Bits and Pieces

Angry Young Woman.

2010-12-15T19:32:00.001-08:00

It is 5.23 am in Singapore airport and I am in transit for a couple of hours en route to India. I would like to sleep somewhere in one of those nice lounge-type chairs I have seen somewhere in this airport, but I can't. I am unable to.

Because I am on an all-time 'awake-hormone' high. This stuff is better than coffee, better than V/Mother drinks. Even better than a white-water rafting adrenaline rush. The reason for my hyperactive senses is a potent mixture of not one, not two or even three, but FOUR KIDS. Bawling their lungs out for SEVEN and a HALF hours on a flight from Brisbane to Singapore. In unison. Someone could harness all that audible energy to drive a frikkin electricity generation plant.
I was this '-' close to going up to each parent+child set and YELLING at them to shut the f--k up. I am not kidding. I had a full working day yesterday and was looking forward to a nice long sleep on the flight home. I ensured I chose seats during my online check-in, that were as far away from the bassinet docks as possible. I even got the flight attendant to hand me a pair of ear muffs. I thought the horrible little buggers would pipe down after take-off. But no..... their agony was obviously intended to last for longer-term maximum impact. I very nearly threw my pillow at one, and my neck-rest at another.

Which brings me to the point of this post - I am an ANGRY YOUNG WOMAN, and have been for all of 2010. I reflect upon the year that has just gone by - and all I can say for my general state of mind is: angry, frustrated, embittered. I have cursed far more than a lady should, I have hurt those near and dear to me, and I have somehow acquired an attitude of minimal tolerance.

I remember I had a bit of a temper when I was a kid. After years of conditioning and counselling by my mother, I learnt over time to control, to re-direct, to tolerate, to behave. But this past year I threw all that I had learnt out the window. The temper has returned back with a vengeance, its ugly head rising from the burnt cinders of self-destruction.

I am not proud of it. I offer no explanations, and no apologies. This is me, and this is way I can be.

The power of prayer has slowly ebbed away from my life. I read recently that meditation (as separate from religious prayer) is a good technique to listen to your inner voice, to talk to the voices constantly chattering away in your head, and to eventually trust those voices enough to 'know' that your instinct is right. Your gut instinct.

So, 2011 is the year I am going to make an attempt to meditate for a few minutes everyday, to help me know 'me' better. The anger should subside on its own if I succeed. I cannot guarantee success. But I can surely have a half-decent crack at it.

By the way dear readers, there is a certain sense of satisfaction I experience while writing this rather unflattering piece - it happens to be my 60th blogpost. Woo-hooo :)

Happy O-eleven Folks.

Sexy..... Savvy......SMART!!!!!!!

2010-11-01T05:08:00.000-07:00

The Acquaintance

2010-09-30T19:50:00.000-07:00

This happened some years ago....I don’t know why I suddenly remembered this rendez-vous today. Must be something to do with my arbitrary memory. As I age, it irrationally blocks out several events of the past that I want to remember with all earnestness, and yet singularly retains events where I have been unanimously and conclusively been proven as an absolute idiot.

I was at an Indian cultural performance and bumped into someone who can at best be described as a pseudo-family friend we meet on an infrequent basis at any one or more of the following: similar cultural performances, Navrathri time, or at a BMD scenario. Definitely not the type you run into at the supermarket aisle, or catch-up over the phone with occasionally, or invite to Sunday lunch, or even send birthday wishes to via Facebook.

So this lady, as only pattu-sari draped, malli-poo adorned, US-son-despatching, info-scouting, privacy-ignoring Tam-bram aunties can in their inimitable manner, reeled off a relentless sequence of questions at an operatic decibel level.

The first part of it goes something like:
How are your parents? Your sister? Your grandmother? Your second cousin who got married last year? Your mama’s brother-in-law who will undergo knee replacement surgery in November? Has your chithi’s brother’s niece passed her board exams? How about your cousin suffering from that dreadful illness – paavam?
Ad continuum.....

I could scarcely get a word in, agape as I was at the apparent functional resilience of her hyperactive larynx. I was quite charmed actually, that she would remember all these people from my immediate and extended family with such a fine degree of intimacy. I could hardly pretend to reciprocate with an equal dose of intimacy, given my utter lack of knowledge of (and interest in) the abundant branches of her own family tree!

My selective-hearing auditory cells were activated by the fourth or fifth question – I forget which. So I nod along pretending to listen but mentally recording the unusual blouse pattern of a stunningly-clad woman standing nearby .....
.....(nod nod nod).....(smile vacantly)..... (nod)
......
Till she paused. Presumably for breath.
......

There was no doubt about it. She had definitely taken a break. The very air between us seemed to slowly regain its lost oxygen levels and restore its ruffled equilibrium.

Until I realised she was looking at me with raised eyebrows (a phenomenon I am not unfamiliar with) and an expectant expression in her eyes.

I quickly realised she was now awaiting answers to her (Questions)ⁿ

I started off by giving a general update on the recent goings-on of my parents and sister.

With a quizzical look, she said: ‘Illai ma – avvaluku paarthindirikaala?!’
Which literally means, ‘No dear – are they seeing for her?’.

Now, Tamil not being my first language, I often don’t ‘get’ colloquialisms, double entendres and the like in everyday usage. I am only really comfortable speaking my own version of it at home with my folks.

I ineptly translated her question as ‘Dear – why are you looking at her (while I was busy talking to you)?’.

(In Tamil - avvala paarthindirikiya?!)

I was mortified as I thought she had discovered that I was not really paying attention to her question barrage while in the meantime doing what every respectable fashionista does while in public – check out what the other women are wearing!

I hastily replied saying - ‘No aunty. Wasn’t staring at her. Was listening to you. Just really liked her blouse’.

Take 2:
What she Really meant was - ‘No dear – are they (my relatives) looking (for a prospective groom) for her (some chick in my family whose name I obviously missed due to my selective hearing disorder) ?’

My response, loosely translated based on aunty’s context, could also have meant – ‘No aunty. Based on your advice, they are not groom-hunting for her as she is too big-breasted’.

She looked at me with a strange mixture of horror, contempt and fascination.

By the time I figured out what was going on, my considerably large, high-heeled foot was well and truly ensconced in my mouth. To extricate myself from the increasingly hopeless situation, and to stop myself from choking further, I attempted to stoke her familial fixation by politely asking about her US-despatched son who used to be a childhood mate of mine. She then proceeded to propound his many virtues (this has the makings of another blogpost on trumpet-blowing parents), announced that she was hunting for a suitable bride for him and enquired if I or anyone in my family was ‘looking’. I fled.

In order to avoid such social debacles in future, I have an apt solution for any pseudo-family friends out there who intend embarking on these garrulous (Question)ⁿsessions. Just use this formula:

"How is ‘x’ for all x ∈ {R} ?”
Where
x is the name one was baptised/naam-karanised/otherwise-endowed-with
R is the set of all your living relatives

My simple, no-fuss answer would be: “All my ‘x’es are doing well, thank you!” :p

This way, I can disengage quicker AND my foot can also remain where it should normally be, safely planted on the floor instead of posing an interesting challenge to the laws of aerodynamics.

PS - And, perchance, any ‘x’s are Not doing too well – as life is wont to be at times – I feel fairly certain they would not want their tales of woe miserably dissected for public consumption.

PS again - Geek Alert. On a side note, I am mighty pleased with my little attempt at html coding for greek symbols and subscripts on this blogpost :)

Glossary (so you are not as Lost in Translation as I was):
Navrathri: literally, festival of ‘Nine Nights’ celebrated annually in Sept-Oct
BMD: Birth, Marriage, Death
Pattu-sari: Kanchipuram Silk Sari
Malli-poo: Jasmine flowers plaited tightly together to make a perishable hair ornament
Tam-bram: Tamil Brahmin (the ethnic community I belong to)
Mama: Mother’s brother or mother’s male cousin
Peripa: Father’s elder brother
Chithi: Mother’s younger sister or Father’s younger brother’s wife.
Paavam: Poor Thing
Naam-karan: Hindu naming ceremony held shortly after birth

Asha in August!

2010-08-30T17:21:00.000-07:00

Me at Work!

Me at Play!

Me on Stage!

Making Up My Mind....

2010-07-30T06:33:00.000-07:00

Tingling, Aching, Throbbing,

In every layer, every pore,

Of my fragile frame

Sensations that I had never imagined

Could be humanly experienced.

I cannot bear it anymore

Miserably unfair,

That you could just sit there

Watching me gleefully in my angst

Knowing that I am helpless

To fight against my heart’s desire

Should I, shouldn’t I….

Self-control sorely challenged

Questions racing through my mind

Feverishly, urgently

Questions of morality

Those of purity

What if anyone saw us?

What if ‘something’ happened?

What if I surrendered?

All I could think of

Was your blood red passion

Your angry, bulbous passion

Insatiable

Uninhibited

Searing through my skin

Blazing a livid trail through my being

Leaving behind an indelible imprint

Bursting

Dissolving

Releasing me from my agonized state

Pleasure mingled with pain

In a blitz of white ecstasy

Should I make the first move

Towards my much-yearned for salvation?

Despite the burdens that I have to bear

If I go ahead with that decision

Or should I wait in vain

For you to explode

Of your own accord

Leaving me ravished and spent,

Yet somewhat reassured

Or, maybe, I should just apply some concealer

An astringent, a face-pack?

And pray earnestly

That you eventually just go away

You are, after all, but a mere pimple!

Uninvited, unwelcome - just get the hell out of my way!

Bon Voyage

2010-05-03T22:11:00.000-07:00

Travelling to exotic foreign places, whether on a budget or in luxury, is entirely different from travelling in one’s own country. I quite unabashedly enjoy that kind of tourist-y travel, especially because I know I don’t have the opportunity to live in those countries on a more permanent basis so I want to explore and experience everything I can in a short span of time. Whereas travelling in India, to me, has so far been more of a family affair. I don’t even call it ‘travel’. I just say ‘I’m going home’.

One can argue that if India is home, then my Australian sojourn has been, well, Travel. Some of my most life-enriching experiences have occurred when I was on my way from somewhere to somewhere else. And by that I don’t mean sight-seeing or shopping. Or travelling for work, of which I do plenty!

I laugh in private when goras tell me they’re going travelling to India to “experience the rich culture”and “ride on elephants” and “bathe in the Ganges” and “mingle with slum children” and “soak in the colours”. I laugh even more when Indians raised overseas talk like above goras – makes me want to murderously slap them out of their ABCD-infused stupor.

*ABCD – American (or Western-country) Born (or raised) Confused Desi.

A friend of mine wants to resign his well-paying corporate job to go off on an unplanned sabbatical of self-discovery in India. Which means – no clue how long he will be there for, when he might consider working for a living again, whether he will be in touch with his family during his time-off, what he wants to do with the rest of his life.

Which really means – he’ll wander around until his money runs out, then maybe do some voluntary work for barest minimum to exist on, then maybe get into a position where he just Has to start figuring things out. Unless one's inherited, swindled, gambled or hard-earned coffers is a bottomless pit, this kind of sabbatical comes fraught with uncertainty and possible bankruptcy.

I can’t say that I have not been by the wander-lust bug myself. Had I not been in my current circumstances, I would probably have gone the peregrine route myself in my late twenties, at least for a little while. Now, I guess I will never know what it is like.

Suffice to say – although I am not overly materialistic, I still value some creature comforts that money can buy me, and I don’t think I would enjoy not having a steady income flow. However, I still dream of a time when I can figure out this thing that oft bugs me, called the Cycle of Life, and the Q/A forum it opens up. While travel might be one avenue that could lead to a path of revelation, I would like to think that there are other ways to do so. While I may have travelled far and wide myself, the dynamics of it differ from person to person. In my case, I am left with far more questions than I started off with, considerably less cash and ridiculously few answers. Which leads me to think – maybe there is some other means to achieve this outcome.

Related to above is Newton’s First Law of Motion – Every object in a uniform state of rest or motion, will continue to be in that state of rest or motion, unless an external force is applied to it. Although – do I consider myself to be inert, or active? I desperately want to get out there and DO something, anything. But there are some anchors which weigh me down, which are probably doing a great job of keeping me sane. Do they offer any of afore-mentioned answers though? Unfortunately – Not.

Unraveling Bits and Pieces

2010-05-03T20:57:00.000-07:00

As always, it takes until the end of the month for me to sit down, ponder and write for my blog. I had promised myself a post every month this year, and I will stick to it. Despite abysmally poor readership, despite a busy lifestyle, despite the occasional writer’s block. It is not that I do not have enough topics to write about. Life, the world around us, opinions – there are just too many topics to choose from! It is more about taking the time and the effort to – well – sit down, ponder and write :)

I had written this post in April, sadly the upload has only occurred in May. I have these little character quirks – some might call it OCD. I actually get a kick out of scrolling through the right-hand pane where posts are listed by month. Then, when I see that I have a post every month, I rub my hands together in glee and my face inexplicably adopts a ‘haha- I did it’ expression. Yeah. I know. (eye roll) . Now I am buggered because there is None against April. (boo hoo).

I had recently resorted to micro-blogging – not on Twitter (ah! That would be the end of my creativity) - but by putting up some Facebook status updates on topics that interest me and that I like to get opinions on. Alas, some close family members have succeeded in ousting me from there, saying crap like I shouldn’t be putting up personal stuff, I am far too opinionated, I am offensive to others, and all that jazz. Therefore I decided to stop using that platform, to just come back into this little space, this lemonade haven that I created just for me – to write whatever I want to.

I had started writing here as a means of catharsis, after a period of intense despair and depression in my life three years ago. That period turned out to be a kind of cross-roads – everything I have learnt can be categorised into either before, or after, that time.

Research has quite conclusively indicated that articulating yourself by the written (or rather, typed) word is a very effective means of de-stressing and re-thinking. One can question why I would even want to write on a public forum, instead of just penning my thoughts into a diary or personal file on the computer. One could argue that the healing process achieved thereof would be equally productive. However, I disagree - and I proceed to elucidate my reasons below.

People often ask me why this blog is called ‘Bits and Pieces’, why the unusual web address of www.nimbu-paani.blogspot.com. Today I will answer those questions. ‘Bits and Pieces’ – not just because I write on a number of different topics, in varied writing styles. But because my mind, as yours, is constantly in a state of motion. Bits and pieces of ideas keep fluttering by, keep begging to be heard, acknowledged and expressed openly. My heart has, as yours once might have, been broken into a million bits and pieces too. I wanted to collate all those ideas, those broken threads, and put it into one location from where I could look into deeply and reassure myself that this Life is a gift, and will always be beautiful, no matter what happens.

I did not ask to be born. I did not ask to be born into this family, this community, this country, this life. But I was born. Out of love. And I live. Tomorrow when I am gone, I would feel quite disheartened if I had not left a tiny bit and piece of myself in this world. It is not narcissism. It is not even the desire to produce a tangible like a child as I have no maternal instincts. It is to do with the unique strain of thoughts that every individual has, in a miniscule speck of the universe that we occupy. How do we preserve those thoughts and ideas. Most may be trivial. But surely there are some that one would want to hold on to for posterity.

I am no famous film star or politician or businessperson – whose every word and action is in the public eye. I am just a non-entity. I am not likely to become rich and famous in this lifetime either, unless I am the fortunate recipient of a very large dose of Luck. But not having that fame does not make me mediocre. It does not mean that my life is worth less than any of you others out there. It does not preclude me from striving to do my best in all my professional and personal endeavours.

I also consider it my place as a Woman, to make myself be heard because there are so many of us who are unable to freely. I myself face these gender-specific, cringe-worthy abominations under certain circumstances, despite coming from a very progressive family. Therefore this blog becomes my best and perhaps my only means to express myself to the world and not be derided for it.

As for the nimbu-paani (Hindi for lemonade). Well, in life you more often than not get obscenely hit by a number of lemons. The Attack of the Lemons you cannot avoid! They are your Fate, Luck, God’s Will, whatever you want to call them. You have very limited power on how to control the trajectory of these lemons. Some will just about dodge you, some will hit you at a lower velocity. But you can’t stop some that are aimed straight for your head with the intention of knocking you out cold. Here is where you have some control, a little bit of power. You can either lie there feeling miserable for yourself and wallow in self-pity. Or you can pick up those very same lemons, squeeze the shit out of them and add in a few key ingredients of your own to make refreshing, revitalising, lemonade.

You know what I did!

Cube

2010-05-01T22:51:00.000-07:00

The Solitary Digger

2010-03-24T16:13:00.000-07:00

Dig, dig, dig

All day she digs

Why does she dig?

The Farmer told her – ‘Till my land’

‘Make me rich, and I will make you poor’

‘My land, my land’

But what of her land?

Her land, far away

Her parents, in merriment

Unable and unwilling

Her only sister

The one she raised as a wee baby

Now alienated

Hurt and Humiliated

Too late, too late

Dig, dig, dig

Why does she dig?

The Lover told her - ‘You are a waste’

‘A Waste to this land’

‘The Earth seeks you’

Blood, Sweat, Tears

Dig, dig, dig

Why does she dig?

Her plough could dig no more

She saw the end

She stared

She understood

She smiled

Her grave was now ready.

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!!!!! - Part 2

2010-03-04T14:35:00.000-08:00

As night beckoned, we continued on to Udaipur and checked into The Hilltop Palace, a rather unusual hotel, not as smart and savvy as the Park Inn, but with an old-world charm to it. The next day was to be our last full day together. We were so busy chatting away that night, we only realised the next morning that our room key had been attached to the outer key-hole of the door all night! We spent a lazy hour after breakfast that morning, just checking out the breath-taking views of the lake and surrounds from the terrace of the hotel, which was the highest viewpoint in the city.

In fact, we found everything about Udaipur to be a tad lazy and laidback. If I could sum it up in one colour – I would call it ‘Blue’. Blue waters, blue lotus, blue enamel inlay work, blue paintings, blue skies in winter, blue-liveried cute waiter ;) Rippling, serene, unadulterated Blue.

The City Palace was much like the one in Jaipur. We had a relaxing boat ride in Lake Picchola, viewing at a safe distance the elitist and therefore out-of-bounds-to-ordinary-folks ‘Taj Lake Palace’ hotel floating about dreamily in the middle. We did get to stop at the Jag Mandir, a little island which, contrary to its name, had no temple on-site. It seemed to be more of a deluxe wedding venue for ex-royalty, film stars and the like, complete with gaudy palanquin, colour-coded shamianas and marbled vantage points.

UB and I fulfilled our quest to buy cheap, warm and trendy woollens at the local Tibetan Market, followed by lunch at Hotel Padmini (how could we not eat there!!) where we tried the locally-famous chilli milli jisme chilli nahi mili (!) and UB voted their khichdi as better than her mum’s (which has been the unanimous yardstick thus far). Pitstop at ‘Saheliyon ki Baari’ which just Has to be The most boring garden on the face of this planet – we were quite buggered by then, with all the tourist guide hangers-on who insisted on explaining the unique drainage system of specially-created aqua-ducts and the reason why maidens of yore used to come here to bathe and gossip. Following the trend of previous tourist sites where we had to make sure we had our tickets on us at all times, I snatched ours back from the bewildered gate-keeper. Us girls being Us, we turned this Bari visit into a Fun interlude by goofing around pretending to be afore-mentioned maidens of yore, posing with fountains and statues, and generally making an amusing spectacle of ourselves ;)

We set off for some More shopping, and yet returned to the hotel that night vaguely dissatisfied with the shopping experience in Udaipur. Maybe we did not devote enough time here in this little city, to do our rounds of interviewing the locals! Having seen a number of well-priced and well-created gemstone knick-knacks on display at the hotel’s gift store, we requested reception to contact the store-owner at 9pm to allow us into his store as privileged out-of-town shoppers! He turned up bleary-eyed in his PJs and graciously waited upon us while we spent over an hour choosing, un-choosing, re-choosing etc – did I mention that Udaipur sleeps off by 8pm in winter?!

Reached Udaipur airport at 6am the next morning for the final leg of the Trip – the flight back to Delhi. And there started the Grand Odyssey of our Travel Dilemmas. First the flight to Delhi was delayed by 2 hours, apparently due to fog at Delhi. A quick check on the news channels, and phone calls to relatives in Delhi confirmed that it was a fine and clear dawn. Jet Airways must clearly under-estimate the average intelligence and MET-reading capabilities of its customers. They changed their mind a few hours later and said the delay was due to non-availability of aircraft, once they figured out there were a few hefty “I will fight for my rights and make your life hell” Indian men amongst the disgruntled passengers.

