Let Me Be Me

We're shifting

2011-05-14T01:08:00.000+05:30

I hate packing and leaving like this, but Blogger, you've not been fair. You took away my post and my comments. I'm now writing at:

http://meletmebme.wordpress.com/

Blogger friends, won't you drop by there?

Kaam Devta...

2011-05-11T21:47:00.000+05:30

...Isn't happy with me. Please don't confuse this Kaam with Kama; they are two different entities, and while you're at one, it's unlikely you'll be able to manage the other. So the Kaam I'm referring to is what we call in English, 'work'. And now that we're not lost in translation, let me tell you why exactly I think my Kaam Devta is unhappy with me. Suggestions to improve the situation are invited.

Today, I had an argument with the photog, the reporter and the page designers in office - just about everyone there is to argue with. I've been having day after day after day of stressful weekdays because I feel like I'm doing all the dirty work in my office. Which means I do more work than most others, and get all the flak for the mistakes, while the credit for all the right stuff goes to others. Not a unique situation in an office, I understand, but it's been so prolonged now that I'm tired of filling in for inefficient others -- one day one person, the second day another -- while doing my own work, and making it appear like team work when it isn't.

Probably, everyone's doing the best they can, but if their best isn't sufficient, what do I do, being in a perceived position of responsibility? I keep wondering, how will they improve if they don't have it in them to improve no more? Probably, and hopefully, this is temporary.

In other circumstances, I'd quit because I hate working under stress, but now the bloody money has become so good, I can't quit! I want that cash coming into my account every month. And the bonus, and the hiked salary. And I have no other place to take my talent to within this city! So it's catch-22.

Actually, I don't know what Kaam Devta thinks of me these days and if he's unhappy with me or not, but clearly, I'm quite unhappy with him these days.

If you are what you watch on TV...

2011-05-10T21:27:00.001+05:30

...I'm one confused soul.

I WATCH

Top Chef
Hell's Kitchen
Nigella Feasts
Man V. Food
And any other cookery show on TV

Going by that, I'm sometimes a gourmand, a gourmet, a closet-chef, a foodie. But I'm none of that. I actually spend more hours watching cookery challenges/shows than I do in the kitchen! And I have no idea why...

I ALSO WATCH:

The Amazing Race
Roadies
Bigg Boss
Khatron Ke Khiladi
And sundry reality shows

Does that make me a drama queen? A vain voyeur?

AND I ALSO WATCH:

Balika Vadhu, a Hindi soap on child marriage
Re-re-re-re-runs of Friends
How I Met Your Mother
And shows like the Modern Family

Does that make me a couch potato? A soap junkie?

AND I ALSO WATCH:

News channels
Debates
Travel shows
And Discovery

Does that make me an intellectual, a thinking viewer, a half-geek?

What kind of a person are you, if we judge you by what you watch on TV?

Back on the red carpet!

2011-05-09T18:00:00.057+05:30

...When awards for this blog were not few and far between. Now they are an occasion. An event. And one I shall not let pass by without enough pomp and show.

The profilic blogger, Patricia of Colours Decor conferred this lovely award on me last month:

Heartfelt thank-yous Pattie, for the honour.

Unfortunately, this award comes with no tag. Like tell 7 random things about yourself' or tag 10 lovely bloggers! But what the heck, I can surely change the rules a bit.

New rules of the game:

1. Make a list 5 things you'd like to be awarded for in real life

2. List 5 fav awards you've received in your life ever

3. Pass this award to 5 lovely bloggers

Ha! As you can see, I leave no chance to indulge in some self-praise. But, hey I'm giving others a chance to do the same. So here go my lists:

5 things I'd like to be awarded for:

1. Working non-stop for the last 9 years and loving at least 8 of them!

2. Making the best fat-free cold coffee in the world.

3. Being in love with one man all my life.

4. A Lifetime Achievement Award - for watching enough cricket in the last three months to last me a lifetime.

5. At some time in my life, I'd like to receive an award for writing. Some day...

(That was tougher than I'd thought!) And now for my 5 fav awards:

1. I got a 'Smart Baby' prize when I was one, tells my Mom, even though my parents had not entered my name for that competition at a carnival. I still gloat over it!

2. I've got a lot of prizes for academics, but my first award in school was for 'Helpfulness'. I'll always cherish that.

3. My first and last award for Maths - in Class 3!

4. A prize for my cursive writing in school

5. And an award for English in every year of schooling.

Now, to pass this award on to 5 bloggers:

1. Monika Manchanda, the consistent blogger who's roped me in for NaBloPoMo!

2. Aneela Babar, for who she is.

3. IHM, for her passion and positivity.

4. Soulmate, for being a sweetheart.

5. Dee, who has more in common with me than our blogging names.

Phew! Over to you, women!

10 Reasons why my mom's better than yours

2011-05-08T22:00:00.002+05:30

Ha ha! Giving eye-grabbing headlines is part of my job. In this case though, it's not an accurate headline. Because I know your mom's the best, just like mine, and ours. Anycase, I'm still sharing the top 10 reasons why I think my mom's the bestest. And why I'd like to be a mum like her when I get around to being one.

1. She never, never ever harangued us* to eat. Never with a capital N-E-V-E-R. And we never threw a food tantrum. Either she was lucky to have kids who ate when they were hungry, or she knew something about parenting - that if the kid's hungry, she'll ask for food. Why does that make my mom the bestest? Because I think mums who do not overfeed their kids is a rarity. And because it's helped us to not use food as a tool of emotional blackmail. We know we eat for ourselves, for our own happiness and not anyone else's. So even when we're angry, you can't get a 'I'm not going to eat dinner' line out of us. Good for everyone around and us!

2. She's the coolest mom. I don't remember mom ever getting angry. Upset, yes. Angry, never. I don't know what she's made of, but at her angriest best, she's still so sweet. I wish I had inherited that side of her. She doesn't even crib!

3. She hold no grudges, and hasn't passed on any to us. Mom's just unreal in ways. She can help her worst enemy because she doesn't see anyone as an enemy. I swear, she's human, but that's how she is. Which means that we don't carry the baggage of our mother's hurt around. You know, she forgives anyone who's wronged her in some way. And that just helps us do the same, instead of holding a grudge against people who have done us no harm directly.

4. She's always positive. And that's thankfully something we've both inherited from her. Even in the most dismal situations, she can see the light at the end of the tunnel.

5. She goes for her medical check-ups without being reminded, has her medicines on time regularly. Women tend to neglect their health so much that children have the responsibility of ensuring they take care of themselves. But it's a blessing to have a mum who's alert and aware about her health at 60. Not that she doesn't have her share of problems - she's diabetic and hypertensive. But thankfully, she's kept both under control with lifestyle changes and proper care.

6. When I'm feeling low, I know she'll pep me up. That's what moms do, don't they? Say the right things, make the right sounds and hug you till everything's okay.

7. She doesn't mind that both her daughters are crazy after their dad. Well, for most part of my life I was. Now I'm saner - love Dad but know he could have been a better husband. But for so many years, Mummy never resented the affection OD that we lavished on Papa. She didn't try to manipulate her children to make a point against the husband, and just for that, I respect her so much!

From the PostSecret site

8. She's the best crisis manager. Anyone in the family has a problem, they can count on Mom to fall back on. During Dad's worst illnesses, the weddings in the family when women tend to lose their nerves, during tragedies in the family, she's remained rock solid. From her I've learnt that no obstacle is too great to overcome.

9. She doesn't worry her head over us. So when we used to step out of the house, we knew we just had to take care of ourselves and not an over-anxious mom waiting at home. Or when we go out of town now, I know I don't have to call her 10 times in a day to tell her I've had my breakfast, lunch and dinner, am here now and there next. It makes it easier to live life, to focus on the thing at hand, instead of using up a great deal of our energy or keeping someone else cool.

10. I love her and she loves me. What do I care for the rest?

Happy Mother's Day!

*Us = Sis and me

Late bloomers

2011-05-08T00:28:00.003+05:30

Click on the pictures for a better view

Better late than never!

And I promise to post two posts today to make up for the post I missed yesterday for the NaBloPoMo challenge.

You know you're leading a good life when... Part 2

2011-05-06T20:18:00.001+05:30

...you can afford to be lethargic on days at stretch and no one reprimands you for it.

...you can change clothes without bolting the door ever, and no one walks in on you!

...you fall ill, and there are more than half a dozen people ready to do anything to make you happy. Almost anything.

...your friends take your secrets seriously.

...you're dog tired after work and you get an inspiration that makes you want to slog some more, and you don't even mind it!

...you almost forget to wish someone important on your birthday but you're saved by people who remind you just in time.

...you are surrounded by people who feel happier for you than you do for yourself. Blessed like that!

Part 1 here

May be, forever so

2011-05-05T23:07:00.001+05:30

For someone who's always running short of time, I must admit I am very brave to take up the NaBloPoMo challenge. But what am I if not foolish, eh? So there I was, being nosey parker on Twitter, asking around what's up with this gang of bloggers (gang of girls too?), led apparently by Monika (who, I can't believe, manages to update three blogs regularly *sigh*), all joining in a chorus of 'Me too, me too!' And before I knew I was singing the same tune! (To check out who all are participating in this, head to Monika's).

Which isn't such a bad thing after all. Considering all the thoughts that wither away in my head because I procrastinate too long to write 'em down, this is a good idea. There's another problem too: I usually come here with a mind to post, but end up blog-hopping, reading all the latest updates, and then there's no time to write! Seems like such a bad excuse na? It ain't, I promise it happens.

Apparently, there are prompts for each day's post, but I'm feeling quite confident I won't need them (read: heed them). But for starters, I'm going to play by the prompt for the month - Maybe. My interpretation of it? Here goes:

May Be

When the yellow blossoms turn golden on the trees
And the grass blades begin to fade from dark green.

The sun comes up early and stays on late,
Peeps in throughs trellises and shaded window panes.

The flowers on the mango trees turn plump in anticipation
And the Gulmohurs flame up the clear blue imagination.

The yellowed leaves rustle in the morning breeze
That carries the koel's cuckoo across the balcony.

Who remembers then the wheezing last night
Of the dust storm that left a trail of dirt behind.

----------------------------------------------------------------

Of that and more Mays be
Year on year, till forever be?

Is there enough leg room on the court?

2011-04-25T09:00:00.011+05:30

By now, all of you must’ve heard about the Badminton World Federation’s new rule for women players making skirts compulsory on the court to popularise the sport. Now, in India there’ve been reactions from the badminton players supporting and showing dissent against the new rule. While Saina Nehwal doesn’t think her wearing shorts or skirts on court will affect the number of people watching her, Aparna Bopanna and Jwala Gutta have no problem with the new directive. The latest is that due to stiff resistance from Indian players, the BWF has pushed back the date of implementing the rule.

But the resistance is not so much to the spirit of the rule as to wearing skirts, and I think that's just missing the point. Why is no one questioning the BWF’s rationale that a woman’s sport must be glamorous in order for it to be popular? Why is no one asking how the Federation plans to popularise men’s badminton? Surely, not by having them play shirtless! So why then should a woman’s sport be subjected to such a ridiculous assumption?

At the end of the day, what we’re doing is objectifying women who’re in a sport because they can play the sport, not because they can look a certain way. If more people watch badminton because there’s more skin at display on the court, what’s being popularised is not the sport but the notion that women are objects on display.

I’m ready to convert to another point of view – one that convinces me that there is nothing sexist about this move and that if they had to make a men’s sport also popular they would glam it up. I agree, glamour attracts a lot of eyeballs, a lot. But that’s no justification for us to ask women with a certain skill set to pander to such demands. What happens next? Do we ask women wrestlers to look more feminine because that would attract more fans, and do we ask women basketball players to wear body-hugging racer-back tees? And the men can continue to be sloppy, muscular and just good at their game?

If a sport has to be popularised, there must be other ways to do it. If cricket is so hugely popular in countries like India, it’s because we’ve had players who can win us matches. There’s glamour in the game, but that’s come because of the sport’s popularity. And even then, Sachin is by no stretch of imagination what you call glamorous. Neither was Kapil Dev. So what’s the connection?

A boy is more desirable than a child?

2011-04-21T23:55:00.002+05:30

There are some people who still do the things people used to do 15-20 years ago. Like visit a relative during a vacation. So, a bunch of five distant relatives from Punjab landed up at our place in the middle of April, to spend a week ‘holidaying’ in Lucknow (which, if you ask me, is an oxymoron, but they obviously didn’t think that). And honestly, they were quite a fun-loving group of people, very Punjabi in spirit, if you know what I mean, and not much of a bother.

One of the days, as was expected, the topic veered to kids and having some of your own. I understand the elders’ urgency to see us with a child, but when the child they want to see is a ‘son’, I get really irritated. Bless us with a child, if that's the most important thing for you, but don't wish at the same time for that child to be a boy. But I was given the gyan that sons are must-haves, that life with daughters isn’t bad, that we bring up our daughters better than our sons and all of that, but that sons are what everyone looks forward to. That when you get old, your sons and their wives and their children make up your world. That daughters go away and are never to their parents what sons can be.

I tried telling them that my parents – parents of two girls – lived alone, but were not lonely. I tried to tell them that sons also go away – to study, to work. That often, sons turn their parents out of the house, and daughters take care of them. That girls were just as good. But how could the 50-year-olds believe that when a girl half their age refused to believe me. And that’s what appals me the most.

This girl, all of 25, mother to a 2-year-old girl, said emphatically that while some accept it openly, others don’t, the truth is everyone wants a son. And she’s not too wrong. In her worldview, that’s how people would be. But I could just stare at her. How will this world change if the mothers of a generation that’s in the making believe in something so totally redundant? These are educated people we are talking about – people who travel, who watch the news, who read, who are ostensibly aware. If they set so much store by a boy, what will our world turn out to be? Will our daughters grow up and fight the same mindsets we have to? I’m already impatient with a world that doesn’t understand that my gender does not make me less of a person; and to think we will go through all of this 25 years hence too, makes me livid!

It’s appalling also because in all my life I never heard my parents say anything like this. In fact, my grandmother, who belonged to a time when it wasn’t considered improper to wish for a boy, never let us feel that boys were more desirable as children than girls. I think she’s didn’t believe that either. My mom never forgets to tell us that while relatives would take upon themselves the duty to counsel my mother about perhaps trying for a third child, in the hope of a boy, my grandmother never expressed such a wish. How then can a 25-year-old living in this day and age think that sons are indispensable? Like me, she’s also one of two daughters. But probably, she was conditioned to believe that her parents would have been better off had they a son to support them in old age.

I sometimes try and think as objectively as the matter lets me, whether there is any justification for such a thought process. And I find none that’s convincing enough. Things like carrying the family name forward, or inheriting the family business – things that will happen once you’re dead – how can that be of concern to you when you’re alive? I mean, you want a son because you want the world to be what you’ve imagined it to be after you’re dead? How pathetic!

