Hypocrisy

Look at the clock – it’s almost nine!
What were you thinking staying out till this time?
What are you wearing?
Where had you gone?
And why are you so late?
Your skirt is too short –
cover up your legs!
I’m sure you’ve attracted all the wrong sorts of attention
People on the streets
lurking late at night
Don’t trust the cabbie
Don’t talk to strangers
Pull up your top-
Your cleavage shows!
Don’t buy tight tops
or tight jeans
tight clothes
tight tight – your body shows
And all the men will look at you
and they might come to rape you
But ofcourse
they won’t rape you or even look at you
If the shape of your body is all covered up
Because then they won’t know
You have what they want.
Live in fear.
Every time you step out, or talk to someone
Have that fear.
Home is where you are safest.
Because home is where you can trust.
Because we, elders, know it all.
Always listen to us,
Because we know
how the world works
We are always right because we are older
You do not know
the things that happen nowadays
You are young
and therefore unwise, foolish even.

– Oh, but what if I told you
I knew?
What if I told you
I knew that the devil
does not wear his name on his sleeve
He hides behind the mask of a trusted face
What if I told you
I have faced what you tell me to fear?
And I have known that fear
perhaps better than you?
And what if I told you that
sometimes strangers are not strange
but familiar
That home is not always
where I am safest
And that trust is a thing
so broken, battered, abused
it is on-existent almost?
But there are things I don’t know
for instance –
How can you look me in the eye,
flawed as you are,
wrongs that you have done,
lies that you’ve covered,
secrets that you’ve kept,
and judge ME
in a way that you would never dare judge yourself?
How do you pretend?
How do you live?
But I guess loyalty and courage
integrity and honesty
mean little in the “adult” world
where putting up a facade
of piety and purity
while practising all that you preach against
Is the only twisted truth there is.

And I will strive everyday of my life
as the years go by and I am myself an ‘elder’
to never, never, never become a hypocrite
Like you.

Post script: This is more like a stream of consciousness kind of thing, more than a proper poem. I don’t really write too much poetry. If the poem sounds bitter – it is.

Hair flips and some self-love.

On my very first day of college, I noticed this girl in my class with the most beautiful hair ever. It was looo-oo-oong, reaching upto her waist, thick and straight. And did I mention shiny? And so sleek and with the perfect amount of volume. I would steal glances at her hair, marveling at how it fell so effortlessly from that high ponytail. I even complimented her on it that day, and she was pretty creeped out (because she didn’t know me at all).

That girl (let’s just name her Miffy for convenience’s sake) is now one of my closest friends in college and we never lose a chance to creep her out by touching her hair every now and then just because it’s so pretty. It’s quite funny though, I don’t know how she puts up with us. I even drew her a little cartoon, which is this one here –

Yes, that’s how much I loved her hair.

So anyway.
One day, my friends and I were having the usual completely random, brainless conversations that happen all day everyday (I’m exaggerating) and the topic of discussion was “I like your _________.” And we were discussing material things, not qualities or anything.

Imagine – IMAGINE – my surprise and shock when Miffy looked at me and said,”I like your hair the most!”

My friends are a beautiful bunch, and I’ve always admired and wished I’d had certain things that they have. Like fuller lips or a flatter stomach. And for the past two years I have secretly and also very un-secretly admired Miffy’s hair – and here she was, telling me that she loved my hair!

When she said that it dawned on me that every time I admired her hair, I didn’t realize that I ought to be happy with what I had myself. My hair is wavy and has a mind of its own – some days it is straight-ish and on others it is curly-ish. It never occurred to me that she too might have looked at my hair and thought it was pretty, just the way I looked at hers. Hell, it never occurred to me that anyone could have looked at my hair and thought it was pretty.

So basically, the moral of this seemingly pointless story is this : We all are beautiful in our own ways. Her beautiful may be different from your beautiful which may be different from my beautiful. It’s all about how you look at it. And that’s why, you should be glad however you are, and cherish whatever you’re blessed with. Girls can be a self-critical lot sometimes, and the grass is always greener on the other side. We fail to see that the grass can be as green on both sides, too! SO my point is – own it, however you are, and with whatever you have. 😀

*yayyy* *applause**throwsconfettiintheair*

And now for some hair flip gifs that own it :

(disclaimer : none of these gifs are mine, credits to whoever made these)

I have News! :D

I just realized I haven’t blogged about this one important thing that happened about five-six months back. For the duration of my udergrad, I’ve been staying at my aunt’s place. And GUESS WHAT. Six months back they got a dog!!! and HE IS THE CUTEST LITTLE BLACK LABRADOR PUPPY AND I LOVE HIM TO BITS. He came when he was only about a month old, so now he’s about six months old.

