-bottom, front-back, that’s okay we all check people out, and even I do if I find someone interesting enough. Finally I get to my seat, I have a couple seated right next to me and some group of aunties in the front talking about their kitty party, discussing some serious shit like what they are going to wear, how their mother-in-laws are a pain in their ass etc. (serious talks, more important than the current demonetization) Everything goes pretty normal till now, the movie starts, in between I see the guy seated next to me trying to do something or the other to get my attention, I tried not to loose my cool. I felt bad for his girlfriend and wished if she could leave him at this very moment. During the interval, I go out and treat myself with good snacks.  I come back and hear the aunties talking about me; they didn’t know I was listening. One of the aunties says, “देखने में तो सुन्दर है लड़की, अकेले क्यों आयी है? ज़रूर बॉयफ्रेंड से झगड़ा हुआ होगा, माँ-बाप के पास भी टाइम नहीं होगा। बेचारी !! ऊपर से ऐसी डिप्रेसिंग मूवी !!!"

I couldn’t stop laughing at the whole act but instead, I focused on the movie that was way more interesting. This wasn’t the first time I have felt people’s empathy towards me when they see me alone. Even in college, I used to sit alone have my meals, people used to swing by and give me company. But I never felt the need of wanting to talk to someone else when I was alone. It’s good to be alone sometimes; you get to talk to yourself out loud like nobody is going to judge. You can be the judge of your own thoughts. It’s really rejuvenating to sit by a window, sip some coffee and talk to yourself about how life is shaping. I bet most of us don’t even have the time to do that.  It’s so cliché that people have this thing in their head that girls can’t do shit on their own, that they might go wrong somewhere so they need at least someone to show them the way. WHY? Just like everyone else even we learn from our mistakes, we improve. Why bring in the sexism here? Be a guy or a girl, I feel everyone should at least in a week spend one-two days alone, being yourself, free, thinking about life, doing things that make you happy, breaking the monotonous routine work schedules. Don’t you think we all deserve this? My girlfriends tell me, “Bro, I feel you are cool, I can never go out alone for a movie, I just can’t go alone anywhere”. I mean why is it that difficult to go alone, दुनिया में अकेले आये हो, अकेले ही जाओगे. Nobody will stay with you but yourself. You need to enjoy your solitude because that is one time you actually get to discover the real you. People will fall in love with the real you. But you need to find yourself first. If we don’t change the outlook of looking at things, how can we expect others to understand? We need to stop thinking that we are lonely, see it like a blessing that you are able to experience yourself. "Being lonely" and "Being alone" are two different phenomena. You need to find out where you fit in. We need to stop getting affected by our environment, what people think. We really need to break this taboo- “Person who spends time alone is lonely, sombre, boring, depressed, unhappy”. 
No, I am everything that you are or to add I am better than what you can ever be.

We go to the loo with an intention to pee or poop, natural process, simple and straight (well not so straight always, depends on a lot on your appetite). The purpose here is to eject out the waste and feel the worldly pleasure of being at peace with your digestive system. You don’t require a second person to help you pee or poop because damn it, you are not a kid anymore (at least not physically). When we can do such perpetual tasks alone why do we need another being to accompany us to a restaurant when all we have to do is go and eat some nice food.  What joy can be greater than the joy of having a satisfying meal, letting your taste buds enjoy the every little bite you take, the flavours wolfing down, the crunching sound inside our mouth. Taking it all in, clear and slow with no intention of talking to a second person, disturbing the love between you and your food. Once the purpose is clear in your mind, you wouldn’t feel the need to have someone else help you find the same. Cribbing about not being able to go out just because you didn’t have a company seems like an excuse that is keeping you away from being happy. 

Find excuses to be happy, we already have bigger things to crib for.

Comments

  1. Being alone and being lonely are indeed two very different things... one can be lonely even when surrounded by people. I enjoyed this a lot! and i can relate... I too like spending some me time away from people... i find it quite therapeutic... i tip my proverbial hat to you madam :) i enjoyed your thoughts :) cheers

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cheers! Let's brace our concurrent thoughts together :)

    ReplyDelete

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