I don’t think men are unimportant. I’m not a man-hater by any chance. But I don’t think sons are important. Or more important than daughters.

I don't want a build up to this post - it's such a sad Happy Birthday!

2011-04-19T23:46:00.003+05:30

So I'll just go ahead and tell you that I fell sick on my birthday, which was on this Monday gone by. I hated it! A day before, which I had reserved to polish myself at a spa like you do brass before a party, I was lying in bed, trying to whisper to myself ‘All izz well, all is well’. Alas, it wasn’t. And by Sunday evening, I was running 102 degree Fahrenheit temperature. So instead of getting my eyebrows in shape, I was ensuring there were nice dark circles under my eyes to go with ’em bushy brows! And lest you think I can pop a Crocin and get on with life, let me remind you, dear reader, about my wonderful world of allergies that forbid me to enjoy the simple pleasures of life – like how you feel better after gulping a Crocin.

So to make the picture prettier, I was treated to cold sponging. Mum came over with medicine from her favourite homeopath. And it worked! It worked well enough for me to sit up in bed by midnight and cut my awesome cake, which actually I should have been cutting with all my family, over dinner at a fancy dinner place where we had booked a table for 15! But that plan had to be called off in the evening, when the fever showed no sign of letting up.

And D-day came with no pleasant surprises. The fever was gone, the phone was engaged the whole day long receiving birthday wishes, but that’s not the birthday you want to have! I told the Twitterati about my birthday and save for a few nice souls, no one noticed.I’d planned a lunch with my colleagues at a South Indian place nearby that I love, because Monday is a light day work-wise and we can step out for an hour or so without a problem. But that was not to be. I spent the afternoon recuperating in bed, bathed at 5pm because it was my birthday(!) and things began to look better after that. Family turned up (sisters, mothers, nieces and nephews), but would you believe it, no one got me a gift!

The problem with being such a stickler for your kind of stuff is that people totally skip the effort of even buying you anything and just hand you cash instead. Which is so, so boring! But Sis No 1 made up for it by gifting me a Radha-Krishan she’d painted herself, a huge-ish canvas that will find pride of place on a wall in my house soon. We topped off the day by stepping out for dinner with friends, where I could not eat anything because my stomach decided to give up on me just then! Oh yes, it was a fantastic birthday indeed!

But seriously, not as bad as I’m making it out to be. It could have been worse had the temp not gone down (god bless mom’s reliable homeopath!). But it could have been better too. Well, well, next time maybe.

Zero se Hero

2011-04-10T01:23:00.001+05:30

What’s the similarity between Anna Hazare’s fast and the Indian cricket team’s victory? The obvious apart – the victory, that is - what connects one man’s resolve to fight the rot that’s seeped into our system and the India XI’s win in a game of cricket is the public response both evoked. Thousands out on the streets, dancing, shouting, chanting. An utter disregard for age and sex. An emotion felt with some ardour by everyone. So what’s the big revelation here? To me, it’s the Indian peoples’ overwhelming desire to embrace heroes, wherever they find them.

The response to Anna Hazare or the Indian team can’t merely be dismissed as the excesses of an over-emotional nation, even if you think cricket is just a game and even if you think support for Hazare’s cause is just lip service. If you read between the lines, I’d say it’s about finding heroes we can look up to, emulate and put on a pedestal. Not since our pre-Independence years have we found the people who could move us to tears, who could hold sway over the collective emotions of an entire country and when we find anyone who promises to lead from the front, we grasp on to him, and cling to him like the last straw. Or perhaps, it would be more appropriate to say that the generation that sprung up in the 1970s and after that, had never before found the heroes they read of in school books, around them. Of course, there’ve been the lone rangers – one inventor here, another writer there, the ’83 World Cup, the war heroes – who’ve brought us glory, and have had newspaper editors wax eloquent about their feats. But nothing I've witnessed that could get a million hearts beating together.

I don’t know if we latch on to any semblance of heroism because we’ve never witnessed any first hand, or because we are just made like that. But it’s a pattern you can see through the years. The moment we know that an Indian called Sabeer Bhatia made that revolutionary tool of the internet of the late 90s called Hotmail, we quickly lay our claim on him. We zealously forward messages about how Microsoft, Google and other leaders in geekdom have people of Indian origin at the helm of their affairs. We still don't miss a chance to gloat on how the 'zero' was invented by an Indian. And I think we often talk about Gandhi, or give the status that he enjoys in our country, because to the world, he is the face of the India that could achieve anything on its own merit. When a 26/11 happens in Mumbai, we are quick to go looking for the men who saved us and to make them heroes, even if temporarily. We are quick to glorify and probably quicker to pull down people who don’t live up to our expectations. But as a nation, we’ve never stopped looking for our heroes wherever we can find them – religious gurus who promise miracles, scientists who do pioneering researches in their field, men on the Forbes 100 list who can boast of money and power, NRIs who get invited to the US President’s dinners... If you've noticed, sporting feats have been regularly making headlines in our country and mostly for the right reasons. Because for long spells, there's nothing positive to put on the front pages of our newspaper, except a record broken, a medal won, history created.

But this time looks different. Despite the cynicism of so many, this stepping out of homes to support a cause, it’s heartening. It’s proof we can still find our heroes in this world.

Why does the PM want to watch the India-Pak match at Mohali?

2011-03-28T00:34:00.002+05:30

There only a couple of options to choose from:

1. Because he can't think of other, more cruel ways to inconvenience the public. And to add to the cricket crazy Indian janta's woes, has invited his Pakistani counterpart too.

2. Because he's tired of talking about WikiLeaks and the India-Pak match in the World Cup semi-finals seems like a good time to divert everyone's attention away from it.

3. Because all vague attempts at Indo-Pak peace, such as the Indian and Pak premiers sitting together in the VVIP boxes while the cricketers bay for each other's blood, get the media to put the spotlight squarely on misplaced notions of what is peace between the two countries. And that works well with a rudderless government.

4. Because he's a cricket crazy Indian, just like the rest of us - and that's just to give MS the benefit of doubt.

But reason # 4 isn't good enough for the Prime Minister to descend with all his cavalcade, security entourage and problems at the cricket ground in Mohali. So could there be another reason?

But without much ado, I'd like to say the PM should just stay home and watch the match there instead of agonising so many people with his presence.

I'm doing a short poll on whether the PM should or shouldn't go for the semi-finals (see right). Watsay you?

UPDATED TO ADD: 72% of the respondents to the poll said they DID NOT want the PM to come and watch the match. Public opinion counts?

We’re getting rich so quick, it’s scary

2011-03-22T23:08:00.000+05:30

The other day I was sitting with my 70-year-old neighbour who looks nothing more than 50, and who is such a wonderful conversationalist, full of stories and anecdotes that I wish I could spend more time with her. That’s just for the perspective, not the point though. She was telling me about her grandson, who’s getting engaged to his girlfriend sometime soon. So the young chap told his mom he wanted to gift his wife-to-be a diamond solitaire on their engagement, at least a 3-carat diamond solitaire. The family’s not a steeped-in-riches, leave-your-son-an-eye-popping-inheritance kind of family. So the mother refused, saying she just didn’t have that kind of money (3 carat diamond at the family jeweller would cost about 7 lakh rupees approximately). No problem, the son retorted and said, I’ve saved enough.

This young chap I’m talking about is all of 26! And hold on. The boy’s also bought a three-storey house in Delhi. Already! I mean, what is this if not a wow-inducing moment? Saved enough for a 3-carat solitaire set in gold? And a house to boot at 26? Wow indeed!

I’m sure you know at least a couple of these kind of youngsters – who’ve already been there, done that at 26 or some age nearby. But I don’t how to react to such awe-inspiring success stories (except, of course, to be a little in awe of them), because there’s some part of me still rooted in childhood memories of people using up all their savings of a lifetime to get a home. Remember, all those stories we heard of our grandfathers and fathers using their hard-earned money to build a house? At 40, if not post-retirement? People who owned houses were usually landed people, from families who could give their sons a house in viraasat. In India, owning a house is the surest symbol of social security. It’s great that we have social security so soon in our lives, but is it right? I mean, shouldn’t people in their 20s be living like they didn’t have a care in the world instead of thinking of EMIs that gobble up half their salaries? Weren’t we supposed to wait for our 30s to settle down and the 40s to look for social security? Such redundant concepts, eh?

It all sounds good, these fat pay cheques that can get you anything that money can buy. But up close, it’s not that rosy a picture. A friend’s husband is climbing up the corporate ladder so fast, it seems he’s taking two steps at a time. He’s bought a house in the NCR at 27. He’s second in command in his company. And he has no time for his family. My friend works too, but not like the workaholic that her husband does. And she complains that he wants to move up so fast, he has no time for her. Guys like him say they plan to earn enough by 40 to retire. Seriously, do you think such people can ever quit the race?

Contentment and satisfaction were considered virtues in our society. They’re looked down upon as cover-ups for complacency and lack of ambition in a person now. A person who comes home early from work is considered either to be wasting his time or downright lazy. That he may want to spend time with his family means nothing these days. What if someone did make the choice to be happy with just enough money and more than enough time and to be back home early? And what if that person was living in a rented house? How bad would that be?

And even while I say this, I realise that of the two kind of people I’ve mentioned – ambitious and not – more people will still aspire to be the ambitious sort of person. Is that what happiness has come to mean for an entire generation of people?

Ja beta, jee le apni zindagi

2011-02-25T00:39:00.001+05:30

Now don't tell me you haven't seen Amrish Puri give Kajol the ticket to live her life by undertaking a journey on the Eurorail in that romantic flick called DDLJ that continues to run in some Mumbai theatre! But this ain't about an iron-fisted dad and his daughter. This is about The Guy and me.

So, hopefully, we've already established that like every other Indian guy, my husband eats, breathes, sleeps cricket. He can watch a match from start to finish, the toss and prize distribution ceremony included. And watch still another one with only a grin to give to his wife as explanation for the unreasonableness of it all. And with the Cricket World Cup breathing down my throat, you know what things are like back home. To make matters worse, the World Cup's come home, I mean it's playing in the Indian subcontinent. And some fancy friends of The Guy put the idea in his head that they must go to watch at least one match live at the stadium. Tickets were booked for Bangalore, where India plays England this Sunday, even though there was no match ticket in hand! But umeed pe duniya kayam hai. And even while the 'source' is supposed to yet confirm the passes to the match, another 'source' has been tapped to get passes for other matches that India is playing in the country!

This second source, a friend of mine who's saying he's going to shave off his head if India wins (how are the two related?!), was chatting with me on FB, telling me about his plans to go to Mohali and Mumbai yada yada to watch the matches, mentioned just as The Guy peeped into the chat window - 'You know the next World Cup will take place in India 20 years later, and we'll be in our 50s then!' And that was all the reason my husband needed to justify his wish to travel all over the country to watch India play whichever other country! Since then, he's actually been making travel plans, pullingI all the powerful strings required to procure match passes, VIP no less. There's frenetic messaging happening everyday, dates being discussed, locations being looked for, budgets being mentally drawn up in the head. Of course, I'm nowhere in the picture nor on the flights to Bangalore, Delhi or Mohali.

So what is my reaction to all of this? Despite my grudging tone in this post, I was all like 'ja beta, jee le apni zindagi'. Not one to hold back someone from doing what they want so much to, I think that there's very little that men like The Guy, do for themselves in general. I mean, he rarely 'wants' anything. And I think if this inane cricket stuff is what he wants, what's the harm? A few thousands spent on your heart's desire is exactly what we earn for. No?

It's different

2011-02-15T23:11:00.002+05:30

I don't think I've ever really discussed why being me isn't easy. Because the answer is a cliche - the answer is that I'm different. Yes, like every new flick, every new idea, every new person in your life, I'm different. But always only relatively. I think it's just about being me in the world that I live in. There must be, I'm sure, plenty of people like me in this world, but they aren't the people I spend my life with. The people I spend my life with, I'm not like them. And when I come across those who don't make me feel like the outsider in my own life, I know I'm not an aberration. For the rest of the time, I am just trying to be me, because by some mutation of my parents' DNA, I cannot live like I am another person, inherently incapable of doing that.

The Guy and I, for all our love and years of being together, are as different as chalk and cheese, not perhaps in values and beliefs as much as our likes and dislikes. If I want to watch a play, he's going to fall asleep 10 minutes into it. If I want to play scrabble, he's going to want to watch TV. If he wants to watch cricket, I'm going to read a book. We celebrate our differences, most of the time we do, but sometimes I just want company to do a thing I want to do. Sometimes, I just want him to go on a walk with me, order veg fare when we go out to eat. Sometimes, it's not fun to have someone do something for you just because you want them to, and not because their heart is in it as much as your's. You know what I mean?

At work, it's not too different. I sometimes feel like a one-man army, trying to juggle ten tasks at the same time, while some of my colleagues are struggling through their first. They're looking for friendships and alliances at work, and I'm looking for work. And that's how everyone was in my Delhi office, which I took to like fish to water. People came to office, did heap loads of work, shared a laugh, a lunch, a cab and went home, without any fuss. And now that's what makes me different from others in my work space!

I want to be me, but I don't want to be the only one like me in my environment. I live in a family, which is very nice, but I share very little with them in common. It's our priorities, our attitudes, our problem-solving mechanism, our survival mechanism, everything that's totally divergent. Not that anyone stops me from doing what I want to, or being who I am, but it's not always easy to keep going against the grain, to hold your belief strong in your heart even if everyone around you has no faith in it, and then to keep that faith intact. I wish so much that we could just agree on things not for each other's sake, but because in our heart of hearts we do. This constant negotiation for our spaces, albeit peaceful, drains my energy, and sometimes what's left inside of you at the end of it is just this burden of restless energy. It's not the energy that lets you be you. On the contrary, it takes away from it, altering you in small but irreversible ways.

And then, I wish that like so many other people, I could stop being myself. That would be so much easier.

What's love got to do with it?

2011-02-04T23:52:00.002+05:30

When two people fall in love and (maybe) decide to get married, how much of their lives and themselves are they willing to share with each other? At the very obvious level, couples share their thoughts, their feelings, their emotions. At another level, they share the space they live in, the bed they sleep in, the bathrooms they use. But there's some bit of the sharing that goes beyond the essential. Like sharing parts of your life you wouldn't let anyone else.

I guess every couple just draws their own line of what's acceptable, what's not. I think that where the line is drawn depends largely on how much space you need for yourself, how much of it you're willing to give up comfortably. Like some people are totally okay with sharing all their passwords with each other - for their mail and FB accounts, ATM cards, e-banking stuff and what have you. But sharing a Facebook profile? Not okay with me. What, you don't know a couple who actually has a single FB account? Yes, they exist, and leave you wondering how to treat their profile like a couple!

Me? I wouldn't give up being the individual I am, even if it's online, to be just a couple. And no, I don't think it's a deficit of trust, or a desire to conceal. It's just that I need to be myself before I can start being someone's wife, daughter, whatever.

