Welcome to The Afterlife

Welcome to the afterlife

Where things are not as they seem

Where the lives of the living 

Play out like reality TV

Where the nuances of mortality

Become a bitter nostalgia

Where the seraphims and cherubs are at war

Where the righteous are separated from the  flock

Where the segregation is worse than that on earth

Spirits: separated by their humility

Demons: separated by their humanity
And us
The forgotten.

Below we watch as mortals gather
Clutching cheap plastic plants
And uttering phrases that don't matter
For they are living and we, are not
 For here there are no feelings
Of tenderness or sympathy
No longings for the former life
We reluctantly had to leave
Down there, they pretend to care
And utter vague descriptions of your favourite sports
How you were always there
They vaguely recall a time
When you displayed your talents brilliantly
Not knowing that those talents were,
To you a mere necessity
A formality of existence
A compulsory facet to your character
Prescribed to you by your family.

Behold! They lay wreaths upon your grave
The classmates who failed you
Who ridiculed your outer being
Who pushed you aside in the hallways
The parents that never understood
Who let you slip away between their fingers
Who watched silently as you withered away
A skeleton, wasting away
The teachers who wrote reports
About how you refused to conform
To participate, bow before
To kneel when they walked through the door.

Your shortcomings were critiqued
Your mediocrities assessed
Your confidence shattered
Your achievements compared to those of others
And yet they called this education?
The slaughtering of innocents
Of nights spent reading textbooks
Under the cover of darkness and
Eyes red, minds numb, hearts broken
Bones broken, confidence crushed, friends lost,
Drugs taken, brain cells lost, enemies gained,
Talents hidden, achievements compared,
STUDY. PASS. CRAM. PASS. RELAX. FAIL.
RINSE. REPEAT.
STUDY. SMOKE. PASS. CRAM. DRINK. FAIL.
RINSE. REPEAT.
SMOKE. DRINK. CRAM. FAIL. CRAM. CRAM. CRAM.
SMOKE. DRINK.
INHALE. EXHALE.
INJECT. INHALE. SNIFF. CONSUME. DIGEST.

And before you know it,
You're dead.
Just like the rest of us.

My World (and other pointless observations)

I've gathered that chickens aren't very bright.

People expect you to lead awkward conversations.

Music instantly livens up long trips.

I want to drive endlessly, just listening to music from my favourite artists and never arriving at our chosen destination.

I want to travel. 

Around the world. 

With someone.

And we can drive around these small towns in South America, chatting up locals and listening to their strange tales about the country. 

Then we can try the local cuisine: deep-fried insects; marinaded bushmeat; assorted leaky, rubbery vegetables; meats adorned in spices of the world and of course: rice.

We'll explore the countryside. 

In a busted up little red truck with dust collected in every crevice of it's exterior.

And then the car breaks down but we hitchhike a ride from a passing vehicle driven by a local who doesn't speak a lick of English. 

It will all be so deliciously dangerously inviting.

And then we'll return to our dingy hotel room that we found on the Internet and I booked the tickets even though you advised me not to.

And then we'll make love or fuck, depending on our mood.

We fuck.

Then after that, we'll eat unhealthy junkfood: naked whilst watching Latin-American soap operas in Spanish, laughing at each other as we attempt to untangle the web of lies sewn by the attractive daughter.

We'll visit historic landmarks and take dozens of pictures of ourselves pulling faces and kissing in front of statues.

Most of these won't be posted online, as my insecurities cause us to have a fight and not talk to each other for the whole night. 

In the aftermath of our fight, I realize how stupid I was.

I turn to you and run my nails down your back.

I apologize. 

You promise to take new pictures, with us dressed in all black.

You turn to me and pull me close.

And this time, we make love.

                  -"XO".

The Unappreciative Cancer Survivor

(On another note, please go and enlighten yourselves and read my friend Mzwai's amazing short story http://hellopoetry.com/poem/852957/an-open-letter-xanax/  :) )

OK, so I'm reading The Fault In Our Stars and I've reached that part where she's looking up Caroline Mathers and reading about how strong she was in her battle against cancer and how much of a good person she was. It got me thinking: are all people who battle against cancer changed in some way? If they survive, do they dedicate their lives to helping others? Are they nicer to their friends? Are they more appreciative of what they have?

