[A BLOGGER’S LIFE] Anxiety-ridden mind of a blogger //My Return from the *eye roll* eXiLe//

Yesterday wasn’t the first time my heart whispered, ”Oi, dumbass! What about your fucking blog? When you going to get back to THAT?!!” It had asked the same question earlier as well, many, many times. But my mind would always shut it’s meek little voice down with all it’s lofty and rather negative ideas about…well, about everything really –

about you (yes, you, my dear reader!)

about me

about my writing skills

about the whole blogging community!

EVERY SINGLE THING about blogging had begun to scare me a little bit. Because of all the fears I had allowed my mind to store in my mind – all those sneaky, little WHAT-IFS! People are wrong when they say ”And idea can change your life.” Because believe me honey, A FUCKING ”WHAT-IF” CAN CHANGE IT FASTER, just not very positively! *shrug*

So here I am, opening up to you about some of the scariest what-if’s my mind fed me day in and day out until I recoiled from the very idea of punching the damn keys and hitting ‘publish.’

what-if people have forgotten me?

Not going to lie, this was the worst one!

You write for yourselves, yes. Just to satisfy your own passion for it. But there is always a hope that your words will be enjoyed by other people too. That they will take pleasure in reading them and will remember you because of them. And it was this little hope that this particular doubt began crushing with ALL OF IT’S MIGHT.

I’d stand tall in front of it in the beginning – ask this hateful thought to just FUCK OFF. But it seemed this fear was more persistent than my desire to be rid of it and soon, my will power failed in front of it. And I ended up surrendering to it. Sad. Embarrassing. But true, nonetheless. Oh, how I wish I can get all those moments of second-guessing back and just push through it!

what-if I am not not welcomed back?

This one got me SO SO mad at myself because it had me doubting YOUUU!! ughhh…..THE NERVE OF MY FICKLE BRAIN that it almost got me believing the horse-sh*t lie that THE BLOGGING COMMUNITY – MY FRIENDS – WONT WELCOME ME! *unamused*

If there is one thing I am always sure of? It’s that no matter what? The friends I made here – all the amazing bloggers with whom I share my love of reading and writing – are never going to just turn their back on me.

LOVE YOU ALL SO SO MUCH FOR THAT! ❤ ❤

what-if I have lost ‘it’?

I have written in the past about how setting the bar way too high can actually trump you up in so many ways when it comes to writing. You begin playing the comparison game that leads you to feeling lost and afraid of putting your posts out there for the world to read. I know because I have played it before and lost. There is no other option after all!

And with so many months of gap between me and my writing, this little fear began laying it’s roots in my mind once again.

Every time I’d open the computer to write? I’d end up comparing what I wrote to the posts I had made in the past and would reach the conclusion that ”ITS JUST NOT GOOD ENOUGH!” This went on for QUITE a long while which in turn kept me from being able to simply write.

what-if I am unable to connect with my readers?

I cannot blame my mind for this one because this has happened to me once before as well. I was at fault since I had made an unannounced exit from the blogosphere for a couple of months.

It was back in 2017. I used to have a very good blogger friend. We would share our thoughts on all things bookish and it was SO MUCH FUN! But as December approached and the whole family got busy with shifting to the new house, it simply became more and more difficult to keep up with my social media presence. So I decided to take a break. The one thing I didn’t do though (which, I now realize, I should have) was announce my hiatus.

guilty as charged! *shrug*

During that time she commented on my blog and my Pinterest as well, but I was no longer accessing either of those. So I was only able to reply to her emails, which I did. But unfortunately, she took it as a sign of disrespect – that her comments had gone ignored. 😦 And although I tried my best to connect with her again when I came back, she simply didn’t seem as keen anymore.

That incident was the one that fueled my anxiety about not being able to make the connection again this time as well. BUT you have NO IDEA how glad I am that this isn’t the case – that I can still interact with all of you with the same excitement and familiarity! LOVE THAT and I have you to thank for making that possible.

