Veronica's Musings

The first thing you notice is the conspicuous nature of silence. It dominates your consciousness until your brain replaces it with a humming sound to mimic some normalcy. I listened intently to the quietness, trying to decipher compelling secrets being passed through the air in the monotonous murmur.  With my parents fast asleep in the room across from mine, the whole house rested after a long day of enduring the weight of our footsteps and our troubles. I was nearing the end of a Kafka novel when the lights flickered with an uneasiness and hinted at the probable arrival of a mysterious entity. I got up to investigate, which is the number one cause of death in horror movies. I knew I should know better, but curiosity got the best of me. There was a tall man standing outside of my window, his electric-blue hair cutting through the darkness and glowing ever so slightly. His face was sallow but well-defined, and he was dressed smartly in a sleek, black three piece suit. I knew ...

Delicately balanced at the edge of the window sill, the sight of a singular small flower surprised me, but also delighted me at its act of soft rebellion, growing in a place where it had been decided it cannot. Its plain yellow petals glowed under the reflections of bright streams of light from the setting sun, the petals taking on the sky’s colors, transforming into a vibrant piece of art, making it seem like it had just stepped out from a Fauvist painting. It seemed to have taken a strange hold of my attention, the details of the flower becoming clearer as the world around me gradually faded and disappeared. For that moment, nothing existed other than us, two beings of nature who found each other in an unexpected turn of events. I wondered how something so inherently insignificant could make me feel a plethora of emotions. As the shades of the dusk darkened on the intricately designed petals, my feelings seemed to become shrouded in a cloud of gloom, from appreciation to qu...

Drop everything you are doing and sit silently for five minutes, without a purpose and, most preferably, without a thought. At a glance, this task seems menially easy, but then you find it becoming increasingly intolerable as the seconds tick by, until you feel like your mind will explode if you stay immobile for another moment. This simple experiment speaks volumes about what the state of human mentality has become. Relaxing is haunting and the very thought of a second wasted is enough to make us feel like we are falling behind in the interminable race of life.  With a throbbing headache and a heavy bag of books, I stood at the edge of the footpath, waiting for the traffic police to signal the surge of vehicles to halt. Classes had been especially tedious, and I wallowed in self-pity and frustration at the reminder that I had to complete three assignments due tomorrow. Mentally taking notes of what needed to be done when I reached home, my eyes wandered to the conspicuous sigh...

An Ode to Terminus is an exemplary demonstration of the artful combination of science, poetry, religion and philosophy by W.H. Auden. His mastery in literary control of language and flow of the poem creates a delightful play of words, with the subtle shifts in subject matter and bold acclamations resonating the intellect of the poet behind the poem’s production. The poem begins with the proclamation that the great scientific discoveries and theories, some of which are sometimes held to the regards of being godlike or even above that, are often not given importance by the common people. Simply put, the elegance and sophistication of science, even when it wreaks havoc in nature, is not paid heed as normal people do not want to exhaust their resources in matters beyond their comprehension. Auden then moves onto the absurdity of the explanations provided by scientific evidence about the origins of life, stating, ‘ a Thingummy so addicted to lethal violence should have ...

The disgusted look on the face of the lady at the sight of my unruly hair was enough to bring back memories of all the remarks I had always been at the receiving end of due to the nature of my hair. ‘You should straighten your hair. I know a wonderful salon which does it for half the price.’, or ‘Put lemon juice, onion juice and egg yolks into your hair to get silky, smooth hair naturally,’ are just some of the unsolicited pieces of advice I have been privy to, and politely nodded in agreement with. And now sitting in front of the mirror, getting ready to chop off more than half the length of my gigantic curly hair, I could not help but contemplate whether I should just get up and run home. The tangles in my hair were continuously getting caught in the teeth of the comb, putting me in a world of pain when the hairstylist tried to brush them out. The stylist was cursing me in her indigenous language, while also spitting out crude remarks about how I should just straighten my h...

I graduated from high school on 29th August 2019. It was a strange feeling attending the ceremony, the realization that this was the final official stage to be completed before we were certified adults overwhelmed me.  When I was younger, I used to perform at these graduation ceremonies and I always thought that I would be the class valedictorian of my batch. I worked hard, always tried to maintain good grades while involving myself in extracurricular activities, but in the end, I didn't make the cut. I was not upset or jealous of the ones who got selected - they deserved it and I was genuinely happy for them. It takes a lot of courage to be happy for people who received what you always wanted for yourself. However, I am proud to admit that I am a brave individual.  I had these words building inside me for a long time, and when I did not get selected to be a valedictorian, I decided that I would just write them up and hopefully relieve myself of some unresolved...

The 1999 movie, The Matrix, brings the concept of civilization being a simulated universe onto the screen, compelling audiences to question their very reality. It makes one wonder whether the movie is just a fascinating science fiction or a harrowed look into our own future.  The movie draws its ideas from Plato’s Cave Allegory, where prisoners are born and brought up in a cave, with the projection of shadows from objects carried by passing travelers forming their only perception of the real world. This is comparable to how humans are grown and harvested in the movie, submerged in a womb-like  structure for the entirety of their lives, the simulation of the Matrix forming their only concept of reality. Just like the prisoner who frees himself from his chains and ventures outside the cave, Neo escapes from the Matrix by choosing the red pill. In doing so, his perception of reality becomes distorted, similar to the situation of the escaped prisoner. How do we ac...