I do know of couples though who totally (and happily) eat into each other's space like they didn't exist as individuals before. They have the same friends - if you can't get along with both, you can't be friends with either. They eat out of a single plate, share the same opinions, the same sense of humour, the same sense of outrage - you get the drift. And that's because they're so much in love with each other. Because by some inflated notion of love, that's what lovers do - cease thinking independently, start mirroring each other's reactions and think that any voice of dissent must mean that they're out of love. Really? No, seriously, is that it? Because that would mean I've never quite been in love. Do you have to have an identical other half in your partner to be certified 'in love'?

You may find it a little difficult to convince me that the answer to that question is 'yes'. So tell me, how much of your space are you willing to give up for your partner? How much isn't too much for you?

Burnt Out

2011-01-26T21:08:00.001+05:30

Hidden signs of a burnout:
1. You're physically exhausted all the time.
2. Caring about anything takes too much effort.
3. You're feeling more and more detached from activities and people you were once passionate about.
4. You're sleeping far less than you used to and your sleep is restless.
5. You've almost stopped socialising with your friends or make repititive excuses not to see them.
6. Your need to be in control is overwhelming.
7. You have lost interest in sex.
8. You refuse help from others and begin to see it as a weakness.

Read this in a mag today. Almost 6 of those 8 points hold true for me. I know a one-page feature in a magazine isn't the best way to diagnose a condition, but this looks like a sufficient pointer to a problem. Solution? Apparently, doing nothing helps! And that's exactly what I've been craving for - doing nothing. For a while at least.

What's the big deal about saying sorry?

2011-01-17T23:19:00.000+05:30

It's just a single word - 'sorry'. And it's so hard to extract from an unwilling giver. It surprises me then, how I'm so easy with saying my sorries, heartfelt sorries, sorries to set things right, sorries to people I love, sorries for things I didn't do. Yes, you read that right - I do that too - say sorry at times for saying stuff and doing things I don't consider wrong. And I'm okay with it.

Sometimes, it's just the price you pay for peace with a person who can't see that you're not wrong. And if I have to choose between my ego and a loved one, I choose the latter. Because it's only the ego that holds you back, doesn't it, from bending when someone else isn't? Between me and my heart, or me and my God, I know what's right, I know I'm not wrong. So what if someone else doesn't understand or doesn't agree?

Someone would say I've compromised on what I believe in, said sorry when I don't feel it. But I don't see it like that. If it makes someone happy, sorts things out, I can do that. If that's the only way of convincing someone of my good intentions, I can do it. As long as that person is important enough for me to go that extra mile. Because you don't want to be estranged from someone who's important to you because they can't get your point. What do you get by being right and being unhappy?

But I'm not sure everyone thinks like that. Would you say sorry for something you aren't guilty of, if the person is important enough?

The partython is finally over!

2011-01-05T21:45:00.002+05:30

If I'm home blogging now, it's because the partython is finally over. Now, there are just a couple of parties every week, unlike the last fortnight or so, which was about partying every single day. Kya karein, life's like that - just one long party!

And that's how winters in Lucknow are - spent around warm bonfires, in the heartwarming company of friends, wine and shine! I had no time to do up our Christmas tree this year, for a couple of reasons - first, because it's near impossible to do justice to that huge tree and second, because I had no time to do up even one side of it. But that doesn't mean I didn't have friends over on Christmas eve to spend the evening with (and most part of the night too).

This was the most Christmas-y Christmas I've ever had. We were out for lunch at a friend's place, who had thrown an X'mas party for her kids, and the lovely kids had gotten together with their friends to put a musical performance that was absolutely wow! In the evening, my sister had arranged for a Christmas party for my nephew. Another friend threw a big bash on Christmas night - a white Christmas party, because everyone had to dress up in white. And though I hated that there was a theme I had to adhere to, I loved how the pics turned out - with the white standing out against the black of the night.

There was more on the party platter. Sometime around that time, there was a really, really awful dance party at a pub where barely 15 people turned up, and not any of them the kind who would step on to the dance floor! What a bore.

Then there was a barbecue party at a friend's farmhouse, to which we lost the way. And that men hate admitting they are lost, let alone asking for directions was witnessed on the10km stretch that we drove on ahead of the venue. After much tactful handling by another friend who was with us in the car, we managed to ask for directions on the phone and get to the farmhouse. Of course, The Guy still maintains he got confused, didn't really lose the way. Yeah, whatever!

New Year's eve was the same jazz - drinks, dance and dost! My cousin had come from Delhi for the New Year's, and she was in such 'high' spirits, literally, that I spent a good part of the evening watching after her. No regrets though. Love her and love her antics! We just toppled over a couple of times, downed water shots, because no one would serve us vodka anymore and giggled endlessly in the ladies' loo. Which reminds me, what is with drunk women and their washroom weirdness? It was hilarious inside the tiny ladies loo, because all the tipsy women couldn't stop laughing on nothing! We wrapped up the party by 3 (yayyy! beat all the deadlines, all you metro-walas!) in the morning and when I came home, I didn't even have a giddy head. But my feet - ooooh, they still hurt from the high heel impact. But I didn't tell you my shoe story, did I? Here it goes:

Just a week before New Year's I went to pick up some goodies from Delhi. Yes, I went to shop. So? If you want to judge me for being such a squanderer, do. But I have the best husband in the whole wide world, who insists that there's absolutely nothing wrong in flying out of town to shop, even if it's just two weeks after you've returned from Bangkok. But I swear, I had no winter wear! The Bangkok shopping had been so meh, because it's always summer there and we're in the middle of the coldest winters here. And so, in Delhi, among other things, I picked up these really really sexy pair of calf-length, high-heeled boots. Such yumminess! On sale. See, I'm not a squanderer! Just a shopaholic. Does God forgive the sins of a shopaholic? But another post for that....

We're talking about my partying here. I can't quite do justice to all the fun I've been having - the huddling around the fire on a friend's terrace on a biting cold winter night, or braving the cold waves for a chaat party in the open air. Or the family outing when my eldest niece unleashed all of her tuneless self on us, and the youngest stole my heart by calling me 'masi' for the first time. Or laughing till we could laugh no more when a wooden dewan broke under the weight of two "healthy" friends! The list goes on... but yeah, winter's the time to be in Lucknow. Even in this horrible, bone-chilling, feet-numbing, shivers-inducing, cold.

It's a happy new year

2011-01-02T13:23:00.000+05:30

I don't want to look back at the last year and do a flashback post. And I don't want to look ahead at what I expect/want from this year. Because I'm living in the present and loving it!

The Missing Link

2010-12-22T12:51:00.001+05:30

Another day, week, month, and soon I'll be saying year, gone by. And it seems it's been like this forever. But it hasn't. I've been pretty ok all this year, better than ok actually. But the last few weeks have been... strange. I've not been more out of my element than now in a really long time. And I'm restless. I blamed it on PMS for some time, but that's long gone. This is just discontent. And I have no idea where it stems from. It's like I go to bed at night and I can't sleep, because I don't want to end another day that feels so incomplete. It's like I've been waiting the whole day for something and at night I realise that it's not happened. Except that I don't know what that 'something' is.

I spend hours on the internet at night, doing stuff I'd long given up, like facebook. And even after I've switched off the comp, I fiddle with my BB, or play some inane game on the phone. I do not step out of my room after I return home from work, unless it's to step out of the house. And I do not feel like making small talk with anyone. But I still do those things for the sake of appearances, or perhaps to fool myself. And I doubt anyone can even make out that there's something amiss about my bearings. I laugh, I frown, I eat, I shop. But there's no joy in it.

I don't know what it is. It's intangible. It's not out there for me to get. It's so many things, in so many parts of my life. It's un- fulfillment, ennui.

I mean, there's no apparent reason for me to feel like this. Life's exactly like it was till recently, when I didn't feel like this. But it's not the same. Something's snapped in my head and till I fix it, I can't go any further. It's been two weeks of consistently ignoring the nagging suspicion that this feeling won't go away just one fine morning. And I'm still waiting for that fine morning.

This isn't me. I'm irritable, snappy, bored, lethargic. At work, I'm half-hearted about most things, not driven like crazy like I was till a fortnight ago. But even as long as I'm constructively occupied, it's okay. But as soon as I have a moment to think, the spirits sag, just like that.

I'm probably looking for something nice to happen to me. Perhaps I'm just fickle - need a change ever so often. Perhaps I need some TLC, some emotional pampering, some out-of-the-blue niceness, without having to spell it out. And that can't be so difficult to come by. So why is it?

What to expect...

2010-12-19T21:01:00.000+05:30

When you're travelling to Thailand (Or keeping my promise of sharing pics from the trip).

SUN, SEA AND SAND

At Phuket

Ma Ya Bay

That red speck in the sky? That's The Guy parasailing

The colourful sunbeds at Khai Island

Phi Phi Island

SOME WEIRD SIGNS

Need I say more? :)

His and Her (below) - Signs for the washrooms

"Best view in town". Of?

Not in memory of Osama!

 ANIMAL INSTINCT

Gotta lick it!

You can swim with the fish at Khai Island

Those are sparrows!! Yes, those little house birds that are now extinct in India can still be found there. Can you imagine how excited that made me!

ART AND CULTURE

Multi-coloured flower motifs at Wat Pho, the temple of the Reclining Buddha in Bangkok

Lots of Buddhas, everywhere

SHOPPING, OF COURSE!

NOT MOI!

Swadhika! *

2010-12-13T00:49:00.002+05:30

I've been working hard, even if it's out-of-office. On being well-travelled. It's not an easy job, you know, starting out this late in life to get to know the world a little better. And yes, there was our anniversary too, which we wanted to celebrate away from the madding crowds of the hometown. So, we went to Thailand for a short break last week.

To be honest, Thailand wasn't my first holiday destination. I wanted to go to Europe. France and Italy, with a little bit of Greece here and Spain there. But we were way off the European vacation season. And though I'd vowed I won't go to South East Asia again (been there twice before), till I'd seen some highbrow stuff (no really, that's not why I want to go to Europe; I'm just interested in all things Roman and Italian). But you see, nothing goes as you've planned, nothing at all. And as luck would have it, we got upgraded to business class both ways -to and from Bangkok! Part of the learning experience, you see, just so that I could get to know how different travelling business class is from economy - the extra leg room and the broad, recline-till-you-want seats and all that jazz.

About Bangkok, let's get this clear: I was there to shop. Mostly shop. I mean, that's how I'd been sold that destination. And so that I would suit my part better, I bought 'Confessions of a Shopaholic' at the Delhi airport (I love T3! It's awesome). That's quite another matter that I started reading it only on the way back, after I was done with 'The Accidental Billionaires' (note to self: must do book reviews soon). My two-day stay at Bankgok was really all about shoes, and some more shoes, and still some more. Clothes are missable, always. Not shoes. So we went from one weekend market to another mall, and yet another mall and no surprise then that I had swollen, callused feet at the end of those two days. And please let me make a special mention here of The Guy's patience in handling my shopping whims. Only after hours of waiting for me to choose from rows and rows and rows of shoes, would he groan in agony. And then, I would give in and get him a beer.

Please don't tell me I should have gone here or there, or whatever place you think is worth going to in Bangkok. Because I had no time! I mean, you're asking a girl to choose between shoes and anything else? Ha! You must be joking. I did, however, take out time to visit Wat Pho, the temple which houses the largest indoor statue of the reclining Buddha. I played the complete tourist there and clicked every nook, cranny and cornice of the beautiful structures. Unfortunately, there were too many visitors and too little time to enjoy the serenity of the place.

The Reclining Buddha

Indians must be the worst vacationers. They almost always come back feeling more tired from a holiday than relaxed. To avoid that eventuality, we'd reserved the latter part of the holiday for a more relaxed time at Phuket. And Phuket I loved! It's just a Thai version of Goa, with Starbucks added for icing (I could spend my life inhaling the aroma of coffee at Starbucks). The water there is the most gorgeous blue-green, the sand a beautiful buff brown, and it rains in the middle of a hot sultry day. Plus, it has that aura of a place that calls to you to forget your worries and just go curl up on a beach bed in the shade of a colourful umbrella for 200 baht and nice oversized shades, with a book in hand.

Sunset at Phuket

And of course, there are the Go Go Bars. And here, I'd like to change the tenor of my post for a bit. Everyone knows that prostitution is one of the biggest contributors to Thai economy. And while a lot of women may have made the choice to be doing what they are doing, I don't think it could be the first choice for many women, wherever they come from. You'll find that women in Thailand run the show - they're at shops, massage parlours, restaurants have almost no male stewards. According to a local we met in Bangkok, the sex ratio of girls to boys in Thailand is 70:30. Women are the chief bread-winners of the family. I know that a lot of 'girls' at these bars are cross-dressers, or transgendered. But they're posing as women and that's the important thing here. There are women who invite you to these bars as if there was a sale on at a shop that you were missing. And I did go inside a couple of them, for a couple of minutes. For you need to be another person to be able to sit and watch a woman show her skin because she wants to make a living. It's neither aesthetically appealing nor titillating to me. And I do not know what is the politically correct stand to take on prostitution, but I think it's humiliating for me as a woman to see another woman sell her body like wares at a store. I understand primal instincts, physical needs and whatever other way you use to describe and elaborate on the beauty of sex, but I do not think that the prostitute could believe in any of those. Just my PoV. I'm not saying that prostitution should be banned, I'm just saying that women should be given an environment to opt out of it if they want to, or not be coerced into joining it to make ends meet.

What's on the Go Go bar menu

But back to where I was - where was I? Yes, the Phuket experience. And if Go Go Bars aren't your cup of tea, worry not; there's plenty of beer to guzzle on all night long. Which, of course The Guy did to the best of his bladder's capacity! And me, I went from mojitos to Breezers and then wine. Because when you're eating as good food as we were, it doesn't matter what you're drinking! Oh yes, I loved the food and ate only because I didn't want to miss anything. We were initiated into Thai food-Thailand style, by our friends in Bangkok who taught us to order the most Indian palate-friendly Thai dishes (sorry, no seafood and oyster sauce for us). And then we let the coconut curries and the sticky rice totally take over our gourmet pleasures. Not just that, the Mexican food at this place called Coyote was awesome. And the Irish pub, wow! I really wish I could do separate posts on all of them, but all I'll say is that if you do go to Phuket, just stay at the Banthai Resort - it's got the perfect location - right across the Patong beach - and is a great hotel and these great eating places? They're right on the hotel property!

By the way, you have heard of the Patong Beach, haven't you? It's been rated by different agencies among the top 10 beaches around the world. And had it not been so sunny for us Indians out there, I would have rated it nearer 10 too. The goras were loving it - all the sun bathing, and I must say, some of them had such a beautiful tan! If only my skin would also tan under such strong sun and not sprout freckles! So I took refuge from the scorching heat in the masseur's room. Thai massages live up to every single expectation you have from them. I went for one every single day, and came back asking for more each time.

