Harsh Realities

I have always lived in two worlds- My dream world and the real world. I spend plenty of time in my dream world. I day dream and with every touch of inspiration another dream is born. Though I love to dream and wonder, I cannot escape my realities. And realities as you know are not always fascinating. They at times are cold, gruesome facts shoved in our face without our choice. Yes I said without our choice. I came across a few, in a short while and I would like to share one or two. Firstly, things will not always be what you want them to be and at such times what one experiences is great confusion. But do remember, that this circumstance can be dealt with. At such times, it is better to figure out what matters the most to you. A major chunk of instability can be restored if you follow what you love. Secondly, the world will not always be open to your ideas. Now you may be this genius with thousand upon thousand ideas bubbling in your mind, restless with enthusiasm, waiting to be unleashed or you might be an explorer who stumbles upon things by chance. Either ways the world might at times play the deaf child or arrogant adult. Come what may, hold your courage. When a deep conviction overrules you, there seems no good reason why you should give up. At the same time, don’t push too hard, use the language of gentleness and even then if the world doesn’t let go of its pride and acts adamant, consider it has doomed itself with freewill. Walk away guilt-free.

Remember you don’t only write your own destiny, you write the destiny of the universe. 

Expecto Patronum

J.K. Rowling in her book Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azakaban introduces foul, sinister creatures called Dementors. If you have read the book or watched the movie you will be familiar with the nature of the Dementor. A Dementor is capable of filling your mind with outright despair, snatching away every single happy thought. When a Dementor is close to you, you will be gripped by fear and by Ronald Weasley’s account, feel as if you would never be happy again. The fear in you strengthens the Dementor and makes it impossible for you to resist it.

Once after watching the movie, I was analyzing the nature of Dementors in my mind and it was then that I stumbled upon the fact that the Dementors were nothing but an excellent allegory or portrayal of the negative emotions we experience. I started imagining that every time I experienced something negative, a Dementor was around me trying to take away all my pleasant feelings. I began calling it the Dementor Effect. So whenever I experienced anything negative, I was not afraid. I knew the key or to be magically correct, I knew the spell. Expecto Patronum!

In the book, Harry is taught by Professor Lupin to defend himself against Dementors. There is but a way to fight these creatures and that is by casting a Patronus. A Patronus is a form of an animal spirit filled with light. The Dementors cannot stand light as they belong to darkness. Well, the question is how does one cast a Patronus? A Patronus is cast when one holds a powerful pleasant memory in his or her mind, focuses on it and feels it with all his being, allowing it to fill oneself completely and uttering the incantation Expecto Patronum. Once you utter the incantation jets of light shoot through the tip of the wizard’s wand and the Patronus canters springing forth while the Dementors make a run to escape.

I decided that whenever I was attacked by a Dementor by which I mean to say that whenever I felt sad, angry, lonely, guilty or disgusted I would conjure my Patronus. I would search in the archives of my mind for memories or things which filled me with unprecedented happiness and just let it fill me to the core. My Patronus would make the Dementor flee.

I urge you whoever you are today, no matter what you are facing, if you are reading this I want to tell you, you can make that Dementor flee, just cast your Patronus, conjure it in your mind, hold onto what is good and you will see those jets of light shooting through the wand, you will see the Patronus cantering. Listen my friend, just say Expecto Patronum!!!

Letting go

How do you let go of someone you have loved more than everything? I wonder. Letting go of a person who means the world to you, letting them go because they want to, letting them go because you did not have a choice, letting them go because destiny snatched them away, letting them go so that you could meet them again, a hope burning in your heart like a fire, letting them go because you did not know what else to do, no matter what the reason letting go has not always been the most pleasant feeling. Yet willingly or unwillingly we all have to let go of someone or something in our lives.

We often wonder at such moments how would we survive? Would we get lost in the void? Would we ever rise to a new dawn or would this night never end? Often the sorrow is so deep that we become numb, incapable to think anything, nothing seems to go backward or forward. Life becomes a stop-motion film. We are so afraid to let go that the one moment we have with us feels like eternity and we wish with all our heart that time must stop forever. I watched Pearl Harbour and wondered how did Evelyn let go of Rafe? With all the love she had in her heart for him, how did she let him go, knowing he might or might not come back? And I said to myself heaven knows how many Evelyn’s and Rafe’s lived, live now and will live. No one knows. Letting go of someone I think is what only a brave soul can do, but at times life doesn’t ask you whether you’re brave or not. You get to ask no questions, even if you do, you might never get the answers, and still you have to let go.

You can only live knowing that your heart beats for that person and that you loved that person with your whole being. And yet sometimes you never let go.

Happy Birthday Harry

Dear Harry,

I thought for a long while what I should be writing. I struggled with words, trying to find the most eloquent ones. But here I am, with these ones, Happy Birthday Harry, I cannot tell you how much you mean to me. All my childhood and all my teenage years, I’ve grown up with you. It only seems so strange that you’re not around now. I just know this that wherever you are, you are living a happily ever after, so I’m glad for you from the bottom of my heart.

Dear friend, I wish to tell you, that you’ve left behind so many great memories that make me laugh and cry, both at the same time. I was going through your life today, captured in a reel, and I must say, so many breath-taking moments filled me with awe, your sorting into Gryffindor house, your combat with the Basilisk in the chamber of secrets, your first flight with Buckbeak, you asking Cho out for the yule ball, training Dumbledore’s army under Umbridge’s nose, you shedding tears when Dumbledore left us, you, Ron and Hermione entering the Ministry of Magic, breaking into Gringotts, BRILLIANT!!!, facing the truth of Severus, facing death in the Forbidden Forest, coming back from the dead and defeating Voldemort for the final time, marrying Ginny and waving Albus-Severus to Hogwarts. What a journey, my friend!  Memories, all are memories, woven together forever in threads of love, courage, friendship and every other feeling which is inexplicable. Memories, in my heart, my soul, my inmost being, timeless, your memories, my memories, no one can take them away from me. I’ve lived with you Harry and all I want to say is I miss you, I miss you so much.

