-
How I felt Northern Lights
From the early days of being in awe while watching the Aurora Borealis on Discovery Channel, my fantasies about the Northern Lights began to flourish. These celestial lights that appear in the polar regions have been dazzling since the Earth began orbiting the sun. Scientific explanations suggest that the interaction between electrons and plasma waves…
This is how it all started…
When I was a kid, I always felt lonely within me even though I was surrounded by many. The solitude began to grow. I must have been 13 years old when I started reading. My brother gifted me a book. It’s a Tamil poem, my native language. The words opened the doors of imagination and the urge to find wisdom. I started to read more; I chose to read fiction from world literature, mostly Tamil translations. You all know we always think first in the language we believe to be our mother tongue. Those books I read made me curious about this world, its history, its people. Because we all are born without any memories or thoughts, but as we grow, we become unique individuals. What makes that different? Why couldn’t we be the same, even in the same family? Everyone is different, starting from how they think to how they react to how they dream. That curiosity made me travel and meet as many people as I could meet and talk to. I felt at ease with mingling with strangers, but I found it hard to continue that initial bond. Still, I have issues with that. Then eventually I started to lose memories of the people and the conversations. So I decided to write them down. I started journals but was scared of exposing my darkest secrets. We all are made of secrets, and some will even follow us to the next birth, of course, if we believe in one. Then I stopped journals but started to write on papers I found, and then eventually I realized the circle I am having now won’t judge me. Even if they did, I have a survival instinct that will continue even with their opinions about me. Now, I have decided to go public. Write my thoughts, share my experience, even if it’s bad in the eyes of the common world, or vice versa. The only thing that matters now is being honest with myself. I believe the words I write here could be relatable to many who read it. Even though we are different in all aspects, the pain, the happiness, the emotions we feel and share are the same. Isn’t it?
Nivethitha Chivasothy
Lawyer & Traveller