Love Yourself

“To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.”
- Oscar Wilde
I heard this when i was 16 on radio, the thought was new to me but intriguing. Over the years I realized, it is so true... coz once you start loving yourself there is no fear of betraying yourself.  It will be life long, coz you cannot live without yourself :). In the world of uncertainty, at least your love for yourself will be eternal.

But with time I had somehow lost the essence of this phrase and started loving people around me more than myself. My idea of loving unconditionally was to think about their needs and wishes first and giving my likes and dislikes 2nd priority. When people did not reciprocate same behavior of care or rather they did exactly opposite of caring for you, In no time I did get hurt as most of us are, how else do we learn to survive the storm. A typical human tendency is to blame others and if it happens repeatedly then they start blaming themselves for being hurt. The challenging part although is to actually love yourself and love everything about yourself, accepting the bad habits, behavior, patterns and work towards improvement.
The real challenge is to forgive yourself.  Will I be able to forgive my mistakes ever which haunt me time and again. With time you learn to accept your past and forgive yourself for a healthy future.
Well when nobody else celebrates you, learn to celebrate yourself. When nobody compliments you, compliment yourself. Its not up to other people to encourage you. Its up to you. Encouragement should come from inside.
Find the love you seek, by first finding the love within yourself. Learn to rest in that place within you that is your true home.
People go through tragedies in life. The worst is to lose someone very close to you or lose a part of you emotionally or physically. Every soul in this world has something to fight against. Some struggle to overcome. But we need to just get over the pain and learn to make ourselves happy. If we cant be happy with ourselves how can you expect somebody else to be happy with you. The ultimate goal of each soul on this earth is to be happy or Nirvana whatever you want to call it. To be happy you definitely need to see the positive in everything around you. There is so much to see and learn in this world. You just need to figure out something you love not for anybody else but solely for yourself. All I know is, if you don't figure out this something, you'll just stay ordinary, and it doesn't matter if it's a work of art, or a taco, or a pair of socks! Just create something... new, and there it is, and it's you, out in the world, outside of you, and you can look at it, or hear it, or read it, or feel it... and you know a little more about... you. A little bit more than anyone else does... Does that make any sense at all? It will empower you, inspire you to create something which is unique as you are. No heartbreak or al take hope away from you. “Shoot for the moon, even if you fail, you'll land among the stars” ― Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You “Don't be afraid to fall in love again. Open your heart and follow where it leads you...and remember, shoot for the moon.” ― Cecelia Ahern, P.S. I Love You Trust yourself that you are amazing and create something beautiful. “I am an artist of my own creation. I like myself.”
- Sondra Ray

I have found my something to help people realise the beauty of life which many of us take for granted. Don't be scared to live, laugh, trust and love.. The greatest gift you can give yourself is undoubtedly to Love yourself

Tiger trip

The biggest fear is death👿 Jim Morrison says "Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”

This is a story about 5 frnds on a trip which they will never forget in their lives.

 In the midst of quarter life crisis which I was having, on a boring Sunday afternoon me and my roommate thought of a plan. We wanted to do something thrilling, something which would excite us to travel. After a lot of thought, we singled down the idea to see the tigers. We had heard that there is a tiger temple in Thailand where you can see and touch a tiger. Well I am sure, just the thought of being in close proximity with the wild beast would make people shit in their pants.
 But, I was quite fascinated by tigers since childhood, I had seen the huge heads of tigers and lions which were on display in the Kolhapur palace when I was a 7. Its intriguing that even after so many decades  the dead head looked feirce as they might just get back to life and pounce on you. The fear of getting killed by a tiger is inevitably scary.