They then cancelled the first flight, and arranged another flight to take us from Udaipur to Jaipur, and promised ‘surface transport’ (their fancy moniker for a 50-seater Volvo bus) to take us from Jaipur to Delhi, reaching that same evening by 8pm. This effectively ruined our grandiose plans to go Shopping (yes, I reiterate the number 1 reason for this Trip) in Delhi at Janpath and Lajpat Nagar. While I quietly dabbed away a few tears at this cruel intervention, UB yelled foul at the announcements being made in super-polite Hindi wherein they claimed that they ‘deeply regretted’ this inconvenience. Clearly, they didn’t, so why can’t they just save the bullshit and energise their workforce on to the more important task of working out how to get international passengers like UB and me who were flying out of India in less than 24 hours, to Delhi!

Alas, they did nothing of the sort. Instead, they added to the chaotic uncertainty by cancelling that second flight and announcing that there Will be (or rather, May be) a third flight later that afternoon at 3pm that would fly straight to Delhi. And gave passengers the option of choosing a flight from Udaipur to Mumbai which would leave within the next 30mins, and then get a connecting flight from Mumbai to Delhi by 2pm.

I, being risk-averse (no I am not ashamed of admitting to this), preferred going to a major hub, namely Mumbai, where we would have better chances of getting onto a flight to another hub, namely Delhi. UB, being risk-seeking, advocated waiting for the afternoon flight instead of saving us the hassle of moving further away from the destination to get back to it. AS happily watched on the proceedings waiting for us to decide the outcome of this wonderful game of probabilistic theory and team dynamics.

I decided to chuck team dynamics to the bin since my flight back to Oz was early next morning and I would rather travel more and get to work in one piece the following day than face the ignominious eyes of my colleagues who did not go anywhere on pleasure-trips over the Christmas holidays. Told UB and AS that I wouldn’t mind if they chose to go by the afternoon flight. They showed me the stuff they were made of, and decided to stick by me and come to Mumbai.

Once we decided to go ahead, the idiots at Jet Airways, who gave us all of 3.5 minutes to make this decision, said there were no more seats available on the Mumbai flight. Then hastily revised this statement after we said, vociferously, that we were Women travelling Alone in India. They then issued us boarding passes and watched in undisguised glee as we waited for security to finish their abominably long and tiresome ‘procedures’, then ran helter-skelter across the tarmac with 9 pieces of hand luggage being precariously tossed around, and settled into arbitrarily-allocated seats minutes before taxi-ing off.

And THAT, my friends, was not the end of our adventures.... At Mumbai airport, we had a hilarious ‘Jab We Met’ scene. Nopes – I did not accidentally bump into Hrithik Roshan – a lifelong serendipitous occurence that I have been anticipating since I was a wide-eyed, love-lorn 16 year old living in La-La-land. Well – 10th January IS his birthday you know, so I could be forgiven for thinking my big moment could have actually materialised this time ;)

Back to the JWM scene –We figured out that our checked-in luggage, for reasons still unfathomable to us, was sent on the later flight from Udaipur which may or may not land in Delhi that evening. We were then told that we had to exit the Domestic Arrivals and enter back in at the Domestic Departures with newly-issued boarding passes. At the Departures entrance, AS and I got our ears partially traumatised by UB’s blood-curdling shriek - “MUMMEEEEEEE”.
Turns out she randomly spotted her mother entering the airport with an entourage of relatives. The mother who she was not meant to see for another 6 months. The mother whose travel plans she was unaware of, not having spoken to her at length during the Trip. The mother who had tears in her eyes when her offspring emerged out of nowhere, and totally made her day.

As we chatted about Life and its many inexplicable mysteries at Cafe Coffee Day at the airport, having an idle hour before our flight, and after UB’s mum left for hers, – we spoke about new discoveries we make every day. We spoke of the importance of, sometimes, maybe trusting another’s judgement. The notion of relying on one’s pure instinct. The part that Fate plays in our otherwise remote-controlled, Primavera-planned, I-got-everything-figured-out lives.

We reached Delhi safe that evening, and were pleasantly surprised to find our luggage waiting for us. That other flight had in fact landed 30mins before ours did. We made our way to our temporary homes for the night, with relatives and friends, before going solo on the next leg of our travels this year. We thought of our missing friends, we thought of days spent together when things had seemed so much simpler. We thought of days ahead, with renewed vigour, ambition and hope. And we just knew – that while Girls Just Wanna Have Fun, we also need the companionship of our close girlfriends to Live Life Queen-size!

Girls Just Wanna Have Fun!!!!!

2010-02-28T15:23:00.000-08:00

The five days between January 4th – Jan 9th 2010 will go down in my personal history as a time when my 26 year old self momentarily forgot about life, work and responsibilities - and time-travelled back to live like my 16 year old happy self, gossiping with my best friend, and going places with my Awesome girlfriends :)

I thought of writing this like a chronological travel-diary, detailing out what we did where and how with minute itinerarical (is that even a word?!) accuracy. The more I thought about our trip, the more I wanted to write about it, share it with our other girlfriends, save it for posterity and relish the savoury bits - like biting into an authentic Punjabi samosa after years of being served insipid ‘curry puffs’ in foreign lands.

For well over a month, I was unable to put down my thoughts into words, although I had plenty of flashing vignettes flooding through my brain, and close to 2000 photos thanks to my trigger-happy friends! Because it was the experience that mattered, the natter about times gone by, the excitement of exploring timeless places, the stories we shared....

And then I realised, if I wanted to remember us girls just having fun, I should record those snatches of conversation, those incidents where we hopelessly collapsed into rib-injurious laughter, those fanatical shopaholic sprees, those intermittent Venus-versus-Mars gyaan-dispensing monologues, those times when passersby just stared at us in disbelief and muttered “3 Idiots” under their breath!

The inadequacies of my written word cannot obviously capture all of the above moments, or even capture the beauty and magnificence of the Indian landscape and architecture. However, one can only try to chronicle these events. I view this post as a dynamic, rather than a static one. When UB or AS remember some other nugget of merriment, I hope to add it to our evocative little collection here.

It all started off last year with a couple of mini-reunions. AS met RM, SK met MM and HN, RB met AS - Before long, Everyone wanted to meet Everyone! We all agreed it had been far too long since Life ate us up, and soon - our group had exchanged close to 153 emails (this can be verified by a quick check at my gmail account, I kid you not) discussing how to make this meeting happen for real.

At the very outset, it was made quite clear to all parties involved, what this trip was REALLY gonna be about! A Chick Trip – which means Shopping, Gossip and Boys! Strictly in that order. Sight-seeing was just an added extra :)

First there was the all-important task of figuring out who all could make it, at the same time, at one location. Many of us were eliminated at this early stage – one was getting married, another could not get leave from work at the time, two others were only going to be in India before or after the Christmas period.

It all bottled down to the three most vociferous advocates of The Trip – UB, AS and Me. And of course RB who did most of the organising as she felt that was the next best thing to coming along. Another 70 emails were exchanged between the 4 of us, to decide on a location and time, keeping in mind family visits around Christmas, where in India would be most accessible to all, And conducive to the one variable component (Shopping) as the constants (Gossip and Boys) could be dealt with anywhere, anytime!

And that is how Jaipur and Udaipur won the vote – with Chittorgarh, site of Rajasthan’s biggest fort-palace added in en-route. RB arranged hotels and a car with a driver for the duration of the trip. While I played my part to perfection as the Obnoxious Time-Keeper, UB and AS were the designated Shutter-buggers who took photos galore, a selection of which I have put up on my Facebook page with cute ‘3 Idiots’ captions – that being the apt movie du jour while we were on our travels.

We met up at Bikaner House in Delhi and hopped onto a bus to Jaipur – that ride was the reconnaissance meeting where we did our respective ‘status updates’ over the past 5 years. It is amazing, when you meet your childhood friends – the time elapsed since your last meeting does not seem to matter at all. You pick up the threads from where you left off, and there is not the least bit of hesitation or diffidence in talking about everything from our favourite brand of lingerie, to our latest high-flying career plans.

We checked into the Park Inn at Jaipur, a very tasteful establishment, and made contact with our driver for the next four days. The driver, Rajinder, had a perpetual manner of mild grumpiness about him, mostly because of our random changes to his unalterable idea on what the ideal route should be. Alas, he did not share our enthusiasm for resourcefully unearthing the best and cheapest places to shop, so we had to patiently engage in a number of conversations with locals to reveal these closely-guarded secrets, and trace our own paths around the crowded galis and nukkads of Jaipur’s Old City to access the shops. Which was in actual fact the best way to explore the place!

We, like most dedicated shopping fiends, had very specific items that we wanted, nay needed, to shop for in Jaipur – enamel jewellery, kundan jewellery, mojri footwear and ethnic bags. Added to this, of course, were the usual ‘Souvenirs for Everyone’ drive, from parents and siblings, to the neighbour’s second cousin’s best friend who bought you chocolates from Belgium when you were ten, so you just Had to buy him a souvenir when you went on a 5-day trip to Rajasthan :)

Our first day in Jaipur, we covered all the usual suspects – the city palace (the late Maharana Sawai Man Singh seems to have been a very impressive polo-playing, vintage-buggy-driving gentleman), Hawa Mahal (which is really just a Wall with windows, not a palace. It has no foundation), Jantar Mantar where UB delighted in individually working out all the astronomical instruments (becoming an astronaut was her childhood ambition since age 5), Birla Mandir, Albert Hall museum (I personally loved their coin collection through the centuries – some in Sanskrit script and others in Arabic, depicting different stages of indigenous rule and invasive rule) and Jal Mahal (which of course will soon be renovated into a five star hotel by the Oberois).

Our ramblings around the city led us from one shop to another. We stopped at one place to look at some decorative gudda-guddis and Rajput figurines playing various musical instruments and started bargaining with the shopkeeper. Who turned out to be the wealthy ‘seth’ of a factory who then took us on a personal visit to his wholesale showroom a few streets away. It was a single room bursting at its seams with a bewitching jumble of wall-hangings, bedspreads, saris, cushion covers – all strewn around in colourful disarray. We spend a few hours there finalising our purchases.

Upon his daughter’s instructions, we went by car to the Old City’s Gandhi market on our highly specific jewellery hunt. Rajinder washed his hands off us at this stage and told us to make our own way through the underbelly of the Pink City which are inaccessible to vehicular traffic. And that was how an underfed bag of bones passing off as a cycle-rikshaw driver mounted three quite well-endowed girls on his rick and pedalled over 3 kms through Choti Chaupad without complaint :)

Dinner was Daal-Baati-Choorma – Jaipur’s distinctive staple food of lentils, deep-fried wheat dumplings and powdered sweetened milk solids, all doused in ghee!

UB’s fascination for sampling Rajasthan’s rich cuisine unfortunately wreaked havoc on her fragile intestines later that night and she had to ask the bemused hotel night-personnel for perhaps his most bizarre guest request till date – a plate of fresh, raw carrots, peeled and chopped, to placate her wobbly innards :)

Day 2 in Jaipur was devoted to visiting Amer Fort, finishing off the rest of our shopping, followed by an evening of Rajasthani culture at Chokhi Dhani. At Amer, one finds the typical Rajput-Mughal structural elements of palace forts – diwan-e-khaas, sheesh mahal, courtyard gardens with fountains, painted darwaazas, separate ladies quarters called the zenana, steep staircases, archways and columns. We found a number of gently-swaying elephants with their mahouts coming into the fort via their own entrance, a wall full of rifle-guns arranged in a chakra pattern, tiny 17th century bedrooms Nothing like the majestic ones in Jodhaa-Akbar, and the entrance to many a secret passageway. We also checked out their old water storage systems, and toilets – you can trace them from a few metres away, by the poo smell. It, regrettably, still lingers on….

Chokhi Dhani was an evening experience to be cherished. A recreated rustic village, it resembles a mela where talented artisans and performers have individual platforms to display their talents. Live dance and music, acrobatics, puppetry, camel-rides, art-and-craft market – these are just some of the attractions concurrently occuring. UB and I had our fortunes read by a grizzly old man, with astonishing, and some alarming, predictions! We also had our photos taken in traditional Rajasthani costumes –The young men who take the photos dress you up (over your own clothes) with heavy ghagras, dupattas and oxidised jewellery, and similarly undress you after the shoot – all without the blink of an eyelid, in full public view. And no one cares, or stares!

The highlight of the evening was the Food – a princely feast consisting of 32 traditional mouth-watering dishes, all prepared with generous doses of desi ghee, dry fruits and spices, served on thalis in the open-plan floor-seating dining hall. Bajre ki roti, kadhi pakori, missi roti, gatte ki subzi, pacchmelri saag, kacchori, malpua…

In the midst of all this decadence, UB sat sadly with a sprig of freshly-mown grass and a copper tumbler of pure H20 as her dinner :) Disheartening to see the food junkie turned into a hapless, gastronomically-challenged salad-muncher. I being my usual neurotic, diet-obsessed self refused to touch anything which even remotely resembled grease. Imagine my horror when one of the turbaned waiters capsized a whole jar of fresh ‘makhhan’ on my thali, smeared it generously across the 4 different rotis, and bellowed “Khaao, Khaao” in my ears before plonking his red turban on the head of AS, who undoubtedly deserved to be crowned the ‘diner with the least food leftover’.

We then ambled around for a few more hours, warmed ourselves sitting on charpaayis in front of warm coal ‘angheetis’. We waited till most people had left the grounds and mingled with the stall-owners who shared with us tea, an unfamiliar warm buttermilk concoction and many touching life stories from their villages.

The next day we set off to Udaipur by road, via Chittorgarh. Chittorgarh – or the House of Chittor – is home to many a pretty tale of ancient kings, battles won and lost, and the ubiquitous presence of Rani Padmini, of famed beauty, who was lusted after by Ala-ud-din Khilji and committed jauhar (mass suicide) with her ladies-in-waiting to avoid being dishonoured by him.

We arrived at this sprawling fort-palace town built across a few towering mountains, at a particularly beautiful time of day. It was just before dusk, and the atmosphere was filled with an uncommon stillness, a stunning sunset staining the sky with hues of pink and orange.

The surrounds and lighting was post-card perfect, and we took many exceptional photos atop the ruins, amidst them, and even with legs dangling off them! Discovered three monkeys scuttling around and made them our benign ‘subjects’ :p

Continued in Part 2....

Women in O-Ten

2010-01-31T23:42:00.000-08:00

It is not easy to find happiness in ourselves, and it is not possible to find it elsewhere.
-- Agnes Repplier

This year has arrived too soon. Somewhere, somehow, over the last three years, I have lost myself in an endless maelstrom of activity.

The clutter and chaos has led to very unnatural behaviour, very erratic thoughts, and very unusual decision-making.

And directing all of this along, has been my constant changing companion – Fickle Fate.

In order to be free, one must first learn to release the past pain, the ancient anger, the former fears.

It is now time to breathe, time to rediscover, time to renew....

I started the year on a very positive note – spent quality time with my loving parents in the city I grew up in, followed by a trip with two close girlfriends from school. It is turning out to be a very interesting year, with me spending my work-week in one city, and weekends in another.

To all six readers of this blog – sorry for being such an infrequent writer. Life threw a few nimbus at me :)

I have made up my mind – I aim to put up one post every month this year, where I intend writing about women. It could be an inspirational true-life story, or a short fiction piece, or an article on a woman-centric issue, or simply my latest shopping expedition to find a very elusive shade of lipstick ;)

No – I promise this is not going to end up like one of those bra-burning, womens-rights-demanding, Y-chromosome-bashing monologues.

It is merely my attempt at writing down what I often think, but seldom say.

The February post is about that famous trip we spent nearly half a year organising! Enjoy, boys and girls – Life is Beautiful!

Ignorance.... is NOT Bliss.

2009-10-15T18:23:00.000-07:00

A series of unfortunate events have led me to believe that I live in a country filled with dumb, ignorant frogs in a well of fast-decreasing dimensions. I am rapidly building up enough ammunition to blast me out of here, back to my home, where I truly belong.

Take 1:
TV presenters on National Nine morning news played an Indian ad for 'Himani Fast Relief', and then snickered away for a full 2 minutes because they thought it was So Funny that the 'Indian dialect' for 'fast relief' is the same as in English.

'Indian dialect' shows their sheer lack of knowlege of the fact that the ad was in 'Hindi', one of several languages in India, where 'Indian' is not the name of a language. Clearly, they are oblivious to the reality in urban India, and make their own ill-informed judgements regarding the widespread usage of English. Not to mention the far more advanced TV, media and advertising industry. Amongst others. Such as IT, electronics, manufacturing, automobiles, consumer durables. The sheer size of the economy. I'm rambling. Next.

Take 2:
In order to obtain my open Australian license for automatic cars, I had to give a written road-rules test, as well as an actual Road test with a scrutinising member of Queensland Transport sitting beside me in the car (which I cleared on my first attempt). When I went to give the written test and submitted all my documentation at the QT counter, the lady asked me to provide my overseas license so that she could assess its validity. Without so much as a glance at the license itself, which I placed in front of her, she stared at me and said, "Miss, would you please get this translated in English as I can't understand it."
I told her to have a careful look at the Indian license. She looked, and did not reply - merely turned around and issued me a test-sheet.
I then caustically remarked, "See - there is not a single word or number printed on that license, which is not in English. I wonder why you couldn't understand it."

Take 3:
I never, EVER wear Indian clothes like salwar kameez or sari in this country, if I will be coming into contact with any Australians on the way such as at the shops, streets, petrol stations. I make sure I dress up for Indian events, get into the car, drive straight to my destination, park, make a quick entry and mingle with other similarly-dressed people, or Australians who are invited to the same event and are aware of its significance.
Why all this drama? Because apparently, the way you dress is a direct indicator of whether you have integrated into the mainstream Australian lifestyle, and is also directly proportional to your knowlege of English. You just do not get taken seriously if your appearance does not fit the stereotype. It is the same reason why in the workplace, or when speaking to Australians, I tend to adopt a more neutralised Indian accent, with common Australian vocabulary and intonations. Whereas with my family and close friends, I tend to adopt a less neutralised Indian accent.

I had to deal with a redneck bogan who saw me in a salwar kameez at the fuel bowser, and drawled, (ungrammatically, I might add) - "Can you speak in English? I might taiiikke yoww to the cowwnta aaaind help yoww". While his intentions may have been perfectly philanthropical, I disliked his automatic presumption that my skin colour and clothes are somehow related to my competence in English, and also to competence in handling an everyday transaction.
I replied back, in my most neutralised accent, "Thanks very much, but I am perfectly capable of speaking English, filling this car with petrol, checking the amount to be paid, walking up to the counter, paying the amount on the EFTPOS machine and driving out of here."

Dance, Asha, Dance!

2009-10-15T16:40:00.000-07:00

I drove 15 kms in a car, by myself, dressed in this. Lucky I didn't have to switch lanes too often, because the elaborate head-gear prevented me from making proper shoulder checks :p

The stares... I will never forget... I could have been an inexplicable purple-spangled organism descended from outer space to the average Australian on that balmy afternoon....

I Heart Google :)

2009-09-10T17:10:00.000-07:00

http://www.namegoogle.com/?displayName=Asha Googles!

To Pee or Not to Pee

2009-09-10T16:39:00.000-07:00

What is WRONG with those people who came to visit me last night?! In fact, people in general. Why are they so completely incapable of holding a normal conversation with me?! Cheh, you would think they are either linguistically-challenged, or downright dimwitted - they way they produce those ugly gurgling noises and nonsensical non-words from their painted mouths.

Anyways, I am getting distracted. I need to pee - real bad. Been wanting to pee ever since I came into this darned place they send me to every morning at 9am. Apparently my fate is doomed to the confines of these four walls for a long, looooog time. Wonder what grave sin I have committed.

The lady at the big desk is blabbing away about black sheep and old McDonald. Like I care a damn.

Ok, I really need to pee so I'm just going to make a run for it when her back is turned. I am sure she won't miss me. There are 40 other similarly mind-numbed clones of myself sitting in the exact same position in this room. Besides, surely she doesn't have eyes at the back of her head, contrary to her daily grandiose claims. Well, I am going to prove it today!

The watchman at the gate is so busy savouring the day's first paan with his eyes half-closed that he barely noticed me scrambling out from the side-door. Stupid fellow. Why do they pay a man to 'watch' when all he does is sleep?

I reckon it should be fairly easy figuring out how to get back home. I've kinda noticed things on the way, as I come by twice a day for 5 days in the week. They all come in order. There's the green tree with pink flowers, the lamp post with a cow tied to it, Vikram's house, friendly samosa uncle , another green tree with orange flowers, Oomachi kovil and then it should be home. I quickly shuffled past the landmarks one by one.

I saw my house at a distance. I broke into a run. This is it. I cannot hold on any longer. There. Another few steps. A second more. I've reached home. I rushed inside pushing past my beautiful lady, straight to the toilet.