I AM SO SO GLAD TO HAVE MET YOU GUYS HERE! You make blogging fun and worth it! ❤

Whew! That was so irritating – having to remember all those moments of second-guessing and frustration that kept me away from almost everything that I am passionate about and love doing. GAHH!! But now that I have revisited that time, I realize I am ready to leave those horrible and VERY MUCH UNTRUE what-ifs behind for good! YAYYYY!!!!

What about you though?

Have you been a victim of your mind playing such tricks on you – making you doubt everything you used to be so fucking sure of before?
Did it ever lead you to stop doing the things you love?

LET’S TALK ALL ABOUT IT! ❤

To All The Books I Didn’t Buy,

I was standing at the counter, holding a copy of If On A Winter’s Night A Traveler and Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan. I had told myself those were the only two ones I needed at the moment. But you – your doleful eyes, your voiceless calling out to me – kept me glancing back at you.

Look.

Then look away.

Look again.

And look away. 

Shaking your pretty face from my eyes, I nodded with a faint smile when the cashier asked “would that be all, ma’am?” 

How to answer it, huh? With you staring daggers right into my weak fangirl soul! OF COURSE THAT WOULDNT BE ALL!! But what do I do? Do I go back and grab you by the hand, take you home with me, and cherish you for years to come? 

“No. No, Rain. You cannot do that. You have us to think of as well. You cannot be so selfish.” came a voice from deep inside my mind, from a corner I had chosen to forget my room even had. That dusty corner. And in that dusty corner was a stack of voices unheard. Roads untraveled. People unmet. And I have a responsibility towards them, after all. I cannot be so careless unfortu-fucking-nately!!!

But my eyes betray me.

They still end up reaching out to you.

And I see you reaching out to me.

You want me to be the one who holds you, get lost in the world contained in you. But as I think it through just once more, I realize it’s time. The cashier hands me the packet and the change. I clench my jaw as I will my eyes to not look back. The threshold arrives. And I cross it. I am on the other side now, the door closing behind me. 

But I am greedy. Greedy for one more glance at you. Just one more. It won’t be enough but at least it’ll be something. 

So I do. I look back. One last time. To pierce through your cover and catch a glimpse of the world you contain, the world I probably won’t be able to become a part of.

And I see you there. Still calling out to me, hidden in between a stack of other paperbacks a beautiful lovely pink cover with your name written over it, enticing me with its beauty.  It was love at first sight after all for I knew and I believed in the story your pages contained.

But alas, your fate. Or rather mine. Or maybe it’s just the lack of enough time but you’ll be forever listed under “All The Books I’ll Never Have the Pleasure of Reading.” 😦

[BOOK REVIEW] ”Careful what you ask the wind.” //The Near Witch by V.E. Schwab//

There are no strangers in the town of Near.

Until a stranger arrives. No signs. No warning. He sets foot in this old town full of old people set in their old ways and all of a sudden, the wind shifts it’s course.

Faint voices intertwined with the howling wind – as if lamenting it’s loss of attentive listeners. It wants to tell you a story. A story that’s as old as Near itself. A story of a misunderstood but powerful soul and it’s soul’s thirst for revenge.

Are you willing to listen?

I sat in the front yard – with my back propped up on one of those black chairs that my dad keep with such care, and legs straightened on the other. The wind that started in the rusting leaves found it’s powerful way into my open hair. It felt as if the driving force of the book I was holding in my hands had crawled into my world, and it was just the beginning.

The Near Witch had come.
Or had I gone to meet her?
Was I in the town of Near?
Or was it in me?

Honestly? I don’t even know. All I cared about was the fact that there was this strange music all around me – the wind was singing and the words were compelling. THAT was the power this book held over my mind, even my surroundings.

From the very first page itself, I was left in awe of the way Schwab played tricks on me – her hauntingly lyrical prose and the world she created were so convincing that for the time being, nothing existed other than me, the town of Near, and it’s people.

”Nothing good grows out of fear.”

Fear is a strange thing.