Leo. ❤ The number One object of my affection.

I cannot tell you how frikkin’ EXCITED I was when I found out they’re getting a puppy. I’ve whined and cried about this a lot before – I’ve always wanted a dog. And now, I was getting the chance to finally live in a house with a dog! Like, that’s a whole different experience in itself and I’ve NEVER had it before, and oh, how I have CRAVED it.

Because dogs are like – well, they’re like therapy for me. They’re not like humans. They’re innocent, and they’ll love you completely and whole-heartedly and they’ll always be there for you. And honestly, I can’t tell you how much more better life is for me, now that we have Leo at home. He takes away all my troubles – all I need is to see him waiting for me when I get back home, and to get his hugs and kisses. I kiss him about a thousand times everyday, and I cuddle with him – and just, it’s the BEST stress reliever to ever exist for me.

I’ve become really emotionally attached to him in just this short span of time. Till now I didn’t know it was possible to love some one so much, my heart just swells every time I see his face and his eyes and his little paw-paws and his floppy ears and his cute little bum and his tail. I just love him so much.

But here’s the problem  – (and it’s a really big problem) – I only have another six months to go here, and then I’ll be graduating. I’ll be leaving Bangalore – that means I’ll be leaving Leo. And I know it’s going to be terribly hard for me, but I try not to think of it now.

I’m reassuring myself with the thought that in the next five years, I will be getting myself my very own dog (well, that’s the plan, let’s see how things go), and it’s a long wait, but something like this is worth waiting for.

To all the Good Guys.

This is a letter.

To all the Good Guys,

Hi. 😀 I hope you’re having a great day! I had a pretty okay day – and there’s something that happened today that really got me thinking about you all. The Good Guys.

So I was out this morning, doing some quick shopping, and I was alone. Also, today was a festival day (Ganesh pooja) and so the streets were pretty empty – deserted almost. I had finished all my shopping, and I was standing by the side of the road, trying to flag down an auto to get back home when I noticed a white SUV stop a little ahead of me. I didn’t pay much attention to it.

That’s when the SUV started driving beside me, slowly, and then stopped right next to me. The driver was a man who was – well, I don’t know, in his forties? But definitely not younger. He had heard me quarelling with the one auto that was around there because I refused to pay double the price to go home. He was smiling at me, and then he said,” I’m going there too, I’ll drop you, get in.” I was pretty taken aback. I didn’t even know this guy at all, he was a total stranger. And I don’t know how it is in any other part of the world, but stuff like this isn’t really common in Bangalore. It isn’t safe at all, in fact. I obviously refused his offer. Once, twice, three times. But he still persisted, saying it was completely alright, he was going the same way, he could drop me. Then he leaned over and opened the door of the car. “It’s really alright, get in, I’ll drop you!”

I was alone on that road, there were hardly any autos, and it was getting really hot. I really wanted a free ride home. And the guy looked, well, genuine.

But if there’s one thing I’ve learnt in life, it is to never ever trust anybody easily. Especially not some man I’ve never seen before in my life offering to drop me home in his dark-tinted SUV in a deserted road. So I shook my head for the thousandth time, smiling to be polite, and I shut the door he had opened, and said, “Thank you, but there’s no need, really.” He shook his head, smiled at me a bit and drove off finally.

As I walked down the road to the main road, hoping to find more autos there, I wondered – what if he was actually a nice man, offering to drop me home, because he knew it was pooja day, and I was alone and it’d be difficult for me to get an auto home? What if he was religious, and thought that it was an auspicious day and he should do something good for someone else for a change? What if I had accepted his offer? But as I was thinking these things, I could hear the voices in my head – of my aunt, my mom, my uncle everyone saying “How could you be so stupid?” “With what sense did you get into his car?” Because there was a very real chance that he could have had some not so noble motives in offering to drop me after all. What if he had tried to take advantage of me? Or taken me someplace else and done who knows what to me? Ugh, I hated to think that way, but I had to.

But then again, what if he was one of you – the Good Guys. It isn’t fair for you all. And I’d like to apologize on behalf of all the other women who have done such things – very simple things – just because they are too afraid to trust you. We’ve been conditioned that way – and it’s horrible. I hate it. I hate to have to think about your motives and question your morality and hear the voices of my whole family in my head and fight an internal battle before responding to you. This isn’t the first time I’ve been offered to be dropped home by a stranger, but it was the first time the guy was so persistent. He realized why I was being so cautious and what I was thinking about him, and that’s why he went on repeating “It’s alright.” It was pretty awkward.