Ahh..... relief. What peace! I pulled the flush as she had taught me, just as she ran in with a horrified expression on her pretty face.

Sadly, I have to ask her to change my shorts :( I couldn't control myself on the long way here and a little pee came out before scheduled. But that doesn't matter, I'm home now and she will take care of everything. She doesn't mind.

She is full of questions. Did you come home alone? Didn't they see you leaving? Why could you not ask to use the toilet there? And then she grabbed me, hugged me till I nearly wanted to pee again, planted these big fat kisses all over me and started sobbing. What if you had been run over by a car? What if someone had kidnapped you? Oh my God! My baby! What would have happened to you? She's practically wailing now!

I gently patted her shoulder to comfort her. I just don’t get it. I love her to bits, I could nestle against her body all day long. But whats all this fuss Ma is making about me coming back home from school to pee. It's not like I'm a baby. I'm nearly four years old! And I needed to pee!

You are not a failure – Your Diet is!!

2009-07-28T23:18:00.000-07:00

Apart from myself, I know of at-least 10 female friends who are on some kind of rigorous diet regime, in an obsessive attempt to lose unwanted kilos – imaginary or otherwise. This is combined with a mind-boggling, gasp-inducing, muscle-exhausting daily exercise schedule incorporating cardio and weights in the right proportion in order to lead what is termed as an ‘balanced, healthy, happy life’.

Except – We Are Not Happy!

We struggle with our self-esteem, we are subjected to insensitive ridicule from partners and potential mates, we nearly kill ourselves everyday to keep up with it all, we succumb to peer pressure in the ever-lasting quest to look our best, we are consumed with anxiety attacks if our bum is looking big in those pants or if that dress makes our waist look flabby.

Fyi – a slight digression here - whats with all the high-waisted dresses and tops that pass off as clothes these days? I am continually yelled at for wearing these clothes because they make me look fatter than I actually am – so I went shopping as I do every week trying to find something that I can fashionably clothe my fat body in. But this time I had a good, hard look around. Could not find a Single item of upper body clothing (other than work shirts and T-shirts) which was not high-waisted. I.e. the waistline sits just below the boobs. When will the people who make these fashion manufacturing decisions realise that the style does Not look good on any woman who does not look like a stick insect. Ditto with skinny jeans.

Back to the topic at hand - I leave aside the exercise portion here because I know how gruelling it can get, and how much every woman pushes herself to extreme limits by treadmill-thumping and iron-pumping. And it is not always about kilogram shedding, it is also about being fit and having a toned body. I’ve figured out a more fun way for myself personally, which is Dance! I dance for upto 12 hours every week doing Bharatnatyam, Bollywood, and a mixture of street, jazz and hip-hop. That takes care of my cardio, and then I try to squeeze in as many resistance-training sessions as I can at Fitness First, my favourite hang-out joint. Not.

There are those who conscientiously calorie-count and follow a diet made of specific foods that are included/excluded. There are others like myself who simply try to eat as healthy as possible at all times because our hectic social lives sometimes prevent us from having a routine eating pattern. This is still called a ‘diet’.

In nutrition, a ‘diet’ is the sum of food consumed by a person every day. Dietary habits are the habitual decisions an individual makes when choosing what foods to eat. Good dietary habits, in conjunction with a specially formulated exercise program – are the Only Two Ways to Sustainable Weight Loss. No magic here, no special mantra, no celebrity-endorsed quick-fix formula.

Then why do we still not see the results we desperately yearn to see?

It is solely because Diets today are Made to Fail. You are not a failure – your Diet is!

Welcome to the Diet World.

To belong here, you have to first sacrifice yourself to the Diet God. You are plonked on the altar of the weighing scale, wearing only your underwear, feeling absolutely miserable gazing at the woman in the mirror.

Next you have to take the Citizenship Oath wherein

1. You pledge to eat nothing that tastes good. The Diet World has identified via a process of elimination, that everything which tastes good, is bad for you. Therefore, everything you are allowed to put into your mouth, is a poor imitation of what normal world citizens put into theirs. Think carrot sticks instead of kebabs, plain wheat crackers instead of chips, diet yoghurt instead of ice-cream.

2. You pledge to down your carb and fat intake and up your protein intake. Bye-bye rice, pasta, bread, sweets, savouries, fried yummies. Hello foul-smelling protein shakes and foul-tasting muesli bars every time you feel peckish at work. This is apparently supposed to keep you fuller for longer, although I cannot vouch for it.

3. You pledge to control your portions to a miniscule amount, a fraction of what will truly make you feel full.

4. You will not listen to the unearthly growling sounds emanating from the deep recesses of that layered-tyre organ called your stomach. You will not get irritable when you see people hogging their guts out but not putting on a pound. The Diet God is unfair, so deal with it.

5. You will stoically tolerate insults from all and sundry who proclaim that you are a Fat Slob with wobbly body parts who sits around doing nothing. You will also stoically tolerate people who deliberately discriminate against you because you don't fit their standards of 'The Perfect Body'.

6. Finally you pledge to stick to your program path, also known as the Holy Diet Grail, no matter what happens. If you slip up by cooking something that you crave, or eating something that tastes like a slice of heaven, the Diet God will surely punish you. Severely.

The Diet World also has a large number of adherents to the ‘Yo-yo Sisterhood’. They are those women who succumb to the Cabbage Soup diet, the Lemon Detox Diet, the Atkins Diet, the Pop-a-Pill diet, the General Motors Diet and the Acai Tea Diet. They will lose weight, and over a period of time will put it back on again. All that tiresome drama for nothing. My advice - Do Not become a member of this sisterhood.

Business conducted as a means of livelihood in the Diet World is a multi-billion dollar industry. Citizens and non-citizens are bombarded with the following everyday:

1. The Media - Every magazine you pick up and every website you browse has a new diet guaranteed to make you drop 5kg every week for 12 weeks. Target audience = Suckers! Diets are made to fail so you will continue reading and surfing with the hope that the next advertised gimmick will work for you. Watch out for ‘Before – After’ photos. They are photo-shopped and placed strategically in order to brain-wash you.

2. The Pill Spill – the diet pills touted to be enriched with X enzyme and Y stimulant and Z anti-oxidant, have some easy-to-miss fineprint instructions: Follow a low fat, low carb diet and moderate exercise in order for this wonder-drug to work. Why bother with them at all, if they are only placebos?

3. The Demi-Gods - There are tons of eager-to-help, well-meaning Demi-Gods skulking around trying to entrap suckers into pre-packaged meal programs. Like Weight-Watchers, Jenny Craig, Tony Fergusson. Just keep a close track on your bank account. Funds will miraculously disappear overnight. Guaranteed Loss!

It is just a matter of time before the inanity of it all would take its toll on You, the Diet World Citizen. Weigh On.

I Am.....

2009-07-12T16:49:00.001-07:00

You are an awesome..... awesome..... beautiful.....brave.....woman.

You are a stupid.....stupid.....irritating.....unfashionable.....fat.....possessive.....unattractive.....conservative.....brain-less.....blundering idiot.

Me, Myself and I :)

2009-06-24T19:14:00.000-07:00

Why

2009-06-23T18:21:00.000-07:00

Why didn’t I leave when I could have and should have?
Why do I get dreams of people long-gone from my life?
Why do I watch old Hindi movies?
Why does a woman have to bear more than her fair share?
Why don’t we stay in touch with childhood friends?
Why don’t I create any time for writing more blog posts?
Why can I never replicate my mother’s food?
Why did the Teacher dump the Twitty-bird?
Why have I not developed a taste for Western music?
Why am I still in Brisbane?
Why are my memories worth more than their weight in gold?
Why do people get angry for no good reason?
Why did I marry?
Why do I sound like a demented soul?
Why is it simple to be happy, but difficult to be simple?
Why are some so hard-to-please?
Why do people have a problem with me being a vegetarian teetotaller?
Why do men expect all women to look like Angelina, even if they're no Brad?
Why do you lie?
Why can’t I build a Time-machine?
Why can’t I remember organic chemistry equations and calculus?
Why can’t the voices in my head just Shut the F**K Up?
Why do I compare myself to others?
Why can't people understand grey - not black-and-white?
Why do I find it harder to remember finer details of the past as I get older?
Why do some people have unquestionable faith in me and some- none at all?
Why am I a graceful dancer, yet have poor hand-eye coordination?
Why is sarcasm hurtful?
Why is it so hard to just be, just live?
Why can’t we survive without mobile phones like we used to?
Why do you demand explanations for everything, yet admit nothing?
Why do I like Pink and the Nissan Micra?
Why does one think one has the right to have expectations of others?
Why do I crave Dilli chaat?
Why can’t things just clean themselves up and bills get paid on their own?
Why don’t I just get up, get out and travel?
Why are my weight-loss attempts futile?
Why do people think they are being nice when they offer unwarranted advice?
Why do I love gentleness and patience?
Why do I hate hypocritical, rude and pretentious behaviour?
Why am I scared of birds of all shapes, sizes and colours?
Why am I not 17 anymore?
Why are you so far away, yet so near?
Why is it difficult to figure out when enough is enough?
Why is change an irreversible process?
Why do some things never change?
Why is the spirit eternal?
Why is the world getting smaller, but the universe expanding?
Why does a glance speak more than a thousand words?
Why do I prefer the chaos of my land to the solitude of the one I inhabit?
Why is one in control, or not in control, of their destiny?
Why am I just fed-up?
Why do I not have answers to everything I want to know?
Why do I care?
Why do I not care?
Why do I hate?
Why do I love?
Why did the chicken cross the road?

Gazpacho

2009-05-27T18:59:00.000-07:00

He was a strong, well-built man of 31. He was busy these days organizing his wedding and keeping his future bride sane in the midst of guest lists, stage decorations and menu plans. He worked nearby in one of the Big Four accounting firms. Not as an accountant though. That was too staid a line for the likes of him. He was particularly adept at solving cryptic crosswords on the train back from work. Something about the periodic sound of metal-on-metal. Kept his mind ticking. He had this bad habit of cracking his left index knuckle when he felt nervous. He had been to a skiing trip last year where he had experienced snow for the first time. His brother had given him a Swiss knife when he was 10 which he still carried around in his briefcase. He felt it would come in handy, and sometimes it actually did. His favourite brand of aftershave was not sold in the market anymore, so he was desperately trying to find something to replace the old. No luck so far. His dry-cleaners had rung up to say his suit was ready to be collected. He liked having his soup cold. Never hot. That’s why he liked the Spanish Gazpacho. One day he might even go to Spain, he planned. Lots to see there.

But of course, she wouldn’t know of any of this, would she? She stared at him in the middle of the road, blood gushing out of his body, innards spilling outwards, eyes wide open in an expression of horror and fear. No pulse. No hope. No time. Hit and run. Hit… and Run….

Life Imitates Art...

2009-03-08T22:25:00.000-07:00

Oscar Wilde once said that life imitates art, more than art imitates life.

During a seven-hour flight trip when I resolutely ignored the yawn-inducing movies in an attempt to stay awake, I tried to find examples for each case to come to a conclusion on which phrase is more apt.

Does Life imitate Art, or does Art imitate Life?

My quest turned out to be quite interesting as I was unable to identify which case was stronger. I used instances from both my own life, and from the general world around us.

One would think that it is very easy to describe how art imitates life. Ask any author, film-maker, singer, dancer, painter – they all admit to often creating their art based on life experiences – personal or otherwise. Think of films as diverse as Woh Lamhe, Jodhaa Akbar, Silsila, The English Patient, Pearl Harbour, The Pursuit of Happyness and of course…. Slumdog Millionaire (Fyi – this post is NOT about my views on this film –it deserves its own blogpost – watch this space!). The common thread that links these on celluloid is the fact that they are based on or inspired by true-to-life accounts. There are WAY too many to list here, but you get the gist!

Think of books like Ernest Hemingway’s ‘A Farewell to Arms’, Mitch Albom’s ‘Tuesdays with Morrie’, Louisa May Alcott’s ‘Little Women’, Jean Sasson’s ‘Princess’, Shashi Tharoor’s ‘The Great Indian Novel’. Raja Ravi Verma’s renowned paintings of the sari-clad lady.

The converse – that Life Imitates Art – is a concept that is fairly difficult to imagine for some. Can your art predict what happens in your life? Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Picture of Dorian Gray’ is a case in point. For more tangible examples, think of times when the media has spawned trends in your everyday life. Fashion – what you see actors or models wear onscreen influences what you decide to buy. JK Rowling’s tales of that ridiculous bespectacled adolescent has made names like Hermione, hitherto only recalled as the ancient Greek heroine, into a favourite ‘new’ name for baby girls in the UK.

And who can forget quotes from movies/TV which are now part of everyday vocabulary, like Homer Simpson’s ‘Doh’ or ‘Show me the money’ from Tom Cruise’s Jerry Maguire, or that other classic ‘Frankly my dear, I don’t give a damn’ by Clark Gable in Gone With the Wind.

To add a rather spooky dimension to this discussion – have you ever had dreams while asleep, that turned into reality in the future? Have you ever spoken or written about something, that then actually happened to you a few days later? Have you ever thought of someone, and then they suddenly call you or turn up at your doorstep? Have you ever considered these as mere coincidences, or could your life actually be imitating your art?!

Move Over November!

2008-12-07T21:07:00.000-08:00

If anyone out there in the blogosphere has been wondering what happened to me in November, considering I usually put up two posts in a month – welcome to my professional world.

One of the occupational hazards of working as an engineer is – random project work involving random visits to random faraway sites. I thought that being a consultant engineer meant a primarily a desk job with mild site work. HA. I was mistaken. Apparently it means that if no other technical staff is available to do the ‘grass-roots’ work, I am supposed to step in and get my hands dirty.

I was assigned to this totally doomed, mis-managed, over-budget water project which has to date has cost the company AU$ 1 million in losses. I am one-half of an inspection team which has to inspect SIXTY FIVE water pump stations in the Gold Coast area at break-neck speed in order to salvage what we can so that the client doesn’t spring a lawsuit on us for f**king up their job.

My typical working week is four days on site (Mon-Thur) assessing atleast two pump stations a day, and then three back-breaking days at the office (Fri – Sun) doing all the reporting and analysis work. This effectively ruined any slight chance of a healthy work-life balance for me in November. Blogs perished, emails went unanswered, calls delayed indefinitely, family and friends were neglected, me-time vanished, life went berserk and I suffered miserably in silence with TATT because I was too chicken to complain to the Powers That Be about my work, for fear of being labeled unprofessional, or worse, be given the boot.

(FYI: Recently found out that TATT = Tired All The Time!)

The ridiculous work schedule culminated in me having a heat exhaustion fainting spell while working outdoors last Monday, 1st December 2008. The other half of the inspection team rushed me off to hospital, where I was attached, de-attached and re-attached to a number of dreadful-looking machines monitoring a number of dreadful-sounding conditions. Sigh.

Anyways, the ‘work-related OHS incident’ sparked a mini-controversy of sorts at my workplace, where the Higher Powers That Be sat up and took notice, directed at the stupidity of the Powers That Be who decided that a female who has no prior outdoor work experience (and no desire for any) should be sent out like a construction worker on four consecutive days of the week, to battle the elements in a blue long-sleeved shirt, hard-hat and steel-capped safety boots no less!

The end-result was one that immensely pleased me – I’m back where I belong, back to my usual office, on the 14th floor overlooking the river, in my spiffy skirts and high heels, checking Lotus Notes every 15mins, lunching out at the latest yuppie joints, pen-pushing, number-crunching, smooth-talking, meeting-attending, report-producing, card-swiping, coffee-grabbing and generally doing what a consultant does best ;) Mmmm! Me like it!

I CAN DRIVE!!!!

2008-10-22T21:49:00.000-07:00

To all those idiots who laughed at me because I was 24, and could not drive.

To all the pitying people who thought I was in a state of dire poverty because I travelled by public transport everywhere.

To all the self-righteous, petrol-guzzling, carbon-emitting general junta who told me I lived in the Dark Ages as I didn’t understand the importance of a car to take me places.

To all my friends who used to commend my sense of direction and ask me to be their navigator on countless trips due to my map-reading skills.

To the Man who helped me buy my first car, but lost his patience in instructing me.

To the Wobbit who, being female, understood my firm resolve to become completely independent and decided to instruct me in a conducive manner.

To the first time I got into the Wobbit’s car, asked her how to start it, and was met with a withering, bleak, “I can’t believe I signed up for this” gaze.

To the Indian manual license obtained on one of my frequent trips to Chennai, which now suffices as my stand-by dodgy Australian automatic license until I get around to doing a test.

To the two weeks in August when the Wobbit would take me driving every evening after work, and weekend daytimes.

To the M-I-S Rule. Mirror, Indicator, Shoulder-Check mantra that I still keep repeating mentally to myself everytime I have to change lanes.

To the time when I cracked up the Wobbit as I shoulder-checked my right side to make a left lane-change.

To the time the Wobbit had a near-heart attack when I spent too long over my left shoulder-check and the road bent and I was in the fast lane and the car veered to the road divider on the right and she saw her life flashing past her while I took control and braked as if a giraffe were crossing the road ahead of me.

To the night I was stranded in a desolate car-park in an 'unfriendly neighbourhood' because I managed to get both left tyres of my car flat at one go, by running over an ill-positioned platform.

To the morning after, when I had to explain my story to the puzzled, and highly amused, mechanic.

To the first time I went on the freeways and performed like I would play a strategy game – entries, exits, forward checks, reverse checks, monitoring other players, speed control, lane control…

To the subsequent times I went on the freeways at 120 km/hr.

To my parents, who came here for a short visit and were pleasantly surprised that I could drive them everywhere.

To my parents, who had to put up with me shouting “SHOO” to shut them up every time they ventured to say a word in my car while I was driving because I couldn’t bear to be disturbed while concentrating on the roads unless I was committing a life-threatening error.

To the days when people would sit in my car anticipating disasters of all sorts, joking about how I could not maintain a steady speed and vacillate plus or minus 5km/hr, as well as oscillate like a pendulum between the two demarcations of my lane.

To last week when I was stuck sitting like a dying duck between two lanes with cars travelling on either side of me while I was trying to manoeuvre a last-minute exit.

To the dear old man who showed me old-fashioned ‘gentleman’ courtesy and gave way to me even when it was his right of way.

To the exhilarating feeling I now get when I’m behind the wheel, alone, driving, one with the universe, yet detached.

To the respect which the Man, and everyone else, now have for me, for being a female, first-time driver yet taking a mere month to proficiently drive (and park) a huge car - 1990 Maza 626 limited edition sedan, 2.3 litre turbo engine.

I have just one thing to say to the lot of you – I am 25, and I CAN DRIVE. And pretty well, at that.

Modernism and the Denigration of Values

2008-10-01T23:48:00.000-07:00

People often ask me and my parents – how come you are so modern yet you don’t drink, smoke or eat meat….

And we reply with a smile – being modern does not mean that one has to drink, smoke or eat meat to prove that you are modern.

It lies in your thinking. It lies in your attitude.

So what does being ‘modern’ really entail?

To me, alcohol, cigarettes and non-vegetarian food signify individual lifestyle choices. I decide how I want to live my life, and I choose to live as a vegetarian, choose not to smoke and choose to have only an occasional light social drink. These are decisions which I have made, for reasons that I do not necessarily have to explain to the whole wide world. They are personal decisions, and they do not cause harm to people I interact with on a frequent basis.

I do not impose these decisions upon others. I do not expect others to be vegetarian when I eat with them. I do not subject anyone else to passive smoking the way insensitive smokers do. And I do not feel the need to get high on alcohol, to be high on life.

What I concentrate on instead, is living by a set of values and ideals which are far more advanced than those followed by some people who drink frequently, smoke like chimneys, eat all kinds of animals, wear garish clothes and generally execute superficial deeds to call themselves ‘modern’, under the mistaken impression that these are ‘modern’ things to do and that one cannot survive without them. Even the related health issues, if nothing else, seem to have no impact.

A few examples of the kind of thinking I admire and respect my parents and certain elderly family members for:

1. Although we belong to the fairly conservative Iyer community, my parents have never regretted not having a male child. My sister and I have been given the same opportunities that a son would have been given. The best education, overseas travel, cultural learning that they could afford. I owe my professional success, and the multi-talents that people marvel at me for – entirely to my parents.
I have known of Indian women who have to keep getting pregnant like they’re some kind of baby-producing machine – girl after girl after girl until they spot a penis in the newborn, heave a big sigh of relief and jump for joy.