It has the power to make you act in ways you never even contemplated of. But while it may be true for some, others see it as an opportunity to finally let out all those horrible urges that they have been holding on for far too long. And that’s what happens when one by one, the children of this moor bound town start disappearing. People’s ignorance and unwillingness to at least try to understand a point of view that goes against their idea of what’s ”NORMAL” ignites the fire of chaos and fear feeds it until it becomes uncontrollably large and dangerous.

And all of it must come down to that mysterious stranger that ”vanishes in thin air.”
Does he?
Doesn’t he?
How can we know for SURE?!

”He’s a ghost.”

”No such thing as a ghost. He’s a halfling – part man, part crow.”

Rumors and lies start spreading all around and everyone decides to take the course that’s of the least inconvenience to them. And all of this – for what? JUST TO KEEP THEIR OWN PASTS HIDDEN.

Yes. A LOT of happens IN the story, as it goes on. But let me also tell you what happens OUT of it.

You see it’s one thing to follow the characters – especially such strong and determined ones as Lexi – but it’s a whole another thing to actually BE them, to lose yourself in their struggles and actions that you experience the same changes that THEY go through. ALL OF THAT is what happens seemingly away from the hustle and bustle of the ongoing plot –

because it happens in oneself;
it happens IN THE HEART AND THE MIND.

Lexi was someone who believed in what she did and did what she had ABSOLUTE AND UNWAVERING FAITH IN. She was so in touch with the gifts that the moor – the nature – had bestowed on her that it was a delightful experience to just BE ON THE JOURNEY WITH HER.

The way the whole story is structured and written is additive BEYOND MY EXPECTATIONS!! What started as a love affair with the cover soon made me realize that the TRUE beauty of this book lay deep within it’s heart, in it’s very core – and I could not have been more pleased!

Page after page, I could feel myself becoming more and more emotionally invested in Lexi and Cole’s relationship. Theirs was an attachment that was given time to flourish as naturally as a little rose bud – spreading it’s petalled wings delicately and unapologetically FOR ALL TO SEE AND ADMIRE AND FALL IN LOVE WITH IT!

COLE, though! I fell for him. Ached for him. Rooted for him. I did it ALL for him and Lexi. AND OH MY GOD! The more I fell for him, the more I feared that he would be taken away from me! 😦

BUT WAS HE?

WHAT HAPPENED EXACTLY –
To the Near Witch that she had to unleash her wrath upon the village?
To the people of Near who were so rigidly set in their – borderline idiotic – ways?
To Lexi and Cole who were thrown into circumstances they SHOULD NOT have had to deal with so young?

AND ABOVE ALL –

WHAT WILL HAPPEN TO YOU ONCE YOU DECIDE TO PICK UP THIS GORGEOUS BOOK?

I’ll let you find all of that out o your own. But, always remember –

“Properly buried.”
“Properly kept.”
“That is the way with witches.”
“And with all things.”

And disrespected bodies often give rise to vengeful bones that lay their roots deep and infect the land with their hatred and anger.

[A READER’S LIFE] When you open that book for the FIRST time..

It’s strange – you are hurled into a new world, a different world.

From the moment your eyes fall on that first word your mind gets to work – trying to make it all seem natural to you. Trying to get you to SEE it, HEAR it, SMELL it. The book’s working hard for your attention and your mind’s it’s ally.

BUT..

Even these two with their shared powers of persuasion can achieve precious little on their own because you simply won’t accept this world, this story as true – as a part of you – until something about it catches your heart.

Until it makes you laugh, makes you cry, makes you weep, and makes your scream – ”WHYYYYYYY!?!?!?!”

THAT’S what you expect as soon as you open that book and decide to travel through different dimensions of the writer’s mind. And then when it actually happens – when your head starts to make some sense of the story and your heart starts feeling something for it, it’s as if everything around you falls down and now it’s just you and this treasure of a book in your hands.

