Desire.

Your fingers will have a burning desire,

you'll not know what to do with it,

they'll spark, pain, and shed too much skin,

you'll light them in the dark,

miles away from the ones you love,

nights away from the glory of sunshine,

you'll observe, understand, and probe this

burning desire

your fingers will know your dreams and

your heartbeat each time it rises and falls,

you'll light them in the dark,

a torch of hope, you call,

you'll create something in this darkness,

you'll need no candles, you'll need no people,

you'll need nothing to push you on the path you're

supposed to walk,

your burning desire is the only light you'll need,

you'll transform between all the distances and spaces and

changes,

you'll not just transform,

you'll create,

remember how your fingers have a burning desire?

just learn to light them right and more often when there's

darkness in your sight.

Tune for the day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM7MFYoylVs

This Is How You Raise Your Son!

This post is inspired from Thought Catalog's "10 Controversial Ways I Plan On Raising My Daughter." The moment I read it, I knew I had to write something similar.

People, or to be more precise, Indians are very concerned about how a girl child should be raised. You know there are a set of restrictions, and some really weird godforsaken rules that are passed on from the ancestors. Some rules are just beyond our comprehension. But I wonder why boys do not have to go through this major structure in their childhood. They are a little lucky. 

I know I am an amateur at this subject, and oh, I have no knowledge at all in this section but I really think it would be great if boys are raised up like this. (Some of the rules apply to girls too.)

1. Teach him. Teach him to respect people, and their ideas irrespective of the age. He must be able to respect people younger than him. Teach him to respect the right things. It does not really matter if the person who commits a mistake is older than him, he should be able to respect the right things only.

2. Art should be a major part of his childhood. Men who take interest in art tend to be smarter than the men who don't. They tend to be more considerate too.

Read to him in the night. Make him paint. Send him to music classes. 

Make a note that art and education should go together. 

3. Have you noticed that most of the men look for the qualities of their mother in a girl they like? It is impossible. Teach them that it is stupid. Your mother and the girl you like are two different people. No one can replace your mother. Teach them that from a very tender age.

This way they will not have any expectations.

4. Raise him without a religion, or a faith. You have been a religious chauvinist, and you know it. Do not let it get to him too. 

Give him the freedom to make his choices right from the childhood. 

5. It is okay if he fails and makes mistakes. Do not admonish him for that. 

It is alright if he scores 80%. Not everyone is meant to score 90%. In the process of abusing him for his performance at school, you are letting a 'Mozart in the making' slip away.

6. There is more to a girl than her looks, and her body. Teach him to respect women. 

This world has enough sexists already. We do not need more of them.

7. Do you find it strange that an individual changes massively after he turns into a parent? Of course, he takes up more responsibilities, and all that. But do you also realize that he turns into a selfish human being? He expects his child (boys and girls) to do everything as he wants. 

Give a break, people. They join the school, college, and an organization of your choice. You choose their friends and the person they are supposed to spend an eternity with. You choose their car, their house, its interiors and basically, everything. Why, just why do that? What is the point in raising a child when you intend to snatch their freedom from their hands when they turn 22-23? Don't you realize that you are turning your child into your replica? 

Seriously, it is not a cool thing. It is high time parents realize this.

Apart from this, we love our parents for all that they do for us. No offence.

8. It is too much for us to handle the male ego. 

Parents should raise a kid with the right amount of self esteem. Not ego.

You have male zeta ego? Good for you! Do not thrust it on others. 

9. Ask him to document his life. Give him a camera and a journal. Ask him to make memories and maintain a note of every tiny detail. Even the bad ones.

10. Travel a lot. Take him to different places. Meet different people. Introduce him to different cultures. Let him know the world. Just let him experience different things.

So What Makes Us a Better Writer?

“No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader. No surprise in the writer, no surprise in the reader.” 

― Robert Frost

Truth to be told, we do not have any rules to turn into better (or say, awesome) writers overnight. But how I wish we had, you know, drink some magic potion and voila! You are a better writer. Unfortunately, it does not work out like that. Sigh! 

So, this is how it all started, I look at my old (like, really old blog-posts) and go, eww! And the current posts seem to be doing better than the previous ones. And well, it works for all of us, nay? We keep getting better with every post/article. Though we do not have any rules, there are some practices that we can adopt. For instance, here we go:

1) Read a lot:

Reading is such an inspiration, isn't it? We all learn a lot from reading. You know, whenever we  write, we must take sometime to read a good book before that. The books by your favourite writer, perhaps? I read Austen, Ruskin Bond, or some random articles by Manu Joseph and oh boy, do they help me or do they help me? ;-)

2) Experience:

One must experience everything they do. I say, feel everything you do, feel the aroma and the taste of the food you eat, feel the places you visit, feel the emotions, the pain you go through and all. And put down those feelings on paper. The exact feelings!

3) Write everyday:

One of the best practices of writing is to write everyday. We should make it a habit to write five hundred words a day. The more, the better!

4) Meet different people:

Every person has a story to tell. Meet different people, communicate with them, share a tale or two and analyze everything. You have so many different stories now. And if you think this is plagiarizing, let me just tell you one thing-SHUT UP!

5) Imagine a lot:

Imagination is the driving force behind everything. Be it art or creativity, imagination is everything. At some point of time, we need to let go of our thought and surrender ourselves to the power and senses of imagination and you know what? It works all the time. Perfectly at that. 

6) Coffee, my love:

No coffee, no creativity! Repeat. No coffee, no creativity.

Your brain so works well when you drain down some coffee into your system.

7) And what about movies?

Of course, movies add so much. Yes, the crappy ones too. They teach you what a bad story is. But honestly, no story is bad. Every story is meant to be told.

And the good movies, your favourite movies inspire you SO much. No, really!

Now, I am done and if you guys have any ideas, do share them. Ciao!