2. My father has smoked cigarettes in the past, but gave them up the minute he found out my mother was pregnant with their first child – Me. Though never a heavy drinker, he gave up beer and the little alcohol he used to drink, on my 5th birthday, as he did not ever want his children to ask if they could taste what he was having, and refuse them. The habit became a lifestyle change which permeated through me as well. To date, I seldom drink more than one standard drink at a party or dinner. And even when I do drink, it not because I particularly like the taste of alcohol, but because it is deemed by the people in our society as ‘uncool’ or ‘old-fashioned’ or ‘not letting your hair down’ if you don’t drink. The same people fail to recognise that I am most often the life and soul of the party, without having a drop of alcohol in my blood!

3. The kind of behaviour that sets them apart, is quite possibly their ability to empathise and relate to every individual in a unique, understanding manner. My parents can speak to a 3 year old, to a temple priest, to my own friends - people of all age-groups and backgrounds, in a manner befitting them and endearing to them.

One does not realise the value of something, until the time when one actually sees it disintegrating in front of their eyes, or disappear altogether.

This can be true for any asset, for lack of a better word (too much asset management in my thinking now!). Think about the loss of a loved one – how you wish you had spent more time with them, not argued with them. Or ask the value of the gold medal to the runner who came second. The value of money to a person who once had wordly wealth, and then lost it all, or lost a considerable chunk of it. The meaning of freedom to the people of an occupied state. Peace, to a woman who has been verbally or mentally abused. Even the gradual collapse of a ritual or life-style choice that your community or caste may have practised in years gone by.

It is when you perceive that your asset might be lost – this is when you decide to pull up your socks and do something about it. Revive it. Relive it. Rejoice in it.

Often this stage might be reached too late, and one is left with a wistful feeling of “If only I had thought about this sooner…”

I had a potent epiphany recently, which helped me make up my own mind about assets I had let go of over the years without understanding the value of them. I will be starting my Bharatnatyam dance training again. I have also revived my reading literature habit, which took a backseat in the last six months. I decide what I want to put up on my blog, as this is my voice to the world and I don’t really care if what I have to say offends the sensibilities of others. I am currently observing a no-onion-no-garlic-no-egg vegetarian fast for the Navrathri festival, and I intend celebrating all festivals celebrated by my family this year onwards in the appropriate manner, even though I live in a foreign land. The value of our unique culture should be preserved for generations to come, and it becomes paramount especially when your culture and lifestyle is encroached upon or compromised in any way.

When I leave this world, I want to have something of me left behind as my legacy. I pride myself in coming from a cultured family. And I would feel very ashamed if I had preserved nothing of my forefathers, in my time here. While everything of times past need not be good or need not be preserved, there are certain ideals which one can definitely integrate into a modern lifestyle and create something wonderful, something your own, something to be proud of….

Is Porn = Infidelity?!

2008-09-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

When two people are in a relationship, is it normal for either party, during their time away from each other, to download and relish porn like its running out of fashion? Is it just a ‘guy’ thing to do, or is it an indication of ‘trouble in the bedroom’? And if it is normal, how much porn-viewing can be considered ‘normal’?

This ostensibly hilarious situation happened to someone known to me. The woman came back early from work one day and decided to check her email on the common computer used by her and her partner. She couldn’t remember the name of a website that she urgently needed information from, so she decided to look into the Internet History files on their system.

Lo and behold! She realized that her man had checked out porn sites, and downloaded hardcore porn, pretty much everyday or atleast a few times a week. She checked out the sites, and found all different types – celebrities, orgies, lesbians, anal, poledance, asians, blondes, the works. At first, she was shocked beyond belief. A quick check of the dates and times of the downloads revealed to her that her boyfriend had been quite busy and occupied with his porn during times when he had told her he was chucking a sickie at work, or late at night when they were both asleep, or in the afternoons if he returned from work before she did. She also realized that on a few of those days, they had actually had the most torrid sex she could remember. On others, she had been out doing groceries, or taking care of parents, or buying stuff for him.

Surely one cannot hold the internet responsible for making such sites freely accessible to everyone. The power of choice lies with the individual. Of course Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus, but where does sex enter the equation? Is sex merely physical for the male, and only slightly emotional for the female?

This set her thinking. Was it Him, or was it Her? Was it His problem that he was just a normal guy who likes to fantasise about unattainable women who have perfect bodies, boobs, butts et al, who perform all manners of gravity-defying lounge acrobatics, who wear skimpy and expensive lingerie, all the while yelping and bleating how much they’re enjoying all the attention lavished upon them without any fear or shame that they might be wrecking somebody’s home. Did the porn stimulate him more than she did? Did watching porn make him orgasm better than she could?

Or, was it Her problem that maybe, just maybe she was not, and never will be, as sexually attractive and have such an amazing body as those women. Maybe she was incapable of satisfying his sexual appetite despite her efforts to do newer and kinkier things. Maybe he never noticed the classy, revealing lingerie she wore because he was more interested in seeing them adorning other women. Maybe this was his way of being infidel because she was quite sure that he loved her and would never leave her for any of those women, although she knew he had a history of infidelity in previous relationships. Maybe there was something really really wrong in the bedroom….

OH, AHH, OHH - give me more baby, OH you’re SO GOOD!

The Prodigal Son

2008-09-14T19:49:00.000-07:00

They had a son and a daughter.

They thought that He would carry forward their family name and take care of them when they became old.

Whereas She was someone else’s property, her sole purpose in life was to be married off into another household so that their responsibility could be relinquished.

They lavished attention on him, gave him the best that they could afford, sent him to an expensive private school and paid a hefty donation so that he could join a top engineering college.

They allowed her to study an arts degree at the local government women’s college. As soon as she completed her education, they organized a suitable groom and got her married off at 21.

They then saved up every paisa they could, to send him abroad to study further. They thought that they were helping him build a solid future for their family. They sponsored his university fees and living expenses. They paid for his air ticket once a year so that they could at least spend one month in his august presence every year.

He graduated with an honours degree. He got a fantastic job with a six-figure salary. He jetted around the globe making big decisions for his company. He called them every Sunday at 5pm Indian Standard Time. He met an Indian girl from a different caste, and was adamant about marrying her. He took leave for two weeks to perform the sacred rites of marriage, a rushed temple tour, and then whisked off his bride to his adoptive country of which he was now a citizen.

He bought a six-bedroom house with a well-manicured garden. He paid for their air tickets when his wife delivered their first grandchild. He made them babysit in a strange foreign land whilst his wife went back to work. He then paid for their tickets back to India because he could afford to pay for childcare and they were no longer needed to nurture the grandchild.

He continued calling them every Sunday at 5pm Indian Standard Time, to politely enquire about their health and complain that he missed his mother’s food.

Whereas She came home every Sunday, helped to cook lunch, massaged their rheumatic legs and bought them medicines from the chemist.

Birthday Bums and Writers Blues!

2008-08-16T17:45:00.000-07:00

To all my overseas readers, and to all those who aren't already aware of this well-advertised fact - ITS MY BIRTHDAY THIS WEEK!!!! :)

Yep, I turn 25 this 21st August!!
I've reached that second milestone (Silver Jubilee), and I'm still young enough to not want to hide my age!

Funnily enough, the season of festivities (my friends and I have been partying all month, coz there have been other birthdays and occasions to celebrate in August) coincides with the development of the worst writer's block I have experienced since the inauguration of my blog in July last year...

Hmm... I don't even feel motivated enough to put in borrowed stuff. I thought of writing about this big rant about Indian attitudes (it was Independence Day two days ago), or about Garfield antics, or about some new types of tea that I have tasted. Alas, the minute it comes down to putting thoughts to keyboard and monitor, it all vanishes either due to some urgent thing that needs to be done in the non-virtual world asap, or due to this awful inability to actually TYPE which freaked me out :(

Hell, I gotta come up with something quick because I am now a published magazine writer and have to write 'stuff'' by the 16th of every month to get it in the following month's edition of 'Indus Age', an Australian magazine for, of and by Indians! Published from Melbourne, common pick-up points include all the Indian grocery stores and some universities.

Stay tuned for the next blog post! Its just waiiiiting to be written!

Memories….

2008-07-28T19:12:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about all the things I used to do in years gone by, and I found that I have walked this earth 9,101 days, yet I cannot remember everything I have done everyday in those 9,101 days. I can only remember with clarity – some treasured moments of extreme happiness, sadness, anger, frustration, prayer, love, hope…..

As someone once said:
Life is not measured by the number of breaths you take
But by the moments that have taken your breath away….

I have plenty of memories of moments that have taken my breath away, as I would like to believe that I have lead an amazing life thus far, and will continue doing so!

However, the more mundane, ordinary things which I would like to remember, have been buried deep inside somewhere in my dormant memory where I am unable to retrieve them from. These are things which only a particular instance may jog alive because it acts as a reminder. And waves of nostalgia engulf me…

Like the other day, I saw a young girl holding up a pink flower to her tall father. That’s when I remembered my father had once swum near the beach and brought me back two shells from the ocean – a big pink-and-white one, and a little pink one which looked like it might have been the baby of the big one! I still have these shells back in Muscat…

Or even a smell. The Man put on some cologne last week that I had never smelled on him before. It reminded me of this guy I met on a tum-tum in Pune six years ago. I was travelling from the Cantonment area to the city, and I was absorbing all the roadside scenes, flashes of bullock carts in semi-urban areas, children playing gilli danda, an old man ‘choosing a ganna’, the unique smells of India! In that tum-tum (or fat-fati for Delhiites), I had an amazing conversation with a young man who helped to teach me an important life lesson in around 20 minutes. And I am pretty sure he also wore the same perfume…

Here are a few things I desperately wish I could remember details of:

* Every fantastic meal that my mum has ever made for my family
* Every lab exam I have given in high school Physics and Chemistry
* How to solve complex trigonometry and algebra problems
* Completing organic chemistry equations
* All the pranks my classmates and I have played on our teachers
* Silly issues I have argued about with my sister
* New clothes bought by my parents for every birthday until I turned 18
* Giggly girl talk at pyjama parties with my girlfriends
* My roll number throughout school and college
* The class attendance list – I used to maintain the class register for the Class Teacher every morning as I have really neat handwriting and I used to mark P for Present and A for Absent! I used to know all 45 names by heart, in alphabetic order!
* The taste of Crocky chips – my sister and I were crazy about these! They came in two flavours – Red for plain salted and Blue for paprika. They don’t make em anymore :(
* Location of items on my table and cupboard in K14 (my hostel room up on Floor 3 of Cummins Hostel). This is weird, but I had bought a cream and pink tablecloth to keep off the dust, and I used to hand-make all my posters every semester and put these up on the walls. Can't remember any of it now
* All the non-standard colours I’ve ever mixed on my palette
* Inane jokes and one-liners made by my two dear Pakistani friends Kashif and Abbas!
* Mid-afternoon TV shows we used to watch everyday from 2.30pm after my sister and I were back from school. Our routine was to finish lunch and wait for Mummy to go off to her afternoon siesta. We would then watch shows like Dracula, Jem, Butterfly Island, Burke’s Law, The Castle of Adventure, Degrassi Junior High, The Wonder Years, Doogie Howser MD, Different Strokes… they don’t even re-run these shows anymore!

So many years gone by… and all we’re left with are memories of a life well-spent…

There is a reason why one shouldn’t live in the past. It is because everyday, every minute, we are creating a new world for ourselves, a new history and a new memory.

And I would rather create wonderful experiences everyday, than sulk about ones that I can’t remember from many years ago. Yes, I cherish those old ones, because they made me what I am today. I am nothing without my past. But I decide what I want to do with my today and tomorrow. And what I want to do is – to continue Living Life to the Fullest!

Life is Beautiful, boys and girls! Live It!!

Lets Just Be Friends

2008-07-01T22:56:00.001-07:00

In the complex dating and mating world, you might have often heard of people being told ‘Its not you, its me’, or ‘I need more time’, ‘We have outgrown each other’, ‘We are two very different people’, ‘We are waaay too similar’ or, ‘There is someone else…’, ‘Life’s too short and I have other things to explore’, ‘I love you but you’re not The One’, ‘The sex is great but I don’t love you’, and that all-time classic - ‘I love you but I’m not ‘in love’ with you’!

I know of several people who have been royally LJBF’ed…

In the case of a serious relationship breaking down, how is one meant to move on constructively? Is it best to leave the past where it belongs? Or is it a better option to acknowledge that the ex has made a deep impact on you, and you would like to have them in your life in some form or the other.

In my experience, the ‘Lets Just Be Friends’ Syndrome works on four levels:

1) When one party is guilty of not having a real reason to break up, and wants the break-up to be as smooth as possible

2) When there is nowhere else for the relationship to grow. An example of this is when you bump into an ex after many years and would like to be just casual friends with them because there is no longer any reason for revenge or acrimony.

3) When both parties split for whatever reason, but still want to maintain a presence in each others’ lives in the vague hope that somewhere, someday, their differences may be reconciled and their ‘friendship’ could then be used as a base for rekindling their old relationship. The simple way to look at this is – I have not moved on, and neither have you.

4) An extension of Level 3 – when both parties linger on as ‘friends in inverted quotes’, realise one fine day that they are not heading anywhere due to changed circumstances, and remain friends because it seems natural as they are by now a big part of each others lives.

Level 1 – the guilty party is just a coward who wants out. It’s a ‘for-the-moment’ situation which will soon disintegrate when the injured party realises that they’ve been dumped… hard… and no one is really interested in being happy friends here.

Level 2 – both parties have moved on successfully and do not consider each other as a must-have friend, but just as someone who you might say hello to every now and then.

Levels 3 and 4 – Ah! Now here, there is a lot at stake, and a lot of disasters waiting to happen.

Because in both situations, we are dealing with the Past intruding in on the Present and maybe the Future. I proceed to explain how.

A large part of your identity is shaped by the experiences you have over the years, and the people you meet in life. Every person who has made an impact on you, changes you and your outlook slightly, and they reside somewhere inside you long after they are gone from your life. People come, and people go. You only remember those who left some of their bits and pieces behind ‘in you’.

(Refer old blog post if interested – The Dream Chaser - http://nimbu-paani.blogspot.com/2007/08/dream-chaser_27.html )’

I choose to analyse Level 4 here as it is a case which incorporates both Levels 3 and 4.

‘Friend in inverted quotes’ – Friend - being a neutral word and a neutral relationship – seems to be the most convenient option for a lot of ex-couples out there whose animosity with each other has long departed. By acknowledging your ex as a ‘friend’, you are demonstrating to them that you value their presence in your life as someone who meant a lot to you before, who knows you inside-out, who has your best interests at heart, and who understands you in a way that not many others can.

It is a strange friendship indeed. Because you may or may not have any finer feelings left for them, but yet are unable to leave them behind, back where they belong.

The reason why this is not a healthy friendship, is because of the impact it has on your Present. Your life has changed, it may now include a new partner, a new job, new friends, new city…

The Current partner will most likely be aware of the Ex, if the Ex happened to be a significant one. Because in the story of your life which you would have told the Current, you would no doubt have disclosed the secret of ‘What Made You The Person You Are Today’. And the significant Ex would probably have had a big part in shaping that Person.

Now add in the complication of being friends with that ex. It is with utmost guarantee that I can say, without hesitation – the Current is certainly not going to be pleased with the Ex State of Affairs!

Not because the Current has any need to doubt the partner’s present and future intentions. But because the Ex was significant in the partner’s Past. And the fact that the partner is interested in spending time with that past, in revisiting fun times had in the past, in creating new memories for the future, and values that past to an extent where they don't mind it interfering in the present.

This friendship is something that the Current cannot really participate in, because the foundation of that nebulous friendship was set in stone a long time back, on another, more intimate level.

This friendship evolved over years of trying to move on unsuccessfully from the relationship.

This friendship brings along with it a comfort level that should rightly belong only to the Current.

This friendship is one that the Current can never totally accept as harmless, because their partner has a ‘friend’ who meant a lot to them before, who knows them inside-out, who (apparently) has their best interests at heart, and who understands them in a way that not many others can. That role, to any deserving Current, should be theirs and theirs alone.

So this is why, my friends, think before you LJBF anyone!!!

A Mere Technicality

2008-06-24T03:21:00.000-07:00

My mother used to tell me when I was a little girl: Beti, if you ever come to ‘Do Rahen’ or a crossroads in life when you have to make a decision, alone, and you are struggling to choose the right option - pick the one which is does greater good to more people.

I never really understood what she meant. She would repeat this all through my school and college years, through family troubles and through work issues. And I would try to do listen carefully and implement her advice, but I could not help thinking that somehow, somewhere, her thinking was skewed and old-fashioned.

Because I always wanted to choose the path which would be of greater good to Me.

Hi. My name is Pooja, and I have to make a decision. Maybe…

I will be getting married in a month, to a man who loves me dearly.

There is another man, the one I lost my virginity to, a long time ago. I have not seen him for many years. He called me yesterday, and he asked about our ring. Pretty little trinket, really.

My fiancé once mentioned that I never took it off, and asked me about the sparkling stone. I said it was a diamond, a real diamond, the kind that is a girl’s best friend, forever. I said it was in my grandmother’s nose-ring which they extracted and gave me when she died. What I did not say was that He had given me the gold ring as a sign of his eternal fidelity, and We had replaced the original inexpensive cubic zirconia stone with my grandmother’s diamond…

Ring….Stone…Whatever….What does that ring really mean to me, after all? I don’t really have to tell him the truth of the ring, do I? I told him about the stone – that should be enough. Isn’t it a mere technicality? Just like my non-virginity. All this issue about a tissue. Why should one get so philosophical about it? I could just conceal a vial of crimson paint in the inner recesses of my handbag, which I will then release at an opportune moment during the night so that he thinks that he is my First.

Oh…By the way…Didn’t I tell you before? Of course I love him.

Where Did May Go?!!!

2008-06-01T05:07:00.000-07:00

Have you ever felt days go by so quickly that before you realise it, another month has gone by and you’re still wondering about the old creaky floorboard you meant to fix, that long-overdue aromatics facial, and the email you wanted to send to your best friend from school. Hmm… even a pleasurable, creative activity like writing an article on your blog seems like a task that needs to be time-energy-resource allocated, scheduled between frantically cooking work lunches at Sunday dinnertime, handwashing delicate laundry and practicing dance routines for an upcoming Indian event. Sigh…

I did find time to do a few interesting things in May, although the first two are from back in March when I was in Sydney.

A Midsummer Night’s Dream – Desi style Musical
Tim Supple’s raunchy, spectacular production for the Royal Shakespeare Company toured the world with this play featuring more than 20 Indian and Sri Lankan actors switching between speaking in Indian English, Tamil, Malayalam, Sinhalese, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi and Sanskrit. The mostly-Australian audience may have found the languages hard to understand, but the sheer magnitude of the set, the thrills such as the Great Indian Rope Antics and the zany performances by the passionate actors, the dancers, street acrobats and martial arts experts was well-understood and communicated. Words... are mere props. The story remained unchanged – Hermia, Helena, Lysander and Demetrius in a tangled web of intrigue, the magic potion, Titania, Oberon and their fairy kingdom in the woods, and a dash of mischief by Puck!

Fearless Nadia – Theatre
The tale of Perth-born Mary Evans who made it big in 1930’s Bollywood as a fearless stuntwoman in movies like Hunterwali and Frontier Express. I saw this play staged by an underfinanced production house (Theatre Katanka) in the Armoury Theatre in one of the reconverted army barracks in Sydney – great atmosphere, with exposed ceiling beams and props like the front half of a vintage Rolls Royce. It was an audience-interactive play, and I got to yell out ‘Bachao Bachao’ at a critical moment!! It was like being in a film within a film as the show was staged on a film set with live video feeding onto a big black-and-white screen above the actors. It was interesting to see the reverse culture-fit with a Western woman trying to amalgamise into Indian culture. Nadia married Homi Wadia, love of her life and producer of many of her films, only after his mother died in the 1960s as she would not tolerate a non-Parsee bride for her son. Nadia and Homi would have been in their late fifties by then!

This link gives an idea of how unique the play was in terms of its technical set-up:
http://www.australianstage.com.au/reviews/sydney/fearless-n--theatre-kantanka-1243.html

New York Nagaram
I’ve listened to this Tamil song no less than one hundred and thirty-seven times…. Not kidding.

Temp Removalist
I helped a friend move houses, and guess what I got in return for helping to de-clutter her life – a big heap of unexpired Body Shop products which she no longer has any use for as she bought herself a big heap of L’Occitaine products. Ahh - Glory Be to the Cosmetic House Pecking Order!

Endless Conversations
With myself. In my head. At 6am every morning when I get up to my blaring alarm. About the benefits of hitting the snooze button and sleeping in for a few more minutes. Note to Self – this is a very, VERY hazardous occupation sugarcoated as a leisure activity.

The Man and the Roo
The Man and I went on a night-time drive to Mt Glorious, saw the state’s maximum security prison on the way back, and a glass-eyed kangaroo peering into nothingness on the side of the road outside the prison. Quite a charming fella.