Starting a new story is like…..hmmmm….well….I could sit here all day and still won’t be able to find an example that even comes close to describe that feeling. Because there isn’t one. You CANNOT describe what happens to you in that moment. You just let it slither it’s way into your head. If it’s good enough, you’ll hand over the control to your heart. If not? Well, that’s what 1 star reviews are for, right?! xD

A book is not just a bundle of pages. It’s a gateway into the workings of multiple minds –

🖤 YOU – the reader, for you would interpret it YOUR OWN WAY. You will read it different, understand it different, feel it different. Your preconceptions about what the characters do (or don’t do), what their motivations are will have a major role in determining whether you’ll fall in love with it or it’ll join your DNF’d pile of shame. xD

🖤 THE WRITER – because of a very simple reason: it’s the product of their mind, afterall. Much of why what happens, happens in the story will have been affected by the writers’ own set of ideals – their sense of right and wrong, their dreams, their experiences. Everything that shaped them, helped them become who they are will have an effect on how they shape their characters, even if just a little bit.

🖤 THE CHARACTERS – A good book will leave you shook, to the point that you will start questioning your own sense of reality because to you, the characters of the story will be real – in your mind they will be flesh and blood. You will sympathize with them, laugh with them, cry with them, get mad at them. Most importantly – YOU WILL GET TO KNOW THEM. How they do what they do. AND WHY THEY DO IT! You will be privy to it ALL!

WHOA!

SO MUCH HAPPENS WHEN WE READ A BOOK. And it happens so smoothly that we don’t even notice it until we are done!

AND THEN?!

AHEM. Let me show you –

It’s time to go through it all – ALL OVER AGAIN! ❤ ❤

A bad breakup…

breaks you.

It shatters you from places that you didn’t even know existed in you. It overwhelms you. It twists your idea of what’s normal – because , suddenly, nothing is going to be the same anymore. You won’t get those texts that used to place a smile on your face every morning; you won’t go to those places where you used to sit down for hours and just….be yourselves together. The midnight calls, the roses, the makeups after little arguments – NOTHING.

Your ears will ring with a strange silence every minute of every hour of every day while the rest of the world around you goes on. Normally.

A breakup does all those things to you.

But a bad one does them more awfully, somehow.

My dear reader friends who are a frequent at my blog – I feel like, based on the content I read and write about, you know how someone like me – so obviously passionate and excited about everything – would have reacted to something so negative, so hurtful. So….so…disruptive.

Yes. I freaked the fuck out. Not because someone who had been in my life for so long a time was about to leave – juust like that. But because he was going to do so by igniting feelings that I have had the fortune of not being that familiar with.

Resentment.

Hate.

and anger at my own lack of judgement.

I feel like I used to live in my own little world – imagining things BETTER than they actually were. Forgiving when strict action was needed, and NOT walking out when I had the chance to do that with a less messy aftermath.

Well. Now that it’s been a few months since that, things are starting to fall into place. A little bit at least.

I am back to doing things I love and writing is one of them. Would you believe me if I told you that I haven’t written a single word, ever since that last post I made? I felt like that flow of creativity and inspiration withered away as the stream of happiness stopped in it’s tracks and moved away from my heart.

*sigh*

I…..don’t know what else to say. I just had to pour it all out. Document the moment I decided to release every single fragment of negativity from within me and just…let it all go.

So…now you know why I have been so inactive lately. Both here AND everywhere else. Just getting back to normal, with high hopes of the new normal to be much more fun and positive AND loyal than the previous one.

Planning on dropping by your feed sooner than you’d expect.

Lots of love.

RAIN

NOTE: I…umm…I seem to have gotten lots of comments while I was away and some of them are from last year. SO…don’t be surprised if you get replies from me on those. It’ll be super awkward to reply to them now but I’ll feel worse if I DON’T so…bear with me, please! ❤

[A BLOGGER’S LIFE] What is a POST?

[NOTE: I know the past couple of weeks I haven’t been able to respond to your lovely comments and catch up with your wonderful posts – believe me I MISS YOU GUYS! But there was just too much going on and I couldn’t manage everything very effectively. And what gladdens my heart and fills it with gratitude is that some of you STILL supported my blog and visited my posts – THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THAT! You guys are awesome and I am so very grateful to have met you! THANK YOU AGAIN! YOU GUYS ARE THE BESTEST EVERRR!!! LOVE YOU! ❤ ]

The guilt of not having posted according to my schedule for the past couple of weeks surrounded me. I felt a bit sad. I missed those lively interactions on my favorite blogs and their lovely posts, book-twitter – EVERYTHING.