Is it possible to live with a disease that is almost always fatal, and still be a bitch to the world? I've often wondered why people get cancer. I've heard that its either caused by external factors or by your cells randomly splitting and mutating. In other words, fate would've dealt a very bad hand in your favour. So it's inevitable then. No matter how healthy you are, your cells may decide to mutate one day and you can develop the worst case of cancer and die. We all have the potential to have cancer, it's just that most often than not, it's the strongest of us who get it first. 

I mean, I know lots of people in my year who smoke and drink regularly and they seem pretty healthy, but my best friend Aabilwe, who was slightly overweight but still healthy, ended up losing her short battle with stomach cancer rather abruptly. For a short time after that I was filled with resentment, peering around at all my peers who smoked regularly, wondering why Fate decided to spare their lives and slaughtered an innocent. A cruel thought, but grief clouds one's judgement.

I felt the same way when another friend of mine was diagnosed with brain cancer. He fell into a slight depression that was infused with melancholic reminders that he may die tomorrow. It annoyed me when he seemed so pleasant at times then unhappy at others. I know that's unfair but that's how I felt. I expected him to be like me and be completely negative all the time and ruin everyone's day with reminders of how i might be dead tomorrow. Of course, he's fine now but the thought that those would've been his last days is rather chilling. I'm not sure if he told the school but I felt special knowing that the case of his health was confined to just his intimate group of friends. It felt personal: intimate, in fact. 

Before my thoughts meander around the bend, I just wanted to reflect on the purpose of this post. I know one person who dogs on TFIOS and I don't blame her. If a person has been diagnosed with cancer, do they really go through an entire life-changing personal reawakening; or do they resent their current situation and proceed to push everyone away so that nobody gets hurt when they die?

If you had cancer, would you learn to appreciate things more or would you grow bitter and angry at the world. It's hard to say really. We can't predict these things. Would a life-threatening experience have the same effect on every person in the world? That's doubtful. There's always going to be those people who can't see behind all the shit and proceed to complain about the shit, instead of actually doing something about it. 

Death doesn't always change people in a positive way, it can always change them negatively. After Aabi's death, I learnt to appreciate things more. I also became a bit more spiritually inclined (as pretentious as that may sound) and began to read more. I just wish she were around to experience this new change with me. However, I'm also the saddest that I have ever been in my life. I'm more negative and my remaining friends think I have depression (a thought, which in itself is rather depressing).

-"I preach optimism but can't actually follow it."

(About my friend who survived cancer, he's doing pretty well. He's still the same person I guess. Nothing much about him has changed and we don't talk about the cancer anymore, at least, not in front of him. We hang out a bit more than we used to but I know he just tolerates my presence. Most of my friends do anyway.)

Book Review: 'Americanah' by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This is my first ever review on this site, so please don't shoot me. Plus, it's my personal opinion.

We are initially introduced to Ifemelu whilst she's at an African hair salon. She has just decided to return to Nigeria and leave her prospering race blog and African American boyfriend behind. The story of how she got to America is told through a series of flashbacks interwoven into the main story and eventually reaching the present. If you're not too careful, you might get confused but Adichie's writing is fluid enough for the reader to easily follow.

She speaks of traditional African conventions that many Africans can relate to. The love story between main characters Ifemelu and Obinze is both heartwarming and heart wrenching. We get the whole story of how the new guy is supposedly supposed to date her mixed-race best friend but instead has his eye on Ifemelu. So begins their blossoming romance which spans from childhood to early adulthood. 

Obinze idealises America and aspires to study there and live there with Ifemelu. Unfortunately, post-9/11 America refuses to grant him entrance so he sets his eyes on Britain. After struggling to make ends meat and living on an expired visa, Obinze attempts a 'sham-marriage', a common way for immigrants to gain citizenship. He is later deported: shamed.

