THE READING NOOK

 I sometimes find myself wanting to go back to the simpler times. Where Information was not one click away and people were not judged from what they added to their social media platforms, Where texting with a limited number of texts allowed had a different feeling, calls were too important to be ignored and music on the radio was all I needed. Today, I feel like Instagram is our open profile, Facebook gives out reminders of Birthdays, snapchat is the camera to our life, WhatsApp is the new and improved version of texting and there are many other things that have become a crucial part of our day to day living.  Yet somehow, the real personalities of people stay hidden.  I would really like to know how many people believe that social media is the actual reflection into someone's life ?  To get to know a person, it is essential to have a conversation. Well, atleast for me it is. I, myself enjoy social media every now and then but the encroachment of the pretend app...

A woman has always been portrayed as a damsel in distress in almost all the Contexts in Indian cinema. It is only recently that women started playing roles in movies which were self empowered and did not need a man to get validated. Where does it end ?    This is a question people need to ask themselves when it comes to Indian women. Our society views the journey of a woman with the destination of marriage, no matter how much success she might have achieved. India got it's first female educator in 1848 AD, Savitribai Phule. Then years after that the Indian nation accepted the leadership of a female Prime Minister, then with Kalpana Chawala becoming the first female astronaut of India and Pratibha Patil as the first female President of the country, many norms were broken . Ever since then many women have made a place for them in this Patriarchal society. But we also need to remember that these are just a few women who have had a difficult journey to finally reach a place w...

Imagine not knowing who you are. Not being able to recollect and recognize your own life.  If a person starts to question his own Identity and is unable to answer the basic questions that forms the basis of who he is, not knowing his name, where he comes from and not knowing the people in his family, that in itself it a scary situation. Dementia is a symptom that decreases the cognitive function of the brain and interferes with the daily routine of a person. But again it is a symptom, which might be due to many diseases. The most known disease which leads to dementia is Alzheimer’s disease. It contributes to 60-80% cases of dementia. In India, forgetfulness is deemed as a part of aging and it is true to some extent. Old age comes with a general decrease in overall heath and not just loss of memory. This becomes a reason for delayed diagnosis of a disease like Alzheimer’s. There is no cure for such a disease so far but early diagnosis can be very helpful in the managemen...

Uncertainty has always been an issue for me. There are people who don't care about it, there are people who get excited about it and then there are people who get anxious about it. I fall in the 3rd category of people. So, for example When I am watching a thriller movie or a thriller Tv show, I will watch for 10 or 15 minutes and then I need to know how it ends because if not, then I will get anxious, I won't be able to enjoy and my heart will start racing knowing that now at any moment things will take a turn. But that's the thing, I will never know when and what it will be. So, I google the climax first and then watch the rest of the movie for details, so then I know what is going to happen, even if it is something bad, I will be prepared for it. And I know this is weird because people watch thrillers for the excitement and the rush. But for me that feeling always gets replaced by anxiousness and I am not a fan of that feeling. I know this is weird, but knowing this ...

My friend captioned her picture "Half of me is mine and the rest half is yours", and within moments i could see soo much wrong with that line. It was just a caption, no biggie. But lets face it this is what most of the people think when in love. But how about we change a few rules. Half of me is mine and rest is too, you can make good with my love or else you are most welcome to walk out right now. Now, here is a thing, with time we make mistakes and all this while it has been our fault, even if we don't accept it. Everyone knows it deep down that blaming doesn't help, we only went wrong somewhere which caused us to be in the situation. So eventually we don't like or love ourselves as much as we should. We believe or most girls believe that A NIGHT IN A SHINING ARMOUR will come and fix them, except nobody likes what's broken. And if you love someone else, you are obviously going to expect them to love you back, even if not the same amount because as a huma...

   Two things girls are conscious about are their make up and their figure. Basically make up is used to hide something, that counts as flaws. But the way I see it is that we were made like that. I am not saying  using make up is wrong. But when its obvious that make up is a superficial way of beauty, why do people judge the girls who use makeup as artificial and pretentious ? Because no one is perfect. Everybody has their own way of making themselves look pretty and feel confident whether with or without make up, it shouldn't matter.   Then again comes up the issue of figure and weight. Every girl definitely wants to look slim and sexy but it is not as easy as it sounds and also not as easy to be maintained as it looks. A girl can have an amazing shape for a duration of her life and some can work hard enough to maintain it and some cannot. Mostly everyone has a phase when they don't care about shape and get fat or just plumped, and they then have to face body sham...