So that’s why I decided to write this letter – and it’s really long, so I’m sorry – to all you Good Guys, because it really isn’t fair to you. You should be able to go up to a girl at the bar and tell her you think she’s good-looking, and ask for her number without her having to judge you and question your motives. And when you accidentally fall on/bump into a girl, you shouldn’t be given scathing looks -because hey, it was a genuine mistake! And when you decide to go out of your way and help out a girl because she’s alone, or it’s late, or she just needs help basically, you shouldn’t be denied, that too so obviously because of what she thinks you could be. But the day that happens, is the day we know that the Bad Guys are losing. And trust me, that’s a world I’ve been dreaming of since forever.

So here’s some love -from every girl who’s ever felt this way –

And I hope you had a nice day. 🙂 Bye then!

Sincerely,

A Girl who really Wanted that Free Ride.

Questions on Creation.

Forgive me, for I have been so embarrassingly inactive on WordPress for the last couple (or more) months. I can give no other excuses apart from the most used one of them all – I had no time. Well, ofcourse I had time to squeeze in a blog post – but about what? That’s what I didn’t have time for. My brain was already so cramped with all these things in there fighting for attention – my exams, applying for a master’s next year, what I should do in life, my internship, my credit courses, well, it would suffice to say my brain was so full of things there was hardly any space for a creative article idea to pop up, that was good enough to write about.

But excuses are excuses, and I apologize. Here’s a cute puppy gif to make up for it :

Today I realized that I owe it to myself to just let it all go for a while, and  just blog a bit. So I’ve decided to write about a new revelation I’ve had – about myself.

Ever since I could remember – I’ve had questions about religion. I realized I never felt the same way about it as other people. I grew up in a Hindu family, went to a largely Hindu populated school and am now in a Christian college and I have friends who practice many different religions. But I have always had my questions about God, and for the longest time, I even feared God. I would pray every day – I would actually start my day with a prayer. And every time I passed by a temple, I would raise my hands to my lips and then to my chest and mutter a small prayer. I wouldn’t go into the Prayer room or the kitchen when I had my periods, because I was told not to. Oh, there were a hundred other things I would do, that hundreds of other people also did – and I’m sure it made sense to them, but to me, it didn’t.

And one day, a few months back, I thought about why exactly I still practiced a religion if I didn’t believe in the customs and the rituals. I didn’t even believe in the God that my religion told me about. Now let me make myself clear – I do believe that there could be a God, but just not the way my religion (or any other religion) described God. Firstly, I thought it mighty presumptuous of the Human race to think that God looks like us. That He has a gender and that that gender is a He mostly, not a She. And coming from a country like India – where you can see people throwing out pumpkins and rice grains and coconuts that were perfectly edible out on the streets after using them for poojas and rituals and pouring down tonnes of milk on stone statues when there are thousands of people who go hungry and beg on the streets for food – I really couldn’t see the justice in it.

And so I have converted, officially, and I am a Hindu no more. Neither am I a Christian or a Buddhist or a Muslim – I just have too many bones to pick with religion as such. For something that preaches peace and love and equality, it is the main cause of one too many wars and deaths around the world for me to look up to it. I did my research, and I looked things up on the internet, and I realized that what I identified myself with the most was Agnosticism. I was an Agnostic all along, I was just too young to realize. I do believe that there could be a God (although, if in the future strong scientific evidence is found that God does not exist, I would be okay with that too), but I do not think it is within our abilities to fully understand and know such a force (much less spend billions and billions on it and fight wars in it’s name and divide humanity into different groups that believe different things rather than unite them for one cause and for peace). I do not commit myself to any religion, because I do not believe in it.

I know there are lots of people who will have their issues with what I believe in – but they are entitled to have their opinion, as am I. But I also know of a few others who believe the same things I believe in, and this gives me comfort.

Well, I’m glad that’s out into the world now.

My Music List.

So this post was going to be about something else, but I have been side tracked and this post is now about this video I just spent 30 minutes on :

Yes. The Best Blind Auditions of The Voice USA of All Time.

I don’t know how this video happened to pop up in my recommended videos list on YouTube, because I don’t even watch The Voice, but I’m SO GLAD it did. And can I just say -it isn’t even funny how wonderfully amazing listening to all of their voices made me feel.

