One sided

And now I know the meaning of unrequited love.

Even for a person like me, who listens to Damien Rice to lift my spirits, what I feel right now is quite unique. Growing up I had my fair share of crushes and at that time I am sure I felt the desperation, the need to be noticed, the desire to be acknowledged, and yet somewhere within me there was always a sense of detachment. Like I always looked at the world including myself from a distance.

But the last few weeks I have gone from feeling ecstatic, to mildly annoyed, to downright crushed thinking that my feelings will never be returned, to finally desperately clutching at my inner protective layer of cold disengagement.

It is not easy for me to explain to people my brand of phobia. I loosely call it a phobia of commitment, but that is not truly what it is. I have always wanted to belong, just not at the cost of losing my self. I want everything, while not owning anything. And that is how I want to be accepted. I want to be the sore thumb, and I want you to love me for being the sore thumb. Maybe this is what is called being selfish, I don't really know.

Somehow it is equally difficult for me to explain what I feel about certain places. Places are like living and breathing personalities, which are sometimes split and contradictory like my own. And some of them tug at your heart and tangle your brain signals. This chemical imbalance is often described as love, but not the happy chirpy kind, it's the one with intense pain and anguish. The give-give type. The one which goes against reason, the one you cannot help and simply give in to. Maybe this is what is called as being selfless, I don't really know.

I think Dido hit the bull's eye with her melancholic song.

"But if my life is for rent and I don't learn to buy
Well I deserve nothing more than I get
'cause nothing I have is truly mine."

Public Display of Affection

We don't do this, you and me. Apparently we are above it all. And yet behind your back, I am going to do it today. If for nothing but to embarrass you in front of the world, just like last time, 10 years back. (Yes that's how I roll :)

 So let me go ahead and say it today.

Let the adventure begin!

My obsession with two dimensions

The real story is this.

Last year I started watching Japanese Animation. Now this in itself is not much of a declaration. However in my case, it kind of set the course for the entire year. If you know me personally, best to stop reading now - since you have already gone through what I now know was no short of an obsession.

It all started with a coincidence. Like most things in my life do. Back in late 2016, I watched this Hindi cinema - 'Befikre' and there was a song from it, which was stuck in my head. Towards the start of 2017, google randomly informed me that this particular song that was stuck in my head for a while now, was actually copied from a Japanese animation called Junjou Romantica. And there was a youtube link to this music.

I was probably bored that day, because I clicked that link. And yes, I can confirm that part of the tune was pretty much exactly lifted from there. But apart from that, I was also very curious about the youtube video of the music clip from the anime - seemed like a story about two guys (well, it's a lot more than that - but I won't say any more now :). After a bit of internet search I found a link to the entire series - and it became the first anime that I watched in Japanese language (with English subtitles).

The content, and not just from this one series, but from next few consequent series that I watched, was so unique, the format, the art, the storytelling and the characters ( I will write about some of my favourite ones later on - I just have to!) were so very different to any Disney/Pixar/Hollywood/Hindi movie I had seen before, that I had to stop consuming any other form of media.

Now, for those who know wtp and me, will know that movies and cinema have always been a big part of our lives - so when I declared that I will not watch anything apart Japanese Anime for at least year - I am not quite sure what he felt. Perhaps he didn't think I could keep this obsession with the 2D world going for that long.

But I did. And in a few months, I realised that I was able to understand a bit of the language as well. And therein started a new obsession to learn the language. By August, I realised that I will need to start learning how to write, in order to make any progress. And so with the help of a few different language learning mobile apps, I started on an even bigger journey - learn to read, write, understand and speak Japanese language so that one day I can watch anime without subtitles.

Another thing that happened as a result of my regular TV watching was that I got scared of turning into this huge couch potato. But, one big and probably the only common theme in pretty much every anime story that I had seen was to 'work hard, and believe in yourself'.  Working hard was never my top strength as a kid. In fact, I was one of those brats who believed, I can do everything in the last minute and get by. But all through last year, somewhere deep down I think my attitude has been changing, bit by bit.

As such, for me this will always be a memorable year. This is the year that I worked the hardest, managed two amazingly crazy projects (which I absolutely loved), played the most badminton, went from not being able to survive more than half an hour on the court, to be able to play two hours without being breathless, and started on this long, sometimes frustrating but mostly fun journey of learning a new language.
In fact there were a few more personal highs, but this post is not about accounting - instead I simply wanted to make an entry in my diary about the year - so that I never forget the thrill that I felt while learning, discovering, struggling, achieving, losing, winning, reuniting and remembering.

ありがとうごさいました。

じゃ、またね！

An introvert's story

So it looks like I have now been declared an 'Introvert' by Myers Briggs and her type. I retook the test today, wondering if I would still be an ENTP, but no - looks like the last few years I have worked myself to be the rare breed of INTP - A type.

Anyways this is of no importance what so ever since the Strengths Finder test has 'Galluped' it's way to the fore front these days, and is what most people talk about.

The other day after a round of badminton with a few office colleagues, who barely know me, or have never worked with me - we sat down in a pub guessing each other's top 5 strengths. After a good hour of guessing the other's (two of them who actually have taken the test) strengths, it was finally time for people to guess mine. It took them a total of 5 minutes to guess each one of them correctly.
Talk about being an open book.

Ironically my top strength is 'Strategic'.

Anyways, this really was not the story that I wanted to tell after coming back from over a year long hiatus. I could have started with a 'I am alive' or 'I've been meaning to write more' or 'I have no clue how to start writing any more'.... But I am so disconnected with the world at the moment, that really I could not make myself go through the motions of small talk. Instead I just wanted to start with the very first thought in my mind.
Even if it is stupid, mundane or irrelevant.

Relevance is reverse engineered in any case. Like my real story was about what I have been up to in the last year. I want to talk about discovering myself a little more in that period. So much happened (inside my head) and so less on the surface. Isn't that the best case scenario for stories? They are made up in any case. Or at least their telling is as good as the teller's interpretation and limited only by his/her own imagination.

It's funny that I still come to back to conversations with this digital void. I know that people don't read blogs anymore. I know that video logs or short tweets or better still pictures are the only way people communicate these days. And yet I am holding on to this notion of speaking to an invisible audience. But it is therapeutic nonetheless. I don't have to come across as intelligent and coherent here. I can be as random, as honest and as dishonest as I want.

Maybe that is a freedom that only an introvert can truly appreciate.