    When as a kid I heard the story of Peter Pan, I always thought how stupid he is, to never want to grow up. At that time growing up for me only meant having freedom. Freedom ? Having  freedom just meant having control of my life. I wanted to control everything in my life, I thought if I could make the decisions of my life then everything will be ok and I will always be happy. I always told my mother that wait for me to grow up and I will turn my world around. But little did I know that the world I had before was better, carefree and easy.    Eventually I grew up and one day to my surprise all I wanted to do was go back and scold my old self for not appreciating my childhood. Back then my only and biggest problem was to wake up early in the morning and not be late to school. And now sleep is a rare stoppage for me and the life I have now makes it harder to sleep at night. And I know that after some time I am going to miss what I have right now, still I neve...

        Its like a dark cage sometime, where I know nobody can hear me but i still want to talk. For once I want to talk and not be judged for who I am and what all I have done in my life. I know I have lied to many people and hurt plenty more but every time a part of my soul was burning in the cross fire. And I know it hurts, it hurts so bad. But now the pain has become a part of me and its like I cannot even feel it anymore. Now, I know how to shut it all down. But when has life not found a loop hole in the way I try to save myself from going to that dark place. Life gets to those triggers and once in a while it puts me through that hell. And for every time I get out, I am one step closer to losing control. I cannot afford losing control, because that is all I have got. It feels like I have gone numb due to the pain. There are days when the rising sun doesn't tempt me to wake up, get out of my bed. But does that even matter ? Now the night and the darkness attrac...

I don't understand the logic of our fate. It makes us end up with the people we don't want to be with; the situation we don't want to be in and then it makes us do things which we have been avoiding till now. I am not saying it does nothing  good, it does fulfill the fate or dreams of many but when people actually step onto the other side, it is then when they want to escape. I don't know if it's fate working against us or we are playing for the wrong team. Believing in fate or trusting that our decisions, situations and destinies are pre-decided is bizarre. But is it? I am still searching for an answer. A lot of things keep on happening in everybody's life and frankly speaking the trickiest and disturbing things happen to those who actually try to avoid being into anything unusual and try to lead a simple life. But just as there are people who don't want any noise, there are people who seek shout out loud moments. Seeking adventure is not wrong, in fact i...

You can feel the pain running through your veins and still you cannot do anything about it. It grows inside you and you feel helpless. It takes over your heart and makes you hollow deep inside. It slowly gets to your ability of motion and then you cannot even run from it by fooling it through another activity. What is left of you is vulnerability and weakness. The door of relief seems to go far away in the dark. It was all, your last hopes were residing on. You look pale, your eyes go red. It feels like you will burst into pieces, the very next moment, yet somehow you are holding up. You are finding it difficult to thrive anymore. You are tired. The pain is carving its way to your brain and its hurts. Hurts like hell. You want to scream but you know nobody is going to hear. ONLY YOU. It will be a noiseless scream of your soul. It feels like being brain dead yet alive in the most incorrigible way. You know nobody can help you because nobody can see it. It’s all hidden undernea...

We get driven towards the things we like and things we want. Some of them become a part of our lives and some don't. The question which needs an answer is what holds us back sometimes ? What makes us take a decision which would take away the stuff we like ? We do come across situations in which we have to choose between our likes and what's right and we tend to usually do the right thing to be in perfect scenario's and avoid the difficult ones. Yet there is always some hope within us which makes us believe that we may get an opportunity to walk down those roads again. I believe everybody wants to be in perfect situations where everything is right and there is no chaos. This feeling and the fear of things going wrong holds us back. But to stay in the past an wait is never an option. What we sometimes let go off our hands is gone. And without any doubt there are beautiful and even more amazing opportunities crafted for us in our future. But for those things to happen in ou...

Love is always patient and kind. It is never jelous. Love is never boastful or conceaded. It is never rude neither selfish. It does not take offence. It is not resentful. Love does not take pleasure in other people's sins. It lies in the truth. It is always ready to excuse to trust, to hope and to endure, whatever comes. - A Walk To Remember by NICHOLAS SPARKS

I wanna live those times once again. One last time.  I just want one chance to go back in the past and just live the happy moments once again. I only need one chance. Is it possible? To bring that sound of laughter back to life? Is it in my hands anymore? The smiles that I lived, I want to cherish them once more. Also the tears which fell by had a story, i want to know that story again. I want to live those times again, reminicising the moments by looking at what all went in all these years. Those happy times also turned into something unpleasant. Was it all me? Did I gradually change? For myself? Or for someone else? I was happy then why did it not remain as it used to be? Why did things change? Why do changes occur to perfect scenarios? Many questions are left unanswered. And gradually in search of those answers the time flew, as fast as the passing wind. I walked a few steps ahead, made new memories. I felt at times, that moving on from that phase of life was not right. But ...