Ifemelu, on the other hand, seems to fair slightly better in the USA. However, she too finds life abroad difficult. She battles depression that ultimately leads to her losing contact with Obinze and the awful thing is that this all would've been avoided. Anyway, she meets a white guy and they have this lavish lifestyle but she doesn't tell her parents about him, for reasons not elaborated deeply on. She speaks regularly on the racism faced by Black Americans and how she never felt that she was Black until she moved to the USA. 

Without giving much away, this book is absolutely fantastic! I've read very few books that have given me this light feeling. This is mainly because the ending satisfied me, unlike the ending of The Reluctant Fundamentalist. -_-

Losing My Religion

I don't know what's wrong with me. I feel really bad. I mean, I'm conflicted; internally, like Brutus. The cause of my conflict? My religion.

There comes a time in many children's lives when they question their religion. It may start in the tender stages of development, wherein their questions will be quietly dismissed with phrases such as: "He's there. Just know that." "It just is, sweetie." "Because." etc

Then you reach that stage where you're a preteen so you're not quite a teen but no longer a child. Like when you're 12. Then you're a semi-rebellious teen (or passive aggressive, like me) and you start to outwardly question certain things in fits of rage. Now, in my case, (as is the case of a close friend of mine), I tend to bottle up these thoughts and instead choose to sit there quietly in church. Not quite believing, but not quite disbelieving either. 

You see my dilemma? Everyday I pray before I go to bed; pray before I eat and pray for people in need and my friends. I receive conflicting ideologies from my peers, who all hail from different religious backgrounds, if any. I think I'm in that situation that many teens are in: we only belong to a certain religion because our parents do e.g. I'm Hindu by default. 

Now, I'm only saying this from my personal experiences and observations. I do believe that there is a divine power that reigns over us all but I can't outwardly attest to how religious I am. I'm literally the least religious person out of all the people in my group of friends who attest to a religion. I suppose it would break our parents' hearts if we claimed no belief system other than the basic morals of humanity. 

When I adopt my children from foreign lands, I will allow them the basic right of choosing their religion.

I guess that maybe I'm not meant to be part of any religious movement. Even if were Muslim I wouldn't be able to cope with learning an entire holy book and praying five times a day. I can barely cope with the night-time prayer sessions with my grandfather and the prayer meetings we had when I was child. Some people are just meant to exist without any sort of religious schedule. I fear I may be one of them. As a child, I prayed for a miracle like how I read in the Bible about that guy who left the fleece out on the lawn and it remained dry whilst the surrounding grass was wet. Needless to say, my school bag never magically appeared on the bench where I wished for it to be.

At times I feel really guilty because I glorify Islam and its practitioners- romanticising other religions greatly. I mean, if I can romanticise another religion and not find faults in it ethics, then why shouldn't I do the same for my own religion?

Maybe someday I'll wake up and fully embrace and understand my religion. For now I shall just play the role of observer, watching from the outside looking in. Someone once said that fear is the fuel that drives religion. I wonder if he was right...

              -"That's me in the corner. That's me in the spotlight: losing my religion." 

Make Me White

On a recent expedition to the "ever-present-Indian-owned-herbal-store" with my mum, I came across an expansive range of skin-whitening products. I didn't think to take pictures of the products for fear of being accused of trying to steal the formula and recreating the products at home. Anyway, it made me recall a note I made in one of my recent posts. If I remember correctly, I vowed to start lightening my obscenely dark hands and face due to my own paranoia/insecurity. I would just like to rectify that.

Firstly, I hate my dark shin and I don't want to divulge too deeply into why that is. I reckon if I had the money, I would attempt that experiment that that Indian lady did on the BBC. She basically tried all these different skin-lightening products to see to what extent they actually worked. She found that most of them that didn't use the illegal chemicals actually didn't lighten your skin very much.

Secondly, I'm not going to actually buy those skin-lightening products. I view them as impractical and painting an unhealthy image of how lighter skin is best. 

Thirdly, I know that I'm walking contradiction but I'm just being real. In any case, I'm using natural products to achieve a healthy coco-brown glow, as dark as I am. I'm actually using these products to get rid of dark marks left by blemishes and pinching boys. So far I've used yogurt, turmeric, honey, oatmeal, sugar and lemons to attempt to even out the dark blemishes left on my face. So far, they haven't worked but I'll keep you posted.