30. Battle of Beliefs

Here is what I know for sure.

Everything happens for a reason. No matter how good or bad, the events in life take place for a reason. The reason might be to make your strong, stronger or strongest. It breaks you apart just so that you can come across the flames later and still survive when you are pushed back together.

My belief in reason comes along with my love for Karma. I was taught from the early age, do good and good will happen to you. By the age of 10, I was already reciting the summary of Bhagwat Gita by heart. At that time, I didn't know the meaning of Karma, at that time I barely knew the difference between good and the bad but one thing I knew for sure even then. Don't hurt people and if you can, always help anyone in need.

Ever since the childhood, these developed as habits and while I might not be the most perfect person in the world. I am always trying. I try to become a better person everyday, most of the times by doing good to others, not hurting people and recently by loving myself.

Karma always did its justice sometimes sooner, other times later but as I grew up, it started to feel unfair towards some more than the other. I talked to a friend, she simply put, "Life is unfair and you know what? The faster you accept it, the happier you live." Her idea of accepting whatever is thrown at my table didn't fit right with my beliefs.

I didn't grow that way. It seemed like she was giving up too easily for it seemed easier for her to blame on unfairness rather than herself for her failure. Only if she could have worked a little harder, she would have done well in her exams. Only if she tried a little harder she could have mended her relationship. After all, that's how the world worked for me, I did good and the good always came back.

Life seems like lord Krishna until you are hit by the reality. Then after, life becomes a chapter of a Paulo Coelho book. You are one of his characters, lost within the book, lost in the chapters of "other" perfect characters who are not you. Suddenly your hard work makes no sense and Karma is a slow rider. Same happened to me.

I started questioning my own belief system when the clouds of unfairness lingered above me. I was not trying harder, I argued with myself for the longest time. There is more I can do. I will have to learn to hit harder and break so that I can get past the door. Only later, I realized that I was standing in front of the wall. The bricks were iron made and I was weak.

Here, my two held beliefs contradicted with each other. The reason and Karma worked the opposite and lacked the support of my hard work. It was then, when I was introduced to new dimension of reason. The reason Karma is unfair is I am not ready yet or this is just the lesson I need to learn. I was way to stubborn too let go of my beliefs. I had to hold them together no matter what.

This left me with two interesting options, to give up and to work harder. The initial seemed easy and the right thing to do in my head. Latter sounded interesting and exciting. Well, sounds quite like me.

29. Welcome to Riverdale

I love anything scandalous, shady and dramatic. They together act as a spice in my life and Riverdale is my new discovery on spices. The taste is satisfying.

As an observer, my favored concern in every book I read and every series I watch is the character arc. I like to see how they start as a character and what they become towards the end of it. While some might be fascinated by the words, action and flow. I am all about the characters. I want to know, to what lengths they can go to save themselves or someone they love and their secrets. Maybe if I had to choose, that's the most captivating features about humans. How oblivious we are of ourselves and our capabilities.

Riverdale is a murder mystery based on the characters by Archie comics. Like in every murder mystery, there is a victim and suspects. But what I like about Riverdale so far is how every suspect is a victim and the victim himself is the most blamed culprit in various instances while he lived. One might wonder, what can a teenager be capable of to completely wreck? Turns out he was responsible for several destruction. He was dead for a reason.

Riverdale is the story about many intertwined stories. The characters each related to one another. Everyone with their own backstory. The stories are interesting, twisted and full of surprises. Each of their stories make the characters strong but there is still so much more to them. Every episode is a revelation to me and a growth for these characters. Even the nicest and most quiet ones are wicked in a beautiful way.

This might be the first time after a long time that I have fallen in love with every character of the story. I want to be friends with these fractions of writer's imagination. I want to know their secrets.

I am five episodes in of season one of the series and even as a all time binge watcher, I am deciding to take sufficient pause between every episodes. I want to take my time to learn about these people. I am intrigued to know them more. I want to know what's going on inside their head. I want to take my time with their inhuman adventures.

In my opinion, Riverdale confirms how at the end of the day, we are all humans and when it comes to human emotions everything else is secondary. One should definitely watch and make friends with Riverdale's families.

28. Fair and Lovely

Oprah Winfrey is first and the only black multi-billionaire in North America. For those who don't know her, she used to be a TV presenter, she ran "The Oprah Winfrey Show" for 25 years and the show itself was the highest rated television program of its kind in history. She is currently the CEO and CCO of Oprah Winfrey Network.

She is an inspiration to most people in the world, especially the presenters who want to do well in the media. She has gone against all the odds to become who she is today. She was raped and impregnated at the age of fourteen; she is black and a woman. So much could have gone wrong with her life but she was persistent enough to become successful. Neither of the above mentioned obstacles stood before her dreams. She has changed the way how women, blacks and presenters are viewed in the world.

But has she really?

I came across a vacancy announcement posted by a representative of a media company of Nepal. The advertisement claimed the company to be the "major media house in the city", looking for female presenters. My friends were talking about the disappointment towards the requirements of the announcement over lunch today and I didn't know how bad it was until I read it myself. I read it thrice still trying to make sense of it. Trust me, I tried but no matter how many times I read, the requirement sounded more off than I read them the first time. 

The "major media house in the city" was looking for girls with beautiful face (clear and toned skin), well maintained figure: not too skinny, not too chubby, time management skill and strong command over Nepali and English language. While latter requirements made sense, the initials were equally bizarre. 