Now, this post is getting really unwieldy and I haven't yet said half the things I wanted to. Like our day trip to Ma Ya Bay, where Leonardo DiCaprio shot for Beach, and Khai Island and Phi Phi Island and the cruise that took us there. And all the newlywed Indian couples honeymooning in Thailand. Or the unfriendly steward at the cafe in Phi Phi, who really put me off. And my allergies...

I leave that for another day, another post. And I promise, more pics coming!

*Title reference: Swadhika is 'hello' in Thai

Flights of fancy

2010-12-06T09:17:00.003+05:30

Overheard on a flight from Lucknow to Delhi that reached its destination before time:

Uncle 1: Flight is before time.
Uncle 2: Haan, hawa ka direction Dilli ki taraf ka hoga, plane isliye jaldi pahuch gaya! (The wind must be blowing int the direction of all Delhi, that's why the flight's reached early).

And then, no one laughs. OMG! he was serious.

Can I please continue to laugh? ROFL!!

Edited to add: Ok, the joke's on me! There's some method to the madness, as some of you point out. So let's get together and laugh at my ROFLing. Cool?

And yes, I've deleted the duplicate posts and some comments may have gotten deleted with them. So sorry, but nothing personal about it, ok?

Li'l things you do for me and nobody else...

2010-12-03T09:46:00.000+05:30

Are you enjoying the latest Vodafone commercials as much as I am? The one with the school girls?

It takes me back instantly to my school days - those years spent in powder blue skirts and blouses (and bloomers too, on days you followed the rules), plaited hair with matching ribbons to tie on the ends. Or hairbands and knee-length socks, shiny black shoes. Or white canvas keds for PT days, whitened using the school chalk generously. The years spent with girl friends.

Yes, I studied all my life in an all-girls school, and however uncool it may sound, they were so much fun. So there's always this comparison about how all-girls or all-boys schools are so boring, so stereotyped. And that the kids studying there come out all wide-eyed about being in the company of the opposite sex. Not true, I say.

I spent 14 years in all-girls schools and three more in an all-girls college and I never missed the boys! It wasn't a conscious decision, you know, to maintain a distance from the boys, but that's how things panned out for me. And out of the school and college campuses, it wasn't as if I didn't not know how to handle male attention when it came my way. And I did not end up doing things to attract it. I have friends who've studied in co-educations schools, and I don't think they're any different than me. We're only as different as two individuals can be. So I don't understand this differentiation between co-ed and all-girls schools. I understand the differentiation between a good and bad school.

For the record, I am not againt co-education. I think it's very healthy, etc. But I also don't think that studying with girls decapacitated me in any way. On the contrary, I think being in a gender neutral environment helped, at least me, to look at myself for the person I was, and not the girl that a boy would see in me. And there are so many things I remember fondly about being in the environment that I was. There's such comfort in not dying in embarrassment if you have a stain on your skirt in school, or you haven't waxed your legs to roll down your socks, or having a cat fight without any gender stereotyping! And then there's no shame in being a bright student, of being labelled a 'padakhu', of being a straight-As student. Those rather 'uncool' things are considered aspirational in an all-girls school.

No, I'm not oblivious to the joys of studying with boys. The Guy studied in a co-education school and I can rattle off all his school memories as well as him, because I've heard 'em discussed a zillion times between friends. And I know, they had a ball! They were fun and flirty years. And I’d be lying if I said I feel just a tad jealous. But in all fairness, my school years may not have been high on those same parameters, but they still had a sweetness. Like the sweetness of pine trees in the woods - subtle but unforgettable.

And I have a plan...

2010-12-01T11:36:00.000+05:30

There's good news for all of you - I'm not quitting this place, not just yet. I can't! But I do think I need to revamp it for my own good. (I've already got a new template, as you can see). And I have a plan that I'm going to putting on the record here, so that if I lapse on it, you can pull me up. Suggestions are most welcome.

First things first, I'm going to de-clutter. Over the years - how many have there been? almost three - I've accumulated so many links to blogs and bloggers. And I think there's this phase happening in blogosphere right now, where an entire generation of bloggers has given up blogging. The first blogger I blogrolled - the only one who's on my FB friendlist - hasn't blogged in ages. Then there are others who write stuff that no longer interests me. Probably they've moved on or probably it's time for me to move on. So yes, there's going to be some cleaning up. I may not drop them off the blogroll, except just mentally.
I need to read new blogs. There's such interesting stuff out there that I haven't tapped into. Time to explore some freshness. In fact, I've already added a couple of blogs. More than a couple actually, a lot of which are design blogs that I'm absolutely in love with. So yay to new blogger friends!
I need a new header for my blog. Something that's me. Not just a random pic that I poorly photoshop and put up. I need something more than a pic. Are there any volunteers out there? Pretty please, help me!
And what if I get a new name for the blog, though I think this one's become so part of my blogging identity that giving it up won't be all that easy. Wotsay?

All this may take some time. It's not going to happen overnight. I have lots on my hand right now. And I'm taking a short break next week - a break as in a vacation break - so yes, there won't be a relaxed weekend to do all this on. So be patient, and I promise I'll be good. In the meantime, you can ask where I'm going, 'cause I'm not telling just yet!

Bullet proof

2010-11-28T14:21:00.003+05:30

Too many things, too little time to tell them all. Here's what's been on my mind:

Anil and me

Some people find it bizarre that I'm in love with this hairy hero known as Anil Kapoor. But I am. Have been since I saw Mr India. And when I like someone, appearances become so secondary. Which is not to say he's not oh-so-good-looking. It's just that I know there may be better-looking men than him in filmdom, but I have eyes only for him. So what's the point, I hear you ask. The point is I met AK last week. I'm definitely not star-struck or tongue-tied have met , but when it's Anil Kapoor we're talking about, both are admissible. So there I was at this starry wedding in town, with Amitabh Bachchan and Fardeen Khan and Dia Mirza for company, and I managed to catch hold of dapper Kapoor and get myself clicked with him. Oh, the joys of making a fool out of yourself in public!

The Big Switch

So I was watching this show on TV called 'The Big Switch 2', which is about parents switching their kids and kids switching their parents for two days and all the problems that arise thereof. I don't know if you've ever seen it, but I realised they'd made a reality show out of most Indian girls' lives. See, when we get married, we switch our families, begin living with a new set of parents whom we must consider our own and grapple with adjustment problems that come up and treat them like they're part of life like everything else. Some people manage well, depending on the compatibility between the switched parents and kids, some people are sore losers. Sounds true to life? Well, here's finally one reality show that actually resembles reality.

Fat vs Pregnant

In other news, I'm beginning to convince people with the way I look that I'm pregnant. Goddamit, it's just a paunch. And those are just the extra kilos I've been piling on. So stop staring. And stop guessing. The other day, I went to a party where the hostess had the cheek to first ask me what'll I have to drink and then add pointedly that there was Coke as well, you know, since I won't have liquor. I swear I could have thrown that Coke right in her face. Other people are more sophisticated in asking why I've started looking so "voluptuous". Oh yes, fat deposits everywhere and can increase your bust size much against your will! So there I am, trying to tell people through my high heels and the wine glass in my hand that no, I don't have any 'good news' to share. Actually, I'm not trying to tell anyone anything at all. I'm just super irritated with this breed of women who concentrate all their energies in trying to guess whether I'm finally pregnant or not. If only there was an option on FB on your pregnant/non-pregnant status, these people would be thrilled to bits!

On the other hand, I'm so not enjoying the new weight. I hate it, because it makes me feel so uncomfortable in my own clothes. So I'm resorting to desperate measures. After trying very hard to not go on a diet, I have gone on a diet. Because I have no time to exercise, and frankly, no motivation either. So here I am, on Day 4 of the GM Diet, fighting every single temptation and hopefully coming out slimmer.

Slog and Blog

I know this discussion is long overdue, but I've been putting it off because I believe that if we spell out something that's only a thought in our heads, it becomes true. But there's only a point uptil which this works. Beyond that, you've got to call a spade a spade. So here's the truth in black and white: I have no time to blog. And I miss it sorely. I slog at work and often work extends to beyond office hours, thanks to the Blackberry. Till now, no one was complaining. And even now, no one is complaining overtly. But I realise I owe a part of my life to people I spend it with, most importantly The Guy. So, I avoid bringing out my laptop at home and spending time surfing through blogs and posting on my own. And to make up for all that, I've started tweeting a whole lot more through my BB. But I also realise that staying away from my blog for long spells doesn't bode well for me as a blogger. I'd like to be as regular as I used to be, but can't.

I was hoping to give the blog a whole new name and look, in sync with how life is for me right now. Or where I am in life right now. But if I don't post often enough, I wonder if it's worth it. The other option is to give this up. I have 137 followers, and I add new ones with each post, but very few of them comment on my posts. I'm probably not here enough for them to make them come out of their readers and say something to me. And that makes me think if it is time to shut shop. Is it?

Wanted: A working homemaker

2010-11-14T13:27:00.010+05:30

It's been more than 8 years of non-stop work for me, and I still don't know how a teenager who wanted to grow up to do nothing turned into semi-workaholic me. My biggest high in life, for now, is work. And the three years when I was still working but had it easier, I fretted over how I was frittering away my time when I could do so much more. I put a lot of my other life on hold to carry on with work, but it gives me joy.

Having said that, I sometimes grudge the fact that my absence from home for most part of the day makes me less part of the family than the domestic helpers who spend the entire day at my place. I often have the feeling that they're part of the family life I'm missing out on because I'm at work. For those who don't know, I live in a joint family, with my in-laws. And I worry, lesser now than I used to in the initial years of my marriage, that by being away from home for such long hours I am making myself totally dispensable to the 'family'. Everything can happen without me, 'can' being the keyword here. It doesn't necessarily mean that it does.

I know a lot of full time working women - women who don't just have jobs but careers. And I know they also have this underlying insecurity, like I do. More so if they are mothers. So I know I'm not the odd one out. But I guess it is one of those things I have to make my peace with. And to a great extent I already have. It's the remainder that still bothers me occasionally.

It's sad that whenever a woman chooses to step out of the house to work, she's leaving behind a part of her life she would like to take along with her. What is it - our conditioning or our emotional constitution - that makes us want to inhabit two worlds at the same time? Sometimes I wonder if it really wouldn't have been better if women had continued to play the role of dedicated homemakers, living to every stereotype of wife, mum, daughter, whatever instead of straddling two worlds and spending their lives trying to bridge the divide between the two. I know I would be a more relaxed person if I didn't have in my head the idea of working. Or if I did, it would be better if I didn't also have the idea of being a homemaker while away at work. Then I could just put my head and heart into one thing. Where did this idea of 'woman of substance' come from, of this woman who can manage both the worlds efficiently? What kind of superwomen set such high-stress precedents for the rest to follow?

At no point am I suggesting that I'd like to retire from my work and take up the stay-at-home role, simply because I cannot. It's not me. I do wish though I could get rid of compunctions to be a 'complete' woman. Is there such a thing as a complete woman, as the Raymond ad would like to sell to us the idea of a complete man?

Budhi ghodi, lal lagam

2010-11-06T15:57:00.004+05:30

...Or dressing up your age.

I'm all for doing what the heart tells you to, living the way you want to. But somewhere in me, I admit, is ingrained my convent education telling me that some things need to be done the way they need to be done. There's a time and place for everything, and 50 is not the time to dress up like you're 25.

I am guilty of being judgemental there. There may be under that garish outfit a very good heart. But can I just blame my fashion sensibilities on my convent education again? Because I do find something distasteful about a person dressing up to look at least 20 years younger. Isn't aging gracefully all about accepting that you need to let the new order take over without fighting with all your bling and bright colours to stay where you are no longer fit to be? And perhaps what's distasteful to me is not the appearance - as unflattering as it might be - as much as the desperation to look younger.

At 30, I should be wary of making such statements, or writing such posts. For, of all my fears, my biggest is not being able to accept that I'm growing old. How much longer before I am too old to be sporting fashion that college-goers do? I mean, I already am that old. Love as much as I do the college trends, I am careful of not emulating them because a). I'm not in college and b). I'm not 18. But I still wear clothes and colours I love. Because dressing up well needn't be about dressing up like your kids. I love yummy mummies, oh yes, I do. But a mother (or a MIL) who's competing with two generations her junior? Not my cup of tea.

I'm not a fashion critic (how I'd love to be!), but I do know that while some people can own a look irrespective of their age and carry it off with elan, others just come out of it looking like an aging Elvis competing with the Beatles. And Elvis lost his fans because he wanted so badly to be like the Beatles! Is it too much to ask for fashion restraint when you're growing older?

Tere mere beach mein

2010-10-20T20:52:00.013+05:30

After a very, very long time, I got the chance to wield my camera like a pro. Despite The Guy's discouragement, I carried my DSLR to Goa. And am so glad I did! It made up for any lack of company. That, and my super cool iPod touch, that's everything that an iPhone is except that it's not a phone. But I digress, we were talking about the camera and me and Goa.

Luckily for me, the resort the company had put us up in was pretty like Goan resorts are famed to be. And so I could put my photography to good use! And since I've been told enough times of my narcisstic tendencies, I live up to them by putting my pic here first:

But honestly, the hotel with lots of greenery and water bodies, was the prettier of the subjects.

This view, of the sunshine filtering through the wooden slats and creating a geometrical pattern of shadows right outside my room was heart-warming.

One of the best things about travelling is getting to see flowers and plants you'd never see in one single place. I'm not much of a botanist, but ain't this flower pretty?

And that, darlings, is the gold tinged sky that was tempting us around sunset from the conference hall:

But where are the beaches, you ask? For all their prettiness, I'm not a South Goa beach person and that's where we were! They are too quiet for my liking. And so, I had to wait to go to Baga Beach in North Goa, to really feel like I was in Goa!

And in the super-hurried visit to Brrito's shack, I got the time to get a temporary tattoo on my ankle:

I've been toying with the idea of getting a permanent tattoo for far too long. But I still haven't found my favourite design. Suggestions?

At work, apart from work

2010-10-11T00:00:00.007+05:30

The company finally decided to spend a li'l money on us apart from the measly monthly salary they give us (Salaries will always be measly. Otherwise, we'd be unambitious!). So there we were, 20 people from 10 cities converging for a conference in Goa. Making people work in Goa should be made a crime punishable by law. Making people sit through meetings from 10 in the morning to 7 in the evening in a sea-facing room with a view of the golden sunset on the beach should be made a bigger crime! But since it's not, we could do little but use all our concentrated efforts to stay mentally within that room.

Outside the conference room, though, I was using all my concentrated efforts to fight something of a gender situation. Let me put it this way - I was the youngest member of the female sex present at the conference and the centre of unwanted male attention for reasons other than work. But how do you react to men - ranks senior in the official heirarchy - when they're hitting on you? Do you react to them in the same spirit that you would react to harmless flirting outside the workplace? Or do you snub them, just like that?

