Red Rose writes

#Chapter 05: A sense of belonging "I feel as if I don't belong here." All of us have uttered these words atleast once for sure. What makes us say that we feel like belonging to a place or even to a group of people. It is the oneness, the commonality, the level of  comfort we tend to feel by being at a place  or with people, and when these requirements fall short, we don't feel like belonging to that place or people. This sense of belonging should not be mistaken with one's comfort zone. A comfort zone is not only defined by the sense of belonging, it has other aspects too. One of the struggles I faced after coming to Mumbai, was trying to fit in or belong to this new metropolitan city culture, groups of varied people, a host of different lifestyles, and people with poles apart opinions and many more new elements. And being here as a mass media student, looking for this sense of belonging became all the more tough. The college festival culture has...

#Chapter 04: Hope and expectation After any exam, we see two kinds of students - "Hoping for the best" - Student 1 "I am expecting so and so score" - Student 2 Hope and expectation , how often do we sit back and ponder over the difference between the two words? It is where my next lesson come from - I have learnt to expect something rather than merely, hoping for it. Well what difference does that make? When we hope, we just desire. The person hoping for something is simply wishing, in the absence of any efforts from his end. But when we expect, we strongly believe. The person expecting something is optimistic about the efforts he had put in. The way to lead a goal oriented life is to have an effort oriented approach. The very fact between choosing to hope or to expect, is efforts. Where hope is just a mirage created by thoughts, expectation is a belief formed by the efforts made. When we choose to expect, we naturally feel the rush in our v...

#Chapter 3 : Defining self Who were you before someone else defined it for you?  Such thoughtful combination of words, isn't it? Sometime back, we were having a random discussion in our lecture when our faculty, emphasized on this statement. And that's when I grasped something more apart from its obvious meaning that.. We, as human beings, do not independently define ourselves. We always respond or define with respect to some pre existing set of definitions. These definitions which are created, propagated and passed on by the society. But now there is a dire need to break free from these. One lesson that I learnt is we, only we have the right to define ourselves, the way we desire to. We do not have to fit in someone else's definitions. We need to believe that we are strong enough to change the existing streotypical definitions of everything. A nerd during the day can be a party animal by the night because being a bookworm in the daytime doesn't make him ...

#Chapter 02 - Family, the only constant "Did you eat something?" - Mom "How was your day?" - Mom "I have transferred some more money to your account." - Dad "It is so peaceful at home as you are not here..Haha." - Sibling These are some common questions and statements which are sent out to me everyday with the same intensity. At night, when I lay in the bed pondering that how I made it through this tough day, tough week and tough year of life. The earliest ones to pop up in my mind are my family members. In due course of time, their continuous follow-up becomes suffocating and irritating for us but what we often fail to appreciate is that only they are with us all throughout. Family acts as a resilient pillar in all turbulent situations of life. One of the most important lessons I have learnt is Never underestimate the power and presence of the unit called Family. Family's presence is just like air, presence may not always ...

#Chapter 01 - Something and Everything Its all about something and everything. These two words are very exclusive of one another but can be used together. My first lesson in Mumbai comes from here. I learned that either learn something about everything or learn everything about something. This statement is just the complex combination of easy vocabulary terms.  Learning something about everything, essentially means being aware, being informed and having better General Knowledge. For this to come true, we need to be a curious and hopeful human. One needs to inculcate a habit of extracting knowledge and understanding from  every book,  every google search,  every sight, every speech  every memory and every experience. Not only these, every person we come across brings with him his own story and philosophy, one can learn a lot from it too. Learning everything about something, relates to achieving mastery and precision in our ...

Choosing to move out of one's own comfort zone after 18 long years, was a tough choice to make. I made this critical choice about an year ago when I chose to come to Mumbai for my graduation. Many people expressed how difficult it will be for me to be 600+ kilometers away from my family, how Mumbai was a pretty grand city to get accustomed to and how one's moral compass is put to test at such places. After getting such remarks, I re-questioned my choice. Am I going right? Being the youngest child of my generation in the family, I have been gifted with all the support, love and encouragement. When I asked the same question to my people, Am I going right? They said yes, it is a bold step but you are going right! This assurance was a green signal for me to begin with. And today after an year or so later,here I am sharing and confirming that the bold step I managed to take has gifted me wings stronger enough to bear all the hardships of life. My upcoming blogs fro...

Having a brother is like having a 24 hours 7 days active spy or detective around you.  He will irritate you. He will fight with you but he will know the trick to calm you down too.  He will pull you back while teasing but will also be one of the first ones to push you forward when you get better opportunities and you are all nervous about pursuing them. He will make you cry very often but he will also be the who will make you laugh the loudest when you are done crying. He will know your biggest fear but he will also know your favorite chocolate. He will give you funny names but he will not let anyone else do that. In this busy and indifferent world, very often we fail to acknowledge our brothers. But when we are separated by miles, we tend to miss those irritating beings because we know that at last, they were and will always be with us in every hardship and now when they are not close to us we feel as if we are not strong anymore. But we must keep going as their ...