I believe in you Harry Potter and you will always be in my heart till the stars shine, till the moon rise. I love you Harry and I will always love you. Thank you J.K. for telling us the legendary story about the boy who lived, like who could be no other. Harry is a smile that cheers me up even in the darkest of times. For this I am eternally grateful to you. And Happy Birthday to you J May you be blessed abundantly and may you always bring to the world stories the world is yet to read, and never forget.

Yours magically,

Preeti

The Dark Knight Rises

Honestly to write a perfect review of The Dark Knight Rises, I’ll have to watch the movie one more time, because the first time I watched it I was completely in Awe of it. I think that explains a lot on my part. Simply another Brilliant movie by Christopher Nolan. BATMAN, Oh! I can’t get enough of him. Words have failed me as the imagery runs deep in my mind, searing through every neuron like a rush of my own blood and memories. It is imprinted on my conscious; it is as if it has become a part of me. This is all I can explain right now as the energy continues to burn in me.

I really detest writing a review at this point of time when I am actually still savouring the movie in my intellectual framework. I do not wish to comment on any technicalities or any aspects of the story itself as if I were a film critic because and only because I wish to write like a person pouring her heart out, her initial reactions on a piece of paper like one does in stream of consciousness. I am not going to choose my words carefully like one does when they are trying to write and represent their opinion in a perfect manner for I feel this is what Batman deserves whole-hearted, unadulterated love, gratitude and an uncontrolled and maddening response. He is my Hero, he really is.

Bruce Wayne he stands for so much than I can ever explain. All the new additional characters to the plot, I mean to say the actors from Inception, everyone fits their roles perfectly like missing pieces of puzzle. I love the dialogues, I love the twists, I love the story within a story, I love the antagonist, strong and fierce, I love the relationship Bruce and Alfred share, the fatherly love, I love the end, I love the fact how Batman will live forever, how there will always be someone to take up the mantle of responsibilities. I love the fact that Gotham will always have a Hero and more than it, the reality that ‘Hero can be anyone’.

The scene which made a deep impact on me though is when Bruce is in Bane’s Prison, seeing the light of the day, looking upward with a hope to climb and be free, attempts to escape, fails, the old man telling him the story of the child, telling him the true secret to reach the light, their whole conversation, the old man explaining the importance of the fear of death, Bruce attempting to climb without the rope, the prisoners and the old man chanting Rise, Rise, Rise, Rise(well I wish to know in which tongue) and Bruce’s Victory, his climb to freedom, that leap of faith and courage. Well, that just hit me hard inside, it made its impression. Like I said Imprinted on my memory forever. The Dark Knight Rises, he truly does.

His rise from Bane’s prison was symbolic of so many real life situations we face in our life on daily basis. We all are somewhere, somehow in our real lives captives in Bane’s prison; we all need to rise like the Dark Knight, for ourselves, for the world beyond, for much more than we could ever anticipate. Today the Dark Knight in us calls out, are we ready to rise from our prison? Ask yourself, because if you do, you might take that leap of faith, you might become the Hero and more than a Hero.

Unexpected Bliss

Have you ever experienced in life the sheer joy of coming across someone or something when you least expected to? It is incomparable to anything and truly one of the most beautiful feelings in this world I must say. When we are expecting things to happen or have put some effort for things to turn up the way we want and when we do land up with the desired result, it feels great. But when we are not even expecting great things to happen, not even in the tiniest corner of our conscious and we get a surprise, that feeling beats every other one.

I felt a bit blue and just stepped out of my house for a while; I walked through the street and goodness gracious I met my Boyfriend. That was all I needed to cheer me up. He was riding his bike to a friend’s place and stopped when I called out to him. We had a heart-warming conversation and he held my hand. I told him I missed him and I wanted so much to be with him. Sometimes all you need are a few, short-lived moments to brighten you up. More than anything what mattered to me then was that, he stood beside me and I could look into his eyes. His presence was my strength and my delight.

At that moment a sense of hope reaffirmed within me that there is a divine design to all that we see. There is truly someone up above who listens to silent prayers and wishes and also answers them in the least expected of times. Sometimes simple pleasures are worth more than milestones accomplished. And yet again like a Narnian I believed that there is a deep magic that governs our destinies. I kept beaming throughout as the thought of the unexpected bliss kept playing in my mind over and over again and my heart overflowed with relentless mirth.

The Unseen

I have always believed that there was something bigger and greater than I see. Something which our finite senses cannot comprehend, something larger which could be understood only by thinking big, thinking deep, something whose presence can only be felt, whose magnificence cannot be captured. It is the unknown and the unseen, it cannot be named. Where our thoughts reach an end, there is the genesis of this incomprehensible, nameless force. It is beyond words, beyond common place knowledge. Everything appears to be quite ordinary and little before it. I believe in miracles, in fantasies, in the unseen. This belief has caused me to believe that there is something greater in life than the common day to day things we see. These are but just superficial surfaces of things. There are things deeper and hidden which hold the true meaning. There are bigger things worth living for, those which truly define life. The only way to comprehend this magnificence is our mind, to look from within, to begin to understand, they might be simple things but yet we fail to understand them as we live in the material world. Only the language of the mind can lead us to this revelation. I have always believed that there is much more than I see and have seen. It has always been there and that there is a higher purpose, a greater destiny.