It wasn’t even real after a while anymore, I was just drowning in the music, and in their voices – and it really made me feel the power of what music can do to you. I know it’s a pretty long video, but if you’re a music person, and even if you’re not, I think you should watch it.

Every singer brought a different feel, a different aura with his/her voice and style and it was just an absolute delight to watch them, and listen to them. It just reinforced the fact that music is such a beautiful, beautiful form of expression, and you only need to hear a little bit to feel and understand an ocean of emotions. I think I was just clutching my heart for the entire video, because it just made me so happy to hear them, and to see that their music was being appreciated, because it was so magical!

You get to know so much more about a person just from the kind of music they listen to. I always, always prefer to listen to music only through headphones or ear phones and not out loud, because I feel it’s such a personal thing (unless I’m at a party or a concert or some such event). But just because I feel like sharing this right now, here’s a list of the songs I’m currently into (in no particular order).

1) This Is What Makes Us Girls – Lana Del Rey

Lana Del Rey has, hands down, the most ethereal, haunting, drama queen voice, and there’s no one quite like her. This one is my favourite, especially because of the music interlude towards the end. I’m sure I’m never going to get over this song.

2) Smooth Operator – Sade

Because.

3) Careless Whisper – George Michael

I’ve been going through a jazz phase, okay? Also, I love this song. Who doesn’t?

4) Flosstradamus – Rebound (Daktyl Remix)

I can listen to this on loop. Love it.

5) Pani da Rang – Ayushman Khurana

The guitar. His voice. Enough said.

6) Tum hi ho – Arijith Singh

Although I listen to this song very rarely now, there was a time when it was on loop (for literally everybody) and it made me (and everyone else) fall completely in LOVE with the magic that is Arijith Singh’s voice. He sounds like an angel from heaven.

7) I Was Here – Beyonce

After having controlled the urge to put at least fifty other songs by Queen B in my list, I have restricted myself to this one purely because it gives me goosebumps every single time I listen to it. It’s just beautiful, how she sings it. And this video is just perfect.

8) Love On top – Beyonce

Okay, I lied. I put another one of hers on the list. This is my happy song. I simply love it.

9) Blue Ocean Floor – Justin Timberlake

I LOVE Justin Timberlake; I love his voice, I love his face, I love the way he dances, I love that his songs are almost eight minutes long because he puts so much detail into his music and I love him. He’s one of my top five favourites. And I have a seperate list of just his songs that I love, but for now this one shall suffice because it is be-yoo-ti-ful. (Also, I love Strawberry Bubblegum).

10) Unakkenna Venum Sollu – Benny Dayal and Mahathi

It’s a Tamil song, because why not? Such a beautiful song, it reminds me of why Chennai will always feel like home to me.

So that’s my very weird list of songs – they aren’t my top favourites, but I do feel connected to them in some ways. And thank you, if you’ve had the patience to go through the whole list, maybe tell me what your favourite songs are?

Basically, what I’m trying to say is, there’s some kind of magic in music, and we all feel it, and I think it’s what keeps the world together. 🙂

A Thing of Beauty.

Sorry I haven’t been posting often! My holidays are over, and I am back to Bangalore. The third (and final) year of my under graduation just started last week, and it has been hectic. (Well, hectic compared to my lazy holidays, but it’ll soon get busier than this.)

I go to an all-girls college, I think I’ve mentioned this before in a couple of my posts. It has been a different experience for me, because I have studied in a co-ed school for twelve years before this. The one thing about being surrounded by thousands of unique, beautiful and talented girls everyday is that I begin to unconsciously question myself. I start to think things like, “Wow, she has really nice, thick hair, I wish mine was like that.” Or “She pulls off that crazy outfit with so much spunk, I wish I had that kind of confidence.” Or, “Damn, she’s so fit, why can’t I be like that?!”

Without realizing it, I was going in a downward spiral with my own self-confidence, and it only struck me today when I read this quote:

I’m not going to spout any of that “beauty is only skin deep” and “it’s what is on the inside that counts” kind of philosophical crap. While I strongly and deeply believe that having a beautiful personality is very important, I also believe that being beautiful on the outside is a result of a healthy lifestyle and a desire to look and feel better – and these are important things too.

Every woman should feel strong and beautiful and I want to feel like that too. And I realized, there is literally nothing that’s stopping me from feeling that way – except myself! So here’s to every girl and woman, who like me, felt a little less beautiful whenever she saw beauty in another – Remind yourself you are beautiful too, work out, eat healthy, drink lots of water, laugh often, have a fresh no-makeup face or own that red lipstick if you want to! Oh, and don’t forget to compliment that girl you saw, and spread the love.