And now, here I was, trying to find a good reason to go on with my blogging and reading schedule. I lacked proper motivation to open WordPress and ACTUALLY WRITE SOMETHING. My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a long time before it struck me – I wasn’t averse to writing, I was just irritated with the impossibly high standards I had set for myself as a blogger –

My posts MUST ALWAYS be visually appealing.

My gifs MUST ALWAYS be “out of this world.”

My reviews MUST ALWAYS be aesthetic.

All in all, my posts MUST ALWAYS be unique.

This demanding checklist left me overwhelmed which eventually burnt me out. For the last week, I had been trying and failing to catch up with my blogger friends because I was feeling STUCK in my own web of perfection.

If only I had realised that a post is – at it’s most basic – a record of your genuine thoughts. Of course, you can add lots of different flavours of visuals, effects, and, pretty graphics to it to make it even more enjoyable BUT it doesn’t ALWAYS need to be that way.

Sometimes you can just let all those ideas of perfection go and JUST WRITE YOUR HEART OUT, without any stress of all the work that’ll come AFTER it.

Whenever we try to chase THE IDEAL and make it the SOLE purpose, we eventually burn ourselves.

Yes, you are a blogger. But you are also a student, an employer, an employee, a reader, an author, a doctor, an engineer, a parent – you are SO MANY PEOPLE AT ONCE! And to fulfill every single one of those roles to satisfaction, you need to let yourself free from time to time or else it sucks the very joy of blogging out of it.

And that’s no fun at all.

As a blogger, the lack of motivation and reason to write and hit publish is one of the worst things ever! And to make sure that you don’t go through such a burnout – not at least on a regular basis – you just need to RELAX and allow yourself a few mistakes, a few let ups, a few missed deadlines, a few slackened standards.

Why?

Because your posts are not defined by those glitters – they are defined by their message, their content, their originality.

Allow yourselves to be a human who sometimes misses a few things, forgets others – there is fun in that. 😉

Ps: By now you must know why this post is so devoid of the usual flare. I hope you still liked it just the same. ❤

[MOONDUST] I put myself in the shoes of a deeply troubled girl and as I wrote down her plight, I could feel her sadness. Can you?

A deep breath and a forceful exhale – I hoped this would get rid of this heavy, toxic feeling in the middle of my chest – making it hard for me to breathe. The ground started to shake beneath my feet, nerves straining on the temples of my forehead – what was it that I was trying to remember – a happy feeling, perhaps?

When she – my mother – got sad and all those repressed feelings manifested themselves in the shape of a disease, I blamed myself. When the very air inside my own home seemed to turn foul at the very touch of my existence, I resented myself. And now that everyone is obviously happy without me, I despise myself.

Why is my family’s unhappiness almost ALWAYS tied with me?

Breaths start coming in shorter and shorter as I mentally will myself to move – run away from this toxic place that is my room, this house, the people in it. 

I – Kaya – am a troubled soul. I am she who wakes up at 3 in the morning with misty eyes and a heavy heart. 

I am she who spends night after night being envious of the stars just because they are so comfortably far away from here.

My house is a beautiful place full of beautiful things. I have so many pretty dresses, you know? More than you could ever dream of. I have food. I have books. I have shoes. I have money. So – 

“What do I have to be depressed about?” everyone asks me, with a mock in their tone and tease in their eyes.

Yes. I have everything – everything except someone to understand me. 

I want acceptance, not judgement.
I want love, not resentment.
I want you – my dear family – to stop hating me ”out of concern.”

Get me this one last thing and I will be happy, I promise. 

I – who am neither an adult, nor a teenager – want to be understood; I – who am still in the process of figuring myself out – need you to be cooperative with me.

You are my family. I trust you. I fight for you. I love you. Unconditionally. Then why is it that when something goes wrong with ME – personally – all of your faith in me vanishes, all of your hopes and dreams of me come crashing down and I am reduced to A MERE FAILURE?