Honestly, I was flummoxed. And I did neither. For most part, I ignored it, refusing to get pulled into even 'harmless' flirting. But I was super uncomfortable. I've realised that women, good-looking women if I may be immodest enough to say so, are forever being slotted as people who want to manipulate their looks to climb up the professional ladder, their good work be damned. But I want to be known for my work and not my looks, because I work my ass off to put something on the table that counts. And because I like to dress well and won't land up at work in shapeless kurtas and the same pair of shoes every single day, doesn't mean I don't know my job. It also doesn't mean that every man I talk to and share a laugh with at work is someone I'm flirting with. I hate being judged like that.

I won't lie: like every woman, I like the attention from the opposite sex. But there's a time and place for things. At work, I can appreciate a compliment, not a pick-up line.

Also, why is the onus of fending off the undue attention on the woman, I ask. I'm no Sita, and won't have a trial by fire. Why can men not be responsible for respecting the Lakshman Rekha?

Posting from Lucknow on Judgement Day

2010-09-30T21:24:00.003+05:30

The roads have worn a forlorn look all of today. For a city trying desperately to maintain a semblance of normalcy, trying to go about every day of the last week as if this was not the lull before the storm, trying to tell itself it will not going to react to whatever the court says on the Ayodhya dispute, it was a telltale sign of the fear it was trying in vain to hide. Today, it spilled over on to the streets - shutters were brought down on shops early in the afternoon, schools were closed peremptorily and offices shut. People huddled around their TV sets, found refuge in their homes. Life came to a standstill. All this while someone send an SMS joke about half an hour before the court was supposed to deliver its judgment - "The judgement is out," it said, and on rolling down the cursor, "They're going to build a pub there."

Over the last few days, we'd all been preparing for the worst, hoping for the best. But on the eve of the judgement day, the excitement in the air was palpable. The discussions, arguments, speculation about what could and will be, about what should and won't, which had filled up working days and after hours all of last fortnight were drawing to a close. The anticipation was hanging heavy in the air, weighing us down.

I couldn't sleep last night. And I didn't know why. I woke up unusually early, like one is wont to on a day when an important event of one's life is going to take place, with something in my heart I could not put my finger to. I thought I was falling ill, but I wasn't. I was just sick of the build up to the day. Ironically, I did not think this was an important day in my life, per se. But it was. It was an important day in the collective lives of so many of us, who would have been dragged into this with our opinions but sans our will, had things gone differently.

But the judgement and its aftermath - it's been like an anti-climax. Yes, we're all glad, heaving-in-relief glad, that it's all over and we can go with our lives now. But there are no longer sides to take, guesses to hazard, peace messages to send. And while the intelligentsia can now sit and shred apart the judgement into tiny little technicalities, there's no heat left in the discussion, no unseen dangers to fear, no shadows to imagine where they didn't exist. It's back to being normal, for now.

Question of the Month: September

2010-09-28T23:45:00.005+05:30

Would you do something yourself if you could ask someone else to do it?

I'm one of those irritating people who will not be satisfied delegating work. And I hate it. I do want others to do some of the work I think they can, but I wish I could do be happy with how they do it. How does it go with you?

The wishlist

2010-09-21T23:36:00.002+05:30

A cafe, a book, the smell of coffee beans.
Conversation, silence, comfort.
Mountains, foliage, fog.
Sand, breeze and a flop hat.
Pedicure, back massage and neck rub.
Walks, the smell of pine woods, the nip in the air.
Peep-toes, pumps, platforms.
Blankets, pillows, fluffy mattresses.
Flat tummy, toned thighs, girlie biceps.
Music, friends, waltz.

And then some more -
Cafes, books and smell of coffee beans.

Updates from a Survivor

2010-09-20T01:10:00.005+05:30

I survived it, that thing called work and that condition called overworked. Yesterday was the first Sunday in a month probably that I'd not spent at work. I had been working on every off, even festival holidays because there was so much happening in the office. On most days, I was the first one to arrive and the last one to leave. Because with great power comes great responsibility. And what am I if not Superwoman, eh?!

So there I was doing 10-12 hour days at work, only to come home, get ready and be off to celebrate someone's biirthday, someone's baby's birth, someone's Eid get-together... And I have to give it to The Guy for being super patient all the while. If I were in his shoes, I'd be bored and whiny. He was plain supportive, just like I like my man to be - missing me but not killing me with guilt. He messaged me a dozen times to tell me he was missing me the night we closed the special edition we'd been working on, and I landed at for a party after midnight!

It's been like a roller coster ride. Lots of yelling, highs and lows, twists and turns, fear, excitement, joy to be doing something I'd never done before. But this roller coster ends right on the top. The extra hours, the working in my sleep and the tendency to eat/breathe work has paid off, I guess. Hopefully, it's all been worth it. But I'm glad now to be getting back to a more normal pace at work.

I want some quietude, some time to relax, to go get a pedicure, to get my arms and legs waxed instead of picking up the razor as a last minute resort, to get a facial once in six months, like normal women do. I'd like to have enough time to not have to go out on a limb just to meet my sick nephew. Or have to plan a call to my cousin who's suffering from dengue. I was planning a European holiday - to look and explore and learn. Now, I just want to go to place where I can unwind, to switch off my Blackberry and deactivate all email notifications. And I wonder what it must be like for my boss, who has ten times more sh$% to handle than me!

But does that mean this pace is killing me? That I want time out? No, not yet. I think that after all, this is how I like it. I like my days full, my head crammed with ideas, my heart and head all in one place. But if I could slow down just a tad bit, I'd be able to stretch myself out longer, I think. And blog a little more!

Considering how erratic I have been with blogging, I should be considering shutting down this blog. Most days I have no time to come and write here, others I have no coherent thoughts! But I can't give up blogging. I can't! I like it here - to be talking, to be around here listening to what you have to say. Even in this mad rush of the last month, I'd check up on a few fave blogs, just to de-stress, just to check up on bloggers I was thinking about. I don't think I can blog with the same fervour that I did before, because that fervour has gone to work with me, but I still can't stop being a blogger!

Kitkat break banta hai!

2010-09-08T23:07:00.002+05:30

When I start breathing again, I will resume blogging.

Piled under loads of overwhelming work,
D

My first interview

2010-08-20T00:57:00.003+05:30

...Was supposed to be on TV! But it ain't. It's going to be in my school's alumnae magazine and that's not half as exciting. Heck! It's not exciting at all if I forget what fun it was for once to speak and not ask, to have some listen to my answers and not think of questions. Remember, I'm a journo? Asking questions is part of my job. And role reversal felt good!

But will you laugh at me if I tell you that as a kid, when I knew nothing of what I wanted to be when I grew up, I spent hours in front of the bathroom mirror, giving an interview? Did you do it too? And in those mock interviews, there were no questions. It was just one long, eloquent monologue about I-have-no-idea-now what. But I think I became a film star in those interviews - a 'heroine'! Sometimes, I was a dancer. Other times, I was a singer. I was always very, very famous, cult status famous - why else would someone interview me on TV? But I was never a writer. Never a journalist. Never the one asking questions. So funny then, that I am exactly what I hadn't thought I'd be.

Of course, if you ask me now if I want to be an actor, I will say no. Famous, cult status famous? Oh yes!

Search and ye shall find?

2010-08-05T11:23:00.001+05:30

Some interesting searches that brought people to this blog:

From Yahoo: "dupatta blindfold"
What, oh what, were you looking for? How to blindfold someone with a dupatta? What to do with a person blindfolded with a dupatta? Or what?

From Google: "indians wearing mangalsutra with jeans"
And why would someone google that??!

From Yahoo again: "japani sex"
Note, It's not 'Japanese', it's 'japani' someone's looking for. Sorry guys, I have just japani jootas here, no sex!

Time traveller

2010-08-03T11:17:00.006+05:30

When you see the things I see, do you remember me like I remember you?

Read that somewhere on the same day that I realised that memories aren't the same for two people inhabiting the same world. And it hurts when the beautiful memories you have of a time mean nothing to those people who feature in them.

My sister and I should have the same things to share about our childhood - things we did together should be as much a part of her memories as they are of mine. But she remembers none of those. And says I make them up half the time, because it's too far back. She doesn't remember that I used to make up stories to tell her at night and she would invariably fall asleep before I finished them. She says she was never interested in what haircut I had as a child when I always thought I had short hair (almost) all my childhood because my elder siblings thought I looked cute like that. She doesn't remember us having the good times. And it hurts. Because I have no childhood if she refuses to concede anything that I remember from back then. What do I do with those memories which don't exist without her? It means the childhood I've been reconstructing is just an imaginary world, that it's not for real.

But how can she help it? She must have a different set of memories of her childhood. Memories in which I feature, maybe, but not in the same light as I feature in mine. The past is just a reconstruction of our minds, then. What's there to tell the difference between fact and imagination? What's there to say that my memory is real and her's is not? What's in the past becomes all intangible. It might as well not have happened at all.

And anyway, I remember a lot of things that others don't - I have a good memory, people say. But I don't enjoy it. I don't like remembering things that others don't remember. I don't also like remembering people and their names and their contexts in my life when they've forgotten it all. It is so convenient to forget. But I remember. As a student, it was great. At work, it's great. But otherwise, it's just so much excess info that I'm lugging around with me. I want to forget, not because it's unnecessary - it used to be considered nice to remember people's names - but because it's probably unfashionable (?) now...

Mera joota hai Japani

2010-07-27T23:52:00.014+05:30

Not exactly. Not at all, actually. It's probably Chinese, like most things that we get around the world these days. But that's not what this is about. This is about showing off some of my latest shoe acquistions.

The high-heeled ones

And the flat ones

And the multi-coloured ones
And the comfy ones

And the branded ones

And the ones in neutral colours

I do have quite a shoe fetish. I can shop nothing else but shoes. I buy the Rs 250 ones from the road-side, the local brands and the international brands, as long as they catch my eye. As a result, I have more shoes now than I have space for. Take a look at what my shoe closet looks like:

And I'm not even talking about the boxes that have begun piling up beside the closet! Yes, shoe addict is me. What's your addiction?

Question of the Month: July

2010-07-24T21:38:00.000+05:30

Can you forgive and not forget? Or forget and not forgive?

My driver's love life

2010-07-21T20:22:00.006+05:30

My driver is in love. He's having an affair. With a girl he was to have an arranged marriage with, but the engagement was called off. And why should I be blogging about this? Because if he doesn't get the family approval to marry that girl, he plans to run away. From home, from the city, from WORK. And that's when we hit the panic buttons and begin to take active interest in his love life.

So here we are trying to convince his father, an orthodox Muslim, to let the young fella marry the girl of his choice. Of course, we'd do it for him even if he were not threatening to quit the job, because he's been working with us for over four years now. But what makes us pray fervently that he be united with his Lady Love is that threat. Seriously. And it just made me laugh out loud when The Guy and I, lying in bed last night, realised we were discussing our driver's love life!

Don't get me wrong. We are not one of those heartless, slave-drivers who wouldn't care what happened to all the domestic staff if we were assured they were bound to us for life. And are only interested in getting our work done. Far from it. But when you start discussing your driver's love life, it's just an awkward, self-conscious situation. It's not like helping someone get their daughter married. Or get medical aid for someone's father. This is their love lives we're talking about!

Which reminds me of another torrid love affair that bloomed between a maid and a man servant at our place a few years ago. Now both of them were just the kind of domestic help no one ever wants to part with. The girl was smart, quick and hardworking; the boy doubled up as the errand boy at office, because he could read English as well, and did just about all chores you can think of doing at home. When the two of them hit it off, and got romantically involved with each other, we don't know. But at some point my mother-in-law started keeping an eye on them. Not enough though to prevent them from having some unsafe sex. Oh yes! Right under our roof, God knows where (it's a big enough house, there's actually no dearth of unused places about here)! And pronto, the girl got pregnant and the secret was out. We were in a state of shock for days after the boy confided in M-I-L, wept in repentance, but too late. They were chided and reprimanded and all that, but M-I-L, being the messenger of love that she is, asked the girl's mother to get the two married off. But the mother would have none of it - no shaadi for my daughter outside the biraadari, she said. The pregnancy was aborted, the girl married off to someone else in a month's time, and the boy, well, he was so embarrassed and ashamed of what he'd done (it was consensual sex, so the girl was to be blamed just as much as him) that he returned home. End of the story. And so, not only did do pyar karne wale get separated, but two hardworking helpers were also lost forever to the household.

What's the moral of the story? In order to retain good domestic helpers, ensure they have a happy love life!

And what should I call this one that's for the parents?

2010-07-17T13:00:00.002+05:30

It's a full cycle. The parents who hold your hand when you're learning to walk, hold your hand again 60 years later, but this time you're teaching them how to walk. The last week and a half I've spent in hospitals in Lucknow and Gurgaon, tending to my dad. And in that short a span of time, I've seen him act like a petulant child, a wilful, rebellious adolescent and an ailing old man. And like you forgive your child all his follies, you learn to ignore your parents' unreasonableness and love them still.

But it's heart-wrenching - to see the man who always climbed two stairs at a time, who ran after you when he was teaching you how to cycle, who held you in his arms when you scraped your knee from a fall, lean on you for support. It's heart-wrenching to see him fight invisible monsters that come in the garb of disease and age.

Dad's bypass surgery has gone off well and he's taking baby steps to recovery. But between his major angina attack last Sunday, the angiography in Lucknow thereafter and the urgent transfer to a super-speciality hospital in Gurgaon, my head and heart has had no time to rest. There's been fear and hope and so much more of an undefined emotion that I cannot begin to explain it. I've seen my Dad's bro breakdown at the news of the successful surgery, giving vent to years of sibling affection that men must not display by some warped convention of society. I've seen a friend, discharged two days ago from the same hospital after an angioplasty, wait for hours in the visitors' lounge just for a glimpse of his friend. I've seen once again the strong support system that a family can offer...

And me? I've been angry and strong, brave and emotionally weak - all at the same time. But most importantly, as a daughter who's stood by her parents through it all, I've proved there never was any need of sons to look after aging parents. And anyone who offers that as an excuse to want a son and wish away a daughter has no idea what a girl, a woman - daughter or wife, and even mother - is capable of. It makes me very proud that my mom and dad can look at their daughters and know that they are capable of taking on the world. And it gives me great satisfaction that to every person who scoffed at my parents for having "only" two girls, I have given a befitting reply.

And I've not been alone. At the hospital, there were so many mother-daughter duos like us. And they seemed in no way less equipped to handle an emergency than all the men who thronged the visitor's lounge.

But my mother has been the bravest. If I learnt from my dad to be the person I am, I've learnt from my mother to be a woman. She's been a perfect daughter - extending so much love and support to her own mother, giving so much of herself to her parents that I sometimes feel only daughters can.

