Oblivion

2018 has been a very weird year for me. It’s like god thought this girl needs to be prepared for the rest of her life. And Bam! He made a plan, a blueprint for the year of two thousand and eighteen! At times it seemed like my life couldn't be more perfect and at others, it was like someone charged me 5 dollars to show me my worst nightmare. And they closed the doors so you couldn’t leave. With social media, you can never leave. It like the lyrics of Hotel California, you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave! This year has been a real eye-opener for me. In terms of who I am, where I want my life to go, who are my friends (no strings attached), what are the things I need to be doing in life and so on. It has started the process of me setting my priorities straight in life. And for once and finally putting myself before anyone else. I am very good at standing up for others, but I’m finally learning to stand up for myself. It just the beginning, I have a lot o

You know I have always felt that the friends you make at different stages in your life will stay with you forever. Your school friends, or the people you meet in college, your friends from your first job. Well, that is where I have reached, so can't say about things beyond that. But yeah you carry them with you wherever you go in life. Another thing. We keep changing, always. Everyday. I wasn't the same person I was two years ago. Hell, I am not the same person I was 6 months ago. We always keep changing, our opinions, beliefs, likes dislikes. We keep evolving. Every phase in your life changes you. You meet new people, get exposed to different things and you change, as simple as that. For someone else to complement that change and grow with you in a similar manner or to even understand those changes is not an easy thing. We ourselves don't know who we are, how can a third person. I mean it is not impossible. I have friends in my life from back when all I could think abou

I occasionally sit at my work desk, staring into space, deep in thought. My co-workers must be thinking I am working on a complex problem. Little do they know, more often than not I am thinking about some irrelevant to work thing and will soon be posting a blog about to bore you people with. My madcap mid-work musing. On today's episode, we are going to talk about familiarity! Nope, this isn't about "Familiarity breeds contempt"! (I could do a mean podcast!) Why are we so resistant to change? Why do we get upset whenever there is an imbalance in our universe? We get used to things a certain way and that routine or familiarity is something we can identify and count on. It is comfortable. You have just everything right. Your job, friends, family, boyfriend, weekends, late nights, hair salon, street pups, everything. We like familiarity, for things to be a certain way. I mean for almost 12 years of our lives, we have gone and come back to school at fairly the same tim

I recently read in a book called "The Trust" that if it is love at first sight, you should run in the other direction, as fast as you can. But that is not true in my case of falling in love with Goa! Goa has a piece of my heart. You must be thinking hmm Goa is a pretty good place! The beach, cheap booze, extreme chill, I get it how one could want to go there but love? Isn't that a bit too much? Well, let me give you guys some context. For me, Goa is my second home. It is where I have spent four wonderful, blissful and adventurous years. I did my engineering from BITS Pilani Goa and over the course of those four years, I fell in love with the place. The brightly colored houses, the air which almost smells like the ocean and even the incessant rains. For the world it might be a place to chill, party, get drunk and basically have a blast, for me its home. It would be safe to assume I have a Horcrux hidden somewhere in Goa. I know Goa so pretty well, and it knows me t

When you meet new people, and you know nothing about them, you ask them generic questions to get to know them more. You try to find out where they live in the city, where have they worked before, what college are they from and all sorts of things. Just to get a sense of who that person is. Being new in my office here, I am still going through this process, even though it's already been a month. Even now there are people I don't know at all, and I have the very same conversation for the umpteenth time. It actually runs on autopilot now. And whenever I am stumped I just bring up Pepper, and my dog loving extended team just melts away. So, yeah a lot of back and forth conversations with a lot of people. Yesterday, in one such similar interaction, someone asked me a question and I didn't know how to answer it. I had about 5 different ways I could approach the problem in. She simply asked me "Where are you from?" This seems like a pretty basic question. How could

I am a person who doesn't care much for routines, but there is one thing that I have stuck to since I was 15ish I think. Never sleep before 12 in the night. In school, it was to study, so fair point. And in college, sleeping at 12 would mean that you miss out on some major fun in the hostel. So over the years, I have become used to sleeping not before let's say 2am on an average. And after college. when I started working, that just stuck with me. Watching movies, chatting with friends, finishing off work or reading a book. Even though I had to get up early to go to the office the next day, I would still stay up late into the night. In fact, at one point, I felt like the sleep police. I wouldn't let anyone sleep before the clock struck 12. I don't know, I was maybe trying to stretch our college lives a little longer. I would always say that it was a sin to sleep before 12 or something like you have 10 good years before you have a kid and you will have to get up earl

Over the past few days, I have come to a realization: emotions like love and hate are, as a matter of fact, quite exhausting. They occupy your headspace, consume your time, impact your work, and, generally speaking, affect your entire life. They require a significant amount of effort, but, of course, love brings happiness while hate can drive one to madness. It is a burden to carry around. Considering we all already have some baggage to carry, imagine having to carry hate as well. I mean, goodness, the work involved! You have to complain about them daily until everyone in your vicinity knows about them and can recite your story. Then, people get bored, and you need more content, so you have to delve deeper, overanalyze things, and engage in mandatory social media stalking. And let's not forget about those voodoo dolls in the closet that need attention. Uff! It's so much work to hate people! But on a serious note, it does take a toll on you. It's like a parasite feeding off