It’s already a very harsh world and I hope I am not asking for something extravagant in wishing that – when life blows me down – you will become my soft landing – not a bed of thorns – constantly reminding me with EVERY SINGLE PRICK where I fucked it all up! 

Today this 21 year old has everything – everything except mental peace. She is fatigued. She is tired. She is weary of soul – not because of the world and the disappointments of life – but because her own turned their backs against her in the moment she needs help the most.

Believe me – your silent stares of judgement don’t go unseen. Your disappointed sighs don’t go unheard. I can taste it all in the very air and it’s suffocating me.

I might just run away and come back all renewed – morphed into the version of myself that you most want to see.

But before I can do that – I want you to see the REAL ME – with all my faults. And I want you to KNOW that every reaction is an answer, not a question – the questions were all yours. When you turned me away silently – you asked me (without words) some very basic questions:

“What even is your worth in this family? What is your importance?”

And my answer came out in every single retaliation, in every single shout, and in every single night I spent crying in my bedroom. 

You have got me thinking of myself as a culmination of all the bad luck in the world – but of course, you do it all because you are “concerned”, aren’t you? Well – how can I argue with that! 

I will be waiting, then – for another one of your verbal thrashing.

[A READER’S LIFE] Dating an Obsessive Reader – DEFINITELY NOT A CAKE WALK

SERIOUSLY! Ask my boyfriend. He can write a fucking book on it. xD

I was out of ideas for a new post when I thought of writing about all the bookish experiences we have had together till date. And while I think of them as fond memories, his reaction was quite bitter-sweet. AS SOON AS I TOLD HIM THE IDEA I WAS GOING TO WORK ON, HE WAS MORE THAN WILLING TO CONTRIBUTE. xD In fact, he even chose the title for me – and..ummm..I don’t know how to feel about that, to be honest! *shrugs* xD

”AM I THAT BAD?” I asked, with misty eyes. But he was already writing an EXHAUSTIVE LIST of all the times I had been VERY FUCKING DIFFICULT ON HIM, as an obsessive reader. xD

So, at his most earnest request, I am going to share a few incidents with you so that, as he says, ”my cruelty can come to light.” SUCH A DRAMA QUEEN. UGH!

The Book Fair

Let’s go back to November 2019. We hadn’t been able to meet for a few weeks. His exams were going on and since he never starts studying until THE DATE-SHEET HAS BEEN ANNOUNCED (me too, actually xD), he needed some time to, well, cram it all up.

His days were swallowed completely by the exams and I was busy making lists upon lists of ALL THE BOOKS I WAS GONNA BUY AS SOON AS THE FAIR STARTS! *heart eyes*

He knew my plan of visiting the fair – OBVIOUSLY – but I hadn’t decided on a specific date yet. You see, mum and I usually went together so it had to be a day when she was free as well.

The arrived the last Sunday of November and I woke up to mumma already determined to go to the fair that day. I WAS SOO FUCKING EXCITED! I hopped out of my bed to get ready when my phone rang. Yep. It was him. Asking me to meet that day. Now, I was stumped. I wanted to meet him, OF COURSE – SO BADLY, BUTTTTTTT….

IT WAS THE LAST WEEK OF THE FAIR!
HOW could I miss it? You tell me!

Well, I didn’t.

I re-arranged our meeting and went to the fair instead. He was angry at me FOR TWO DAYS STRAIGHT for abandoning him like that! To be honest, I now realize that his anger was justified – it had been almost a month and the date was LONGGG OVERDUE!!

So ALRIGHT! I am SORRY! You happy? PLEASE LET IT GOO NOWW! 😦 😦

Pride and Prejudice

Okay THIS ONE’S JUSTIFIED TO BE HONEST!

We hadn’t started dating yet. I liked him. A LOT. But I needed to make sure that he is THE ONE! 😉 So, one day, I started talking about my love for Jane Austen. He loves period dramas so I was sure that this was a topic he’d be interested in. BUT READING THE DAMN BOOK? Yeah, NO CHANCE. But I tried to get him to read Pride and Prejudice just the same. MAYBE..JUST MAYBE..HE WOULD GIVE IN? But, nope. Reading classics was not his cup of tea.