But growing old is a strange thing. And when you're over the 60-mark you do begin to think of the worst as not impossible. And that must be scary. Mummy asked me a couple of days ago if I would take care of when she grew old enough to not be able to do so for herself. She asked me if I would be "nice" to her... And I told her I'll do exactly what she has done for her mother - never left her alone. I realised then that if children can ever repay their parents for what they have done for them, it's by giving them love and security - and so much of it that it never falls short - when they grow old.

Too Strong a Woman for a Man to Want

2010-07-11T01:24:00.005+05:30

If breaking stereotypes is a sin, I must be Devil's child. So when Goofy tagged me to enumerate all My Sins against Gender Stereotypes, I thought I'd fill reams and reams of pages. However, when I did get down to writing them out, I realised there was something I had already written that made perfect sense to re-post now, with a little tweaking. Here goes:

Too strong a woman for a man to want,
The woman, they say, who wears the pants at home.
I ain't coy and I ain't shy,
And I won't wait for life to pass me by.
I love my work and would rather be
In my office, than at home counting the laundry.
I can think faster than the man next to me,
Won't ask him for some silly little pocket money.
And because I'm married and don't have children yet
Must mean my that husband is henpecked?
And because I have an opinion on things
I'm not the kind of wife a man must bring.
Since I am only pretty and not naive,
I'm far from the "perfect" wife!
I can stand up for myself, speak my mind
Won't take his surname and give up mine.
I'm sorry if I don't fit your stereotype:
I flirt a little and get drunk on wine.
I don't have a mangalsutra,
And don't wear the vermilion.
If I live away from home,
Because I have an ambition,
I must be too strong for a man to want.

Selfish Solitude?

2010-06-30T02:12:00.000+05:30

You can't teach anyone anything about life through your own experiences, least of all how to enjoy solitude. I would know. If someone had told me being alone could be a fun thing, I would have totally disbelieved it some time back. I'm a people's person, I love being around people, albeit people I like. But three months spent in Delhi taught me that there could be a thing like solitude, and it could be different from loneliness.

There is a very thin line between the two, you know. How easy it is to wallow into a sense of piteous loneliness and how easy to love the me-time and enjoy the solitude. I've done both while staying by myself, but mostly the latter. I've lived that time like... myself. Uninterrupted. Unadulterated. And loved it. More than I thought I was capable of!

But I think I came back home in time. Left alone any longer, I would have got addicted to my independence, the freedom to do what I wanted to, when and how. I'm glad I came back home to friends and family before I reached a point of no return. And I don't say that cynically. Because solitude is a selfish mode of existence. It's so much about yourself that if you begin to enjoy it too much, everyone else's company becomes dispensable. And adjustments unnecessary.

But such is not the luxury that life affords people who've chosen to live like social beings. And I'm not even sure if I would think solitude was a luxury if it were to be mine permanently. Right now, I only treasure times I've spent alone as precious reprieve from so much cackle. Right now, I only know what both sides of the fence feel like.

Question of the Month: June

2010-06-22T09:00:00.001+05:30

How do you handle the descent of 20 out-of-station guests at your place for an indefinite number of days?

Yes, that's the question I'm trying to answer this month. You could treat this as an SOS call too.

Back to base

2010-06-20T11:21:00.002+05:30

It's been hectic two weeks back at home. More hectic than work was in Delhi. And more taxing too, because there's so much emotional drain here. It's like being sucked back into a vortex of inanity - relationships, conversations, situations that are redundant.

I feel a disconnect with this life. Given a choice, I would so love to get out of this city and be by myself. I do not seek so much company that I have in Lucknow. Because I realise I'm much happier by myself, without the burden of meeting people I have nothing to do with (emotionally and otherwise), keeping up with them, going to late-night parties... Am I being an escapist - trying to avoid people and circumstances that ARE my life? I don't know. But I like to believe there's this life I have and there's this life I'd like to have. And it can't be so wrong to want one over the other(?)

I'm not unhappy to be back home, if that's what you think. But honestly, I could do without so much that this return to base implies. My responsibilities at work have increased manifold, and it takes away all my energy, so that by the end of the day, I'm looking for solitude and rest, not unnecessary action. I am a people's person, but not after I've spend 10 hours at work, battling all sorts of challenges, done all the talking, thinking, ideating that there is to do in a day.

Sometimes, I think this must be what growing old is all about. Perhaps, it is. But what's the point of growing old if you can't do it your way?

And that's how the story goes

2010-06-05T14:00:00.003+05:30

I've been trying to draft a soul-stirring, eye-grabbing, attention-seeking intro to this post for 20 odd days. But this is all I've been able to come up with. And while I know it's a pathetic attempt at creativity, how long can I stave off this big news from spilling onto my blog? I've bidden my time, as much as offices would expect in such cases, and here I am telling you I'm going home. Yes, let's throw those imaginary papers in the air, jump with joy, dance around the room and pop the champagne - because that would kind of do justice to how I feel!

So you say, three months was all I was in Delhi for? That's what all the hullabaloo was about? Not quite. A little over three months ago, I'd told you I was going to be out "temporarily". I had deliberately withheld for how long. Because it was too long to say, and to elicit an encouraging response from anyone. My job offer came with the rider: stay in Delhi for anything between 6 to 18 months, which averages out to be a year! And that they'd transfer me back to Lucknow if things worked out. I had withheld that bit of info from friends and family as well, except the immediate. Because I knew no one, no one and no one would give me their 'go ahead' if I told them the lock-in period. And I wanted so badly to give this a shot, thinking all the time that if worse comes to worst, I'll run back home.

But we went from worse to alright and then pretty good. Three months and the boss wants me to go back to Lucknow to handle things on my own. Now, I can't be divulging office details here, because that would be professionally unethical, but let it suffice to say that what I was expected to do in a year's time, I've done in two months! The last one month has simply been the waiting period. And honestly, more than about going back home, it's about having achieved so much at work that makes me happy. I was loving it here, I so was, but I'm glad to be going back to handle an office almost on my own because it means I'm capable of doing it.

And there's so much to say for the experience that this has been. I've discovered things about me in these past months in Delhi I had either forgotten or lost or did not know existed. I've looked forward to every single day at work and I finally realise that there's nothing else I should be doing but this. I've clocked 12-hour days and been exhausted to the point of crying, but it's been bittersweet - there was such a sense of satisfaction at having done a hard day's work well.

Living alone took time getting used to, but really, it was like time off from everything - from the monotony, the routines, the meaninglessness of some relationships, the predictability of life. Had I known I was going to be out only for three months, I would have cried a little less in the nights, missed The Guy lesser. But I've savoured every moment of this experience - the pain and the gain. These months, they've been like two hundred per cent 'me' time that women rarely get. Sometimes too much, but in hindsight, not all that much either.

I'm the kind of person who falls in love with everything around her, or hates it all. I fell in love with my life here - the comfortable pattern that things had fallen into. Yes, I hated lots of it as well, but in every one of those things that I hated, I found something to love. In the long hours of commuting, I found the quiet to be thoughtless; in the lonely nights, I found how much I loved my man; in the traffic snarls, I found how little some comforts meant to me. In all of it, I realised how much I was capable of withstanding, how much I was capable of loving Delhi!

I could go on... about the people I met, about the friends I made, about having to say goodbye to them before I could even tell them I love them... But you've already got the drift, haven't you? I'm just so glad I took the difficult call to risk coming here, so glad I'm growing to grow old without any regrets. This is my life and this is me, unapologetically.

Because books really do make a difference!

2010-05-27T01:15:00.007+05:30

Books and I go a long time back. And when Dipali showed me the reason to share how long, I was more than happy to.

I fell in love with the world of words when I was a baby. I don't know what brought us together - books and me. Was it the first storybook I got from my grandfather - a book on Jesus Christ. I was too young to read the alphabet then, forget a book. But loved how he would lie down on his bed in the afternoon, and read out the story to me. I hung on to every word like it was the gospel... Perhaps, it was how my mother couldn't sleep before reading two pages of a magazine, a novel, a paper - whatever she could lay her hand on. Perhaps, it was how my much older cousins fought over Sydney Sheldons, or my sister hid her Mills & Boons from me because I was too young to read them then. Perhaps, it was all of those reasons that made me turn to books.

I devoured Enid Blytons in school, but there is one book that hooked me to reading for life - Rebecca. I had received an abridged version of Daphne Du
Maurier's classic as a return gift on my cousin's birthday (oh yes, in those days they gave books for return gifts, not plastic toys!). I was in second standard then, 7 or 8, I guess. And I had never before read anything like this. The narrayive style of the book was actually life changing. Because, it made me want to say in words everything I did, as if I was writing about my life in the stream of consciousness style. I faltered for words and found myself looking for a vocabulary that exceeded my years. And that's when I truly fell in love with what words could do. And how.

It's crazy, but I still do it - turn my life into a book in my head! Anytime I'm alone, I'm spinning sentences about how I would describe what I am doing, or seeing, or feeling right at that moment. And it's all because of a book I read more than 20 years ago!

Of course, I later read the unabridged version of Rebecca and loved that too. But not in a life-changing way.

Different books have different impacts on you depending on where you are in life. Eat, Pray, Love came to me at a time when I was best placed to receive it as I did. I was feeling a little diffident, a little despondent and very lost.

The book takes you through the inward and outward journeys of a woman - one spiritual, the other sensual. And being the kind of person who believes in yin and yang balance, the two journeys, conjoined at the start as at the finish, made total sense to me, even spurred me to open up to similar experiences in my life.

And I'm telling you this for a very good reason.

BlogHer and BookRenter, a company that rents textbooks to college students, have joined forces because we know that books make a difference.
From May 3-28, together we are working to make a difference in children's lives by generating new books for children who need them most -- via the nonprofit organization First Book.
Want to help?
For every answer we receive in the comments to the following question, one book will be donated:
What book has had the greatest impact on your life?
That's right: All you need to do is leave a comment, and BookRenter will donate a book to a child in need -- up to 1,000 books.
Want to help even more? You can blog about our campaign, then add the specific URL of your post to Mr. Linky and we'll add another book to the tally.
Because books really do a make a difference.
There are still a couple of days till the 28th- please do leave a comment, and blog too!

You know you've married the right guy when...

2010-05-25T01:22:00.001+05:30

He tells you after he buys you an Omega for your birthday, "LV bag next, baby!"

No, you can't have him!

What's the speed of love?

2010-05-22T00:56:00.002+05:30

How much time does it take to get attached to people, to fall in love with things?

Three months (only??) in Delhi and I’m already fond of the people I work with. I can actually think of them and smile – the girl who’s a good mimic and can crack me up with her jokes; the guy who loves the girls he puts on the pages; the simple guy who will work only by the rulebook and nothing less; the efficient girl who impresses me with so much; the father like figure who will admonish me like I’m a kid; the fashionista, the perfectionist, the party-goer, the figure conscious one – so many people!

I’m already fond of the people with whom I return home in the office cab, the guy who makes sure everyone sits in the right cab, reaches home safely, all without causing a rupee’s loss to the company.

I’m already fond of the canteen guy who smiles wryly everytime I screw up my nose at parval aaloo or baingan ki sabzi.

I’m already fond of my hour of solitude in the metro. What if I had to reach work in 15 minutes? I’d miss observing so many people – their expressions, their appearances, their conversations.

I’m already fond of my desk, my work station, my log in id, the paintings on the wall... All in just three months?

Do you love the space you inhabit, the people you meet everyday, the faces you see?

And some days, I wish I was a man

2010-05-16T01:05:00.004+05:30

I love being a woman. On most days. Other times, I feel frustrated, angry and very helpless. Because I am a woman.

A few days ago, I got free early from work and decided to take an auto to the closest decent eating place. I learnt a long time ago that trying to make friends at office is futile - and anyway, that's not what I am there for. So there I was, all alone in an auto, happy at the thought of digging into a plateful of pasta and chicken. I got the auto right oustide the office, and we were speeding off to my place of choice. At the first red light, an SUV stopped a little away from my auto - black tinted glasses, blaring music - the vulgar signs of money, brazenness and danger in a city like Delhi. I didn't pay much attention to it, till the guy in the passenger seat opened the door and signalled at me. The door shut when I averted my face. I glanced back. This time the guy in the rear seat had opened the door and was jeering at me. I ignored, because in that situation it was the best I could do. And prayed the light would turn green and the monster SUV would zip away and not chase me.

And that's what happened - they drove away, after rolling down the windows, staring some more at me from their moving cars and laughing, as if it had been some kind of cruel joke. Those guys in the SUV, perverts obviously, were probably just enjoying the stricken look on my face when they opened and shut their car doors menacingly. They probably were getting their kick by just scaring a girl. And I'm supposed to thank my lucky stars they didn't intend any worse than that!

A little way ahead, about half a kilometre, another car slowed down next to the auto. A sedan, this time. There was no one but the guy in the driver's seat. By the looks of him, you'd call him decent, almost suave. But he peered inside the auto several times, giving away the truth behind that face. Unlike the men in the SUV, who seemed physically threatening, this guy was just checking me out. Not just checking out the way a guy would harmlessly check out a girl, but probably, trying his luck. You know, if I would give him the cue to stop the car, haggle a price (or maybe not) and get in with him. And he probably thought he could think that because I was alone in the auto at, what, 8.45 pm? I've never been looked at like that. And some part of me felt shamed for having given such notions to a man. Some part of me felt absolutely disgusted. And all of me felt miserable.

There's no justification for a man to treat a woman like that, to make her feel so vulnerable, so frighteningly unsafe, so helpess in just a glance and a gesture. I felt stupid thinking I had plans of enjoying a meal! I felt stupid for being a woman! And I felt frightened at the thought of coming back t'he 2.5 km stretch - yes, that's all the distance there was between my office and the market - in an auto.

I wept. Scared to call up anyone, because either they would scold me for venturing out alone or they'd be too scared for me - as women, even though we can't shield ourselves, we always try to shield the people around us. And that minute, I hated being a woman, hated being so powerless to defend myself. What precaution could I have taken to make myself invulnerable to those men on the street? On a crowded street where everyone's too busy with their lives to stop and stand up for you? On a busy road in the country capital? Is safety really a luxury for women?

Question of the Month: May

2010-05-13T23:47:00.003+05:30

Does Lalit Modi deserve the flak he's getting after putting IPL on the world map?

I wouldn't be asking, if I were not on the fence about this.

April ain't over yet

2010-04-29T14:58:00.004+05:30

And before it is, I must tell you what a great birthday I had. Amid all the whining and dining, I forgot to tell you all about it. You know, I love to live it up, and if anything my birthdays are proof of that. And 30 is a good age to start living it up, if I'm not already, wouldn't you say? So there, I said it - the big 3-Oh! And believe me, it feels nothing like it sounds.

But coming back to the party, remember we did a Red Carpet Awards Night last year on my birthday? Well, this was Part 2. In Lucknow, of course! And while last year it was me and my friends who put the show together, this year it was just my friends - god bless them! So while I was away working my a$$ off in Delhi, they were brainstorming in Lucknow, trying to be funny and witty and succeeding at it all!

