Musings by Taniya

I think we live our lives a lot like the way we drink our coffee.  When it's hot and steaming, we are afraid to drink it lest it burns our tongue, but by the time we muster our courage to dive in, it's turned cold and inedible.  So tell me, isn't it how we end up living our lives too. When we are young, hale and hearty we are reluctant to take risks, we stop short of giving our all and we keep playing safe. We don't love, live or speak out hearts out sans restraint. Everything is controlled, domesticated and sanitised to utmost suit others aspirations and assumptions about us. By the time, age and experience teaches us to enjoy the life, usually time and life has whizzed past us. Opportunities are dried up, relations have become bland and we spend the last vestiges of our lives regretting and lamenting over our delicious and precious coffee gone wasted.  I wonder how hot and drinkable my coffee is? On my part I've tried sipping it hot all the while scalding my tongu...

Wasted..........Time!!!! Wasted is the time I spent  Hiding from my past Forgotten moments that are done and dusted.  Besides a few valuable lessons  That is all I get crying over what's past... Either I am living or reliving the memories. Wasted is the time I spent  Fretting or wishing over a future yet to come.  A future so unpredictable and uncertain  Yet I gambled my time and wasted my certainty beyond reason,  Over a yet to occur happening. Wasted is the time whence I forgot To live in the here and now To ignore the what-ifs and have-beens To cherish every moment I love and breathe in now. I stopped creating memories and kept reliving the old ones I kept sweating over one sunset and forgotten the sun will rise again. Wasted is the Time I spent chasing someone else's dreams Holding onto promises not mine to keep Believing the insincere and the negatives. Wasted is the Time I spent hating myself for just existing  Shunning my imperfections and ...

A cup of Coffee I wish To stave off the creeping cold in me To lessen the chills of the weather And more of the hopelessness life brings with it. A cup of Coffee I need and my favourite book to read. A day on pause  No plans in tow Or distractions in sight. No friends or foe to entertain  Just my Coffee and me. No goals or deadlines to grasp A warm cup in my hands And my solitude keeping me company. A cup of Coffee I need Not questioning me for the beans I chose Or judging me for the cups I devour. A cup of Coffee is all I need today Warm, inviting and bitter It never hid its bitterness or aroma For those few connoisseur That deemed it precious after all.

I don't remember the exact words of Dumbledore in Harry Potter when he said.... It takes courage to fight your enemies  It takes even more courage to fight your friends (...and family) This is where its supposed to end.... But I wish to add a corollary. It takes a herculean amount of courage to fight ourselves. Our naked, self loathing and resenting selves. To move beyond our guilt and self reproach To courageously face our biases, limiting beliefs and ideologies. That my dear,  Is the bravest of them all the toughest of them all And frankly speaking, the most foolhardy of them all. Because how do we even begin fighting ourselves? To honestly re evaluate and rewire ourselves to the very core. To accept how and why we have lived till this day, might not be apt for us and then modulating it to suit our ever changing whims, times and ethos. I hope you agree that to face our inner demons is truly the scariest amongst the demons paying us a personal visit. It takes immense courage ...

I think there should be class on how to live life?  We spend most of our lives blasting and blundering through around absolutely clueless about our own aspirations, direction or purpose. We waste most of it on borrowed beliefs and ideas. We are so easily swayed by external manipulation, peer pressure and diktats of society. And before we know it, most of our life is done and dusted.  Then the epiphany strikes, that what we have been doing and how we have been living, is not how we actually we wanted it to be. But where do we go from there henceforth, is different for all. Some lament the loss of what they wanted but never tried for, and then waste the rest of the life drowning in the river of self blame and pessimism. Some blitz through the infamous mid-life crises reinventing themselves or seek frivolous or oftentimes mundane endeavours. Then there are some who get themselves entrenched in radicalizing ideologies, spiritualism bordering on fanaticism, and sometimes even cults...

Some stories are better left untold While some beg to be shouted from the rooftops. Some beg for an audience that never come  While some have become legends and fables. Some wither away in solitude, and then, there are stories of privilege that reek of pompous grandeur and entitlement. There are some that mesmerize us with their simplicity Their humble beginnings and endings to entice us all. Some are lost between agony and discord While some are bathed in camaraderie and love Some are hushed between whispers and surreptitious glances There are some that are engrained in our souls. The stories of those men and women how can we forget who have become akin to demons and gods. Then if we are careful to look for   lying under the rubble of defeat are the stories written by those who lost the war. All these are stories are meant to be shared read and told over and over again.  For what is our life but stories  That we have lived and breathed To be passed down for gen...