Six Degrees of Separation
I may have my reservations about the Secret, but Six Degrees – I definitely, DEFINITELY believe in. The theory goes that we humans are inextricably micro- linked in this shrinking world. Take two completely random people, and chances are that they have six common ‘links’ or ‘people steps’ between them. Like I might know Mr Anderson in Timbuctoo because his brother went to grad school in the UK with my cousin’s high school friend’s brother-in-law’s lawyer’s sister. That’s if someone actually bothered to sit down and work out all the links. On a more serious note, one of my life’s big coincidences last month involved Six Spooky Degrees of Separation comprising ex-es, trans-Atlantic flights and a pair of shoes. Try it out sometime folks!

Happy June!

Random Observations

2008-04-20T18:42:00.000-07:00

I noticed that I had made a linguistic error in my last post. My parting shot should have read ‘Bharatiya Naari ki Jai’, not ‘Bharatiya Naari Zindabad’.

What is the difference, you may ask. It is merely a nuance of language, yet it cannot and should not go unnoticed. The former address is considered proper Hindi. The latter is a mixture of Hindi and Urdu (Zindabad being an Urdu word). I want to devote a whole new blog post into the intricacies of Hindi Urdu Sanjhe Bol – two sister languages sharing a vast pool of vocabulary and grammar, but are distinct entities.

I also noticed that for once, I kept a cool head while getting rid of mice.

Yes folks, I’m back at 290 Orange Grove Road, Salisbury – now occupying Aadi’s old room. One of the well-meaning flatmates generously donated a blanket to me. He came into my room and dumped it in my hands. I shrieked my lungs out for a full five minutes because the dumping movement had caused a realignment of the fluffy molecules which provoked a previously dormant mouse cocooned in the folds to spring out onto my arm and scurry away to some other deep, dark, happy cocoon. IN MY ROOM.

So we planned an evacuation operation. Moulin of course was conspicuous by his absence - true to form, he always does the disappearing act on me during times of distress.

First, we removed the suitcases which I had just piled into the room. Then we shifted the furniture (read bed, everything else is built-in). Then I swept it from end to end with a broom. Alas, no little brown creature crept out.

Then the well-meaning flatmate said, ‘Look, Asha, it probably got shell-shocked by your scream and died of a heart attack (IN MY ROOM), or maybe it just ran out because it sure ain’t here, in this here room.’

So I decided to listen to his well-meaning advice and brave it. I tidied up the room and went about my business, listened to music and chatted online with friends. Everything was stark and still at night. Until I heard what could only be described as the frantic scraping of a prisoner in exile in a closet in the built-in cupboard. IN MY ROOM.

I emptied out the room (again!), brought the flatmate back and told him to investigate the closet. We removed one drawer at a time, shaking it gingerly to make sure Jerry didn’t bounce back on either of us. He was in the last drawer, and I was waiting with a deranged look on my face, ready for him, ready with a fat broom in my hand, ready to conk it on his head. The well-meaning flatmate used the more benign approach of waiting with a large plastic bag. Note – the (un)domesticated males of the house had not bothered to keep a supply of rat poison and mouse traps.

Jerry didn’t seem to want to face the big wide world again. So guess what, we decided to show it to HIM. When Mahomet does not go to the Mountain, then the Mountain must go to Mahomet. We lifted the whole closet, with our bare hands, and dumped it in the backyard. Rest assured that the closet will not occupy its former place of pride IN MY ROOM.

Fight or Flight ?

2008-04-10T06:12:00.000-07:00

I was posed an interesting question recently by a friend.

In the absence of any other alternatives, would you Fight or Flight when shit happens? What is the braver thing to do?

Is it better to stand out there, take all the shit heaped at you soundly and squarely, and go into combat mode to defend yourself?

Or is it better to retreat gracefully and run away from the monsters?

Sita did both. She went through the Agni Pareeksha in Lanka, and came out unscathed. But even that apparently was not enough for ‘people’ to believe her chastity and devotion to Rama. When she was heavily pregnant with Rama’s twin sons in Ayodhya, she was forced to retreat into the forest, abandoned in disgrace, left to fend for herself.

Because a fisherman complained to Rama that his Ramrajya was preached more than practised.

The man touted to be Maryada Purushottam, the ideal king, the ideal son, the ideal brother, the ideal friend, the ideal warrior, and alas, even the ideal husband - chose to keep his name and fame untarnished in front of his subjects, rather than have faith in his wife.

Times may have changed, but human behaviour hasn’t. Not in India anyway.

Sita bore the stigma of being in the company of a man other than her husband for the rest of her life…

Fight gives you the power to explain to people your side of the story, the injustice that you have faced and the slight chance that they might believe you. Except you have to face their taunts, their various altered version of events, their hatred.

Flight may momentarily keep the monsters at bay while you escape their clutches, make your way to a safe haven and suffer in silence. But the monsters never really leave you. Their shadow plagues you night and day. The world is too small a place to allow you to successfully run away and hide in ignominy. You have to return to your home one day.

Sita did come back to Ayodhya when her sons were twelve years old. She preferred to reject Rama and die, rather than to live with him and face people’s scrutiny again. With eyes cast down and hands folded, Sita swore "If I never thought of anyone except Rama in my mind, let Mother Earth open and bury me”. As she uttered the oath, the earth cracked opened and she was carried away inside seated on a golden throne, while people gaped and watched speechlessly.

People talk. The same way that dogs bark. It seems to be their sole occupation, their main means of entertainment, their only mechanism to compensate for their own inadequacies. Let them talk, let them bark.

Your Conscience is the only thing that you should answer to, my friend.

Bharatiya Naari Zindabad!

Tahir

2008-03-29T02:04:00.000-07:00

Tahir and I were playing together in Coach C3, second class AC Chair Car of the Shatabdi Express. I love little kids, and it seemed like a great way to pass the time for four hours. He sat on my lap and told me all about his recent holiday to Coorg - the big coffee plantations, the scary elephant ride and the pretty women. He also told me about his school - he has become a big boy because he has finished kindergarten and will join Std 1 soon. He complained about how his big sister keeps bullying him - her latest threat was to make him relinquish his claim on his samosa, otherwise she would pinch him on his right arm.

Tahir and I played a word-building game, and "I-Spy", and patty-cake with our hands. I felt like stretching my legs for a bit. His parents told me to take him along too. We went to the end of the compartment. He wanted to cross over the "funny middle space" and enter the next compartment. I held his hand tightly, and we reached the other side. The outside door was open.

I love standing near the open door of a speeding train, the wind against my face, watching all the sights pass by faster than fairies, faster than witches, bridges, houses, hedges, and ditches...I stopped thinking for a moment and just soaked in the atmosphere. My hand was still tightly clutching Tahir's.

All of a sudden, my mother came to us, glared at me, dragged Tahir back to the seat and delivered him safely to his parents. She then sat next to me and recited a string of exasperated "What If" statements. What if Tahir had run away from me, What if Tahir fell down in the "funny middle space", What if Tahir jumped out of the door, What if the train stopped and Tahir had lost his balance, What if my carelessness and irresponsibility sparked a communal riot....

I stayed quiet, and listened. I thought about my life in the past year, and tried to assess all my "What Ifs". What if I could have done something else? What if things had worked out differently? What if Fate had decided to be kind to me? What if I were now living the life I had wanted?

The train sped. I closed my eyes. And desperately tried to seek the light at the end of the tunnel...

Relationship 1 – Undefined

2008-03-15T15:11:00.000-07:00

She sat facing the wall, crouched, her back to the world and the chaotic sequence of events which had occurred in recent times. He was standing ten feet away, Marlboro Lights between his lips, at exactly 10.03am – a ritual he followed religiously every morning during his break. He could see her through the corner of his eye, and realised that this was the girl he had sometimes seen taking the same set of office lifts as him. She was not particularly stunning in appearance – the only reason he remembered her was because two days back, her large eyes had looked haunted with something he was unable to identify. It was a curious mixture of fear, regret and resignation, and the multi-layered mirrors in the lifts had reflected the expression a million-fold.

He went across to her, and genially offered one of his cancerous sticks. She looked up, and saw a kindly, honest face.

She said, ‘I don’t smoke…’
He said, ‘I know…’
She said, ‘I’m just…’
He said, ‘I can understand…’
She said, ‘This is so…’
He said, ‘Can I…’
She said, ‘Thank you…’
He said, ‘You’ll be fine…’
She said, ‘Why me…’
He said, ‘You’re special…’
She said, ‘Just to you…’
He said, ‘That’s not true…’
She said, ‘They just…’
He said, ‘They don’t know…’
She said, ‘My bad decisions…’
He said, ‘Can be fixed…’
She said, ‘How…’
He said, ‘Come with me…’
She said, ‘Ok…’

Some relationships were never meant to be defined….

My latest painting - Angular Anguish

2008-02-13T17:38:00.000-08:00

Forbidden Love

2008-02-06T04:03:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time

There was a boy and there was a girl

Hearts that intertwine

They lived in a different kind of world

Just one kiss on my lips

Was all it took to seal the future

Just one look from your eyes

Was like a certain kind of torture

Just one touch from your hands

Was all that took to make me falter

Forbidden love - Are we supposed to be together?

Forbidden love - We sealed our destiny forever

As their eyes met for the last time, she trembled, her large eyes were blurred by the sudden glimmer of tears which she could not withhold, even though she had promised him that this time there would be none…

Was it right? Did it make sense? Should she sacrifice her happiness yet again?

Their complicated, tumultuous past flashed before her.

A man whose slightest touch could make her go weak in the knees, whose mere gaze could sear right through the depths of her soul and decipher her thoughts…

A man emotionally unavailable to her. A man whose company she could only enjoy in brief trysts of overwhelming ecstasy, followed by long, agonizing absences when she could only dream about him, his evocative conversation and the ardour of his large body thrusting against hers, losing himself inside her soft compliance.

The sad truth was that as much as she tried to hate him, she was incapable of it. She took pleasure in the pain of separation. She wanted to hurt him, to be hurt by him, because it made their next clandestine rendez-vous even more passionate.

She was his only addiction – every time they parted, they told each other it would be their last time together.

But he somehow always found his way back to her, the months melted away as his troubled path always lead him to her doorstep where she would be waiting with her arms wide open, bathe his wounds, laugh with him, and make him feel like the man he wanted to be.

And then, he would walk out of the door and return to the woman known to the world as his wife. The wife who could bear him no progeny, the wife whose cold demeanour drove him to frustration, the wife his parents had chosen and who the conservative society he belonged to deemed as the woman he would spend the rest of his life with….

Get The Tech Outta Here!!!

2008-01-26T15:36:00.000-08:00

I want everything to work like magic! It really pisses me off when stuff that I spend astronomical amounts of money on to make life easier for me, gets fucked and no one seems to know how to fix it because they’re a million miles away in India.

A few months ago I was on the phone to an HP Support person in a call-centre in (where else?!) Bangalore, and having a long-distance meltdown while trying to fix things myself.

One of my friends had given me a new software CD to install on my HP laptop, and I dimly recall him saying “blah blah blah, back-up, something, click next, blah blah”, but it kinda wafted over my head and out the window, and I sat down with the shiny disc with my best “Woman on a Mission” persona, determined to make it work.

I did everything according to the book, then restarted my laptop and tried to open a Word document on my desktop. Except, it wouldn’t!!! I tried opening a range of different files with all sorts of extensions, and none of them would open! I took a deep breath, and tried again. And again. Then I panicked. If there were such a thing as a computer ambulance, I would have called it asap – I was so freaked out at the thought that I might lose every precious thing inside my laptop. My music. My photos. My writing. My emails. My bills. My calendar. My God.

Asha, call HP Support, ignore rising nausea and Keep Breathing!

Disturbingly, the first thing Dave (aka Devendra Kumar Reddy) asked was, “Did you back up your data?” Umm, I do have an external hard drive, but haven’t backed up in over nine months!

This was followed by a sickening silence where I could hear him thinking “Terrific. Another idiot out to ruin my 3am shift”.

“Look, Dave, I am unable to come up with the words to explain to you what the problem is. This thing won’t open up this other thing when I click on it and all I did was to put this CD thing in and this message about an error keeps coming up on the screen and I don’t know what that means and why doesn’t it work anymore Dave? Why??”

Dave, to his credit, was very patient. Every few minutes, he would say “Asha could you please hold on for a minute?”, and I’d listen to some insane music for a good 10 minutes while he would probably bang his head on the table and shout to the heavens “I’m not paid enough to deal with morons like this!!” before coming back on the line to say, “Ok Asha, lets go through this slowly, one step at a time…”.

I mean, it is unfathomable. I’ve got a reasonable level of intelligence. So I may not have an i-POD, or the latest fancy mobile phone. But that’s because I read on the train, or do crosswords, or pull faces at random kids. I use a simple Nokia phone which has four operative buttons that does everything I want. I don’t WANT a phone to check emails or take pictures or download stuff off the net. I have a laptop and a user-friendly digital camera instead!

I utilise technology that I truly believe I need. I blog. I facebook and orkut. I wiki. I google. I e-bay. I USB-stick-it-up-your-ahem ahem. I have even come quite close to understanding how an MP3 player works.

I want to punch something when the minimal technology I do use inexplicably lets me down! I suddenly morph into Naomi Campbell with a phone in her hand and a maid in her field of vision. Maybe I just resent the fact that I, along with the entire human species, have somewhere in the past ten years become dependent on technology for pretty much everything. Take computers – we use them to work, to educate, to communicate with each other, to plan social events, to entertain, to store our memories… In fact, I feel a deep void in my life when I am unable to access the internet! That surely Cannot be construed as a healthy way of life!

I swear I’m going back to pen and paper – at least they’re reliable! :)

Book Worms 2 – The Glass Palace

2008-01-15T02:21:00.000-08:00

I read some pretty interesting books in 2007, including Eleven Minutes and The Kite Runner which have made an appearance on my blog. I also had the privilege of reading the autobiography Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali, which I am too chicken to review here! Other fascinating reads have been some works by Indian authors - The House of Blue Mangoes, The Namesake, Life is not all Haahaa Heehee. Two Hemingway gems - Fiesta/The Sun also Rises and Men without Women. A well-loved play – The Importance of Being Ernest. A classic – Wuthuring Heights. My first, and may I add Only, chicklit novel – Making up your Mind (Blech!). A thriller – The Afghan. A philosophical fable – The Alchemist. And the mishmash that is The Glass Palace, by Amitav Ghosh.

Why did I choose to post a review of The Glass Palace, as opposed to any of the other books, considering the fact that I’m too lazy to review them all and only the most cherished or thought-provoking or lesson-teaching ones make it here?

Therein lies a tale: Someone I knew picked this book out for me last April in India at a time when I was under great emotional distress owing to a death in my family. I had to fly back to Australia the next day due to work commitments, and the plan was to pick out a compelling, yet lengthy novel that would occupy my mind on the long flight journey. And at 547 pages, this was no short story! I then had to give this person a full review of The Glass Palace on email – a request that I never ended up fulfilling at the time. So here goes…. One year later….

The Glass Palace can at best be described as a historical saga, at worst a string of intertwining love and life stories. Spanning 111 years, the novel spools out like a film, detailing the story of Rajkumar, a poor eleven year old orphan who falls in love with ‘the most beautiful girl in the world’ in Burma. He grows up, becomes a rich businessman, and looks for his childhood sweetheart again, in India. The scenes depicting the exodus of the Burmese aristocrats and expatriate Burmese Indians from Burma after the British colonized and annexed it circa 1885 are very well-etched – this is another shameful chapter of history that I have never really had the chance to explore due to scant literature written by and therefore biased towards the British. The subsequent asylum of the exiled Burmese royal family in Ratnagiri has been well-developed by Ghosh because he has written proven historical facts about King Thibaw Min, Queen Supalayat and the fate of their many daughters, but has successfully merged it with the fiction of his Rajkumar story. Rajkumar becomes the patriarch of a dynasty whose stories are then laid out over the following decades, where he stops being the protagonist to give way to other central characters.

It goes downhill from there – the plotting and planning of the children’s marriages take some of the shine away from the story which actually carries with it a few very strong messages. Instead of building upon these socially relevant issues, the author uses it as an undercurrent to fuel his main characters’ love lives which are about as contrived as a Bollywood masala film script. Highly irritating! If I wanted some Bollywood masala, I’m quite capable of going and watching it at the cinema instead of plodding through hundreds of pages of “he loves me, she loves me not, the other woman, the unforgiving family, the illicit sex”. In short, the usual suspects.

One of the most significant social messages in The Glass Palace, is as relevant to India in 2008, as it was during the period of time scoped in the novel particularly in the pre-Independence era and the Gandhian philosphy of young, free India. It is the effect of Western thought and ideology shaping or distorting or affecting indigenous Indian cultural identity.

While earlier, it was the imposition of a foreign, English culture and the ways it revealed itself in the subcontinent – best exemplified by Arjun the young protagonist of the latter half, who is an officer in the army of the British Raj. He and his peers are the self-styled “first true Indians” of India, but make no pretence of their dissociation with ancient customs and adoption of “pukka sahib” behaviour. Maybe they didn’t know what pre-invaded Indians were supposed to be like. Generations were lost, religions were enforced, treasures were usurped over 750 years of tumultuous history. Other colonized countries such as Australia or the US did not have to fear the disintegration of indigenous culture due to the low population of the indigenous people. But the subcontinent was an entirely different ball-game. In fact, the effects of imperialism and colonialism have been felt most by the people of India, probably due to the sheer numbers we deal with here.

Whereas now, 60 troubled years of independence later, India still has socio-cultural identity issues. Such as – the caste system manifesting itself in the arranged marriage system, the dogmatic refusal to acknowledge anything even remotely related to sex despite the bold Indian and foreign-telecasted TV shows and movies, the status of women across different social classes always being viewed as lesser than men no matter how progressive, the education of Young India at universities overseas bringing a whole new generation of ABCDs (American Bred Confused Desis), the rise of the Middle Class performing outsourced duties in call centres and BPOs subjected to race and accent abuse, the coexistence (or lack of it) of people belonging to indigenous versus non-indigenous religions, the fragile nature of the parent-child relationship, the national female obsession with Fair and Lovely cream, the great North Indian – South Indian divide. I could write an essay on each of these matters… but I refrain today.

Sigh…. I’m glad some things in India never change like khatte meethe golgappe and the usage of 6 metres of cloth as a sari and the infinite number of mythological stories your grandmother must have told you when you were young.

Moving on, my 2008 Book Worm wish list includes Love in the time of Cholera (which I’m currently reading), Atonement, Shantaram, Tuesdays with Morrie, Bride Stripped Bare, Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Grapes of Wrath, The Mistress, The Memory-keeper’s Daughter, River God. So dear readers, please stop sending me “best wishes for blah blah occasion” because I periodically land in the kind of trouble that no amount of best wishes can fix! Honestly! Instead, send me Borders/Angus and Robertson/Amazon.com book vouchers which I could then use to buy books whose messages may somehow permeate through my grey cells which can in turn possibly prevent an impending disaster!

I think I know what I should read next – Chicken Soup for the 24yo Troubled and Hyperactive Soul!

Always the bridesmaid, never the bride…

2007-12-08T04:11:00.000-08:00

Bye-bye 2007!! God am I glad you’re nearly Over and Done With!! This past year was definitely what I consider to be my Annus Horribilus!

But that’s not what this article is about - much to the immense relief of various readers who might have thought that yours truly is in one of her periodic full-swing rave-and-rant mode today :)

Rather than going to details with What Went Wrong this year, I felt this incredible need to type out some gleanings from an interesting conversation I had with a work colleague at the coffee machine last week.

What is the measure of success?

Everyone has their own interpretation of success - be it professionally or personally.

Some drift through their entire lives aimlessly, without meaning or purpose, just living the life that happened to come their way.

Others are not overly self-evaluative. The usual milestones - graduation, job, love, marriage, house, kids, retirement - come and go with life’s constant unpredictable twists and turns. They’re happy with the cards that have been dealt; they lead good, stable lives, and become amazingly resilient over their lifetime with a wealth of experience.

Some, especially those just embarking on their adult journey, set themselves personal goals to accomplish at a certain age. Such as - I want to work for XYZ company by the time I’m 25, or I want to earn $$$ per year by 2009 in order to pay off my mortgage, or I want to have my first child at 32.

Some set their benchmarks based on other people’s life paths that they may want to emulate. Such as - I want to base my marriage on my parents loving, nurturing relationship. My friend from school is doing so well, I want to do what he’s doing. And so on.

Regardless of the rationality of these goals, our mind relates the achieving of these goals as a measure of our own, personal success. We are a self-critical, self-deprecating generation of whingers! Nothing seems to be good enough anymore!

