A Bowl of Elusive

Ramit was one of those people who keep to themselves, go about their 9am to 5pm jobs and settle in their beds at 10pm but lay awake until an hour after midnight scrolling on their phones, coveting others’ lives on social media. His days were pretty much the same. He held a data-crunching job at one of the most prestigious companies in the world but he was paid peanuts and if you ask me, that’s what really matters. He had dreams, of course, dreams inspired by ideas of adventure and travel, but in his heart of hearts, Ramit was an indoors person. He did not have many friends, because it had already been rather hard for him to befriend people. He would sometimes go to these happening cafés around town and sit there looking at beautiful people, couples, gangs of friends, boisterous and happy in their conversations and jokes and Ramit envied them. He wished he had the comradery. At other times, a beautiful girl would catch his eye and he would start wondering about what her life was like. B...

I have always found it difficult to make friends. Normal day to day interactions make me nervous. And yet, I’m often perceived as very confident and outgoing. Welcome to my world where opposites co-exist. I laugh & I smile. And I find it tedious. You see, I grew up in an unconventional setup; no parents; no siblings; raised by grandparents. And at one point of my life, I was an abuse victim. Mix all that up and you have a recipe for either a socially awkward guy or a psychopath. Thank God I am the former. (Still haven’t ruled out the latter.) For a large part of my life, I have been perceived as “weird”. When I was in school, I was widely unpopular for no apparent reason. I was most nice to people but they’d ridicule me or not talk to me at all. I kept trying to get into people’s good books for a while, but when that didn’t work, I gave up. I started getting into little tiffs with people who wouldn’t accept me. But I haven’t been the violent or disruptive type so my tiffs w...

Of late, I have been coming across more and more instances that point toward the devastating effects that insecurities have on shaping a person's personality. It is terrifying how utterly irrelevant matters are capable of instigating such paralyzing insecurities in our minds. I have broached this topic in many of my earlier articles, specifically referring to my own insecurities. I think it is time we took a closer look at this demon that most of us share. For instance, an ex-girlfriend of mine faced a lot of ridicule at the hands of her classmates in school for being too "thin". This made her insecure about her build and that insecurity stayed with her till she met me. I pointed out to her the fact that all supermodels are slim and people all around are body-shamed for being plump. I have been called names like "Yeti" and "Daanav" for being tall and heavy. But this article is not just about body shaming and its effects. It is about the effect ...

Praveer (left), Anjaneya (right) & I: Goofing Around at Miramar, Aug, 2010 There was this group of boys and girls in my college who ruled the scene. They were pretty or rich or both. And I guess some of them were smart as well. If you're having a problem identifying them, these were the guys who still post sepia-filtered pictures on Instagram showing a group of them at some shack in Candolim, sipping wine and cocktails, looking pretty. I think you got who I am talking about. And then there were the "other guys". They were not all that rich or pretty but they had the advantage of numbers. They hailed from in and around the state and they stuck together. They would only speak in their mother-tongue and when in groups, loved to bully people around. They would create fake profiles on Facebook to talk shit about the creamy layer guys, the ones I mentioned in the first paragraph. And then were the other other guys, guys like me. Guys who didn't really fit ...