Postcards from Munich

Being in Munich, one cannot help wondering how the old and the new exist together, sometimes in harmony, sometimes not. The noisy centre, the non-stop trams, the trees that line the streets, the stunning statues, the parks, the newly built offices, people from all over the world, posters of plays. I am uploading a few semi-decent pictures that I have taken here. 

Hope you are having a great day.

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Zoom Out

I asked ChatGPT if I had depression. Before you decide to call me out on this irresponsible behaviour, hear me out. I have no money to pay for a therapist. I have no close friends. I detest the free counselling sessions where everyone looks like they don't want to be there. But what I do have is this objectivity, an ability to zoom out and see myself be me. 

And so I took the help of an AI platform to tell me if I was okay. The questions were simple: Do you have difficulty falling asleep? Do you feel you have disappointed your family members? Do you have very little interest in doing things? Do you feel tired? Are you under-or overeating? Do you have trouble concentrating on things?

After reviewing my answers, ChatGPT told me I was just feeling a bit emotionally flat but was otherwise fine. It also asked me to keep a consistent routine, exercise regularly, practise meditation and talk to people. 

But most importantly, it asked me to write down my thoughts. So I thought, "Why don't I create a blog post out of this journaling exercise?" 

I was feeling really meh while getting these pictures clicked as well—overall sad phase or whatever. But I smiled nonetheless, because, pictures.

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Best Days

Ever asked someone what makes them happy? If you have, you must have noticed how they pause before giving an answer. How their eyes, with glint and sadness, sometimes in equal measure, look within for an answer. And as they start talking, you get a tiny peek into their soul.  

In this blogpost, I am remembering a day when I was happy. The book I read. The selfie I took. The view I had.

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A Quick Hello

Going through one of those days when one doesn't have a lot to say. But one does want to upload something on their blog. I love the outfit in the first picture for its simplicity. The second shot is from a café that serves excellent vegetarian food. For some reason, whenever I am there, I keep staring at this corner. The third picture brings back a moment of chasing the perfect sunset.

That's all for this month.

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A Small Town Thing

I have been made fun of, more than once, for being someone who, in this day and age, goes to a tailor. Except for the occasional lehenga or maybe a salwar kameez that needs to be stitched because it was gifted as a fabric set, I rarely see people around me visiting a tailor shop. So naturally, someone who needs a tailor everywhere they go appears to be an anomaly.

I get almost everything I wear altered. And then I have ideas. Tons of them. I even bought a sewing machine at one point, only to realise very quickly that I lacked the patience for sewing. So, I buy fabric and look for someone who can create something semi-decent out of it.

And I fail to understand how people do not need a tailor at all. Maybe it's a small-town thing. Or a millennial thing. Or both. We grew up in a culture where things ought to be stitched - from school uniforms to fancy dresses. But online shopping has changed everything, it seems. Now people see clothes on a screen and simply order them. 

The shirt in these pictures was stitched by a tailor in the last city I was in. And it reminds me that I need a new tailor in this new city. Someone who can stitch all kinds of things, help me bring my latest ideas to life. 

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Three offline things I did this month

I recently read on a wall in a cafe that life is whatever we have left after our screen time. The line stayed with me long after. We are losing years to scrolling. So now, to encourage myself to live a little, I have started talking about the offline things I do. Sometimes, I mention my offline activities to friends who may or may not care.  Sometimes, I just take a picture to document the moment. And today, I decided to write a blogpost about it.

I bought flowers for myself for the first time.

I grew up around people who believed flowers were a waste of money. And quite frankly, they are, especially in lower-middle-class households where every expense is carefully calculated, closely monitored, and repeated only if it has real value and doesn't interfere with more important expenses. But now that I can afford to spend just a little money every now and then, I would rather spend it on things like flowers. Once I had them in the house, I realised I looked at them several times a day. And every time, they seem to uplift a part of my spirit.

I stared at a bug for almost half an hour. 

In my defence, the bug looked magnificent. This photo doesn't even do it justice. And it matched the colour of my coffee mug. After staying motionless for a while, the bug appeared to inspect the mug, examining it from three different angles. Almost half an hour later, I think it got bored and decided to leave the mug alone and wandered off.

I read Iris Murdoch's The Sea, the Sea in a month. 

The book is about a theatre director who leaves his dazzling life in London to move to a basic house with no electricity in a coastal town. And he wants to do good, but can a change of scenery change a person?   

For me, the book was almost like a crash course on how to quietly observe a narcissistic, egoistic narrator, never get attached to him, and still enjoy everything around him – the house, the streets, the local market, his friends, and, most importantly, the sea.   

That's all for this month. Will come back with another post next month.

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Living in Reflections

I rarely post in real-time. It's almost as if I can't live a moment and talk about it as well. Till it's late. Weeks, months, sometimes a year late. A conversation with a friend, a good meal, a poignant book, a nervy movie. I rarely am able to talk about it, with all my heart, till I get a chance to sit alone, look back, marinate in the flashbacks just enough to feel something.

I have never really wondered before today why this happens. Why is it so hard to find beauty and meaning in things as they happen? Could it be because of the mobilephone-induced limited attention span? Or the constant distraction of the hundreds of things that happen all at once when I go out? Or is it simply because I am slow to realise everything? 

This outfit is a small example of my inability to appreciate things in real-time. Beige shirt, beige shorts with a white undershirt. A simple outfit that can be worn on repeat. A three-piece set that will never seem out of fashion. The one that screams the opposite of try hard. 

That's all for this month. Will come back with another post next month.

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