Everybody has some strenghts and weaknesses, which are known to their close ones only. You were one of them. Yes, YOU. You've been using my weaknesses for all the things u wanted me to do, whether wrong or right. It never made any sense. I am always going to regret upon my decision of opening up to someone, so and soo much that I lost control over myself. I won't repeat my mistake. It always felt good to have a person to rely upon, to trust them and to tell them almost everything about yourself, but then realizing that we are being used feels worse than ever.  This world is actually full of selfish and greedy people who are never going to do any good to you but will suck the hell out of you to get their work done and be satisfied. Every bit of your effort to make them happy will start going vain when their expectations will reach the peak and you will never be appreciated again for doing anything even when done out of your comforts. Being late in realizing of yourself being...

We develop good feelings for a person when they care for us in every small and sensitive manner they can. Not always we require big surprises to bring a smile on our faces or the stars and the moon as gifts from people to know that we are special for them. Sitting with a person on the roof top and talking for hours, asking them if they had food, talking to them when they are going through a bad phase of their life, roaming with them around and making fun of everything which comes by and doing many such small things makes a moment special. Special enough to become a memory to be cherished. A small gesture of care, love or kindness towards us makes us feel good. Good, not only for the gesture made but for the person too. We should always value and notice the small and peculiar efforts made towards us by anyone and remember them as a sweet memory. Whereas we tend to take such small things in our life for granted in the search for the bigger source of love and care. It all reaches to ...

I was scared. I was hurt. I was running from something. Something scary. Something that was going to hurt me. I wanted to protect myself. It was all dark around me. I was terrified. People around me were shouting on me as if i was a coward. I just wanted to escape. It was too horrifying to stay within. Tears fell off my cheeks. My eyes were red. I didn't even know from what i was running ? What was it that scared me to such an extent ? But i knew it would hurt me. And suddenly my phone rang and it kept ringing, i was able to hear it but i just couldn't wake up. I felt trapped. I just wanted to wake up and finally i woke up. I Woke up, and i realised it was a dream. I was trembling. I had fear in my eyes. I was crying. I took the phone and it was a blur, tears in my eyes didn't let me see anything. It was late at night. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't move. I couldn't speak a word for sometime. I kept thinking it was just a dream and nothing else. I tried t...

When you ask a person to tell what a woman or a girl thinks of something, the reply usually is s that they don't know as women are complicated and nobody can understand them. This assumption regarding women is continuously said and proven by men in day to day lives. But is it actually the truth ? Only in rare situations, people are found who can say that they totally understand, what the person beside them is like and that they understand them and their actions can be predicted by them, be it a guy or a girl. The fault is not that of the men who say so, as they cannot understand the person beside them because they are not the right ones together and so they face problems. One can understand a person, no matter a guy or a girl only if they are the right ones together. Misunderstandings are always created between two wrong people trying to put in all their efforts to make it right.But the right ones do not face any misunderstanding and rarely do they have to put in efforts to know...

At times in our lives we need a person by our side who listens to our nonsense talks, who understands what all we are going through, who holds our hand and tells us that everything will be fine when we feel low, who hugs us soo tight that all our broken pieces come back to us. We need a person who can understand our thoughts/sentiments sometimes without even us telling them, who knows when we want there shoulder to cry on it. We want to be with someone who not just stays with us in our bright days but also on the dull nights  trying to make them beautiful and peaceful for us. A person who can make us calm down, when we are about to burst with anger. Someone who can take care of us like family. Someone who will turn our tears into a bright smile. Someone who is not there in our life but their presence is soo important for us that their just being there for us solves half of our problems. They, who can be with us all time long without thinking to leave if something goes wrong. Someo...

Why do I always get a feeling that something's missing. Some important part of my life is not there with me. Someone has gone away from me. But I don't know who or what. I get confused. Or maybe I know but I don't want to face it. It is a result of fear in my mind. Whatever is bothering me in such a manner is simply my terror towards it. We always try to run away from things, situations or people we are scared to face.We don't want a reason to cry or to be terrified all the time, rather we want to enjoy our life. We fear from many things in our lives. Some of which I have faced are failure and fear of loosing a person close to me. We have to earn success and a person's trust. Loosing any of them brings sadness to us. It is very painful to know that you have actually failed to achieve something in your life which was very crucial for you. And on the other hand it is very difficult to accept that a person close to your heart is no more there with you and has walked ...

At the time when we wake up in the morning and begin a new day, we are not aware of what is going to happen. Although everybody has got a schedule to follow. But do things always go like the way we want them to ? Maybe the duties which we are supposed to be following in a day get accomplished the way we want them to. But do the emotions we want to experience happen to us ? I am pretty sure for some people it does. But for some people it is never like that. Throughout the day there are many kinds of emotions and behaviours we face which either makes our day or destroys our day. We don't know that how many emotions we are going to experience in a day. A day can be as colourful as a rainbow. It can also happen that we may experience more than one emotion,good or bad in a single situation. All kinds of moods that we come across are most of the time unexpected. Yes, definetly we have an intuition if something good or bad is going to happen but the result is not always what we think it...