It was 3 o’clock in the afternoon. The brutal Indian sun bore down on its numerous Mumbaites, trying its best to melt everyone into a gooey puddle of flesh. Still, resilient as tungsten, life crept on. Shopkeepers wiped beads of sweat from their sun soaked foreheads, drivers delivered prominent businessmen to their various places across the city, the slum dwellers dozed off on their dusty floors to minimize the agony of the soaring temperatures, and in a modest, lived-in apartment in Pali Hill, an eighteen year old Anaya whiled away her typically long summer vacation.
Life is like a book, each new situation in it forming a new chapter. It could span out for decades, a couple of years, or even simply a day. But with each new chapter, a little bit about you changes forever. A little something learnt by you that cannot be unlearned, a change in the way you contribute to the continuation of the universe in its dictated form that cannot be erased or reversed, an experience that alters your mindset, insight and the basic fiber of your soul, that cannot be unaltered. There are small chapters, and there are the big ones. The ones simply leaving light foot prints on your metaphorical memory path, and the ones leaving giant crevasses of change. You will look back, and you will always remember the moment the previous chapter ended and the new one began. That shift in the stagnant, prevailing normalcy that uprooted your very beliefs and views. This was one of those moments, the big chapter kind.
As she would on a daily basis, Anaya explored the endless nooks and crannies of the World Wide Web, to find something that might help her while away her time. Conventional, and yet such a rebellion to meaningless superfluous conventions, she was an excessively tall, excessively non perfect anything. Well, she wasn’t entirely who she wanted to be, and that greatly disappointed her. She had the urge to be someone, or do certain things. She wished she could muster up the courage to take part in a debate or go up and perform on stage. She wished she could talk to seemingly intimidating people without having palpitations as to how to continue the conversation. She wanted to be someone, but the possibility of her living up to her image of her seemed as unlikely as that of the dilapidated air conditioner providing any solace on that scorching, sweaty afternoon. The reality of her life, the expectations she had of it, and the sheer inability to achieve them were silently causing a storm of turmoil in her adolescent brain, leaving her a very distraught, not completely satisfied young woman.
She went on Youtube and decided to watch videos at random. After half an hour of funny cat videos, Anaya began typing ‘Dracula Parody’, but after typing the first three letters, the top suggestion listed was ‘Draw My Life- Superwoman.” Some inexplicable, intrinsic, but barely existing emotion caused her to take notice of that suggestion. Normally, she never even glanced at the off topic suggestions YouTube would throw at her. In retrospect, it was more like the universe nudging her to embrace the path that was essential and uncanningly right for her. Struck with curiosity and intrigue, she scrolled over and clicked that option. Now, there are supposedly a billion parallel universes with a billion parallel realities. There are a billion possibilities based on a billion available options. Every life lived by each person is one such universe formulated from his result of choices of the billion such choices. In that crucial moment echoing with significance, Anaya chose her universe, and her pool of possibilities.
It’s been five years since that moment. Five years, a million memories, situations, and new chapters since that one, very important, very meaningful decision she made. It’s almost amusing to observe how the most minute and simple of things sometimes make the biggest impact on you. That one eight minute fifty two second video about the life, struggles, crashes and trip to satisfaction and happiness of a Youtuber called Superwoman not only uprooted her basic perspective but also loosened this massive knot of difficulty inside of Anaya. She almost instantaneously felt the strength and courage seeping into her, making her more daring, carefree and determined to completely live in the moment, She hadn’t taken charge of her life as much as she did in that moment. The words she had just heard were the right encouragement she required to simply, feel different. She made a choice. A choice to make herself happy. A choice to maximize the meaning of her life and existence which included doing everything in her power that she wanted to retain as a memory. She chose to banish the doubts and focus on the desire and be the person she always wished she could be.
It’s been five years, and now she’s five years older, wiser and greater. She spoke to everyone because she simply loved conversation. She said what she wished to because her mind was always teeming with views, thoughts and opinions. She went onstage, she tried standup comedy, she confessed to whichever guy she fell for and she crammed her schedule with as many things as possible. This is who she wanted to be. This is exactly who she was meant to be. There was a philosophical personality jacket that she had stitched for herself long ago, which she finally fit into. And boy did she wear it beautifully.
“You’re in a boxing ring with a ten- foot tall giant called life, and he is going to knock you out. Every situation you encounter could go two ways, and I am so thankful every single day that I chose to get back up, and go back in for the second round,’’ says Superwoman, with a ear-to-ear smile shortly before the video ends. Those words have engrained themselves into Anaya’s brain; they’re like a filter through which she views every situation now. That simple, short video shaped her, made her embrace who she really was. The life she decided for herself after that simply could not be unsatisfactory. That humble, subtle chapter stealthily approached a regular, lazy, teenage girl, one sunny Indian afternoon, and collaborated her dreams with her destiny.
This is not a shout out to all manically depressed, potential suicide attempters, neither is it a stereotypical, clichéd-to-an-offensive-degree feel better story to the insecure and bipolar people of the world. This story has no genre. It has nothing you need to relate to or apply to your own life. And it definitely isn’t a subtle attempt at increasing Superwoman’s fan base. What you, what EVERYONE must know, is that somewhere out there, there lies something that will change your life. It will change you. Sometime, in some situation, your big chapter will approach you, and you should make sure to acknowledge your gut and everything that pushes you to that moment. You should go and click your button, break the flow of normalcy and change your life. Know that everyone out there will get their sunny, phenomenal afternoon that will divide their lives forever into a before and after.