I was like,

Of course, it wasn’t HIS fault but I just – I WANTED HIM TO LIKE PRIDE AND PREJUDICE!!! So, I decided to give it another try. You see, we used to suggest each other loads of movies and then discuss about them. And my next suggestion was – yes, you’ve guessed it right – THE 1995 PRIDE AND PREJUDICE MINI SERIES! ❤ ❤

He couldn’t say no – although he tried – because I watched HIS suggestions as well, whether I liked them or not. (He loves war fiction)

Well, he did watch it. For sure. He watched it and GUESS WHAT??!! HE CAME LOVE IT TOO! He also discussed the characters with me *heart eyes* and I WAS LIKE OKAY, YEAH, HE IS THE ONE!

But yes, I agree – until he watched the series, I gave him a REAL HARD TIME! Sorry not sorry about that tooo!!! 😉

We Were Liars

When I first read We Were Liars, I couldn’t control the tears. I couldn’t control the sadness. And I couldn’t stop talking about it with him. He got intrigued by my obsession for it and decided to borrow my copy and give it a read. I knew he would love it as well and that’s EXACTLY what happened! HE LOVED IT SOO FUCKING MUCH.

But I was troubled about one thing. You see, it had been weeks since I lent him the book but he was showing no intentions of returning the book! I mean – You read it. You loved it. NOW GIVE IT BACKKK!!! And one day, I mentioned this to him. He looked at me dead serious and laughed out loud. He started teasing me, declaring that it belonged to him now.

THE HORROR ON MY FACE MUST HAVE BEEN TOO OBVIOUS TO BE MISSED! I demanded the book back RIGHT THEN AND THERE. xD He pulled it out of his bag and confessed that he just wanted to see my reaction and smiled at me most lovingly. I blushed and blushed and blushed at my foolishness, my fickleness! xD

It’s been 4 years since that happened and he still teases me about it. *shrugs*

Well…THERE ARE MANY MANYYY more such incidences that I would LOVEEE to share with you but…some other time, yeah? 😉 ❤

For now, tell me – COULD YOU RELATE?!?! I AM SURE you agree with me about We Were Liars yeah? I MEAN…BORROWING A BOOK AND NOT GIVE IT BACK?!? BADDDD!!! *shrugs*

Okay…so now it’s your turn – any crazy experiences related to books you wanna sharee!??!!! 😉 ❤ ❤

[MY BOOKISH OBSESSIONS] The Story that Stole OUR HEARTS and NEVER Gave it Back //Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone//

”NO POSTS ON SUNDAYS!!” – probably the last sentence Mr Dursley ever uttered with joy!

High school finals + my copy of Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone hidden behind THAT BIG BULKY Biology book, which merely served as a decoy to fool mumma! ;p

I didn’t get to read Harry Potter as a kid but the magic was just the same even at seventeen – which was when I experienced this magical world for the first time (through the written word, I mean) I WENT CRAZYYY!! I would read it before going to bed – IN BED – before going to school – after school – THE WHOLE FUCKING DAY. Which was probably why I scored so less in Chemistry but that’s a different issue altogether! ;p

Having watched ALL of the movies as an 11 year old, I knew about the plot but NOTHING could have prepared me for the absolutely enchanting world that was waiting for me in those pages! OH THE MAGIC – it pulled me in FROM THE VERY FIRST SENTENCE. Rowling’s way of writing is just as gorgeous as the world she has created and THE FIRST TIME I JOURNEYED INTO IT, I wanted to lock the door behind me so that no one could come looking!

This one time, I took my copy of Order of The Phoenix into the bath – because mumma would’ve been FURIOUS had she seen me reading it during exams – and accidentally dropped it in water. I CRIED MY EYES OUT THAT DAY! But….it didn’t stop me from continuing the journey, of course.

