I am just trying to figure.

A lot of things define who you are. The kind of lifestyle you choose to live, the friends you hang out with, the clothes you wear, the topics that affect you; and probably even what you study (remotely, in my case). But the best moments to discover yourself are those that you spend in solitude. Those few seconds of peace and calm that can be so overwhelming they show you what you were actually put on earth for. Life would be so short if we all knew exactly what we were meant to do. The adventure lies in seeking your path, pursuing your dream, and discovering yourself with each failure and success.

I have seen so many of my friends go through so many hardships. And yet somehow they have survived. I don't mean the senseless love triangle drama kind of atrocities. Stuff that are not romantic to envision. So many chai breaks passed before I realized my friend was actually sending out subtle smoke signals of distress. It affected her that the boyfriend she fell in love with, did not consider her good enough for marriage. Set aside the fact that she was a law school graduate, working at the Delhi high court. He still broke her down to believe that she was just not good enough (umm..this supremely intellectual being was a college dropout, who worked at his dad's business and later on married his rich neighbor, who by the way doesn't think he is good at anything *wink*wink). I initially thought that it was a rebound thing, but I had so much more to see. I saw a girl who was never to afraid to speak her mind (she actually told off our school's basketball champ- who was 17 then, when we were in the 7th grade!!), one who stood up for her friends, and who almost slapped a convent school girl (way too long a story that one!); turn into a crumpled emotional mess.

I saw my own cousin give up her dreams. The dreams we used to talk about late into the night, under the bed-sheets on hot summer days when we were kids. Her parents gave her a great education, but they never let her fly. She was trapped in a life with conservative hypocritical ideals for weights that kept her grounded. She wanted to get her first paycheck, buy her first car, and just be an individual. But one day it all took a backseat, and I could never figure why she'd let go. She got married, and today she spends her days looking after her nephew in the afternoons and playing badminton in the evenings with her husband. Far away from home and dreams, she probably is trying to build a new life and hold on to hope.

What is the point to living your life if each moment is monitored by someone else. When you sign over your reigns to your mom, your husband or some slimeball, you lose your definition. 

Maybe we aren't defined by the things that I said before. Maybe we lead life in perception and retrospects. It would be a whole lot better if these words involved self a lot more.

the bloody pitch.

They jumped out of nowhere and attacked. Shot a round of bullets aiming at their fear.

All the Srilankan team wanted was to play a day of good test cricket. They had their strategy planned for the match. They would put up a good fight, try to score a couple of hundreds, take a few wickets. What they did not plan was to be ambushed by a bunch of lunatics out to isolate Pakistan from the world in the most inhumane way possible. Srilanka decided to pull their team out of Pakistan as soon as possible. Six of their players have been injured, one of them shot in the chest. I just could not read the news any further. These players know nothing except playing their game. All they did was do what they knew best, play international cricket. And yet they were attacked, shot at and put in danger at gunpoint. All because a few people thought it would be the best way to grab the limelight. 

Pakistan is slowly being isolated from the world. And somehow they don't seem to really care. They act obnoxious about every thing they are blamed for. They appeared to be well-trained terrorists. They came on rickshaws. They were armed with rockets, hand grenades, kalashnikovs. It wasn't us, these are terrorist organizations acting within the country! Well stop the carnage then. It's your country, made up of your people, whom you have the responsibility of raising and disciplining. If a child strays wrong the first thing people do is point fingers at their parents. But what happens when people start acting out, threatening innocent lives, causing mayhem, corrupting young minds! Do we blame the government, or the individual's parents, the society or the heads of the religious sects (whom we supposedly should to turn to for some sorta light or path or direction or alleged pedophiles) ? Something somewhere just does not seem right.

I'd like to believe in the good of mankind. That somewhere in Pakistan a little girl prays everyday for all this carnage to stop. That a mom actually wants her kid to just go to school and learn the capitals of the world today. That people across the border are as affected by these terrorist activities as everyone else is. A whole country is looked down upon because of the acts of their people. But then again a country is made up of their people.

All they wanted to do was play cricket.