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Beginnings

     Loneliness and isolation have their own merits and demerits. They make you envy the people who do not have to undergo the same suffering as yourself, but in a way they give you time for introspection. And it is out of this introspection that some great autobiographies have emerged. History itself, is a testament to that. Some eminent leaders have penned books that have become an inseparable part of World Culture, whilst in total isolation from the world. Adolf Hitler wrote his autobiography - 'Mein Kampf' in prison after his failed Putsch in Munich. For Hitler haters, even Nelson Mandela wrote a major part of his autobiography 'Long Walk to Freedom' while he was imprisoned on Robben Iceland for 27 years by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Pt. Jawaharlal Nehru wrote 'An Autobiography' between 1934 and 1935 when he was in prison. Long story short, this blog is also an outcome of sheer loneliness; I hope it turns out good! Just to be clear, I am NOT in prison, nor am I a fugitive!

        We all are aware of the saying "The grass is always greener on the other side". No matter how successful we are, no matter how happy we are, from the eyes of the world, we always crave for things that others possess. Thanks to my isolation, I've learnt to look only on the brighter side of my life...where I'm living now, is the "greener" side of the grass.

        In the monsoon of 2010 I moved out of my hostel - a place where I had lived few of the best days of my life during 2009-10. It was soon into this self-imposed isolation that I realised what a horrible mistake I had made. A terrible choice. Loneliness soon crept in, so did frustration. I lost faith in everything, including happiness, and became the cynic I'd always avoided turning into. When I looked out of the broken window of my rented apartment I could only see how miserable my life was, and how happy everyone else was. Nothing cheered me, nothing could bring the smile that I never used to let go of, the year before.

         It doesn't take a smart man to realise that getting yourself out of such a situation is the need of the hour. I began trying to feel happy, albeit forcibly. I would just smile at petty things, and not let the difficulties bother me much. And it did not take much time for a miracle to occur... Happiness circled me like a group of giggling children in a merry-go-round. My days brightened, and soon the picture I saw out of the window changed. The broken glass didn't matter much, nor did the sordid sight of pigs running randomly on the street. Even a slight breeze was enough to make me smile.

         No, I wasn't becoming ignorant of problems, I was just becoming cognizant of the joy around me, and at the same time, I'd learnt to look adversity in the eye and say "You don't scare me!". Yes, isolation changed me, twice. Most of us go through such a phase, but most of the time we let suffering make us the person that we don't want to be. It's your choice after all, either choose to stay melancholy and mourn like a loser, or just turn to the "greener side of the grass"! It always works... "True story!"

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