Denial and Courage

When I write here now, I won't explain contexts because there are less than maybe 10 of you who read this and the basic current happenings and context of my life you are all well aware of. So this blog I guess is me growing on my path of over sharing.

Calling life strange at the moment would't even begin to express how I have felt in the last few days. Years seem to have passed from Thursday to now. The night we found out we couldn't come back to JNU was confusing and sad. It was like we were all suddenly grasping for air. No one could stay in their rooms. Three of my friends and I decided to go for a walk around campus distracting yourselves with gossipy anecdotes and lapsing in silent tears when we thought the others weren't looking. Constantly asking each other "What do we do now? What?! Where do we go? What do we do?!' Constantly reminding each other to breath. Now I don't mean to sound dramatic but that is how we felt, even if it seems like an over reaction to some.

History is not an easy discipline and I'm sure to all of you reading, I have ranted, whined and complained many times over the last 4 and half years about it. It is thankless and requires countless hours and countless skills. I could spend many a post writing to you telling you just the stuff I've had to learn in the last few years and at some point I probably will. But sadly this is what I have chosen to love; this is what makes my brain light up, what makes heart agree to work hard at. Some of you may say I've been in this too deep, I need to step away, take a break maybe but you need to understand that it was only in the last year and half that I truly realised that I love this, that this is what I want to spend my time doing, this is what I feel is important in the world. Seeing the systematic destruction of the social sciences and distortion of history that is happening in the country, it certainly reaffirms my choice that this is in fact a worthy cause to defend and an important space to protect.

It hurts so much because for most of us, this dream of wanting to be a historian or to teach history was a newly realised one. I finally knew what it was that I truly wanted to do, I finally had goals, had ambitions. I know there are many ways to reach a goal, different perspectives and different paths are something I am well aware of and familiar with. What hurts is that you worked very hard and towards a goal, which now reaching closer to the finish line, you find out doesn't even exist. You were taught to come back, you were encouraged to study things you wanted to come back and research, work with people who you would come back and work with. Heck the first joke anyone cracked about JNU to me was how they would not see me now for another 4-5 years. That was the first thing even the professors told us, that was all I heard until a few months ago. How I would never leave and I'd become one of those JNU students who never left. It hurts so much now, because that joke now stinks, it reeks of a dream that has recently died. This dream was a baby but I had already charted its life in my head, the many ways it might grow, where all I would take this dream, what it would look like in another 5 years, another 10, another 15. Never was there even the stray thought that this dream might be taken from me. A day may come for another dream, but at the moment I am grieving and it hurts so much.

None of us wanted to study history because it was easy; no one wanted it because it would be easy money, hell everyone knows academics don't make money. This hurts so much because I can see that the repercussions of this are far reaching. Peoples entire lives were dependent on being able to stay here, live here, be independent and have agency. Everything hurts so much right now because there seems to be a crack in everything; everything seems to be crumbling from within. Everyday you check the news and you sink even lower, rock bottom being pushed further down. It hurt that when I was watching Lord of the Rings, dialogues seemed relatable and if I was crying it was for me and not for the characters. 

There is a dialogue between Samwise Gamgee and Frodo Baggins,  

"It's like in the great stories Mr. Frodo.

The ones that really mattered.
Full of darkness and danger they were,
and sometimes you didn't want to know the end.
Because how could the end be happy.
How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad happened?
But in the end, it's only a passing thing, this shadow.
Even darkness must pass."

"Folk in those stories had lots of chances of turning back only they didn’t.
Because they were holding on to something."

"That there’s some good in this world, Mr. Frodo. And it’s worth fighting for."

My brain says that this is a fool's hope, that it is denial; it is me not coming to terms with the fact that this indeed is the darkest timeline and it's me not fully processing this darkness. But my heart says that if denial is giving you the courage to persist, is it all that bad? If having a fool's hope is helping you carry on, is that such a bad thing? 

"Times change, so must I"

I have been grappling with the idea of writing more on this blog. To anyone who ever read it, basically my family, I am sorry I haven't written in here in years. In my last post, 2 years ago I wrote that it was time for a regeneration, it certainly has been a personal regeneration but it is also now time for this blog to regenerate.

I write to make sense of the thoughts in my mind. Writing has always made it easier for me to understand what I'm feeling, why I'm feeling it or it helped me create a feeling I wanted to be true. Writing on the blog for me was always an exercise in testing my fiction muscles. I don't think it would be a surprise to anyone, all I have ever wanted was to be in one of the adventures I read or watched, but in the words of Frodo Baggins himself "my own adventure turned out to be quite different.'