Why is it that some of us work hard to achieve those goals and can see success so close, anticipate it, smell it, feel it… before shit hits the fan and the bubble bursts and the cookie crumbles.

And others just happen to be at the right place at the right time – and seemingly effortlessly achieve what they may or may not have wanted in the first place!

Is it a classic case of people expecting too much from life, and then feeling disappointed if what they get isn’t exactly what they planned?

Or is it just that we are not taking into account the hand that “fate” plays in our lives?

It is so easy to say “it wasn’t meant to be”.

It is much harder to admit to yourself that the winner takes it all, and the loser has to fall. That is the name of the game – no matter how harsh it sounds. Its all black and white – no grey areas here!

You know all those self-help books and internet forwards that go on about how failure is a stepping stone to success, you won’t know the meaning of success unless you have experienced failure, better things are in store for you, blah blah blah.

Anyone who has experienced extreme failure will identify that at those painful moments, you don’t really think about some wafty notion of success that will be yours eventually, at some stage in the future. You think about failure – past and present. And you think about the Herculean effort of how to get past the present failure, and what steps you need to take to ensure it doesn’t happen again. Except – it does happen again!

My colleague had this very grouse – he had been overlooked, twice, for a promotion which rightfully should have been his. He went off on a tangent and started talking about the validity of the Secret – after his first failure, he had actually started living as though he had already received the promotion. He put in the hard work and played by the rules and lived the good life.

Now, cynics who have read the Secret, will know that the whole grand theory is in fact, merely a positive thinking exercise which claims to somehow affect the way the universe perceives our existence and somehow alters a series of events to act in our favour, or against it.

This may well be true. I have great faith in the power of positive thinking and prayer and meditation.

But it cannot be considered a foolproof channel of actually achieving those goals we set ourselves. Because no matter how big our dreams are, no matter how much we pray for something to happen, no matter how hard we try – shit somehow will still hit the fan and scatter all over your face, the bubble may somehow disprove the laws of surface tension and burst, and that delicious choc-chip cookie can definitely crumble and disintegrate for reasons beyond our control.

And that, my friends, should not be considered a defeatist way of thinking, but purely as a means to pull yourself together after the latest tragedy strikes! Fuck the Secret – just pick yourself up and see the sun rise as it always will the next day and smell the coffee and be thankful you’re not living in a bomb shelter in Iraq.

Book-Worms – Part 1

2007-10-26T00:39:00.000-07:00

I’d like to share some worms of wisdom from various books I’ve read this year that have made an impact on me. I plan on doing this in a serialized fashion over the next few months, so that I can intersperse these Book Worm blog posts with my other posts of randomly selected topics. They will be in the form of short reviews, but will pose some thought-provoking questions. Enjoy!

The Kite Runner – by Khaled Hosseini

A tale of friendship, of guilt, of redemption, of a well-kept secret. Set against a backdrop that sees Afghanistan from the days of the monarchy, through the Soviet invasion, the displaced refugees who fled to greener pastures in America, to the Taliban regime.

I found some elements of the plot quite predictable – the distant and undemonstrative father; the attitude of and towards the minority caste of poor, but loyal and dignified Hazara servants; the difference between the life of an ordinary Afghan and that of the aristocracy; the great immigrant struggle to accept and adapt to life in a Western country.

The story is a winner in terms of visual imagery, the descriptive language used to define emotions and situations such as the kite-flying scenes. There are contrasts present throughout the novel in terms of character dilemmas. Such as the power to choose between courage and cowardice, between loyalty to a friend and betrayal. Between living with a guilty conscience, and making an attempt to put things right again.

Here is a poignant excerpt where the young Amir learns from his Baba (father) the difference between right and wrong.

“Now, no matter what the mullah teaches, there is only one sin, only one. And that is theft. Every other sin is a variation of theft.
When you kill a man, you steal a life, you steal his wife's right to a husband, rob his children of a father. When you tell a lie, you steal someone's right to the truth. When you cheat, you steal the right to fairness.
There is no act more wretched than stealing. A man who takes what's not his to take, be it a life or a loaf of naan - I spit on such a man. If there’s a God out there, then I would hope he has more important things to attend to than my drinking scotch or eating pork.”

I’ve thought about different types of sins, and they all really do bottle down to theft.
Oh, and for the record - social drinking/smoking and pre-marital sex do not constitute as sins in my dictionary! Because these are personal choices that don’t necessarily affect anyone else negatively.

An interesting question – at what age can we held morally accountable to stand up for the right thing? 18? When one is supposedly an adult?

When Amir committed the sin that haunted him for the rest of his life, he was a mere boy of 12. Baba reckons that a boy who cannot stand up for himself, becomes a man who cannot stand up for anything.

There’s no Biz like Shoe-Biz!

2007-10-22T15:53:00.001-07:00

Exhibit A, Exhibit B, Exhibit C (Clockwise from left)

Unrelated Rant - Formatting pictures to fit into blog posts is f**king annoying! Anyone has any tips, SHARE THEM!

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There’s no doubt about it - I’m a confirmed Shoe-Slave.

What’s a Shoe-Slave, you might ask.

Let me proceed to explain.

There are three kinds of customers in the Ladies Shoes market.

There are Shoe-minators. These women buy, wear till they tear, then unemotionally terminate and eliminate shoes. They stick to one high quality pair at a time. And when it gets worn out, they simply dump it and buy another pair. Celebrity shoe-minators include Germaine Greer, Mary Poppins and Cherie Blair. Needless to add, these women are not generally regarded as icons of fashion and style.

Next come the Shoe-a-holics, who are addicted to the occupation of buying shoes of all shapes and sizes, colours and textures, prices and brands, irrespective of whether they actually need a new pair or not. These women are easily identifiable. They treat their shoes like well-loved pet animals. A whole cupboard is sometimes reconverted into a suitable dwelling-place for the rows and rows of Choos, Manolos, Pradas, Diana Ferraris, Clarks, and their ilk. Some celebrity Shoe-a-holics include Imelda Marcos, Jackie O and Sarah Jessica Parker.

I belong to the third category – the Shoe Slave.

Let me describe to you the typical behaviour of a shoe-slave by using myself as an example.

I love shoes. I want shoes. I crave shoes for all occasions, all seasons, all outfits.

The problem is – shoes don’t love me, don’t seem to want me, and are not in the least bit interested in adorning my charming, bunion-less, Revlon-coated-toe-nailed, pumice-stone groomed feet. For any occasion, season or outfit.

I don’t control the shoes I buy. THEY control ME. I am a slave to the dictates of the “sole-less” shoe manufacturers who collectively plot and plan a devious Conspiracy Theory wherein they unanimously agree to NOT make shoes that comfortably and attractively embellish my feet, and the feet of other Shoe-slaves who so desperately want to be shoe-decked but can’t.

I can never find the right kind of shoe. There’s always something missing. Too flat, too high, too narrow, too hard, too uncomfortable, too boring, too unmanageable, too gaudy. There are a number of reasons why I perpetually find myself in this sorry state of affairs. And it has very little to do with me being picky-choosy.

Firstly, my feet (like every other part of me), are unconventional.

Remember Cinderella’s pretty lil winsome twosome, frisking along everywhere like a bunny rabbit on springs until Prince Charming turns up with a pair of glass slippers and fits out those delicate feet into a happy ever after shmultzy ending?

Bollocks.

Now picture the exact opposite. Two gigantic feet. Which refuse to fit into ANYthing made of ANY material that ANY wretched shoe fitter has on offer.

And its not just the size of my feet. Its also their shape. I’m flat-footed. Which means trying to get into anything that even remotely resembles Exhibit A is near-impossible as I just end up making a social spectacle of myself in trying to put my best foot forward. Not to mention the excruciating pain that accompanies these endeavours.

Digressing a bit here - I was heartbroken, nay, devastated (because a broken heart can be glued back together), when I had to leave behind all my lovely shoes in India. I had over the years, got a pretty decent collection of about 10 pairs which measured up to my standards and were suitable for every occasion, season and outfit. How on earth did ALL of them end up in a musty, unoccupied apartment in suburban Mumbai - is one of my life’s many great unanswered mysteries!

On the flight trip back to Sydney, I was wearing the only pair I owned. I had packed another two pairs, but these were unceremoniously offloaded at the airport where I had to undergo the humiliating experience of being sent back by the goons at the check-in counter because I was 5 kg overweight (my LUGGAGE, not ME you fools!). So I unpacked my very personal belongings in front of around 200 people and gave away the non-essentials to my patient parents who were waiting across the metal bars which separate the travelers from the visitors because they somehow predicted that their first-born would get into just this kind of an unwarranted pickled mess. “Essentials” do not include a second pair of shoes, by the way.

Of course, blessed with the kind of luck I’ve been blessed with of late, it came as no surprise that when I was running like a deranged horse afflicted with Equine Flu from Gate 4 to Gate 57 at Changi International Airport in Singapore, the strap holding up the bloody right shoe gave way and I landed with an ungainly skid and a bump bang in front of the crotch of a security guard who alerted all and sundry that I was a national safety risk and was about to chuck me behind bars for ostensibly reaching for his weapon. Bleh.

Anyways, I reached Sydney wearing the only pair of shoes I possessed, and they were wrecked. The bottom line being – I needed new shoes.

So this is how I go about planning to buy a new pair of shoes. As you will realize, I do it in a very strategic, business-like manner.

I buy shoes that can successfully fulfill all the below listed criteria:

1. Size 10 (Australian) – which is the biggest ladies size available in regular stores. By extension, this means that 85% of sensational designs are not available in this size. Refer Conspiracy Theory.
2. Closed from the front and back (formal dress code for work)
3. Wide (not pointy) at the front to accommodate my huge toes.
4. Reasonably wide all throughout to accommodate my flat-footedness.
5. Slight cushioning, also to accommodate my flat-footedness.
6. Neutral colour that would match most of my wardrobe.
7. High enough to exhibit the “Clackety Clack” effect. I get a Power High every time my shoes make this sound on the right surface! Makes me feel like I’m going somewhere with some purpose, even if I’m not!
8. But not too high to cause me to totter and tumble while running like a deranged horse afflicted with Equine Flu, which happens frequently during my marathon sprints to catch the ever-reliable public transport in Australia.
9. Doesn’t cost me the leg it is meant to shelter.
10. Stylish.

I proceed to analyse all the usual suspects at the shopping centre to research the market environment over a two-week period. Payless Shoes, Spendless Shoes, Betts, Mathers, Shoo-biz, Kumfs, Joanne Mercer, Mollini, Wittner etc. Then I aim higher and waltz into David Jones and Myer which are currently having their end-of-winter clearance sales.

What I really REALLY want is Exhibit A. The only thing that adequately matches all my selection criteria, is apparently Exhibit C.

The result of my shoe-hunt is as follows:

Day One – I bought a cheap pair from Target that fulfills all criteria except 2, 5 and 7 because I needed Something to replace the runners I had borrowed from my cousin (my one and only useless pair safely relegated to the dustbin). But I couldn’t wear these to work due to the non-compliance with criterion 2.

Day Five – I find a pair of awesome, sexy black boots at David Jones which fulfill all criteria but cost $ 112.49.

Day Six – I just HAD to buy a pair of pink fluffy Betty Boop house slippers to replace my old ones that were withering away somewhere in Mumbai! Longtime readers of my blog will know the significance of these Boops, namely Exhibit B, in my life!

Day Nine – I bought the pair I currently wear to work. Exhibit C. Sensible, no-nonsense, comfy. But stylish? Hmmm. Not even my hyperactive imagination can somehow make-believe that these are Choos or Manolos!

Day Twenty-Two – I give in to temptation and buy the boots I saw on Day Five. Because I’m a girl!

So now, I have four pairs of footwear when I only needed one pair of work shoes. And just for the record, I blame this entirely on the Conspiracy Theory hatched by the shoe manufacturers. If they’d bothered to make fine shoes for Shoe Slaves, I could’ve found “the” pair on Day One like most other women can, and that would’ve been the end of it!

London Fragments

2007-10-04T00:22:00.000-07:00

Tiffany’s at Harrods. Waitrose organic full cream milk. Cobble-stoned streets with vintage black street lanterns. Pigeons at The Eye. The Mousetrap is the longest running play in history. Turkish at Angel. Molton Brown room spray. The Wonder Room, Selfridges. Change is a fluffy reason, autumn is a beautiful season. Cream cheese on bagels. Soak up some warm afternoon sunshine sitting on the brick wall across 2 3 8 red-blue-yellow dots. Why does everyone jaywalk here? AAA-chooooooo. u.m.i. cocoa leaf and banana crème body wash. Oval-shaped pressure cooker lids. HP Pavilion laptop finger-cleaned. Pounds silly, not dollars. Victoria’s Secret, anyone? Two white toast with butter, please. Kicking a football at Hyde Park. Diana Ferrari kebab mein haddi. Mind the gap. Rectangular flower pots outside windows. Electricity-operated showers. Sudh-irk not Southwark. Jungle curry and succulent coconut rice. No earrings found on Oxford St. Blue-purple tear-drop enamel earrings. Stick with me in the Tube. The Ultimatum. The White Elephant. A Dream. Om Shanti Om.

Three Blind Mice

2007-09-23T09:30:00.000-07:00

Three blind mice, three blind mice,

See how they run, see how they run,

They all ran after the farmer's wife,

Who cut off their tails with a carving knife,

Did you ever see such a thing in your life,

As three blind mice?

No - I have not seen such a thing in my life.

But I have felt the presence of three blind mice in my head that cloud my vision via the inner recesses of my mind. I've also been told I have bats, an imp, loose screws, a few nuts and bolts, a fairy with pink wings - all in my head. Getting pretty crowded in there I reckon!

The first blind mouse - is purely myopic. Negative 2.5 on the right eye, negative 3.75 on the left and a bit of astigmatism thrown in for good measure. Doomed to a lifetime of using external apparatus to facilitate my visual sensory requirements.

The second blind mouse – prevents me from seeing beyond the obvious facts. I may see, but not observe. I may watch, but not notice. I may feel, but not recognise. I may act, but not predict the outcome of my action.

The third blind mouse – is the most dangerous of the three. Impairs my judgement and reasoning in times of criticality. Makes me doubt my strengths, and amplifies my weaknesses. Tests my patience. Inhibits my decision-making capabilities. Frequently annoys me.

Coming to think of it, I’ve been having a lot to do with rodents of late! Saw Ratatouille, the animated film. I Love animated films! This one was about a cute rat-chef in La Paree. Rats, mice, whatever. Same shit.

Three blind mice trapped in me. Little buggers.

Satyam Shivam Sundaram

2007-09-16T00:42:00.000-07:00

Yashomati Maiyya se bole Nandlala, "Radha kyun gori, main kyun kaala?"

Boli muskaati Maiyya, Lallan ko bataaya, "Kaali andhiyaari andhi raat mein tu aaya. Laadla kanhaiya mera, kaali kamli waala, issi liye kaala".

Yashomati Maiyya se bole Nandlala, "Radha kyun gori, main kyun kaala?"

Boli muskaati Maiyya, "Sun mere pyaare - Gori gori Radhika ke nain kajraare. Kaale nainon waali ne aisa jadoo daala, issi liye kaala".

Yashomati Maiyya se bole Nandlala, "Radha kyun gori, main kyun kaala?"

Itne mein Radha pyaari, aayi ithlaati. "Nain mera jadoo daala", boli balkhaati.

"Maiyya, Kanhaiyya tera, jag se niraala, issi liye kaala".

*****************************Translation**********************************

Krishna asks his mother Yashoda, "Why is Radha so fair, while I am so dark?"

Smiling, his mother replies, "You were born at midnight, on a dark, stormy night. My sweet baby, you are like a black lotus. This is why you're so dark."

Krishna again asks his mother Yashoda, "Why is Radha so fair, while I am so dark?"

Smiling, his mother replies, "Listen to me my beloved son. The fair Radhika has dark kohl-lined eyes. The black-eyed woman has cast a spell on you, this is why you're so dark".

Unsatisfied, Krishna insists and questions his mother Yashoda, "Why is Radha so fair, while I am so dark?"

Soon, the lovely Radha walks by gracefully. Laughing at Krishna, she says, "My eyes have cast a spell on you!! Mother Yashoda, your darling son is the most unique of all men in the entire world, this is why he is so dark!".

The Dream Chaser

2007-08-27T07:01:00.001-07:00

As I sit in my room, looking at all my bits and pieces strewn about everywhere in disarray waiting to get crammed into three suitcases that seemingly comprise the only tangible symbols of the last seven years of my life, I think about what those suitcases really contain. And it’s not just my precious clothes, jewellery, books, music…

They contain bits and pieces of Me.

What made you the person you have become? What makes you so uniquely different from the six billion other human inhabitants of the earth? Do you recognise that reflection of yourself in the mirror? That combined mass of cells, organs, emotions, ideas, skin, flesh, thoughts, memories, bits and pieces all tenderly, carefully glued together…

You weren’t always like this, were you?

You came into this world with a clean slate, pure and fresh…

Your identity was given to you by genetics, the family you happened to be born into, the socio-cultural, educational and economical structure of the environment you grew up in, the values infused in those formative years. You learn, and start writing in your slate, painting a picture of “You” with myriad colours.

You were then moulded by your experiences, by what happened to you after you left home to carve your own path, chasing your dreams. The chalk inscribes feverishly on the slate, the paintbrushes work overtime as every year brings with it something new, something happy, something blue…

Can you really claim to be a single, separate, self-made entity? Can you shush that voice in your head and let the slate just dream, just BE. Can you be happy just by yourself, with your slate and your dreams and the unflinching certainty that you know yourself? Where do you call “home” now?

Do you really control your own life? That chalk, those paint-brushes – aren’t they just tools that family, friends, lovers, colleagues, society, fate uses to glue you together? The world is a stage. Your stage. You're the star! But who is the real director?

You’ve made an indelible impression, left bits and pieces of yourself with all the people you’ve encountered in the past, all those faces from yesterday. And they’ve left their bits and pieces in you. They’ve created an altered version of “you” that makes you who you are. The slate becomes a complicated, magnificent jigsaw puzzle, one that churns out new sections every day, and your mind keeps sifting, sorting, assigning values to variables.

So how can you pretend to move on from your past, if the past is in fact the very element that has shaped you, with tangible symbols like crammed suitcases staring at you in the face to remind you of what you have become? Look at that mirror, meet yourself eye-to-eye, and think about your baggage. The baggage that made you who you are today.

Have you really left the excess baggage back where it belongs? Does it let you? Does it not follow you around like a shadow, come with you everywhere you go, as certain as the air you inhale and exhale, as vivid as the dreams you see in your mind’s eye during daytime or remember from last night.

What is the price you have to pay to wipe the slate clean, to transport your baggage to a comfortably numb place, to be free, to dream without boundaries and create an exciting new world of possibilities?

Ok – here’s where I stop writing like I’m a troubled, home-less soul high on ganja and get back to packing up all my shit! Too much Coelho I tell you :)

You can’t be Beautiful and Fat!

2007-08-18T08:58:00.000-07:00

You ever heard Someone with a pious, po-faced expression go “It’s not what’s on the outside that matters - all I care about is your inner beauty”.

I feel like shoving my fist up where the sun ain’t shining when I hear this! Because it gives the receiver of this (back-handed) compliment a disconcerting feeling that what’s on the outside is…umm….errr.…aah …..not beautiful?!

Try catching this same Someone ogling Angelina Jolie tomb-raiding at the movies, or avidly following the peaks and troughs of Ana Ivanovic’s twin assets bouncing around a tennis court, or using a cheesy pick-up line at that nubile young thing in skimpy “come shag me” clothes at the pub/club. Inner beauty be damned!

If you’re dating this Someone, and if he isn’t visually impaired, he might have somewhere along the way accepted that all women don’t (and can’t afford to) look like one or more of the afore-mentioned women (well maybe the last one!). ’Coz they’re a different breed… they’re Hot. Bet he still tells you that you’re Beautiful though! And he might even mean what he says – give the poor bloke a break!

Hypothesis 1 - To the average Jo Blo, his average mate Sheila can’t be Beautiful and Sexy!

There seems to be a marked difference between perceiving someone as beautiful, versus perceiving someone as hot or sexy. In the eyes of the same beholder. For the sake of avoiding venturing into incestuous, dangerous territory involving visualising your grandmother in a g-string, let’s restrict this discussion to include only the cross-section of young, mostly-single, urban men and women out in the dating world undergoing highly refined and complicated mating rituals.