Stay happy, stay beautiful! ^~^

[all picture/gif credits to owners]

Winter Palace in the Summer Heat.

Despite having spent twelve years of my life here in Chennai, I don’t really know that much about the food scene here, like I do about Bangalore. That’s because I never really went out and explored -but now that I’m here during my holidays, with tons of free time, I got the chance to go to some places.

This afternoon, I went to a small, not very well-known cafe/restaurant called ‘Winter Palace’ with my best friend (whose mother recommended it to us). I found it rather funny that any restaurant dared to call themselves “Winter Palace” in such a blisteringly hot place like Chennai, that too when they had only outdoor seating!  But I found that on the whole, I quite liked the place a lot.

The cold and refreshing Sangria mocktail.

The Winter Palace is inside the Russian Cultural Centre, and therefore, obviously, it serves Russian food. This I found very exciting, because it is the first place I’ve ever heard of that serves Russian cuisine, which I have never tasted before. I’m not too sure how authentic it was (because here in India, everybody Indianises almost everything) but it seemed pretty authentic, and very yummy too!

Russian dumplings with mashed potato and mushroom filling, and sour cream.

The whole place was done up in a pleasant sky blue and white, with pretty white lace curtains. Although today was a hot day, sitting here was quite nice, because it was well shaded and there was lots of breeze (also, the staff made sure the fans were all adjusted right). The menu had a lot of unpronounceable dishes (for someone like me, who doesn’t know Russian), but with descriptions of the dish given below. Along with vegetarian options, they also served fish, chicken, lamb and beef.

Tomato soup and the dish of Russian dumplings.

We ordered a “Krasnodar” soup, which is a thick, refreshing, cold tomato soup (they have choices of hot and cold soups). It had an extremely strong raw tomato flavour, and since I’m not a fan of that, I let my friend finish it. But for those who like their food healthy, this would be a good option, although they came with two little bun-like breads which I loved. For main course, my friend ordered a “Varennikhy” which was a dish of Russian dumplings with a mashed potato filling, topped with sour cream. It was quite tasty, although just a little bit bland – but still yum. I ordered a Chicken “Plov”, which is flavoured rice with chunks of chicken accompanied by a tomato puree. I loved it – the rice had a different and very nice flavor that was new to me, and it had big chunks of chicken. I enjoyed my meal! To go with it, I ordered a Sangria from their range of Mocktails – and it was so refreshing and yummy. It had a mix of green tea with orange, and was perfect for an afternoon lunch outside.

They also offered special Russian “souses” or sauces, to go with our dishes. My friend chose the “Gorchica” which was an extremely strong version of mustard sauce – it was super acidic. I chose the “Chesnochny” sauce which is a mayonnaise based garlic sauce, it was quite nice, but had a bit of an egg-y taste.

Chicken “Plov”

For dessert , we tried another authentic Russian dish, the “Blini”. We were recommended to try the pumpkin cheesecake, but my friend is a staunch vegetarian (not even egg) and they had no egg-less version of it, so we (I) had to let that go. Blini is basically a Russian style pancake (which could be made egg-less too), and they served it for us with a scoop of chocolate ice cream. Absolutely delicious, and very filling.

For all of this food, the bill was within a thousand rupees – so it’s a very reasonable place! The ambiance was lovely, the quantity was good, the flavours were new and exciting and the presentation of the dishes was spot on. All in all, quaint and comfy little place to go to, especially if you’re in the mood for something new, as the Russian food doesn’t disappoint!

Creme Brulee for beginners!

Disclaimer : I know that that doesn’t look like a real Creme Brulee, but we don’t have a blow torch. *sheepishgrin*

Having watched Masterchef Australia, I had the perception that the Creme Brulee was an extremely tough dish to get done. But it looked utterly delicious and since my sister had two beautiful ramekins that she hadn’t used yet, we thought we’d take the plunge and make it. And it’s actually super easy to make! (If you already knew this, ignore me. I don’t know much about cooking or food- except how to eat it.)

We went online, and checked out recipes for the perfect Creme Brulee, and we roughly followed this recipe – Creme Brulee Recipe by Laura Vitale.

What we made came out tasting absolutely creamy and dreamy and oh so yummy, so you all should definitely try making this!

Here’s what we used:

Ingredients!

