29/09/2015.

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 In all the years of our existence while biding our limited time, often forgetting to live life instead of merely surviving, have you ever noticed how much of you is not you?


With every person that you will ever meet, you will get influenced by them, even in the remotest ways possible; either through written words or actions or even silence. Be it your mother or your favourite pop singer or the writer of the book you read yesterday. They all are slowly working their way into your mind and most of them into your heart. You start quoting them, adopt their ideologies and build your ideas on the foundations laid by them. How much of your thinking is yours and only yours? No one knows. They just inspired you, didn't they? That's how everyone grew up. Picking up pieces from here and there, seeing if it fits our liking or not. If it does, go ahead and keep it. And if it doesn't, well there are more of them.


Sometimes it just so happens that the people from whom you have got these little bits of treasure tend to take it back. That mosaic you have created seems to be odd and incomplete then. A few parts will have to be destroyed, a few will look out of place and you might have to dispose off of them. And with sheer luck, a few will stay with you forever; a few will even fight for more space or preference. It won't matter much to you because you are hardly aware of it. You were simply letting Socrates brain wash you then.


The way I perceive it, nothing is more beautiful than this tapestry you have woven using all your might, patiently choosing the threads and colours of your choice. But what I do not understand is how are you so sure that what you have used is silk and not some cheaper material the seller tried to get away with? You never know who is speaking the truth and who is actually right. It is a trick that is being played on us and we call it belief. You will eventually believe that people in your life will come to you bearing gifts and will never leave. The harsh reality then enters the scene and you notice the gaping hole in the burnt fabric. You sew it with new material and over the years it will be brand new all together and looks nothing like how it was when you first made it. It'll be a bright blue at times or a dull grey. Still you won't give up on borrowing a leaf from other's lives.


By now the jigsaw puzzle will not pose as a challenge anymore. There will be times when you have to be cautious while picking the pieces, like the ones that are capable of making or breaking you. I will tell you what, you will want to take the risk and you will be breaking the boundaries more than you would like to admit. Someone did teach you how to be fearless but nobody has taught you what to do when you lose your precious collection, right? Do not worry about that just yet, when you lose something you will definitely gain something else. This time a whole bale of silk, maybe. 


And when you turn 80 someday as you sit by the window on a pleasant Sunday afternoon calculating your losses and how they got compensated, using the basic mathematical operations, I wonder what will be on the right side of the '=' sign. After you've accepted every part of your being and restored that art work innumerable times, ready to be served as an inspiration for the future, I wonder what will remain of you with you.

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