Writing is still a big part of my life, just not in the way I imagined it to be. I have, in my adult life so far, written to make sense of the past which meant that writing for myself naturally took a back seat. In that time I've started to feel that I'm slowly developing my own style of writing and that might not neccesarily suit any sort of fiction writing. At the same time I find that with everything currently happening in the world, in my country and more specifically my own universities, my mind keeps pulling me to my blog. A nagging thought of 'write and you'll feel better'. I need to write to make sense of my thoughts again. As I said, I've always written for mainly that reason, but I've never really properly written posts on this blog that way. They have always been my thoughts through characters I've written and in some cases, happier and lighter posts to distract myself from whatever I was feeling or thinking at that moment. I now want to start writing to you directly and sadly it may often be non-fiction.

So to cut this very long explanation short, I will hopefully write more on this blog but the tone will definitely be quite different from before. In talking about current events, I do not claim it will be the best written work out there, I will link to better researched and written articles all the time. I only want to get back to writing and hope to write honestly.

Time for regeneration

It's time for transitions again and time for changes. Unlike the last time when I was 17, I feel like I may have a slightly better outlook on things this time. I think this may be purely driven by lots of rewatching 'Doctor Who', but I have come to apply the concept of regeneration to humans as well. I may not be a Time Lady with two hearts, but I most definitely change, grow and regenerate. A recent rewatching of  Eleven's regeneration made me believe in it even more. Everything he said was so completely relatable .

 "But times change, and so must I"

"We all change. When you think about it, we're all different people all through our lives, and that's okay, that's good, you gotta keep moving, so long as you remember all the people that you used to be. I will not forget one line of this. Not one day. I swear. I will always remember when the Doctor was me"

My college regeneration so far has been my favourite. The most chaotic, wonderful, scary and lovely all at the same time. I didn't have a pin-stripe suit or a bow tie, but I had my short hair. I had my soundtracks changing with every season. Most importantly I had my companions. Some who were the first face this face saw, some who I carried on from before, some completely new ones. All whom I will always have with me. Maybe not all in every adventure but the life of the Doctor is strange and wonderful and hopefully very long so there is room for everyone and still enough for lots of additions

"It all just disappears, doesn't it? Everything you are, gone in a moment, like breath on a mirror. Any moment now... He's a-comin'."

And just as suddenly as this college regeneration happened, the new one will begin. We will all be left in strange places not knowing how to fly our own T.A.R.D.I.S. Slowly, begrudgingly re-learn some things and excitedly learn new ones. Regenerations are scary and exciting business. I wonder what my catchphrase will be, what will be my costume? Will the soundtrack get darker or lighter, orchestral or electronic. However the Doctor would be nothing without his companion and neither would I. So I go into this regeneration, knowing that when I come out the other side not liking the colour of my kidneys, wishing I was ginger or wondering If I am good person, I am safe because I have my companions. Change can leave both parties afraid and confused and doubting things, but just knowing that the company is still around makes everything better.

So bring it on regeneration.
GERONIMO!!

    

Hush now, let the silence return,

the deafness is calming me

my blanket of escape

just let me be.

Hush now let the silence breathe,

my thoughts are getting bigger,

killing my soul

the fights are getting louder

lost all control

So, hush and let the silence talk.

It's always expanding , never caring if I 

scream, shout, cry

It's been my friend these long years

will be till I die

The silence can be smothering

moving through me

breaking down everything

corrupting to simplify 

It's deafening and black

getting worse before everything is alright

It'll all be the night

Nothing can change me now

no me even left.

Hush now, let the silence take over,

It lives for me instead

Flowers behind her ear

As I grew, I was repeatedly told of all the different fates I could have. There was always a rangoli, some lovely vases, life in the tree. But the one that truly stuck with me was the holiday. It was a short life but it sounded so absolutely fantastic. When I go, I would like to go that way. The idea, to be tucked behind a human ear but not just any ear, an ear on holiday. "Find a human ear on holiday! That's the best way to go!" They're at their happiest and you get the best seat to some of the most gorgeous places in the world.
     
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"Flowers behind the ear is holiday uniform" her older sister had said those words to her since she was little. Holidays need not necessarily be when you go to a new place or take a vacation, holidays happen when you want them to. So, many an afternoon was spent finding flowers. But as both sisters soon realised, flowers don't bloom all year round, for which the older sister always had her trusty plastic roses. Wearing their favourite clothes and armed with some of their mother's never-used make-up and the trusty plastic roses tucked behind their ears, both girls fulfilled their mission of creating a cute but chaotic house. Whenever they actually went on a holiday and found flowers, that was an incredible treat. The happiness would wash over their faces. Everything in life felt like it was coming together. No matter how well they imagined themselves, nothing could ever beat the real deal. Nothing could take away from the actual experience of having a real flower tucked behind your ear and getting to see new places, a true vacation.

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Waiting for her older sister to catch up, the younger one waited under a tree, a frangipani tree, a flower fell on her head.

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I noticed her standing under my tree. Something in that moment felt like everything in life was coming together. The winds were changing. It was time to go.

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With the flower tucked happily behind her ear, she answered her older sister "just keep walking, I promise the view is great!"