-Natasha Suvarna
Life is like a book, each new situation in it forming a new chapter. It could span out for decades, a couple of years, or even simply a day. But with each new chapter, a little bit about you changes forever. A little something learnt by you that cannot be unlearned, a change in the way you contribute to the continuation of the universe in its dictated form that cannot be erased or reversed, an experience that alters your mindset, insight and the basic fiber of your soul, that cannot be unaltered. There are small chapters, and there are the big ones. The ones simply leaving light foot prints on your metaphorical memory path, and the ones leaving giant crevasses of change. You will look back, and you will always remember the moment the previous chapter ended and the new one began. That shift in the stagnant, prevailing normalcy that uprooted your very beliefs and views. This was one of those moments, the big chapter kind.
As she would on a daily basis, Anaya explored the endless nooks and crannies of the World Wide Web, to find something that might help her while away her time. Conventional, and yet such a rebellion to meaningless superfluous conventions, she was an excessively tall, excessively non perfect anything. Well, she wasn’t entirely who she wanted to be, and that greatly disappointed her. She had the urge to be someone, or do certain things. She wished she could muster up the courage to take part in a debate or go up and perform on stage. She wished she could talk to seemingly intimidating people without having palpitations as to how to continue the conversation. She wanted to be someone, but the possibility of her living up to her image of her seemed as unlikely as that of the dilapidated air conditioner providing any solace on that scorching, sweaty afternoon. The reality of her life, the expectations she had of it, and the sheer inability to achieve them were silently causing a storm of turmoil in her adolescent brain, leaving her a very distraught, not completely satisfied young woman.
She went on Youtube and decided to watch videos at random. After half an hour of funny cat videos, Anaya began typing ‘Dracula Parody’, but after typing the first three letters, the top suggestion listed was ‘Draw My Life- Superwoman.” Some inexplicable, intrinsic, but barely existing emotion caused her to take notice of that suggestion. Normally, she never even glanced at the off topic suggestions YouTube would throw at her. In retrospect, it was more like the universe nudging her to embrace the path that was essential and uncanningly right for her. Struck with curiosity and intrigue, she scrolled over and clicked that option. Now, there are supposedly a billion parallel universes with a billion parallel realities. There are a billion possibilities based on a billion available options. Every life lived by each person is one such universe formulated from his result of choices of the billion such choices. In that crucial moment echoing with significance, Anaya chose her universe, and her pool of possibilities.
It’s been five years since that moment. Five years, a million memories, situations, and new chapters since that one, very important, very meaningful decision she made. It’s almost amusing to observe how the most minute and simple of things sometimes make the biggest impact on you. That one eight minute fifty two second video about the life, struggles, crashes and trip to satisfaction and happiness of a Youtuber called Superwoman not only uprooted her basic perspective but also loosened this massive knot of difficulty inside of Anaya. She almost instantaneously felt the strength and courage seeping into her, making her more daring, carefree and determined to completely live in the moment, She hadn’t taken charge of her life as much as she did in that moment. The words she had just heard were the right encouragement she required to simply, feel different. She made a choice. A choice to make herself happy. A choice to maximize the meaning of her life and existence which included doing everything in her power that she wanted to retain as a memory. She chose to banish the doubts and focus on the desire and be the person she always wished she could be.
It’s been five years, and now she’s five years older, wiser and greater. She spoke to everyone because she simply loved conversation. She said what she wished to because her mind was always teeming with views, thoughts and opinions. She went onstage, she tried standup comedy, she confessed to whichever guy she fell for and she crammed her schedule with as many things as possible. This is who she wanted to be. This is exactly who she was meant to be. There was a philosophical personality jacket that she had stitched for herself long ago, which she finally fit into. And boy did she wear it beautifully.
“You’re in a boxing ring with a ten- foot tall giant called life, and he is going to knock you out. Every situation you encounter could go two ways, and I am so thankful every single day that I chose to get back up, and go back in for the second round,’’ says Superwoman, with a ear-to-ear smile shortly before the video ends. Those words have engrained themselves into Anaya’s brain; they’re like a filter through which she views every situation now. That simple, short video shaped her, made her embrace who she really was. The life she decided for herself after that simply could not be unsatisfactory. That humble, subtle chapter stealthily approached a regular, lazy, teenage girl, one sunny Indian afternoon, and collaborated her dreams with her destiny.
This is not a shout out to all manically depressed, potential suicide attempters, neither is it a stereotypical, clichéd-to-an-offensive-degree feel better story to the insecure and bipolar people of the world. This story has no genre. It has nothing you need to relate to or apply to your own life. And it definitely isn’t a subtle attempt at increasing Superwoman’s fan base. What you, what EVERYONE must know, is that somewhere out there, there lies something that will change your life. It will change you. Sometime, in some situation, your big chapter will approach you, and you should make sure to acknowledge your gut and everything that pushes you to that moment. You should go and click your button, break the flow of normalcy and change your life. Know that everyone out there will get their sunny, phenomenal afternoon that will divide their lives forever into a before and after.
-Natasha Suvarna