I gave the announcement benefit of doubt once. My only inside knowledge about media industry in Nepal was some handful of media personalities I was following on Instagram, who were all beautiful and had clear toned skin and well maintained figure. Maybe talent had nothing to do with being presenter, confidence, hard work were all useless and one needed to look only good to become an exceptional presenter. 

Or maybe I was upset with the announcement because I neither had beautiful face nor well maintained body and I couldn't take the hard truth. I had lost the opportunity to become a presenter even though I don't plan to become one. But no matter how hard I tried to rationalize the requirements, the more wrong it sounded.

I googled the requirements to become a good presenter, read actual vacancy announcements for several other national and international media houses that weren't from the 1970s or 1980s; all of them had few requirements in common; they were looking for a girl with a degree, good communication, work ethics, confidence and experience of any kind. None of them were looking for girls with beautiful face and a body. Well groomed? Definitely. But nothing too harsh.

Dear media house, take a look around, we don't live in 1970s anymore. Take a look at Oprah, Queen of All Media. She is not your quintessential beauty and she thrived in the world of whites even as a black and that too as a presenter. Maybe it's time for you to revise your requirements. Dust off your Fair and Lovely attitude. And you should know it better, a presenter is more than just a pretty face.

27. Humanizing God

I have tried meditating. I have tried fasting. I have tried being a positive person. I have read books on positivity. I have watched Ted talks videos on achievement, success and motivation but everything together hasn't made me a calm-positive person, I aspire to be. 

I frequently get irritated. I have mood swings. I am opposite of calm and I wouldn't brag myself to be the positive person even though I try hard to stay away from the negativity. 

I wasn't expecting much when I grabbed the book Siddhartha. The major agenda was to learn something or anything about Buddha. The previous book I had read about Buddhism had left me more confused about the dharma. So, this was my second attempt to find answers to the questions. If you ask me honestly, I don't even know what the questions were. Like everyone else, I want to be more organized, get my things done in time, work hard to achieve something worthwhile. The expectation is limited to change and I wasn't sure if these motives were even mildly related to the book. 

I like when the writer treat their characters as humans. When the characters feel what I feel, think what I think and act the way I would. At least in the human level. What intrigued me most about Siddhartha is this very style of writing. Hesse throughout the book treats Buddha as a human, as Siddhartha and initially, it messes up with my head and leaves me confused. Isn't Buddha god? Isn't Buddha supposed to be perfect? I would find myself asking in between various chapters. Hesse however never backs down when he has to treat Buddha in most human way possible. He showcases Siddhartha's flaws in an authentic manner.

As a Nepali, I have always been around Buddhism and Hinduism together. Buddha was always different from the Hindu gods. He didn't have dozen of hands, he didn't use any animal as mode of transportation. But I had also never imagined Buddha to be lost in the veil of Maya.

This is exactly when I found the hole in my learning. The only thing what made Siddhartha Buddha was his experiences. But when we talk about Buddha we seem to be skip and hurry into the part of enlightenment. We completely forget to talk about his experiences. He experienced heartbreak, he experienced departure, he experienced failure. He failed to stick to the routine (something we can all relate to), he was driven by lust and distress and he was not perfect.

I grew up knowing the Siddhartha who was calm and rational who had inherent characters of Buddha but as I kept reading the book, "anyone can be Buddha" made more sense. Buddha as I understood later was a process that was accumulated with plenty of experiences (good and bad), failures and mistakes. Everyone can indeed be Buddha. 

Siddhartha took decades to become who he was and his stories had lot of holes like all of our own stories He was confused for several decades before he could get back to his real purpose in life. I was drawn to Siddhartha by his imperfection. I was delighted by his courage to accept every experience. I was inspired by his unapologetic nature.

Major takeaway? Buddha is wisdom recycled.

26. Rhythm

For questions were asked never to be answered and answer written never to be read. Distractions were built to keep out the focus from what was important and what made sense in the long run. She cried over what she thought was important. The illusion of needlessness were kept safe deep inside her like a pearl wrapped around layers of blanket. Only the blanket was made of lies and the pearl she had safeguarded for years now were not valuable anymore.

Isolation was her idea of happiness which was accompanied by the old vinyl CDs. It played the varying range of music for her, sometimes it screamed Metallica while the other times it cleared the tension filled air with the classic Wagner. She believed in the power of unknown that lay behind the words and sometimes its lack of.

For all she knew happiness need not be complicated. It needed attention and she was willing to make an effort. To wipe off the smug out of the sadness face. To really get away from what was not important. Little did she know, her definition of important has been translated in every language of misunderstanding expect for the reality.

Purposes of life were being looked after while all she knew was to live. To breathe in and breathe out whatever amount of oxygen she could get from the surrounding air. She filtered them time and again with a cheap mask which did its work and other times she liked the smell of dust and smoke. She appreciated her sense of smell as she breathed in the pollution and breathed out life.

She would smile while she cried and laughed when she was hurt. She was made up of iron and no one noticed. She rusted while others still ignored her. She screamed for attention while the little pieces of her died inside, only to find out that she hasn't been loud enough. The noises had blocked her cry for help and she died, little by little every day.

She smiled her last smile when she lay on her death bed. Dreamless sleep led her to the way to eternity of peace and only then she realized how unfulfilling her ninety years of life had been.