And like I was saying - we believe in totally living it! So there were spotlights and a red carpet, fake paparazzi, wine and shine! And we had fake dollars printed with my picture on them (I know, I know that sounds terribly narcisstic but it was so much fun!) that the guests could use to bid for some priceless possessions during the auction. Oh, I forgot to tell you about the auction - "for a good cause, of course!" And what was being auctioned? Stuff that's characteristic of people among our friend circle - like red shirt for a guy who's usually in red, pearls for a friend who's always loaded and my gown from my last birthday! Over the top, eh? But such crazy fun, I can't begin to tell you!

And the awards were as witty as they can get. Cheeky too. And very naughty. Like this one to a guy who spends all his time on FB - Most Likely to Buy Property on Facebook! And this one for a yoga crazy guy who keeps cracking suggestive jokes - Ramdev Baba award for perfecting Asana No. 69! And another one for a guy who rarely turns up at parties - Mr. India, the play being on the invisible part. And lots more.

And you want to know what I wore? A red, knee length strapless dress that showed off my shoulders all too well! I scouted high and low for it in Delhi and trust me, when I found it I knew it was a steal. Everyone loved the red on me. I wish I could show you guys what it looked like, but would you believe it, I have not a single picture of me in my outfit in which I'm not cosying up to The Guy?

And lest you think The Guy had no role to play in my party, let me point out everything he did for me on my birthday. I mean, he did EVERYTHING - right from taking care of all the arrangements to entertaining the guests while his wife was having glass after glass of her favourite wine, to making sure I didn't plonk on the grass in the garden and ruin my dress to helping me change into my night clothes because I was too "happy" to manage even that and to finally tucking me into bed before he wrapped up things! Ah, the joys of a having a husband who's as much in love with you as you with him!

Aaaand he bought me an awesome gift. Which I can show you:

Go drool!

Single in the City

2010-04-25T00:02:00.001+05:30

How does a girl sitting down alone at a table in a restaurant look? Like me?

Two months of living alone in Delhi means I must come to terms with what people must think of me when I enter an eating place alone. And when I sit down in a crowded place and eat by myself. It means I must get used to the stares - inquisitive, judgmental, amused. Sometimes, people look at me for a little longer than is polite, probably trying to guess why a girl should be out for dinner alone; I stare back at them blankly, just to make them realise I'm not up for scrutiny. Sometimes, they stare long enough at the back of my head to make me want to get up and go away; but I never do.

I just sit there, intent on having fun, even if I'm alone. Sometimes I try so hard to do it, I could cry. Sometimes, I just focus on silencing my growling stomach and make those stares melt away. It makes things easier, but rarely enjoyable.

My Blackberry gives me company when I'm eating out alone. It never asks me questions, never leaves me alone to fight perceptions. It lends me a look of not being alone in this world, of perhaps being busy, conveys to the curious eye that I have friends and family who would take me out under different circumstances.

Sometimes people are nice enough to not send as much as a second glance my way. And that makes me feel at ease - as if it were the most normal thing for a girl living in a big city to just get up and go out for a meal all by herself! It seems like it should be, if it isn't anyway!

I could almost love my solitude if people were better at pretending that it's okay for a girl to be sitting alone at a quiet table in a crowded restaurant. But because they suck at this so, I end up a little more lonely than I should.

Question of the Month: April

2010-04-11T14:22:00.002+05:30

If you could name yourself after a month, which one would it be and why?

I'd call myself April - the month that's spring in one part of the world, end of winter in another and beginning of summer in still another. And because it feels nice on the tongue - April.

Yeh Dilli Hai Meri Jaan

2010-04-05T00:43:00.006+05:30

Okay, so where do I begin? It's almost like I've lost you. And I don't want to. And if it makes any difference, I'd add I think about you all the time, dear reader.

I think about what all I should tell you that would not be work-related and that would not be I-miss-XYZ-related. And on most days I draw a blank. Believe me, I have so many blog drafts in my head, but no time to write them down. Time is really a problem.

But Delhi does this to you, doesn't it? It gobbles up all your space like you could exist in a vacuum. It gobbles up a lot of other things as well. Like that little place in your heart which makes you remember people, call them, meet them. Because you have no time for it. After a 12-hour work day, what's really left of life to talk about?

Were you waiting for this - the time I'd start cribbing about life in Delhi? Because I am going to begin now. It's getting a little lonely in here, on days when I have the time to feel lonely. I welcome work with open arms because I do not want to be devoured by the ugly head that rears itself from time to time to drive in the point that I am alone here. I miss my life back home, but I'm at a place where I'm prepared to do this (what would you call it - torture?) to myself for a little bit longer. Because frankly, I love my work. And for all those horrible things that it is, I love Delhi too. I always have, I just wasn't ready to admit it until now.

Of course, there are good things still happening. For one, being off 24hour FBing, bogging and Tweeting means I spend more time reading. I spend more time soaking in all that this city has to offer, the loneliness included. It may be a tad presumptuous even for me to say this about myself, but I feel like there's a book growing within me. I feel the adjectives, verbs and phrases I find for everything around me falling over each other to burst out of my head. There's still no story though, just aimless words. And I don't know if they'll find a suitable place to go.

I let myself get lost in a crowd. And I realise I can never get lost in a crowd. I know I will always stand out. Because in my head, that's how I see myself - a little less ordinary.

On a lighter note, I'm still living it up. I attended a post-IPL party and did I tell you it was a whole new experience? We - The Guy was in town last weekend - went for the IPL match too and if you think it's about cricket, you're so wrong! It was a party at the stadium! We also went for the grand finale of the fashion week in Delhi and attended the pre-show party there. I'm not a star struck, celeb stalker. But to be at the same party as ten well-known designers makes small-town me feels nice-ish. Of course, this whole exercise of telling you what all I did could be seen as entirely small-townish, but believe me, if I had to show off, I could do some more name dropping here. So no, this isn't about flaunting, it's just about telling you about the fun bits. About how much we love the good life!

There's so much more I want to write: about how my birthday month is here and I'm not feeling it, though I've already received my first birthday present! I want to write about how I cry into the pillow at night because I hate sleeping alone and I want to write about how heightened my olfactory senses have been since I came to Delhi, but another day.

That's all about me for now. How have you been doing? Tell me so that I know you're still here.

A word can say a thousand things

2010-03-18T21:03:00.005+05:30

Like when The Guy SMSes me this:

Baby

And I'm left peeling layers off that message: what it could mean depending on when it's said.
It could be a happy exclamation of love.
Or an expression of longing.
Or an admonition.
Or a reminder.
Or nothing at all. But even then, it's speaks to me so much than 'Hi' or 'Hey' would. Because it's 'our' word.

Are you interested in my life?

2010-03-15T00:02:00.002+05:30

Because that's all I've got to share, and it may not exactly be interesting but it's all I have to say (did that just rhyme?).

I know I've been doing these very short, bullet-type posts of late, but that's how my mind works these days. I think I leave all my paragraph-writing abilities at work. And here I should tell you that I do spend 10 hours a day at work, on an average. Sometimes more. And I have people calling up from home at all times of the day, shocked that I'm in office at 10, 11, 12, 1 - anytime after 8 in the night. But really, I enjoy work. Like I said, it's good exhaustion. I don't mind being in office as long as I'm doing something. It's the hanging around waiting for something that really gets my goat. But I've said that before...

So you think there must more to my life than work? If not, you would begin to pity me. Well yes, of course there is more to my life. I go back to an empty house. But it's not as bad as it sounds. I have help! Oh yes, I'm living on my own and I have to do almost zilch for myself. I mean, I don't even have to manage the maid. She just comes, wakes me up at 9-ish, cooks and cleans for me and smiles at me all the time (though she's miffed with me now because I do not eat as much as she'd want me to, but I've always been weird with food, haven't I?).

Also, while I'm counting my blessings, let me add, I'm staying in this airy, spacious place in Delhi for which I do not pay a penny. Ha! What do you know?! As it happens, this place belongs to someone from back Lucknow who has this fully functional setup in Delhi which he rarely uses. And which I can use because this person is really close to my family. So basically, I get to save all the money I would be spending on a pigeon-hole-sized places in South Delhi that would cost me a bomb. No, I'm not living in South Delhi - where I really wanted to because I'm familiar with that part of the city - but it's okay, because I'm discovering new places. And they aren't bad at all. And because I'm saving all that money (I do not even have to pay the maid - she used to come even when I wasn't around!), I can spend however much I please on commuting if I wish to travel an hour and a half to my favourite spots in the city. And while we're still counting our blessings, let me also tell that the place is super safe: there's a family that stays in the same building, employed by the owners of the place as caretakers. And who'll fetch me anything I want from the market nearby. Like coffee from CCD. Or meds from the pharmacy. Or an auto if I need to go some place.

But honestly, I hadn't realised all this except in a very practical sort of way (without really being thankful for it) until a friend pointed this out to me... Over a phone conversation, T, from Lucknow, was inquiring about how I cook and manage the whole house, and I just said, 'I don't.' And that's when she said how I've never had to really do all of this. Even in Lucknow, I never had to worry about food, electricity, water, plumbing, cleaning, gas and all the stuff that crops up at home because I have people to take care of all that. And here I am, living all alone without having to lift my finger to do a thing. And that's so true! If you discount the bit about how I travel in public conveyance, I do live like a princess! And it's just such a great thought. Sure, people live more luxuriously - I don't have an LCD TV, nor a washing machine nor a garden like back in Lucknow - but I still think I'm doing pretty good. And anyway, what's a bigger luxury than living without a care in the world?

The two kinds of exhaustion

2010-03-05T21:56:00.002+05:30

There's good exhaustion and then there's bad exhaustion.

Good exhaustion is when you work the day off, are happy with the day's work and can sleep well.

Bad exhaustion is when you spend the day idle waiting for things to happen and have too much energy pent up within you to get a good night's sleep.

What I like about my life right now is the good exhaustion bit.

Question of the Month: March

2010-03-01T18:16:00.002+05:30

Is it possible to love two people at the same time, equally and romantically?

I have no opinion on this one. Would like to hear yours...

"And I miss you like the deserts miss the rain..."

2010-02-26T15:35:00.003+05:30

This one's for The Guy. Because everything is alright. I like my job. I don't mind the long hours, like I said I wouldn't. And I don't mind the food flaws, like I said I wouldn't. I like Delhi, despite the pollution and the traffic jams and the long hours spent on the road. But I miss you. You should be here. with me, like you always used to be. This doesn't feel like home just because you aren't here. You are the only reason I want to go back.

"OMG! What am I doing?"

2010-02-22T12:23:00.000+05:30

I ask myself that constantly. Constantly. I mean, it's just so unreal how I've come to be here! The Guy and I look at each other disbelieving-ly, shocked at where we've landed ourselves. This was not part of our original plan, the one we made right at the start.

I'd be lying if I said I'm not scared. I'm scared stiff. I've psyched myself to believe this is going to be a lot of fun, numbing myself to thoughts of uncertainty and self-doubt. What else is there to do? I can't go back now.

But I have a list of things that I've drawn up under the head of 'Worst case scenario' in my head. What's the worst thing that can happen to me as a result of the decision I've taken. It goes something like this:

1. I'll spend hours commuting to and fro from the office.
Upside: Good. That will leave me with lesser time to be alone.

2. I'll have to work long hours, survive erratic timings.
Upside: Better still. That will leave me with still lesser time to miss Lucknow.

3.I won't get enough and good food to eat.
Upside: I'll lose some unwanted weight!

4. Office politics. They'll all hate me, be mean to me.
Upside: I'll better my art of ignoring irrelevant people.

5. I won't be able to cope up, not at all, with any of it - the emotional and the professional pressure.
Upside: What have I to lose? I'll go home just the way I came here. And be happy I tried at least.

And that last bit just makes me feel so much better. To have a home to go back to is all you can ask for in the worst of times. And I'm supposed to be having a good time! Nay?

(Posting from the phone as I wait around on Day 1 at work).

The Road Less Travelled

2010-02-16T23:53:00.001+05:30

You don’t know it’s a mistake till you’ve made it. What I’m going to do may be a mistake. It may not be. In any case, it’s a HUGE decision for me to have taken. I told you I’m moving. I didn’t tell you I’m moving alone, not with The Guy. To Delhi. Temporarily. And I’ll be back home, hopefully, soon.

It’s just one of those things that happen. Little pieces of the puzzle have come together to fit in. There has been no resistance from anyone, not even the expected quarters. Everybody who means anything to me has given their seal of approval and it has made the decision so much easier to execute. Yes, it’s been our decision, but it’s almost as though things have been happening on their own, propelled by some force that we’re oblivious of. In December, I got this very tempting job offer in Delhi to do what I’m most passionate about doing. It’s a job in the media industry and I’m asked to believe, a covetous one. This wasn’t the first time in the last three years that I’ve been offered jobs away from Lucknow, but this was the first time I was tempted. This time round, it seemed like the last time I could avail a longstanding offer. It seemed like the point of no-return, the road that diverges in Robert Frost’s wood; I had to choose the road less travelled.

After I left my full-time job in the publication industry in Lucknow three years ago, I had increasingly begun to realise that what I had left was what I was meant to do, what I should be doing. And if I consistently kept refusing offers to do just that, I had no one to blame but myself. I was getting this almost on a platter now and if I turned it away, I would be turning myself away from the life I’ve wanted. In the ideal world, I would have made the choice to work where I was best suited to without having to stay away from my husband. But this is not an ideal world. Saying yes to that job was not a difficult decision; saying yes to the idea of staying in two different cities was a very, very difficult decision. I don’t think I’ve still reconciled myself to that idea and may be living in some kind of a denial mode. It’s also called the coping mechanism! But The Guy has been the one gently pushing me forward to take the challenge head-on because he knows how much this means to me. He has been the one who’s virtually taken this decision for me, because I’m too weak to have taken this on my own. It’s a rare man who has the heart to let go of his wife because she has an ambition. That rare man is mine.

For a very long time, life had been feeling like the lull before the storm. I felt like I was on the precipice of change though I did not know what that change would be. For the longest time, I thought motherhood would be that change. Because I haven’t been childfree, I have been childless. It was only natural for me to think that the next big thing in my life would be a baby. I have a biological clock ticking faster than I can keep pace with but the good thing is I’m not stressed about it. Yes, it’s always there at the back of my mind, because it is important to me. But I’m not going to give up the rest of my life for it. I cannot do that for something I do not yet have. So when this job came up, it was almost as if there was a reason for how things had shaped up till now.

It’s not going to be easy, the road I’ve chosen. I’ve had a very comfortable life till now and there’s no way my life in another city will be anything like this. But hopefully…

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

The Morning After...