Things have significantly evolved from the good ol days when Man sees Woman in bush, clubs off the Competition, carries Woman to cave in a mad frenzy, and Woo-hoo time begins. If only things were that simple today! Now, it’s a Game. The Game. The how-to-get-laid game. First you’ve got to figure out ways to get introduced to potential mates. Then once you find a potential mate, you’ve got to figure out ways to appear as sexually attractive as possible, send out as many pheromones as can be humanly produced, to build up the chemistry and challenge the Competition. Then you’ve got to figure out ways to come up with intelligent conversation during times and places when you’re stuck with chemistry but can’t do anything about it physically such as in a restaurant or on the phone or at work. Then you’ve got to figure out ways to determine what’s really going on in their heads to figure out if the potential mate can survive past the fifth date and get promoted from potential mate to probable mate. In short – you have lots of figuring out to do. One wrong move can result in you being chuck-mated.

Even though I’ve lived with male flatmates for the past four years, I can’t claim to be an expert on What Men Want, but I sure do have the credibility to talk about what they talk about at home when lounging around in boxers! And let me assure you, it isn’t Tyra Banks’ “inner” beauty! (Well…). However, I’m not entirely feministic in my views – I state upfront that it works both ways. Women often have unrealistic expectations of the type of man they’d like to date and mate. Too picky I call it! That’s why you get the Suddenly 30 and Single Syndrome (which I’ll elucidate upon in another post, another time when I get into one of my periodic rave-and-rant moods!).

The bottom line is - looks do matter. In the dating and mating game. To both men and women. In fact, a person’s appearance is often used as a personality gauge. Chew on this - you can read emotions by looking at a person’s eyes. Or measure a painter or pianist’s calibre by looking at the shape of their fingers. He’s fat therefore he must be good-natured. She’s got a big mouth therefore she can…;)

Hypothesis 2 - You can’t be Sexy and Fat!

Because the world won’t let you!

This is an easy one. The evidence - check out all these people, even sexy celebrities, who go on the Cabbage Soup diet or the Aero-yoga-lates exercise regime, or Botox their way into a state of perceived beauty. They all seem to want to lose weight to make them feel better about themselves in front of that undeceivable friend/foe - the Mirror. Losing weight also makes them feel less inhibited za-za-zooming in bed, feel more relaxed in that itsy-bitsy bikini at the beach, and by extension - feel sexier.

Theory - By applying the law of mutual exclusion to Hypotheses 1 and 2, You can’t be Beautiful and Fat!

There! I’ve said it! Asha’s Pearl of Wisdom for the Week!

I’m living testimony to how this theory makes rabid slaves of successful, rational and self-confident people. God alone knows how many gruelling ABT (abs butts and thighs) classes I’ve huffed and puffed in, twice a week, every week. How many sets and reps of lunges, squats, dumbbell presses and crunches I’ve endured. How many times I’ve deprived myself of that sinful dessert, that sticky date pudding, that Belgian chocolate mud cake, those strawberries with double-whipped cream, even those thin-cut McDonald’s chips. Gee-ZUS!

Further proof of my claim - in all my hilarious entanglements with the opposite sex (whether friendly or otherwise), there has been just one man who told me I was beautiful AND sexy [it’s usually one or the other ;) ] AND didn’t have an issue with my weight! In retrospect, maybe it was only because he weighed heaps more than I did and I didn’t have an issue with his weight. Had he looked like Brad Pitt, things might have been different, his expectations might have been more Jolie-esque... Sigh…

Get over it ladies! Mr Nice Guy - you know that sweet, sensitive, sexy, loving, communicative, “I want to know the real you” sucker you dream about - doesn’t exist! The “real you” means jack-shit to players in the Game. No one wants to know the real you, unless you doll yourself up first and start behaving like Daisy Duke. After the initial chemistry subsides to reach controllable levels, that’s when the real you becomes slightly important to Jo Blo. This, by the way, also coincides with his astounding discovery that you shave your hairy legs and armpits once a week and yes, you get ugly red pimples once in a while, and yes, you have dodgy lumps of that dreaded, unmentionable four letter word - FLAB - under that fabulous cleavage-revealing little black dress. Welcome to Splitsville!

To all those women out there who’re brain-washed into believing they’re fat (and hence, ugly - according to my theory) when they might just be normal, healthy (ok, fine, maybe just a tad overweight!) women who don’t fit the media-driven stereotype of beauty and sensuality - You are who you think you are. You make yourself as beautiful and sexy as YOU want to be. Then project that vision of yourself onto others. And no matter what anyone says to make you feel you’re lacking in the looks department even if they have the gall to assure you that you have a brilliant personality - it lies within you to be beautiful, on your terms, by your definition. Be immune to taunts, be confident in your stride. Wear classy, well-fitted lingerie to make you feel good on the “inside”! Take pride in your appearance, and cultivate a positive body image.

If your man can’t accept the unique confluence of your body and mind for what it is, then you’re better off without him! Remember that dickhead of a Someone who insinuated in his oh-so-oblique way that you look like Godzilla’s sister (and probably weigh as much), who cruelly disregarded all the solid iron you’ve pumped and the crummy calories you’ve counted?! Just tell the loser to S.T.F.U. and Eff Off!

Can you read this?

2007-08-11T19:47:00.000-07:00

**Random Frivolous Semi-borrowed Content to Make-up for a Week of Heavy-duty Greek Tragedies!**

If yuo can raed tihs, you hvae a sgtrane mnid too. Can you raed tihs? Olny 55 plepoe out of 100 can. i cdnuolt blveiee taht I cluod aulaclty uesdnatnrd waht I was rdanieg. The phaonmneal pweor of the hmuan mnid, aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it dseno't mtaetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frsit and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mses and you can sitll raed it whotuit a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe. Azanmig huh? Yaeh and I awlyas tghuhot slpeling was ipmorantt!

ΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘΘ

): ʎɐpoʇ ɐʞʞǝ ǝɥʇ oʇ ǝɯ ƃuıʞɐʇ ʇou ɹoɟ uoos ʎɹǝʌ ʞɔɐq ɯıɥ ʎɐd ɐuuoƃ - ǝuıl uı ʇxǝu sı ˙˙˙ıpɐɐ puɐ ˙ƃuıuɹoɯ sıɥʇ ʎʞʞǝɹq ʎɯ ɹoɟ ɐsop ɐlɐsɐɯ s,ɥsǝǝƃɐʌ ɟo ɥƃnouǝ ƃuıʌɐǝl ʇou ɹoɟ ǝɯıʇ ʞɔɐqʎɐd ¡ǝǝɥǝǝɥ ¡ɹoop ɯooɹ sıɥ ǝpısʇno ǝƃɐqɹɐƃ s,ʎɐp ǝɥʇ snld 'ɟɟnʇs sıɥʇ llɐ pǝdɯnp - sǝıʇʇɐlɟ ʎɯ ɐʇʇno llǝɥ ǝɥʇ ƃnq puɐ uo ǝɔuɐp-ǝlod oʇ ǝsn sǝɯıʇǝɯos ı ʇɐɥʇ ɹǝʍolɟ ǝƃuɐɹo ƃıq ʎɯ 'ʌʇ ɹno ɟo doʇ uo sʇıs ɥɔıɥʍ ʎoʇ ɥsnld ǝdɐ ǝƃunol ǝɥʇ 'ƃnɯ sıɥ ǝloʇs ¡ɯıɥ uo ˙˙˙ǝʞoɾ lɐɔıʇɔɐɹd snoıɔopıllɐıdxǝɔıʇsılıƃɐɹɟɐlɐɔɹǝdns ɐ ɟo sƃuıddɐɹʇ ɹɥʇ pıɐl ʇsnɾ ǝʌ,ı ǝsnɐɔǝq ǝɯoɥ ʞɔɐq ʇǝƃ oʇ uılnoɯ ɹoɟ ƃuıʇıɐʍ ¡ƃolq ʎɯ uo ʇnd oʇ ɥsɐɹʇ ɟo ƃuıʞuıɥʇ oʌɹɐ ʎɐpuns ʎuuns ɐ uo punoɹɐ ƃuızɐl ʍou puɐ pooɟ ǝsǝuɐdɐɾ 'ƃuıɔuɐp pooʍʎlloq - puǝʞǝǝʍ unɥd ɐ pɐɥ ǝʌ,ı ¡sıɥʇ ɹǝɥdıɔǝp oʇ ǝƃpıɹqɯɐɔ ʇɐ sınuǝƃ ǝɯos ǝɹınbǝɹ ʇ,usǝop - ɟlǝsɹnoʎ ʇno sıɥʇ ǝɹnƃıɟ uɐɔ noʎ ʇǝq ¡¿sıɥʇ pɐǝɹ noʎ uɐɔ ¿sıɥʇ ʇnoqɐ ʍoɥ puɐ

Aftermints….

2007-08-08T05:07:00.000-07:00

Thought I should write something fun, yet reflective, after my first feeble attempt at Greek tragedy: “Don’t cry for me Ariadne”. The title and first line was inspired by the song ‘Don’t Cry for me Argentina’, for those who didn’t pick up on it.

Ever since I was a young girl, I’ve been fascinated by mythology – be it Indian, Persian or Greek. There are countless stories and fables of strange and wonderful things, of fairies, monsters and great people. And so much that one can learn from them. I’m obviously living in the wrong era – maybe this explains my hyperactive imagination!

The legend of Theseus (thees-yoos) and Ariadne (aar-ee-aad-nee) has been one of my favourites. I think we even had an adaptation of it in our Grade 6 English literature texts. Though I must admit, I’ve taken liberties with the legend and tweaked it a bit here and there! The basis of the story is there in the ‘Illiad’ though – the royal parentage of Theseus and Ariadne, the Minotaur, the spool of thread, their passionate love, their subsequent elopement, then Ariadne getting left behind at Naxos.

There are many, many versions of what happened after that point. Some say Theseus was a traitor – he betrayed Ariadne, and abandoned her to perish on the island. She then cursed the ship he was sailing in, to forget to raise white sails. Which made his father, King Aegeus of Athens, commit suicide by jumping into the Aegean Sea as he saw fourteen black sails approaching land, and assumed that his son was not successful in killing the Minotaur and had died alongwith the thirteen other youth.

In Pæon, it has been written that the ship they were sailing in ran smack into a horrendous storm, and Theseus made Ariadne take refuge on the island for her protection as she was heavily pregnant and sea-sick, but could not join her himself as he had to work on the ship. A sudden, violent wind swept the ship off-shore and carried him away to sea. The last she saw of lover-boy was when she woke up from her sleep to find the sails of his ship disappearing over the horizon (the photo of the painting in the previous post depicts this). She died at child-birth on the island, then became the Ariadne constellation of stars in the sky as she couldn’t bear to live without her beloved Theseus. When Theseus found out about her death, he was so heart-broken that he forgot to change the black sails to white, and that’s how his dad died! Crazy Greeks!

Till date, I believe, the Ariadne-Theseus cult exists in some of the Greek islands where worshippers have a ceremony in which a young man lies down and with his voice and gestures enacts the pains of a woman in labour. This is supposed to represent Theseus when he found out about his Ariadne’s death and to bring peace to the soul of his unborn child. The worshippers also perform a dance where they emulate movements made by Theseus when he was trying to unravel his way back from the labyrinth to Ariadne. So they turn around in circles, go one way, then another, then backtrack – think Catherine Zeta-Jones in Entrapment and you’ll know what I mean!

Anyways, I digress as usual. Getting back to what happened after Naxos -
Some also say that he was forced to leave her on Naxos (also called Dia) by Dionysus (the God of Wine and Agriculture, whose abode it was) because Theseus and Ariadne had desecrated one of the caves on his island by fornicating in it! Also, she may have been betrothed to Dionysus in Crete, before she met Theseus and instantly fell in love with him (this was something I incorporated in my story). Another reason for Dionysus to get buggered with the raunchy affaire de coeur situation on his island!

But by far the most popular version goes that after Theseus left Naxos (for whatever reason), Dionysus saw either the sleeping Ariadne or the lamenting and wild with grief Ariadne, was enchanted by her youthful beauty, promptly married her, consoled her and helped her get Theseus out of her system, and they lived happily ever after…

Well… not quite… because he was a divinity, and she being mortal had to die one day. His wedding present to her was a jewelled crown, which he threw into the sky upon her death, thus forming the constellation.

This crown has several interesting stories of its own. It may have been gifted to her by Theseus too. Although it is generally believed that they eloped from Crete as unwedded lovers, there is one account where they might have been married and then set sail for Athens. When Theseus asked for Ariadne’s hand in marriage after killing the Minotaur, her father King Minos wanted him to prove his royal and immortal lineage. Now even though Theseus was Aegeus’ son, he was also the son of Poseidon, the Sea-God, because his mother Aethra was shagged by both men in one night! So Minos took a gold ring from his finger and cast it into the sea, where it could easily be found by anyone who claimed to be Poseidon's son.

So Theseus swam to the depths of the sea and brought back, not only Minos’s ring, but also this tiara that the Nereids (mermaids) gave him as a wedding present for Ariadne. It was made by Hephaestus (the God of fire), in his underwater smithy, and was studded with jewels from – of all places – India!

Theseus thus having proved his lineage, courage and love for Ariadne to Minos, was then able to marry her finally. Got her pregnant asap, took off to Athens on that wretched ship, and then we’re back to what I’d like to call my Naxos theories!

And by the way, Staphylus could have been the son of either Theseus or Dionysus! He did indeed become an Argonaut, as Theseus would have wished. So that proves that he possessed Theseus’s natural strength, bravery and leadership (Dionysus was a wuss!). But the name Staphylus itself means a bunch of grapes (Dionysus was the God of Wine). Hmm… Ariadne never ceases to amaze me!

My version of events after Naxos is, well, my own… That he left her unmarried, pregnant and asleep, to go fight another battle, with honourable intentions of returning back to make her his Queen, but couldn’t because I killed him off in a slow painful death scene!

From adaptations of the epics that I’ve read, I do know that Theseus wasn’t killed straightaway after departing from Naxos – the handsome prince led a colourful life, had heaps of heroic adventures, was a legendary warrior comparable to other founder-heroes like Perseus and Hercules, fornicated with many more women and ruled over Athens for many years as an exemplary king before eventually getting murdered by Lycomedes! But he never forgot Ariadne, and the dreams they had once shared together.

Through all these convoluted and varying accounts of the outcome of their saga, I always found that first part of the story, up until the Naxos point, very romantic and powerful.

Much has been written about Ariadne. Her name means “the very faithful/chaste/pure one”. Her story has all the ingredients of a classic Greek drama – triumph, tragedy, passion, endurance, valour, love lost… and perhaps found again.

The numerous, contradictory descriptions of her often-tragic life and death, demonstrates how much she suffered, and all the inner turmoil in her that prevented her from having a “normal” existence. It is also the reason why she is venerated as a Goddess in her cult.

You can spot her famous golden diadem, more commonly called Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown, in the night sky. It is a glittering curve of jewel-like stars as shown in the pictures above. It is visible in the northern hemisphere in the summer months from June to September, best seen during July. It is slightly to the left of Bootes, and slightly below Hercules (which is easily recognisable). It isn’t a very bright constellation, so you would have to go to a dark place away from the city lights to spot it with the naked eye.

Star-gazing… something else that fascinates me!

Don’t Cry for Me, Ariadne

2007-08-04T08:17:00.000-07:00

The truth is – I never left you. All through my wild days, my mad existence….

I remember the first time I saw you, Princess of Crete, high up in your castle made of gold brick and sandstone. You were looking out of the columns of the ivy-covered balcony, eyes filled with sorrow and yearning, wistful expression clouding those two limpid pools of deep-brown brilliance.

I remember those eyes…they have a mad glint in them! What is it about them that captivates even the most hardened of warriors to hold their breath and gaze at you in awe? Your proud carriage, that arched brow, walking gracefully beside your father the King Minos, one arm in his as he lead you into the court. I was there in that court, the first time you set your eyes upon me, one of the chosen fourteen. Seven young men and seven young women - the Oracle at Delphi had revealed - to be sacrificed to the Minotaur every nine years. That year was My year – I had chosen myself to be one of them. It was next in my long line of perilous adventures, my duty as the Athenian prince to protect my citizens.

I remember Dionysus, he who tried to slander your good name in that court. Drunken fool! Little did he know that you were destined to be mine. He was unworthy of your affection - blind idiot who couldn't see past the tip of his nose.

I remember your courage, your faith me in me, when you broke all the rules that govern a Princess of Crete, to meet me. You tricked your chamber ladies, stole past the guards, and secretly met me at the dungeon I was held hostage in. You gave me that nest of red fleece thread you spun yourself, so that I could unravel it and find my way back to you through the underground labyrinths after slaying that beast of a Minotaur.

I remember feeling that with you by my side, I can slay not just Minotaurs - I can conquer the world...

I remember the first time we became one in mind, body and soul… We were meant to be together, there was never any doubt about it. The surreal recognition that we were two halves that made up a whole. I can still smell your fragrance, fresh as the first raindrops on wood-side violets... the fragrance which then altered, blended with my own fluids. Yes, I can smell us. Taste you – that soft sweet space behind your ears. That crook at the base of your neck, that curve of your belly. Your gentle touch. The way our fingers kneaded together.

I remember how you made me feel, and for that I will be ever grateful to you - you made me laugh, feel light-hearted without a care in the world as we frolicked in the cool crevices of the Cretan mountains overlooking the sea...You taught me to love...

I remember the colour of your hair when the first rays of the sun shone on it that day…. your serene face, long lashes over creamy skin, sleeping peacefully as I was forced to leave you on the island of Naxos, steer my ship to lead my army to battle on the southern shores of Greece, where my fate has now been sealed. I had wanted to come back, take you across the Aegean, make an honest woman of you and carry you in my arms to my palace in Athens where you would have been my Queen…

Just one kiss, just one touch, just one look from you is all I ask for, as my life flashes before me. I can feel my innards throbbing, I know I don’t have much time left. My blood, the royal blood of an ancient race of fighters, the blood that now oozes out in rivulets, slowly, painfully, from the eighteen places on my body where the coward Lycomedes plunged his sword. I fought till the very end – I will die a warrior’s death.

I don’t remember much. I have walked the earth just four-and-twenty years, yet I can’t remember everything that has happened in all the breaths I have taken. Just vivid, intense moments that have taken my breath away…

Don’t cry for me Ariadne…

Love… should never make you cry. It is fear that makes one cry. Fear of losing true love, losing me, fear of being unloved, fear of being left alone, fear that you will not find our happiness again…

You have nothing to fear. Ariadne, you are a beautiful, brave woman. My woman, my love. You will not go down the annals of Crete’s mighty history as yet another doomed princess. Your life has a purpose – and that is to bring my son into this world. Our son. And I know the child that now swells your womb, is a son. You will name him Staphylus, and you will raise him as I would have wished. He will join Jason’s quest, be a fine soldier, an Argonaut, and then ascend the throne of Athens after my father Aegeus has passed. The son I will never know…

The truth is – I never left you. Farewell my love, Hades is beckoning me…

In death, as in life, I remain yours, my Princess.

Theseus of Athens

Three Men and a Lady!

2007-07-31T02:25:00.000-07:00

This is the story of three guys and a girl who share an old Queenslander house in the southern Brissy suburb of Salisbury…

There’s Aadi… who hates Pink with a vengeance. The colour, not the misunderstood rock artist. I’ve yet to spot a single personal belonging of his that even remotely resembles pink, purple, peach or any other closely related variants. He once got so worked up about losing all the data on his computer that he exploded: “I just felt like my ass has lost its hole – how am I going to shit now??” (Ref: www.akdugar.net!). He gets equally worked up about Pink. Things would not have been so hard for him to deal with, if I hadn’t moved in last month and altered the general scenery by strategically placing bits and pieces of Pink around the house – it being one of my favourite colours. Such as my fluorescent pink Betty Boop fluffy slippers – which I constantly brandish around Aadi to make his life miserable. He reckons I should colour my hair blonde, due to my affinity towards pink and my chronic klutz-ness (which by the way, deserves its own separate blog-post) :(

There’s Vageesh…. who has a moustache and wears work clothes on weekends. He’s what we call the “married bachelor” – his wife lives in Sydney, and work commitments prevent them from co-habitating in the same city. He always has this sneaky grin on his face, almost like he can somehow detect my next hare-brained scheme and its (unintended) effect on the rest of them, before I actually execute it! He sits back and watches us talk trash, and then adds a sardonic comment at the end in a phony “Madraasi in the Mumbai Mafia” accent. Bluddy know-it-all! Like the time when I was arguing about how inane Big Brother is. He watches it religiously every evening, while I come up with newer and more vicious ways to get Gretel Killeen tossed out of Australian television.