Social media is getting on my nerves. I mean Social Media is really nice to stay in touch with people, get updates on their lives, share your milestones with the world, stalk your crushes, see what that ex of yours is up to, you know completely innocent stuff. But sometimes it just gets to be too much. My frustration level rises with my screen time. Now, I try to keep it to a moderate, not a minimum. But as I said, even the moderate manages to annoy me! So a while ago, I was very immersed in the whole social media phenomenon, whatsapping my friends about my dinner plans, then snapping them on the way telling them my uber ka speed, showing them what I have ordered on insta stories, tweeting about this amazing dish I just had and ooh checking in on facebook to make sure they know I've reached. I hope you guys know this is just an exaggeration. But you get the idea, I mean always being online, always being connected. These apps have made it so easy for us to stay connected all the

कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे कुछ तुम कहना कुछ हम भी कहेंगे उस घर की वो दीवार  जिसपर यादे लगाया करते थे रोज़ सुबह खटखटा के  दफ्तर को जाया करते थे  कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे पुरानी बाते याद कर थोड़ा मिलकर फिर हसेंगे कभी आना थोड़ी बाते करेंगे PS: My first attempt at writing a poem in Hindi. I have been trying to write one for so long, I just couldn't find the words. I mean literally. As much as I would like to think, my Hindi is apparently not that great when it comes to writing. And there is something about writing poems in the language that adds the dimension of depth that I just don't feel in English. This is just the first draft. I hope to finish it soon. 

It's day 3 at my new job and having smiled at so many people these days, my face now hurts. I have also become very proficient in giving a concise introduction of myself, I believe the word dog has received quite a good response from people, so I tend to talk about that a lot. Lucky for me, my team is full of dog lovers. I haven't met all of them yet, but the ones I've met so far really love dogs! So I am sitting for lunch, having recited my regular, Me - "Hi! I am Arushi, recently joined the ITS Team. I have a pet dog...." People - "Ohh so cute! I love dogs too"  and you know where the conversation goes from there. We all somehow got past the topic and I returned to my "I am new here" awkward smile. Somebody notices my left-handedness, and we start talking about that. Yes! I am left-handed. I am supposed to be creative! Ha! You haven't seen me draw an apple then. I can manage to put together a decent sentence though. So, one

The Weekend I wasn't able to finish this 30 day challenge. But I really did like it, I think I am going to try another one soon. I am not going to be able to finish all the posts, so I though I'd make one post and try to cover at least a few of the topics. #24 - 3 books on my bookshelf Factfullness - Hans Rosling (Currently reading and desperately trying to finish) Why am I a Hindu - Shashi Tharoor  Dark Places - Gillian Flynn #25 - What I would find in my blog My blog isn't about anything particular. I write about things that make me think, a really great conversation, my life in general, me reminiscing, my rants sprinkled with a few poems! I mostly write when I am overwhelmed by something. That gets the typewriter in my head going. Plus now I have a real one too. Yay. If you were to browse through my blog, you might find something about integrity, friendship and love, feminism, rain, Goa, Friends (TV show), cooking, questions I am contemplating and m

You know confidence is very important for a person in their life. How confident you are, impacts almost everything in your life. It is something that reflects in your personality. And what is more important is being self-confident. If you don't believe in yourself, then life my friend is going to be tough. I have come to realize that self-confidence needs to come from within and cannot be based on your validation by other people in life. I have been struggling with this for a while. I have always felt like an under-confident person most of my adult life. It's not like I shy away from conversations or am socially awkward. I am actually pretty social, more so when I am a little comfortable with my surroundings. My self-confidence right now is shaky at best. It is extremely fragile and can tumble with the tiniest of puffs of air. If you've ever played one of those games that require you to make a building and when you go really high and/or misplace a house, your entire bu

#19 Nicknames you have; why you have them Well, my joining date got moved up a week so I might not be able to finish all of these, but I will try. I might combine a few into one article itself. So the numbering might be a little off. So, nicknames huh. I have quite a few I guess. Well, my name is Arushi Pandey. I'll just start listing them down one by one; Pandey, Pandey Ji, Aru, Chotu, Shiro, Rushi, Popu, Bache, Shiri are the ones that are coming to mind right now,  Actually, most people get their nicknames from their names, in my case, it was the other way around. I was named Aru first and that is where Arushi came from. My mother and my brother were taking harmonium lessons when my mother was pregnant with me. Her teacher was a blind man, whose next student was Aru. My mother liked that name so much that she decided to give me that name.  Chotu is a nickname that a lot of people have called me over the years. The reason is simple for this one. I am short or tiny