2 egg yolks
1 cup of cream
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 teaspoon Fiori di Scilia (or you could use orange liquor or orange zest)
1/4th cup of sugar
pinch of salt
(this makes for two ramekins)

How it’s made:
Preheat the oven to 150 degrees Celscius (or 300 degrees Farenheit).

The egg yolk and sugar mixture

First we put the cream on the stove, on low heat. Keep an eye on it and take it off just before it begins to boil! Then we whisked together the eggs, sugar and vanilla extract. We also added some Fiori di Scilia (my aunt gave my sister this, to help with her baking – and we finally found a good occasion to use it!), which is “a combination of vanilla, citrus and alcohol” – it’s got an absolutely heavenly Christmas-y orange-y scent that just filled the house. Otherwise, you could also use orange zest, or orange liquor. Then we added a pinch of salt.

Once the cream is whisked in slowly, this is how it looks.

Once this was all whisked together, we brought the cream. We took it off the stove before it began to boil, but it was still quite hot. So I poured it into the mixture, little by little, while my sister whisked it in. You’ll have to pour it in very slowly, to make sure that the hot cream doesn’t scramble the eggs. Once all of the cream has been whisked in – you’re done!

All you need to do now is pour the mixture into the ramekins. Then we put the ramekins in a tray, and filled the tray with hot water till the ramekins were halfway immersed. We put the ramekins in the convection oven for forty minutes. Once we took it out, we let it cool for about twenty minutes (till the ramekin wasn’t hot anymore) before putting it in the refrigerator.

Since we made these late in the evening, we let them sit in the refrigerator overnight, and took them out this morning. Since we didn’t have a blowtorch, we caramelized the sugar by heating it on the stove and then pouring it over the Creme Brulee. But the problem with this is, the sugar layer is too thick – it’s impossible to get a thin layer. This makes it difficult to crack with a spoon, and also it’s quite hard to bite. But we had no other way, so we went with this!

After taking it out of the oven, we left it to cool for about 20 minutes

Caramelized sugar drizzle

The right way to do it is to put a layer of sugar on top, and use a blow torch to caramelize it. This gives you a thin, beautiful crunchy layer of caramel that cracks perfectly with a few taps from the spoon, to go with the soft, creamy custard below.

Nevertheless, our Creme Brulees turned out WONDERFUL, and everybody enjoyed them! So go ahead, and try the recipe. 😀

Independence is the Goal.

“I set my goal. And that goal was Independence.”

During one of her interviews that I watched years ago, Beyonce said this. And although I don’t remember which interview it was, and who was interviewing her, and what she was wearing and all of that, I will never forget those words. Not because they inspired me at that time- but quite frankly, they scared me. I thought to myself, did I have the courage to set a goal as… um, scary as independence? I didn’t.

Independence meant to be able to stand on your own two feet. It means being able to buy your own clothes, pay your own bills, cook your own food, do your own laundry, clean your own house. It also means being able to care for those who depend on you, to look out for your loved ones both financially and emotionally and physically. It means earning your right to have a say and have an opinion. It means work, work, work. Work – so that no one, no where can tell you what to do. No one, no where is the boss of you. You are the boss of you. And that’s the prize, that’s the amazing silver lining to being independent.

That’s what independence means.

For most women in India, ‘independence” is not really an expected goal. Family and society expect their daughters to think more along the lines of – ‘You can study, and you can work, but if you don’t want to, it’s alright, we can find a nice boy for you, rich, well-settled, and we can get you married off.’ I personally have always wanted to study, I always saw myself working. But it didn’t hit me until I watched that interview – that somewhere, back in my mind, this kind of thought hung around like a safety net. Oh my God, was I ashamed of myself. Not to mention supremely embarrassed – for someone who went around touting women’s equality and all of that. These were the questions I asked myself:

If I was all alone – if I was just me, what was my worth? What could I do to survive?

Would I even be able to do that – to survive?

From that day it was a journey. I opened myself to the possibility of being all alone – and being completely self-sufficient. Setting your goal as independence needs a lot of strength and courage, it really does, because it literally means that you can’t depend on anyone else. It’s just you.

I have nothing against women or men who decide to marry and stay at home while their partner earns. That’s their choice, and I respect that. But it’s not like that for me.

I know now, for a fact that I want to be independent.

And I’m still learning how hard that is to achieve, especially when you are nineteen years old like I am, and still have to depend on your parents to put you through college and pay for you and everything. But I tell myself now that I will get to it one day, and I hope I do.

And now here’s a Beyonce gif to thank you for reading through my philosophical rant. I’m done.