Then there’s Moulin… I only recently discovered that his name is MOUlin. Not to be pronounced the refined French way, a la Moulin Rouge. But in the Gujju way. Bole toh the way it is spelt – Mou as in Cow, Lin as in Gin. I used to keep calling him MERlin (as in the mythical wizard of Camelot). And none of them ever thought of correcting me! Anyways, Moulin displays some pretty idiosyncratic behaviour from time to time. Such as – walking around the house like a zombie with his coffee mug clutched tightly in his right hand like a baby rattle. Now, many people walk around with a coffee mug when under the influence of caffeine-induced sleep deprivation and/or stress. Nothing weird about that. But Moulin on the other hand – walks around with a coffee mug that always has a spoon in it! A steel spoon. Irrespective of whether the mug contains coffee, or tea, or juice, or water, or plain air. The Spoon and the Mug and the Hand are inseparable!

And there’s Me! I’m (apparently) the in-house clown, the local live entertainment, the light comic relief after a hard day’s work, whatever. Being the youngest yuppie and the sole female in the house has some distinct advantages – I get to lay down the rules regarding…well…regarding pretty much EVERYthing!! I decide who takes out the garbage, who does the dishes, who gets me breakfast in bed on Sundays… :)

Mornings are frantic as we struggle in vain to figure out who’s going when to use the bathroom. Evenings are more sedate, as we all file in at different times from work and get geared up for our big social event of the day – cooking and eating dinner! Come dinnertime, the boys have perfected the art of making chapathis in a very precise, carefully-planned assembly line. Vageesh undertakes Stage 1 of pounding the dough into a gigantic composite mass and then splitting it up into dough balls. Aadi then takes over by rolling the balls into thin, flat circles. Moulin is assigned to Stage 3 - heating the dough circles on the stove till they puff up. I once volunteered to provide my valuable assistance at each stage in the assembly line. Alas….my dough balls turned out goo-ey, my circles were in fact anything but circular, and I had this annoying tendency to burn each circle I patiently tried to puff. Needless to add, I’ve now been officially and unanimously banned from the entire chapathi-making process.

I’ve moved houses eleven times in the past four years, lived with all kinds of creatures great and small, but this is the first time I get a whacko feeling like I’m living in a frikkin TV sitcom! And even though one of them hates pink, another has extra-sensory perception and the third is madly in love with his mug, they’re still my mates and I love ’em all!!

Watch this space!

Washing Dirty Linen in Public!

2007-07-24T22:17:00.000-07:00

Love at the Laundromat

It started off like any other routine Saturday morning, a few months ago. This being the time of week when I get my copious amounts of laundry done. Its at times like these when I reflect upon how lucky people living in India are - Dhobi materialises out of thin air, Dhobi takes clothes washed by Bai or Washing Machine, Dhobi does his business, Dhobi then re-materialises to return clothes and claim dough!

Here in Brissy, I have to get my ass to the Laundromat at ungodly hours on the weekend in order to beat the rest of the yuppie rush out doing their laundry. Why Laudromat? Because the house I lived in at the time was rented out by students. Washing machine - dysfunctional. Ironing board - stolen. Microwave - never had one!

Anyways, on this particular Saturday, I rocked up to the darned place - bleary-eyed, in a half-dazed, morning-after-wild-night-out stupor. My laundry basket overflowed with the week’s work clothes, sheets, towels and miscellaneous thingummies. Fished around for coins to put into the slots, then realised I didn’t have any. Bummer!

Shuffled into the newsagents next door with the basket - smelly laundry piled a mile high in front of me obstructing my vision and making a clumsy nuisance of myself in the process. The check-out dude checked me out like I was some kind of un-fed, un-washed specimen of human scum.

Bought the day’s rag, procured the change, went back into the ’Mat, dumped my mammoth load into the cleanest machine available, put the coins in, then sat down with a disgruntled sigh on one of the chairs provided for hapless people like myself who have nothing better to do than sit around…. and wait for 25 minutes until the washing is finished….and then transfer the clothes into a dryer….and then wait another 40 minutes until the drying is finished. Bah!

There were a few other kindred spirits milling around, all obeying the unwritten, but strictly adhered to, Laundromat Code of Conduct:

* Never peek into your neighbour’s miscellaneous thingummies, especially if they are stained, torn or ancient.

* Stake your claim to your chosen machine by placing your laundry basket/bag on the top of it, after starting the wash cycle.

* Bring your own change, and never, EVER beg, borrow or steal. Incurring the wrath of the ’Mat on monetary matters is an unpardonable offence.

* Last but not the least – have infinite patience. The Cycle will eventually come to an end. And Life will eventually resume.

There were two 30-something women chattering away to my left, who were regulars at the ’Mat. They seemed oblivious to the droning, tumbling, agitating world around them as they babbled on, while simultaneously folding a big heap of laundry like it was a mindless activity which did not need any impulses from the brain. They actually looked forward to laundry-time every week to catch up on each others lives and men. Normal women (such as me) usually perform this much-needed weekly gal-gab ritual over a coffee or cocktail.

There was a guy picking boogers from his nose with utmost concentration, and waiting with a purposeful stance to pounce on his washer since his load had reached the Spin.

There was a couple at the far end, using their time to become as fertile as possible with overt Public Displays of Affection. Lips locked and tongues darted about in what looked like a 25 + 40 minute kiss. Hands ran feverishly up and down different parts of the anatomy. Get a room!

I was minding my own business, reading the paper, trying to be highly interested in Johnny Howard’s latest misdemeanours with workers’ compensation, when I heard a high-pitched, blood-curdling scream that made me jump to a height of 3 feet and 6 inches above ground level. People who know about my acute fear of various live organisms and creepy-crawlies, will also know that I’m not used to being on the receiving end of such high-pitched, blood-curdling screams.

The Voice proceeded to yell, “Liam, don’t you dare poke your head inside that dryer!”

I gathered up the courage to turn around and face the Voice and Liam….and there he was…. in full blonde-haired, blue-eyed, cherubic, goo-ga-ga glory! It was love at first sight!

Now, I’ll be honest, I go quite dippy in the head when I see cute toddlers making a total mess of themselves, trying to make sense of the world and all its inexplicable mechanisms that can only be understood by getting their hands in and downright dirty. I get this intense urge to cuddle them and coo to them and spank them on their dear little bums!

Liam, the darling, was having a grand time checking out an empty dryer like it was Aladdin’s cave full of deep, dark mysteries and hidden treasures. He was small enough to fit inside the dryer and was trying to wiggle his way into it, when his mum got wind of his latest attempt to turn her hair grey.

She forgot her laundry for a minute, made a quick dash towards Liam, grabbed him with both hands and plonked him with murderous intent on the seat next to mine. She asked me with a beseeching plea in her eye if I could mind him for a few minutes till she got her laundry into the washer. I said I’d be happy to do so, and cheerfully started thinking of something appropriate to coo to Liam.

Liam turned to me, his attention diverted after his sudden air-borne arrival: “Miss, your hair is so pi-tty. Can I touch?”

I gave him my best Beaming-Baby smile. He smiled back - taking that as tacit permission to stand up on his seat, pull my hair out of its clip and dishevel the long strands like he were pummelling Play-Doh. He gave a huge chuckle as I tried to place him on my lap (and away from my hair), and then planted a noisy, saliva-infused kiss smack on the middle of my forehead.

As I gazed into his innocent blue eyes, I thought to myself.... the day wasn't so bad after all! There was a method to the madness at the 'Mat. Love can magically be found, and Life is still beautiful....

Kids…. Don’t you love 'em?!! :)

Eleven Minutes

2007-07-22T22:01:00.000-07:00

Is Sex Sacred?

I read Paulo Coelho’s novel, ‘Eleven Minutes’, on a recent ill-fated trip to India (Mumbai in the Monsoon – bloody unpredictable!). The Brazilian author’s last name, incidentally, is pronounced in the correct, Portuguese manner as Ko-ay-li-yo!! Ay as in Gay. I’ve read his international best-seller, 'The Alchemist', a couple of months before. I could be making a generalist statement here in saying that his books show a marked similarity in terms of the way his plots “flow” – they all seem to follow the journey of a peace-deprived, perpetually-confused lost soul in “search” of something they cannot find in their present existence and hence have to travel on a path of self-exploration to the ends of the world to discover. Seek – and you shall find, my child!

On a more serious note, ‘Eleven Minutes’ is quaint in some ways, but quite disturbing in others. It starts off in irony: “Once upon a time, there was a prostitute called Maria.” Which is a bit of a Blah because the first phrase is reminiscent of how all Cinderella-esque fairytales begin, while “prostitute” is certainly not a word to be uttered in the presence of young, impressionable minds!

As I read about Maria’s early life in a small town in Brazil, I felt it was a tad contrived – she comes to the grand conclusion at the ripe old age of 12 that love is over-rated and that men are bastards! I mean, it takes most women atleast a quarter of a century and a string of failed relationships to figure that out ROFL :) !! Her transition into a sophisticated whore in a “licensed” bar in Switzerland is fraught with difficulties – none of which are unique or not heard about before. Maybe I watch too many Hindi films!

Yes, she does have that tinge of “What the hell am I doing”, but ultimately decides not to adopt the high moral ground in her chosen profession. For a very simple reason – she looks upon it as a means to an end. She has willed herself to go back to her homeland as a rich, savvy woman and build a farm and take care of her family.

Besides, it’s just sex. She has never experienced an orgasm through the sexual act with a client - only through masturbation. Here, I’d like to add – there’s an interesting passage in the book that is the key to the enigma, the quintessential piece of powerful information for all men who want to give complete pleasure to their women but don’t really know how to! The two very specific ways by which a woman achieves orgasm, is described in the lucid, unadorned language which has become Coelho’s trademark.

However, people who want to read the book thinking its going to be the written version of a porn movie with graphic sex scenes, can go look elsewhere. Maria has a morbid fascination with sex, and her thoughts which she writes down in her diary are often more explicit than her various sexual exploits.

To me, the two most crucial questions the book poses are:
1. Can you achieve spirituality through sex?

2. Can you find complete sexual satisfaction with someone you love, or think you’re in love with?

Eleven minutes is all it takes to find out, apparently!

In Maria’s case, she finds sexual fulfillment in an episode of extreme bondage and sado-masochism, which I found a bit mystifying. She claims that by her fifth orgasm, she could perceive God. She finds her true love in Ralf, a painter who can see her “inner light” that he tries to capture on canvas. There onwards, she is in a quandary – she wants her first sexual experience with Ralf to be sublime, and their consummation occurs after a prolonged waiting period while she desperately tries to work out what feels “right”.

I was reading an interview with Paulo Coelho (which is how I finally figured out the way his last name is pronounced), and he happened to say something very thought-provoking. He observes that there are only four types of stories:
1) love between two people
2) love concerning more than two
3) a struggle
4) a journey
Every story we’ve ever encountered, according to him, belongs to one or more of those categories.

It made me think; and my rational, opinionated, argumentative mind tried to refute his statement and find relevant exceptions…. It’s been two days and I still haven’t found anything concrete. Bit weird, considering the fact that I’m a movie junkie and read books with an insatiable appetite.

Any guesses?!

The Teacher and the Twitty-bird

2007-07-18T18:48:00.000-07:00

There was once a little Twitty-bird – small, with pretty pink and canary-yellow plumage, and a voice that could chirp the most endearing melodies! She flitted about, exploring faraway lands and meeting all kinds of other, more exotic birds. Sometimes lively, other times battle-weary – she kept flying, experiencing, living…..

Somewhere along her travels, she had misplaced her identity. She lead a dual reality – she wanted to go back to her home, and yet, she knew that if she did, she would never again be able to return to the world she now called her own. She felt she belonged to both worlds, and she was getting fatigued – she often dreamt of a Time and a Place where she wouldn’t have to lead this ambiguous existence. She wanted her identity to be shaped, to be moulded once and for all. But she didn’t know where to start, and whom to ask for help in her endeavours.

One day, she heard about the Teacher - a very wise bird, who knew the ways of the world better than she did, and who realised quickly upon sensing the Twitty-bird, that she would never be happy leading her dual reality forever. There would come a time when someone, seeing her happy, reckless and abandoned spirit, would want her for themselves. Put her in a cage and make her sing till her voice became hoarse and drained of passion.

The Teacher whispered from his world, so only she could hear: “Come to me, my little Twitty-bird. Come into my world and see how beautiful it is. Don’t be scared, I will take care of you, give you the protection that you need. Take you away from these monsters who plague you day and night, who want to own you – feathers, voice and all!”

The Twitty-bird, amazed that there was a bird somewhere in the universe who could actually understand her angst, responded to the voice: “Give me some time Teacher, I need to fly across the seven seas to be with you. I am but a tiny bird, my wings can only take me thus far everyday. But join you I will. I give you my word. And I will keep learning from you everyday that we are apart, about your world. I want to experience why you think that world would give me more solace and joy than the world I currently inhabit. I have dreamt of such a place before, where I can build my nest with soft, honey-coloured straw and where I can give birth to my little baby-twitties!”

The Teacher replied: “Yes – I know of such a place, and I will take you there, and you will never fear anything again. Yes - I will teach you how to be strong and fend for yourself in your long and perilous journey towards me. You will have to fly over mountains, across rivers, you will meet many strange and unscrupulous birds. Yes - I will be your Teacher. In return, you have to teach me how to nurture your wonderful, uninhibited spirit, so that when we meet, I can provide for you and your golden nest in the best way possible.”

And so they learned from each other, sweet caresses, tender whispers across the seven seas….

Until the time came when the Twitty-bird finally found herself snuggled up in the Teacher’s broad wings. She rested her neck there, satisfied, at peace, knowing with certainty that this was the Time, this was the Place.

It was cold, and calm…. The calm that came before a storm. The storm that threatened to destroy the very fabric upon which the Twitty-Bird had woven her multi-hued dreams….

The Teacher tried to nudge her out of the branch upon which they perched, slowly, with calculated moves.

“No. Wait. What are you doing Teacher? I want to be with you. I have waited many months for this moment.” She remained strong, kept her little feet planted firmly on the branch, and looked him in the eye, hoping that he would see the undiluted, honest, passionate love in her own.

“Go away Twitty-bird. You don’t belong here, you don’t belong with me, you don't belong in my world”.

The Twitty-bird implored: “Don’t you remember the Past, everything that you and I talked about and learned from each other? We knew, we agreed, that Time was all we needed for me to join your world, and build our Future?”

The Teacher scorned her: “What is Time? Minutes merge into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and months. Our whispers all blur in my mind, into an unrecognisable, cohesive Past. Time is dynamic, it keeps changing….Change is the only thing that is constant. The only thing that is real, for Me - is the here and now, the Present. And You, Twitty-bird, do not belong to that Present reality.”

And he pushed her out of his branch with one mighty swoop. She fell, down the layers of branches, down through the dew-drenched leaves and the verdant boughs, down the length of the Tree of Life until she crashed onto the slushy, murky earth below.

There she lay in the rain – her feathers cold and numb, her spirit crushed and weakened, her soul tormented and anguished beyond repair. She remembered what the Teacher had taught her. Remembered every caress, every whisper. It all came back to her, resonating against the harsh winds that tried to wither her away into nothingness.

And then she realised – that the kind, gentle Teacher had in fact, lead his own dual reality during the Time that she took to fly towards him….

Some Wisdom about Gossip!

2007-07-17T04:38:00.000-07:00

Next time someone starts to spread gossip, think of this: In ancient Greece (469 - 399 BC), Socrates was widely lauded for his wisdom. One day the great philosopher came upon an acquaintance who ran up to him excitedly and said, "Socrates, do you know what I just heard about one of your students?

"Wait a moment," Socrates replied. "Before you tell me, I'd like you to pass a little test. It's called the Triple Filter Test."

"Triple filter?!"

"That's right," Socrates continued. "Before you talk to me about my student, let's take a moment to filter what you're going to say. The first filter is Truth. Have you made absolutely sure that what you are about to tell me is true?"

"No," the man said, "actually I just heard about it and..."

"All right," said Socrates. "So you don't really know if it's true or not. Now let's try the second filter, the filter of Goodness. Is what you are about to tell me about my student something good?"

"No, on the contrary..."

"So," Socrates continued, "you want to tell me something bad about him, even though you're not certain it's true?"

The man shrugged, a little embarrassed.

Socrates continued. "You may still pass the test though, because there is a third filter - the filter of Usefulness. Is what you want to tell me about my student going to be useful to me?"

"No, not really..."

"Well," concluded Socrates, "if what you want to tell me is neither True nor Good nor even Useful, why tell it to me at all?"

The man was defeated and ashamed.

This is the reason Socrates was considered a great philosopher and held in such high esteem.

It also explains why he never found out that Plato was having an affair with his wife!

Anger Management!

2007-07-17T03:08:00.000-07:00

Why do we become angry?
We all know anger. We all seek peace. And most of us find forgiveness difficult, especially when the source of our hurt is up close and personal! Anger destroys, peace restores and forgiveness heals – this is the journey we can all learn to make. But first we have to understand the true cause of our anger, the true source of our peace and the enlightened way of forgiveness.

Waging War
“War begins in the minds of men” is an accepted insight that is often quoted from the introduction of one of the United Nations charters. It is not the gun that kills but the emotion that pulls the trigger. Anger is the killer. Anytime you sense irritation, frustration or anger coming, be aware, and you will notice you are waging war on one of three fronts; with the past, with another person/s or with yourself.

You are at war with the past because your anger is always towards something that has already happened and your emotional reaction means you are trying to change it. Which is impossible. To the rest of the world it looks as if you believe you can. That’s because you hold this belief subconsciously. Somewhere and sometime in the past you have picked up and assimilated the belief that the world, including all other people, should do exactly what you want them to, or what you think they should do.

You are at war with another person because they have done something which you judge to be wrong and your anger is an attempt to change them or inflict revenge. Perhaps you have not yet realised it is impossible to control and make others change. The habit of anger is so deep that this truth, which will eventually become self evident, has not yet killed the root of the illusion within you that anger is good. Even the worst dictators do not control other people. People make their own decisions and control their own actions, always. Certainly they can be influenced but they cannot be controlled. Nelson Mandela’s 27 years of exile reminds us that while they controlled the location of his body they could do nothing with his state of mind. Hence his ability to walk away from such an experience without even a whiff of a desire for revenge in his heart or his eyes. Notice how this one attribute alone, this ability to forgive, almost qualified him to be the defacto leader of the world. It’s as if we intuitively acknowledge that the individual who has freed themselves from all anger and dissolved any thoughts of revenge has earned our respect and deepest admiration as we pin the badge of greatness on them.

You are at war with yourself because you are failing to make the world dance to your tune, or you believe you have let yourself down. Have you ever sat in a restaurant waiting for your meal, only to discover forty minutes later, that your order was forgotten or lost. You get upset, but with whom? Perhaps the waiter at first, but then with yourself, for failing to ask after five minutes. There are two failures here. First you failed to speak sooner. Second, you failed to control your emotions. Although you might not verbally admit you failed, inside you know. And so you start to beat yourself up.

Be aware the next time you become angry, interrupt the pattern of your anger by asking yourself two simple questions: What am I trying to do? Answer; you are trying to control what you cannot control (past and people). Who is suffering first and most? Answer; yourself! And if your anger is directed at yourself for your own seeming failure then repeat this short phrase, “There is no such thing as failure only a different outcome from the one that I expected”. And if you insist on staying angry then ask yourself the question, “How long is my anger going to last”? You’ll be surprised how fast it disappears.

Question: In which of the above ways do you ‘go to war’ most frequently?
Reflection: What is it that you want but feel has been, or is being, denied?
Action: Make peace with the situation or person that is triggering your anger, and make peace with yourself !

(Extracted from the book Don’t Get MAD Get Wise by Mike George/2006)

Desiderata

2007-07-11T05:12:00.000-07:00

Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence. As far as possible without surrender be on good terms with all persons.

Speak your truth quietly and clearly and listen to others, even the dull and ignorant; they too have their story.

Avoid loud and aggressive persons; they are vexations to the spirit. If you compare yourself with others, you may become vain and bitter, for always there will be greater and lesser persons than yourself. Enjoy your achievements as well as your plans.

Keep interested in your own career, however humble; it is a real possession in the changing fortunes of time. Exercise caution in your business affairs, for the world is full of trickery. But let this not blind you to what virtue there is; many persons strive for high ideals, and everywhere life is full of heroism.

Be yourself. Especially, do not feign affection. Neither be cynical about love; for in the face of all aridity and disenchantment it is perennial as the grass.

Take kindly the counsel of the years, gracefully surrendering the things of youth. Nurture strength of spirit to shield you in sudden misfortune. But do not distress yourself with imaginings. Many fears are born of fatigue and loneliness. Beyond a wholesome discipline, be gentle with yourself.

You are a child of the universe, no less than the trees and the stars. You have a right to be here. And whether or not it is clear to you, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

Therefore be at peace with God, whatever you conceive God to be; and whatever your labours and aspirations, in the noisy confusion of life keep peace with your soul.

With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be cheerful. Strive to be happy.

- Max Ehrmann