Why when you associate the words "Social Service" with me, You really are abusing me.

Zeba – aren’t you proud of what you are doing?

I – I am deeply unhappy.

And I was.

It’s not something to be joyful about. It is not something to feel contended about. And it is certainly not something to be proud about.
I don’t come back home from school/ Orphanage and smile to myself saying how good a person I am. It’s hardly about that. But when people start thinking like that is when we know the crisis has begun.
Every time someone tells me what a wonderful thing I am doing I hardly manage a half smile and I see my mind reacting violently to it. I am choking from inside but I have no idea how I would say it. How I would say that I don’t want this. These are plain unasked, unwanted, unnecessary attention for me. Why is it a crisis?
This is where it begins. When we talk and feel grateful and exhilarated about the whole thing. The focus comes to ME. When we fail to see the ridiculousness of our system but very successfully feel the niceness of someone else. When we see the good in everything and then walk off feeling good about someone else’s goodness. It is very very easy to disconnect from the current societal structure we belong to.
How the whole situation becomes about me and not the deprivation and snatching of very basic human rights.

Its not easy. But then I don’t work for these kids because I feel sympathetic. I don’t even know the last time that emotion sunk in me. I very strongly believe that a human being should absolutely refuse to acknowledge any kind of sympathy. It’s an acceptance of being a weakling. But then that’s how I feel and I know many people who think otherwise and may have a better explanation to give.
I do it because I feel disgusted. I have felt so shallow in the past months that there was no other way out then to get up and get my hands dirty. I have wanted to cry when I see the kind of agony out there.
It’s as simple as anger within me.
I am infuriated when I realize that a student in 4th STD going to a Marathi medium school can’t spell her name YET.
I am bitter with absolute numbness when I see another student calling herself “Hasina Chaan Mohabbat Sheikh.” And I am supposed to teach her how to write her name. It feels like someone is pinching your heart when you see someone making up a middle name like this.

It’s a situation I refuse to live with. And I don’t want an audience.

Are you one of them?

I am back with one more reason to not party.
Well in fact several reason tonight
I reached there and was swimming in pool of hugs. I hated myself that very moment. It’s maddening when people are obviously wearing that mask. Some of them were meeting me for the fist time and complimented me about how BRILLIANT I am (really? You so know it right?)
I felt stupid. I hate trying so hard to be stupid and get my thinking down to the level of people. Hell I can’t succumb myself to such hideous torture. I don’t care who wears what and how they walk and how much weight they have gain or about the god damn new clutch you bought from that random place you discovered in the corner of earth.
I walked off in 30 min exact just when everyone was starting to have the REAL fun.
I sat in my car relieved and breathing comfortably.
Just then someone knocked on my window. I look at this skinny, lanky and threadlike structure boy. He wants food. Such a basic thing. Such a small thing. I recollected how many times people who are partying behind that door asked me to have the beautiful food floating out there.
I bough some food for that boy and let my eyes follow him. He goes to his family. 3 siblings and parents. All of them were sleeping. He wakes them up and asks them to eat.
My heart broke so bad I can’t say.
I cried that very moment
I am crying right now
I felt disgustingly small. There are these 150 odd people who are swinging their bodies for the love of life whereas on the other hand a WHOLE FAMILY IS SLEEPING hungry like 100 mts away
How do people manage to be like that?
How do people absolutely refuse to acknowledge the existence of such grave sadness around them?
Have people absolutely stopped feeling?
Have people absolutely stopped being humans?

Zeitgeist overview

Zeitgeist overview

Go check this link.
Like everything I wasn't really ready (read eager) to watch this video until I was compelled by a certain someone.
It answers all the question we couldn't even think of. It's very analytical, scientific and detailed.
For people who prefer to read then watch. there's a PDF booklet available online.

When we talk about faith

I have been increasingly facing with some really antagonistic queries. most related to my faith, my belief and why I do certain things in certain way. most of them calling it half faith and a person with no clear fundamental frame work of mind. pseudo philosopher? yeah?

lets talk about all that one at a time.
# I am an atheist then why do festivals excite me. why do i want to go ahead and celebrate them and why would I even acknowledge them when in fact i should be opposing them as all festivals (Indian at least!) are related to religion and god.

I say- Yes I am an atheist. But people who have known me or even spoken to me very briefly will NEVER find me trying to challenge anyone's belief. I am not here to change anyone's mind. That's none of my business. I believe everyone has their mind and they can very much use it to decide their own stuff. I am an atheist by choice because I have got myself to believe in the Charvaka's theory of soul.I very staunchly believe in it since 4 years and I don't have any reason to disagree with them.