# 15 Put your iPod on shuffle. First 10 songs that play This would actually be fun if I had my old iPod with me. It has songs from so many genres and eras that would be left astonished by my taste in music. My iPhone barely has any so this might be a weird list!  O Saathi Grenade - Bruno Mars Hey Jude - Beatles Main Rahoon ya na rahoon - Gulshan Kumar Do din hi madhu mujhe pilakar - Manna Dey (This is a part of Madhushala) Kanha - Shubh Mangal Saavdhan Love you Zindagi - Dear Zindagi Bane Pujari premi saqi - Manna Dey (This is a part of Madhushala) Jiyen Kyun - Dum Maaro Dum Fernando - ABBA 

So sitting in my friend's room, we were talking about house parties and how much fun they are! And then we got to talking about the mess in the morning and the puking that lasts till dawn. She was telling me about the one crazy house party she had in college days. And I chimed in with my own stories. Drunken 1 AM stories. Most of these stories are from my first year or so in college because after that we knew our capacities and drank responsibly enough to not be running randomly in the corridors, puking in the washrooms and waking up with the worst headache ever. I remember this one time, back in my initial college years, one of our friends had recently broken up and so we decided to have a breakup party. We managed to sneak in alcohol and sat in our rooms drinking and dancing around. I wasn't drinking that night for some reason, so I was responsible for making sure the warden doesn't find out and everyone was fine. I remember that after a while, my friends had had too

#14 A picture of you and your family This is a photo of the Pandey family from about a month ago when we were all in different cities, actually different states and in my brother's case a different country altogether.   Again, I couldn't find any recent pictures so this will have to do. I know this is a weird picture, but sorry this will have to do. I will maybe update it in December when we all get together.  We are an extremely tight bunch, the five of us. We discuss everything from bad breakups to why the Modi government isn't performing well enough. That is the best part of my family. I don't have to think twice about telling them anything. I don't have to hide anything from them and believe me that has made life much easier. There is no concept of personal space between us. We constantly interfere in each other's lives, giving advice, making fun of each other and also fighting like hell sometimes.  My family I think is the best part about me.

#13 A letter to someone who has hurt you recently Aah! This is something extremely personal I believe. I know I write a lot about things going on in my life. But I never really explicitly say it (not very often though). It is usually implied. And the other thing is how do I choose who to address to! I mean there are quite a few on that list (sorry trying to joke about the whole situation). I don't want to be pointing someone out here, I mean its already being done on twitter so much, I'd rather not add to it. But what I will do is write about a few things that hurt me. So I have been spending a lot of time with myself, learning how to be comfortable in my skin. That is something that I am not good at or rather was not. I am getting better. I was used to having people around me most of the time. So yeah, in trying to do that, I have had a lot of time to myself, and have been thinking a lot. And obviously breaking down and analyzing the entire thing bit by bit. Replaying

#12 How you found out about blogger and why you made one Well, I started this blog a long time ago. I think back in my first year at the very beginning that too. I had always been decent at writing as a kid. Back in my first year, I had moved away from home and was living alone for the first time. So one of those days, I was probably feeling a little homesick and overwhelmed and I just started writing. And it was a load off for me. Since then, whenever I feel overwhelmed or if there is something that makes me think, I just sit and my computer and start typing. I don't think just keep writing whatever comes to my mind, much like right now.  So, yeah I consider this blog my escape. I rant here about stupid things, write about happy ones, give my opinions on some and just share my experiences with everyone. I had no other intention of starting the blog. In fact even today, it is a place for me to let everything out. I don't have to hold back. And if some of you happen to l

#11 Another picture of you and your friends This is a collage of a few people I consider my close friends. The black box in the middle is because I know I have missed out a few of them. This is not because I love them any less, it's just because I couldn't find any recent pictures with them. Or you know those people who are really close to you but you never got around to taking pictures with them.  These are my people. People that are important to me, and have played a significant role in my life. This picture has people from all facets of my life. There are a few I met back in school, a major chunk I became friends with in college and some I met at work who became much more than just colleagues.  They all have taught me something in life, and there has to something, some habit that I have picked up from each of them. These people are some of the most amazing people I have met, in their own unique way. My bond with each one of them is very different. Some are

#10 Songs you listen to when you are happy, sad, bored, hyped and mad I haven't been able to listen to my favorites or "go to" songs for a while now because they make me reminisce, and that is something I am running away from right now. Only if that kind of running made you lose weight. And this is a bit of a problem for me because I love music. I always have something on in the background. I am listening to something, about 90% of my awake time. These days all I have been listening is to is Prateek Kuhad, The Local train, and covers by Karan Nawani. These songs are completely new to me hence, no thinking, just listening. And mind you they are really nice! I mean really good! Go listen to Raat Raazi, Dil Beparvah, Choo lo, and Aaftab. Really great songs! Getting to the point, let me start listing down the songs that I listen to when I am in the moods mentioned. When I am mad I normally listen to "Just go to hell" from the movie Dear Zindagi. Actually, t