It all sounded unreal till we finally landed in Bangkok. The city awaited us with numerous LOL moments. To begin with we had booked our hotel online and as we all were on a weeks vacation across thailand so nobody checked emails. And supposedly the hotel staff had informed us about our cancellation on email, which was a shocker for us in an unkown city. Hence, we had no place to stay for the night.
We were pissed at the staff so decided not to stay there even when they were offering us a fresh booking with some extra fee. We walked out very confident at 8pm on a Sunday night in Bangkok hoping for a better welcome. Two of us went out to search for a cab, and surprisingly not a single taxi driver understood english. And the place was so opposite of what is shown in movies, the city was dead, shops close at 9, malls were closed on a Sunday night. We were wondering are we really in Bangkok. We heard the night life was great but there was no life in that night. Driving in taxis from here and there all through Bangkok the  dialogue   from "Jab we met" came to my mind "Babaji please iss raat ko boring banado. aur koi fun nahi chahiye" we had a laugh riot after this. Surprisingly the taxi driver smiled at us and said ohhh very Happy in Bangkok, ironically that was the only English he knew. We had to use the sign language to explain him to take us to some decent hotel. After running through various cafes for searching another hotel and going to many of the hotels we found one kind receptionist who took us at 11 pm in the night in the hotel without prior booking.
After a sigh of relief we got the rooms. we had only one more day left in Bangkok, when we can visit the Tiger temple. The one dream for which we had visited Thailand. (no we were not interested in pattaya as what it is famous for).  The receptionist arranged a car for us to go to Tiger temple. Well after a series of comedy of errors we had finally found a place to settle for the night and we were closer to meeting the tigers.
Early next morning we began the most awaited road trip to hug the tigers. Super-excited as we were, we started the trip, it is supposed to be a 4 hrs journey from Bangkok. As we moved out of the city, the LOL moments did not leave us. The taxi driver did not know the way, he faked it before and was constantly on call with somebody for directions. To top it off he also did not understand english at all. I was like are u kidding me!!! not again....
There is a fixed time when visitors are allowed in Tiger temple we were already worried as we did not want to miss it after coming so close. I sat in the front seat as we were 5 people and we Could not get a bigger taxi we had to adjust in the small car. And you know how great Indians are to adjust in space. So I being the healthy one was chosen to sit in the front seat. And I unwillingly became the only one who could communicate with the driver obviously in the dumb charade's way... It was a long journey. We usually in the holiday mood were singing and joking around in the cab. I asked the driver looking at the watch how much time to reach he says 30 min. We shouted with joy as we saw the destination coming closer. After 45 min I again asked how much time pointing at the watch, he started laughing . We all were like ohh no we are lost. He stopped in a secluded area where we cud just see one shop, he asked the fellow directions and moved on. The tension grew... Will we be able to make it or not. Even the sign boards in Thailand were not in English uhhhhhh. The road seem to be endless with only the highway and nothing on the sides. After a while he took a turn where we could see a hill and on the hill top was a temple.... We cheered with joy. We all rushed out in search of tigers. Like they were going to roam around like dogs in park. I climbed a flight of stairs eager and anxious, entered the temple with still no sign of a tiger. I was skeptical, like tigers should roar right....but there was no sound. It was very peaceful there.I asked a tourist where are the tigers, she laughed at me and went away. One of my friends asked the tour guide she told us this is just a tiger temple but without tigers the one which we were looking for is further away. Finally we got the directions the guide explained the driver and we were off again on deserted roads. Just hoping to reach on time, we all had our fingers crossed. Finally we saw a board of tiger temple, we rushed in. The view was mind-boggling. In the natural habitat of trees there they were 12 tigers spread across the place. Each tiger had a caretaker, who instructed us "how to be close to a real tiger without offending him". The tigers were roaring, playing around with their caretakers basically coolly lazing around. It was definitely mesmerizing. We get to touch the tiger, click pictures and watch him closely. The carnivores teeth definitely gives you shivers. In the scorching heat we were there for about 3 hours enjoying the view of the gigantic beast. Finally our trip was successful. It was totally worth it. The dialogue from the movie Hangover-2 "Bangkok almost had us." was quite apt for our stint.  

Fake or Real

This blog is not to offend anybody but to provoke a thought which might help you to be happy with yourself.

In this pretentious world what will you call real. In the times of plastic faces, fake eyelashes, fake nose, fake boobs there is a thin line between fake n real now.
In everyday life many of us pretend to be shy or quiet when in reality they want to shout out loud n give a piece of their mind to everybody. But just coz of the fear of being mocked or being lonely they choose the easy way, to fake "Being shy". Many people act a certain way to impress ppl around them, they start by giving compliments unnecessarily, being nice to them till they get wat they want.
Being socially acceptable is a basic need for all human beings. Well yeah we are supposed to be social animals after all.....But at what expense? We often hear things like... Don't do this what will people think about you, don't say that you are comin out too strong. Right from our parents we are forced to think about the society. The idea of your own social image is engraved in everybody's mind so much that their whole life revolves around pleasing the so called "society".
The fear of being socially neglected has reached a level where faking has become the real thing.
There are people who want to earn a lot of money not because they want to have a luxurious life but to outdo their friends, family or even neighbours.
There is a whole hoopla about "Be yourself". Yet people pretend in as small a stuff as, do u like my dress? I mean ohh common just say it you dont like it..... But they don't, just not to be in bad books.
Well in the oldest dating game.... According to the experts in this field it is said if a girl likes a guy, she should still pretend not to care or ignore him to make him chase you coz guys like the chase, they love the challenge.... Sweetheart the real challenge starts after you have the girl.....the real challenge is to fall in love with the same person over n over again. I wonder why this pretentious behaviour of hiding your feelings is loved n appreciated by many.
Why cant people just say things which they really mean, act as they really want to without getting bothered about their image in society. Society and image are two words which can sometimes complicate  many things. Dictionary definition of society is A formal association of people withsimilar interests. Image is an iconic mental representation. Hence, whatever you do or say society will make its own mental representation about you depending on their own perspective.... So why worry!!!
 Every single person has an opinion about everything and anything in life..... Changing or tweaking your behaviour to be liked should not be an option.... But unfortunately that does happen.
So will ever be there a time when the real slim shady will stand up (i wonder if even eminem is really the way he portrays his image)
Talking of which faking an image by actors is still acceptable, probably thats wat they would have to do, to stay in the business. But for the common man, why fake it when you can just make it being YOU.
All you pretentious freaks ..... Dont be afraid to show the real you. Everybody has a good and bad side, nobody is perfect, stop worrying about people's opinion.  BE REAL

Complicated

Life .......is it really complicated or we make it so?
It is said that Life is what you make of it............ But what i wonder is that i never wanted it to be complicated as it is now. I wanted a simple life with happy parents and siblings around. I never wanted to lose my dad. I never wanted us to go through the trauma we have gone through. It is said that there is light after the dark tunnel but i cant see it...........Time after time i see another hurdle to cross, another fight to win, another jungle to survive. Attaining Peace is like a dream for me. This trend has continued from childhood. I dun remember the last time i was really happy. All i remember is trying hard to get gud  marks, gud college, gud job, gud guy. Even after achieving what u wanted, there isnt a feeling of happiness. The question is wat will make me happy....
I have come to the point where I have longed for happiness and love for so long that now even if i get it..........I FEAR IT.