To talk about festivals. When i talk about Charvaka's, the basic point is to LIVE. To enjoy the exuberance of life existing around me.To be something as simple as happy. And that's what I want to do and what I am doing. I celebrate or at least greet people during Diwali/Holi/Navratri/Eid/Christmas because I want to. Its again a choice I make not because I hold a belief in them. Certain things don't require a fundamental reason and rationality. Everything doesn't need to be ruled by logic. So here it is. I am shopping for Diwali and looking forward to lighten my house and share sweets with my insanely huge family not because I am celebrating Rama's return to Ayodhya or Mahavira's day of enlightenment. I am celebrating because the world is stagnating to a narrow mindless of arguments and philosophy. Because everyone is trying to stick to a concept/theory/wisdom of words which they come across and then believe to be knowledgeable.Because everyone is suddenly losing their mind when ironically they feel they are dignified intellectuals who know the way they want their life to be governed.
Because everyone wants to be lonely and live life individualistically. Because there is nothing wrong in the previous statement unless it gets you to the edge of a mountain cliff and instead of feeling bliss of the wind you get pushed by it downwards. and BECAUSE I choose (again) not to be a part of this chaos.
I will celebrate festivals. I will celebrate life.
go ahead and call it half faith (again)

Yes YOU!

He knew it.
He always knew it
21 months back. 21 months later.
He said the same words to me.
AGAIN
How hard is it for me to decipher.

I read those words again. A zillion times. Sometimes the first thing in the morning. And I stiffen. And I am numb.

“I knew you for a mere four days, but then in those four days I could see that you had the one characteristic that marked you aside, doomed you even, for it is a characteristic that is revered and simultaneously hated: the knowledge that man is a productive being, and it is this that gives him true joy.
I could see it in the way you handled your work: intensely, and passionately. I could see it in the way you related to the people around you. I could see it in the way you disliked fools. So yes, it is good that you are the way you are, it makes you unique, it sets you above, and it will also make you lonesome, but hey, it's lonely at the top, but it's a hell of a view!”

Its breaks me to know this.
To know that he exist.
To know we exist.
To know that we are no longer what we were 13 months back
To know that I still have mornings when I wake up to my “unsure” self
To still be hurt by irrational, authoritarian people.
To take efforts in controlling my thoughts.
To know that I am still cold to other’s feelings
To know that I am judgmental and I can see through people but I still can never feel for their happiness/sadness.
To know that I always get away using fancy words and I usually never end up meaning them.
To know that he is somewhere there still believing in me and I am failing again and again to believe in myself.

It is what I chose to be

I haven’t been this sure since months.
I haven’t had this feeling of being at the right place doing the right things since years.
I haven’t been this proud till today.

I always wanted to do this. But since past couple of months vague thoughts haunted me everywhere confronting my motionless mind to think. I wasn’t sure I was good enough. I wasn’t sure I am what I claim to be.

But today I want to scream. I discovered what I want to do with my life. I discovered that the thing I excel in, the thing that I am passionate about and the thing that makes me happy.. My work. It is what I chose to be. A Journalist.

On my Road.

Did you do it?? =P
A list of things I want to do, I need to do.


1. Own enough books to start a library

2. Sleep under the stars

3. Run a marathon

4. Have my portrait painted

5. Kiss in the rains.

6. Gain 5 kgs in a month

7. Read an entire book in one day

8. Visit Parisian cafes alone

9. Report a war while avoiding embedded journalism.

10. Buy my own “very fab Indiaish home’

11. Write a very Nabokovian fiction book

12. Spend a year traveling rural India and reporting from there.

13. Visit Pakistan and learn and understand the mindset and perspective of local people there.

14. Finish a whole dominos cheese burst on my own.

15. Live in Delhi for 5 years and work for Tehelka during that period.

16. Talk with P.Sainath about “globalisation of inequality” and let my self get inspired.

17. Complete a whole pitcher of Kingfisher Beer in one go.

18. Fall TRULY in love and not just convince myself that this is it.

19. Go on a trip to Dubai and Kolkata with Namrata and Chandni.

20. Make a travel documentary on the culture and clandestine secrets of Rajasthan

21. Learn Photography

22. Learn Pottery

23. Never ever stop teaching underprivileged children.

24. Earn myself a Blackberry.

25. Intern for a M.P (Member of Parliament)

26. Have lunch with Shobhaa de at Moshe’s

27. Know John Galt’s speech by heart

28. Get myself a diary on my 21st Birthday and have all my days thereafter in record (Written)

29. Visit Harappa civilization

30. MAKE SURE THAT ALL THIS HAPPEN SOMEDAY 