A Bundle Of Contradictions

When I was younger, I'd often fear a lot of things - fear of the creepy alien from Koi Mil Gaya, fear of writhing snakes (actual snakes and human snakes), fear of not living up to expectations and...
Fear of dying.
I remember when I was eight, I'd huddle closer to my mom, while sleeping, and would often cry thinking about what would happen if I die. 
Would my family be crying for me? Would my friends stop playing at all? 
Or would they promptly replace me with a super-awesome new kid who'd be so smart and perfect that my people would forget I'd ever existed in the first place?
But as the years passed by, the pile of homework and the burden of getting a career sorted got larger and death just got sidelined to news like "Oh, did you know, so-and-so-passed away?"  
But it all changed a couple of weeks back, when a grand uncle of mine passed away, all of a sudden.
A month ago, he was fine - as hale and hearty as a horse.
And suddenly, he got a stroke, got hospit…

I have a question for you, darling reader: what's the worst thing in this world?

Nope. It's not corrupt government officials. It's not riots or wars or any other forms of violence. It's definitely not malnourished children barely scraping by in third world countries. 
Turns out, the worst thing in this world is - gasp! - gaining weight. 
Nope. I'm not kidding. 
Gaining weight is not good, according to the societal norms. Once you gain weight, you look like you've been having food that you actually like, you look like your health is stable and it seems like you're actually comfortable in your (horrendously flabby!) skin. 
And, my dears, we don't want that, do we? 
We live in a world where stick-thin people - who refuse to eat food which they are lucky they can have - are idolized. We live in a world where people who are healthy are considered as some sort of hideous balls who don't deserve to be within our presence. 
So, as a concerned blogger, I wo…

To say that June 2015 was one of the saddest months of my life would be the understatement of this millennium. 
Every morning, waking up was sheer torture. Whenever my eyes flew open, I used to have this strong urge to stay there, in my bed forever. I used to stare at the ceiling and I used to desperately wish to stay at home. 
But, since I had my German class to go to, I had to literally force myself to get up, dress up and show up. 
My German class was all the more torturous. I never talked to anybody, except to ask about what's going on. I used to constantly get zoned out, stare into the empty space and just think: I'm in so much deep trouble. 
I felt like I'd failed everybody, especially myself. 
I used to write in my diaries, constantly write about how much I'd drawn into a shell, constantly write about how upset I was with the way things turned out and all I wanted to do was things to turn out well. 
But, as the days passed, I realized that I hated being sad all…

Let me be honest with you.
I wasn’t always the person I am now.
I wasn’t the girl with the sardonic, sceptical sense of humour. I wasn’t always the girl who took a long time to decide who was right and who was wrong. I wasn’t always the outspoken “I-don’t-like-the-way-you’re-treating-me-and-I-think-we-should-discuss-as-to-what’s-going-on” character either. I wasn’t a girl who always chose her friends carefully because she feared that some of them might only like her for getting their profits and not because they enjoyed her company. 
I was someone who was oh-so-nice.
Correction: I was someone who was oh-so-naïve.
***
It happens, you know.
The will to be a part of the IT crowd, the desire to be loved and the desire to be popular – who wouldn’t want anything like that?
If anyone’s reading this, don’t you ever deny the fact you ever had the urge, the desire, the yearning to be something more than ‘ordinary’.
It happens to everyone! Every single person in this world has a wild desire to be…

There are kids my age, who have all the money in the world. They don't have to study and maintain a good grade. They just have their sickeningly rich daddy's money and the only job they shall have in the future is to spend their daddy's money.

There are kids my age, who don't have much money and want to prove it to the world that they're going to be more successful than the richest men in the country. They're ready to do anything - even if the job can be scandalous or illegal!  
There are kids my age who are forced by their parents to become a doctor or (the king of all the overrated jobs in India) an engineer. If not a doctor or an engineer, be a lawyer or a chartered accountant. 
(About a half of them take up these streams just to keep up their family's status!) 
There are kids my age who have planned everything out. Like - from the seat cover of their office sofa to the number degrees they plan to get! 
And there are kids like me, who do not have a frea…