My love affair with Harry Potter – the books AND the movies – is more than a decade old and with each passing re-read, it turns into something even more magical but BY GOD I WISH I COULD GO BACK IN TIME AND EXPERIENCE IT WITH FRESH EYES ALL OVER AGAIN!

I could talk on and on about how I used to imagine getting my very own Hogwarts letter, packing up, and leaving the boring muggle life behind me; how fascinated I was with their book-lists at the start of each term and how I jumped up and down with joy when I discovered Quidditch Through the Ages, Tales of Beedle the Brad, and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find them –

I could talk about all that RIGHT HERE, RIGHT NOW but that would take up WAY TOO MUCH SPACE so INSTEAD I have decided to choose the first Harry Potter book for the Bookish Obsessions for this month. AND IT’S GOING TO BE A HELL LOT OF FUN!!!

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Soooooo??? ARE YOU READY to relive this magical book ONCE AGAIN, HUH??!?! 😉

[MY BOOKISH OBSESSIONS] The Earthenware Bowl – YOUR WAKE UP CALL //The Old Man and His Grandson//

“Bava, tell me about Krishna’s adventures again.” I asked for the hundredth time. He opened that big, red book yet again – full of pictures of a blue boy with a peacock feather on his head and mischief in his eyes. *heart eyes forever*

I was (still am) in love with this cosmic boy. But even more than that, I was in love with the way my grandpa recounted all his stories – his wrinkled eyes gleaming with knowledge, experience, and magic.

He was my Gandalf – taking me on one adventure after another. Those days I used to spend at my grandparents’ during the summer and winter vacations were THE BEST AND THE MOST MAGICAL OF TIMES! And even today, whenever he visits, we talk about all those stories because even though I have heard them a hundred times, they still don’t get old – not when he is the narrator.

The things that I don’t like when my parents say, I listen to when my granddad says. 

And then there was this little boy who witnessed his parents treating his grandpa like shit – like he didn’t matter at all. The way he ate – spilling the food here and there – because you see his fingers had begun to tremble. 90 years in this godforsaken world does that. It’s completely normal but apparently, the boy’s parents didn’t think that.

The old man was weak of eyes, ears, and knees but all of that didn’t seem to matter to the boy’s parents.

They made him eat on the floor – out of a dirty earthenware – while the rest of the family dined on the table. It was too painful to imagine his eyes full of tears and heart full of despair as he retraced, in his mind, every single step of his parenting- wondering where he got it all wrong; wondering if it was’t all his fault that his children turned out to be so uncaring and selfish.

It’s baffling, isn’t it? The very man who raised them, made them capable of earning a living, moving through the world undeterred – was bring treated like the dirt of their shameless shoes.

But kids see it all. We think that they are too young to notice anything and ACTUALLY THINK about such issues but they aren’t. They notice everything, keep it in their hearts. I know I did – things that although I cannot disclose here – they did leave an impact too great for a little heart to bear.

And the grandson – observing this injustice and hatred – took it to himself to do what he could. I don’t know if he did so with an intention to make his parents realise their harsh mistake or just out of the purity of his heart, but he took to fashioning a bowl – similar to the one his grandpa was made to eat out of.

Naturally, his parents – upon seeing this – inquired why he was doing so, to which he replied – ”It’s for you to eat in when you get older.”

Fairy tales – yes even Grimm Brothers’ – are so optimistic that his parents immediately realised their mistake and apologised to their father/in-law. But in the real world, that’s not the case. Here, you see similar things happen day in and day out and nobody even gives a single thought about their actions and how they hurt people – even the ones they ACTUALLY LOVE!

How can you even do that – DELIBERATELY HURTING YOUR LOVED ONE? Doesn’t it feel like something sharp in your heart? Are you able to fall asleep peacefully at night KNOWING that there is someone lying awake, staining their pillow wet because of what YOU said or did?

So, it’s time for some self-reflection, don’t you think?

Because remember that your kids, the people around you – they all notice how you treat others and although they might not comment on it right away or even express their displeasure, THEY WILL – consciously or not – TREAT YOU THE EXACT SAME WAY.

You get what you deserve.

And this little story very clearly reminds us of this truth, don’t you think? ❤