i-sea emotions.

Something compelled me to come to the sea today. I literally ran across all the zillion highways dividing my house and the cornish...I wanted to see the sea, and cry.

Which is weird because I had an amazing day! I woke up in a messy room because my room mate isn't around to keep me in check, I didn't eat breakfast and alternatively gouged on some delightful fast food, worked my ass off while listening to a Above&Beyond on loop since I'm going for a concert of theirs in a month, got home with a good amount of time to spare for my life-side of the balance...yet I wanted to see the sea, and cry.

I'm going to miss this place, Bahrain. It's given me so much...most of all, freedom. Not like I felt like a bird with clipped wings before, but along with my wings, Bahrain gave me three crucial things : independence, a family of friends and financial freedom. Home is home...it has my family and my heart. But when I have a home here too, it gets difficult to part.

And now I'm getting poetic...right.

As I sit by the sea and close my eyes, my mind is idyllic, thoughts flowing in tandem with the sound of the waves softly kissing the shore. There's some traffic but it's easy to shut that out. It takes me back to the first time I came to the cornish...I had no friends here, I was just hanging on to the hand that had extended itself from a guy named Arjun...:) dear chap! It's been 18 months, to the day.

I get attached to every place I've lived in...Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Udhampur, Kathmandu, everywhere.

Heck, I'm gonna miss my freedom. Just pick up and leave...no questions asked, no answers necessary.

But the flip side to being in Bahrain is that I don't get to be with my family and my husband! :) "My Husband" :D wow, when am I going to get used to that!!

Oh and I did meditate. And I did cry.

Blah, blah. Bah.

Communication is the first thing we learn when we leave our warm womb-home for the first time. We say it like we feel it, but somehow as we grow older, things around us mold our personalities and teach us that keeping what we feel locked inside is just an easier way to deal with things. Some people feel the less emotions they share, the tougher people they are. It's easier because we don't have to explain why we are feeling what we are feeling to others; and more importantly to ourselves. It truly is just easier to take that emotion and choke it down our throats, through our hearts and into our guts.

Haruki Murakami has written, "Being the kind of people they were, equally imbued with habitual solitude, neither took the initiative to open their hearts to the other."

Doing that is not dealing with it. We aren't addressing the problem, we're smothering it. Cowardice? Laziness? Confusion? Whatever the reason, not letting it out is definitely the wrong way of dealing with it.

I never could swallow it and let it slide...It has taken 27 years but I can finally see why people do it. I still don't think it's a good idea.

Democratic Immunity!

When you hear of a Aseem Trivedi, a cartoonist against corruption, being jailed for being unpatriotic, I cannot but wonder who are the authorities that approve this action? Who approves the arrest warrant? Don't they understand what 'freedom of speech' means?

Local goons who publicly molest a girl for walking outside a pub in a skirt and have been caught on camera walk scot free, but someone who has an opinion about something worthwhile is sent to jail.

Another example of such stupidity is the Governments' reaction to the Washington Post's article on Manmohan Singh...yes, it is insulting. But was any of it false? If the Prime Minister is an insult to the country, then the press (domestic or international) has a right to call a spade a spade!! Focus on the right things, oh mighty leaders!! Punish the corrupt, the liars, the murderers, the scamsters... leave the innocent to our speeches.

If we have chosen democracy, we need to enjoy the holistic advantages of such a government. Like Bill Clinton recently said, "Democracy doesn't have to be a blood sport. It can be an honorable enterprise that advances the public interest". A certain space-age invention called the Internet (yeah, this is a Step-Up 4 reference :D) has empowered us to be a part of the news. Now how about we be a part of the decision making? For the people, BY the people, right??!
Allow votes online to count for decisions made...Or if you argue that maybe the vast population might not have the technical knowledge and expertise to make decisions, at least let the people decide the priority of decisions being made...which bill to be passed first, which criminal case to be heard first. Votes, of course, can be manipulated because it is a numbers game, so have cyber petrol control points!! Things are possible if you want them to be...This is our country and I hate seeing the looting that goes on in guise of politics. I don't think I'd be this enraged if the looting was going on, but so was progress and justice. Two things our politicians opposee the most!

Clean it up, folks. Don't be immune to democracy.