2010-02-15T13:17:00.004+05:30

...the rains:

(Click on the pics for an enlarged view)

Teach me the Language of Love

2010-02-11T14:11:00.000+05:30

I’ve always wanted to write a whole post on how much I love my husband but it’s never been written. I plan them - on anniversaries, on Val Day, on days when I can feel the love. But those posts never come out. I can never say how and how much I love him. I can never say how much it means to me to have in my life. I can never begin to tell you about all the small and big things he does for me because I don’t have the words to say how they affect me. I’m a poor writer, looking for words, finding expressions which can tell you how much I am in love. And how silly I look being so incurably in love the last 13 years! I feel horrible that while I have metaphors and similes for just about everything else in my life, I have none for the love of my life.

I wonder if my readers will think I have nothing to say about him except in passing (?) Because that’s not true! I have so much to say but no words to say it all with. And my words belittle my emotions when I try to write about The Guy.

Of course, I don’t need to say it for his benefit. He knows. He knows all too well what I feel. But teach me the language of love I can speak and you can understand. Because love is in the air and I want you to know that there’s this man in my life who means the world to me.

Let’s talk about S-E-X

2010-02-07T00:29:00.004+05:30

Because that’s what sells, apart from SRK, I'm told! And since not many of you appreciated my honesty in the last post, I’m going to woo you back with what sells.

Also because that’s what we were discussing with friends last night over coffee. What? You don’t talk about sex with your friends who’ve been married long enough to be able to laugh off all the howlers in bed, the sexcapades gone wrong, the foolish romantic ideas that books and films feed into your head and which go flying out of the window once you’ve opened your eyes to reality?! Well, we do: we laugh our hearts out talking about how juvenile we were to think that we could sleep in nothings all night, wrapped in pristine white sheets, spent after the ‘act’! It doesn’t happen like that. And though it may be totally alright to not wash up after sex, who DOESN’T wash up? I don’t know anyone. And you come back and slip back into bed wearing nothing at all? Even in the three degree celsius winter? Between white bedsheets or duvets? Unlikely!

And that image of silken arms wrapped around each other all night is also an unsustainable myth. It means sleeping in one posture all night – physically impossible. And very unhealthy too, says docs. More than one of us got into the nuptial bed thinking we’d spend this precious first ‘night’ in our lover’s arms only to wake up with our backs to them! Because we’re normal, we turn in our sleep, we’ve got hands and legs and necks that hurt if they aren’t allowed room to move.

And while it’s a good idea to move around a bit and try new places to do it, hard floors and concrete surfaces just don’t work. The Cosmos of the world and all those who write in to them, please do explain how the bathroom and the kitchen and the table top can be anything but oh-so-bloody-uncomfortable!

And I’m sorry Vatsyayan, I’m not Nadia Comaneci. I exercise but I’m still not a gymnast. Nobody told us when we were kids that we must maintain the suppleness of our body because it’s going to give us more pleasure than we know. So here we are, using the Kamasutra as a coffee table book!

Of course, there’s the over-rated first kiss (which certainly isn’t ‘sex’ but the latter is usually initiated with a kiss) – the awkward moment when you lock lips and don’t know how much to open your mouth, how much to wet your lips, how much tongue to involve! If you knew the answers to all those the first time you were kissing and had this earth-shattering experience, please ignore my ignorance. I was all of 17 then, you see.

I can't think of a title for this post, honestly

2010-02-04T17:27:00.004+05:30

And that admission is just right for this post, because I'm being awarded for such honest admissions! Just when I was out of blogworthy stuff, came this award from The Double Inverted Commas (interesting name, eh?)

Thank you DIC, for coming to my rescue. And since I must tell you honestly10 things about myself, here I go:

1. I want to see the world, but America figures last on my list of must-see places. Actually, as of now, it doesn’t figure on that list at all.
2. I want to be an Indian princess or hope I was one in one of my past lives! At least I can have a dasi in this life (?)
3. If I listen to music for too long, it starts sounding like noise to me! I’m not a music person at all except on rare days.
4. Also, I’m not a TV person at all. I know by now you think I'm strange but honestly, I can easily live without television, not the internet though!
5. I’m not easily impressed. I can appreciate people and things, but I’m difficult to impress. What does impress me is intelligence.
6. My attitude to smoking is that of a vegetarian towards non-veg food, if you know what I mean!
7. I’m a foodie in disguise. You can never look at me and tell how much I think of good food!
8. I love writing letters, always have loved it. When I was a kid, I would write notes and leave for my parents in odd place. When my grandfather passed away, I wrote letters to him asking him to come back and hid them in newspaper stacks. I used to write letters for others. I still write letters, a lot of them in my head, some on my blog.
9. On most days, I love my life!
10. I’m moving.

Now I must pass on the award to honest bloggers (like me!), some of whom may already have received it already:
1. My namesake, Dee
2. Roop, one of the few bloggers who impress me with their honesty!
3. Goofy, who’s better known as Passionate Goof
4. Aneela Z, who doesn’t tell all but seems to tell what she does honestly
5. Childwoman, who may not even acknowledge this because she's still trying to overcome the loss of her mother
6. Unsung Psalm, who is honest on his blog at least
7. Monika, who’s just had a baby and seems to be off blogging, but that’s no reason for me to not give her the award.

And all you award winners, the award checklist goes like this:
1. I must thank the person who gave me the award and list their blog and link it - Check
2. I must list 10 honest things about myself – Check
3. I must put a copy of Honest Scrap logo on my blog - Check
4. I must select at least 7, 8 other worthy bloggers and list their links - Check
5. I must notify the bloggers of the award and hopefully they will follow the above three requirements – Check

Question of the Month: February

2010-02-01T10:00:00.002+05:30

You remember the rules, don't you?

Now here's the question:
Why do you think Monalisa was smiling?

Here are some cues from an article in the online TIME magazine:

Art historians have deduced in that singularly mysterious visage everything from a cross-dressing self-portrait of Leonardo da Vinci to the knowing glance of an unfaithful wife to the satisfied pride of a pregnant woman. Bob Dylan once even offered up a very 20th century American conclusion on the matter: "Mona Lisa must've had the highway blues."

A Sicilian professor of pathological anatomy has come up with the latest and what is arguably the least poetic explanation imaginable for why Mona Lisa looks the way she does: high cholesterol.

Go on, come up with your on ingenious idea behind that smile!

Random Rainbow

2010-01-26T16:56:00.007+05:30

A day's worth of photography yielded rainbow-coloured pictures, all at home.

Violet and Indigo - The colour of pretty pansies

Blue - The sky on a sunny winter afternoon, with the moon playing hide and seek

Green - the grass on which I lay out my sunbed

Yellow - the tipe lemons on the trees

Orange - The kite peeking out of a tree

Red - The star that remains on the Christmas tree from last year's decorations!

You like?

The 'F' Word

2010-01-22T19:56:00.009+05:30

I mean Facebook, what were you thinking?

Anyway, ‘are you on Facebook?’ is not a question I’m going to ask. Because if you’re on this blog, most likely that you’re on Facebook too. So what I’m going to ask you instead is why you’re there.

(From the PostSecret blog)

For all of Facebook’s success, we are social networking rather purposelessly, I say. Of the 300-something people on my friend list on FB, I admit I do not remember anything about at least two dozen people from school except their faces. I admit that about 50 people on that list are people I’m in touch enough with in real life to make their presence on FB redundant for me. And I also admit that there are another 50-odd people out there who I couldn’t care less for. And then there may be those who put me in any one of the above categories. So who exactly am I networking with on FB?

Coming from someone who spends almost all of her working day on the internet (occupational hazard or perk?) and a lot of that time on FB, I’m assuming this is some sort of a pointer at how we’re on the FB bandwagon for almost no reason that seems worthwhile. Oh yes, I’ve gotten in touch with about a dozen people on FB whom I had lost track of after school and whom I’m really excited to reconnect with, but can those dozen faces justify the enormous popularity of Facebook?

It’s been a social revolution of sorts, I read, this coming of social networking sites and their immense popularity. And that Facebook’s status messages are iconic of this revolution. But where’s this revolution taking us – you and me, who’re hooked so hopelessly to this revolution without a direction? Where will I be after sharing with all of my friends my state of being in a status message? What will Farmville have changed about this world and what will peeping into people’s albums make us when the revolution is over? Because revolutions must end, surely they can’t go on forever!

And pray, tell me, what part do children have to play in this revolution? I mean, is it just me or is there something really wrong with children being on social networking sites? My nephew has joined a group called ‘I hate doing homework’ and takes quizzes like ‘What kind of a Kisser are you?’ on Facebook and he’s all of ten! What kind of a revolution is this that has precocious children to stand up for it?

Except for being a great marketing tool for companies and enterprises, I’m still trying to figure out why Facebook is such a revolutionary online tool. And come to think of it, the marketers came only after the massive numbers from all over the world were already there. So why did the massive numbers become addicted to a site to network when they didn’t need to network at all? Imagine, Facebook was actually invented as an intra-network site for Harvard students who could easily take a peek into each other’s room but preferred instead to peek into each other’s profiles! What does it say about human nature to you? Was Mark Zuckerberg just a lucky man or did he know something about human nature that we don’t?

The talk of Facebook becoming a paysite has been around for a while now but who’s going to pay for something that they may be hooked to without a reason? Unless of course, they are there for a reason. So let me go back to where I started: do you know why are you on Facebook, or any social networking site, and is it a good enough reason for you to pay to stay?

You know you're leading a good life when...

2010-01-17T00:27:00.003+05:30

...you can sleep-in late every morning and wake up without guilt.

...your husband is out of town on a weekend and your friends call up to take you out for a movie/coffee, your parents want to take you out shopping and your sister calls you up to take you out for dinner – all on the same day!

...all your friends and family return from their travels with shoes for you!

...your friends think you’re too drunk to take care of yourself on New Year’s eve, get all overprotective and do not think twice before kicking you in the shins when you take off your shrug to show off your strapless dress, even if it’s just to your sister!

...you can call in sick at work and not have to call anyone at all!

...you feel the warmth of layers of woollens on a chilly winter day and know you have plenty to thank God for.

...people are jealous of you – it means there’s something you have that others don’t!

...your friend drops all her plans to be part of your Plan B because your Plan A with another friend has flopped.

…you have friends who forgive you for your mistakes.

To be understood as to understand…

2010-01-09T13:07:00.000+05:30

It’s one of my favourite lines from one of my favourite hymns we used to sing in school. Makes so much sense, doesn’t it? Not right now to me, though. Where I am right now, I cannot understand anyone, anything. I don’t wish to. Because it’s so bloody taxing to just go on trying to understand everyone’s mistakes. Sometimes, I just want to call a spade a spade, just want to say, ‘I do not understand you.’ Because sometimes, I just want to be understood and I’m not. So I give up seeking to be understood. And I give up trying to understand as well.

Think about it, how hard do you try to rationalise your friends’ or family’s irrational behaviour by trying to ‘understand’ it? Why is it necessary to think from the other person’s point of view all the time? The other person might not even have a point of view that you’re trying to understand! You know what I mean?

What I mean is that when someone is so frustrated that they pass on their negativities on to you, there’s nothing to understand there. That person must be avoided. I mean that when a friend says something that irks you even if she didn’t mean you ill, it’s her business as well to understand why you’re irked as much as it is yours to understand her intentions. What I mean is that when a stupid pedestrian crosses the road just when the light turns green, I cannot attempt to understand why he has no civic sense. Really, what’s with us seeking to be understood and to understand ALL the time?

I know what you’re going to say – that if no one understands no one what will this world come to? You see, you’re asking me to understand something again. Hell, I want to be selfish for once! I want to say, ‘You try to understand me like I’ve been trying to understand this world all my life!’ Why is that such a horrible thing to ask for just once in your life? I promise, I’ve not lived my life like this and I promise I’m not going to live like this. But just for now, just for the time being, is it possible for you to try to understand me?

Question of the Month: January

2010-01-05T16:10:00.003+05:30

New year, new ideas. And this one's for the blog. Considering that I ask so many questions, I've started a new monthly post here called, what else but 'Question of the Month.' It's simple enough: I ask a question and you find me the answer. Or at least tell me what you think about it. Or maybe you can ask me a question in return. Or maybe you can tell me it's not a question at all - whatever - but let's just get talking.

And the question for this month is:
Is ambition an aberration in a woman's nature?

DHAN TA NAN!!!

2010-01-04T21:30:00.001+05:30

It's time to rub our hands in glee
We have something for you, dear MTBs
Little baby’s on the way,
Getting bigger every day,
Two tiny feet that will wave in the air
Two tiny hands that will tug at your hair
But before that there is some work for you.
The best we can do, is give you a clue!

We two bloggers share a screen name
Find the other who’s different,but same same:
ABC… One can be me,
The other is with a double ‘e’

Good work there, you are one step closer
Take a bow and move on to the next composer!

Roll Call

2010-01-02T01:28:00.005+05:30

We're beginning this year with a mandatory roll call just so that we know who's here with us, just so that we can say hello to each other. And if you please, tell me what brings you here...

*Will the real slim shady please stand up?*

The Year That Was

2009-12-29T16:48:00.004+05:30

It’s that time of the year again when a re-cap of all things that have been is expected and accepted. And who am I to break conventions, especially ones that I enjoy? Ever since I started blogging, I’ve had an year-ender post up on my blog every year end. And I do it not so much for others as for myself – to remember things that are worth remembering and to remember that even the worst things are forgotten when you think back.

2009 has been a year of so many things for me – of growing up, most importantly. (Yeah, finally, that too must be done) But there are so many more interesting labels I can give this year.

For one, it’s been the Year of the Traveller in Me. I travelled a fair bit last year. From a week in Goa in Feb, a blink-and-you-miss-it but thoroughly enjoyable trip in March to Mumbai where I was invited to be part of a wedding with Amitabh Bachchan among other celebs! A weekend in Banaras where I blew up more money shopping for irresistible hand-woven cottons and silks than I spend on Goa and Mumbai holidays combined! In June, Nainital beckoned us – six crazy couples out for a crazy holiday in the hills. In July I took a road trip to Agra and Vrindavan with my parents – a half religious, half luxury trip! The Independence Day weekend in August was spent in a palace hotel in Jaipur. And in December, I was off to Delhi for my annual shopping holiday! But I’m not tired yet. Give me more, I say!

It’s also been the Year of Photography for me. I got my first SLR camera in April and since then I’ve clicked thousands of pics. In a place like Nainital, where Lucknow folks travel to almost every year, I clicked some 500 photos! I became the official photographer at friends’ parties! So much so that people expect to see me with my camera almost always. In the last year, I’ve come to be associated with my camera. And I love it.

It’s been the Year of Odd Writing Jobs. I miss writing. And I miss being in the media industry full time. 2009 has been a year of moving beyond that realisation and doing something about it. I refused two very tempting offers at the beginning of the year, one of them of editorship of a very well-known paper outside the city. But I went on to do writing assignments I had never done before. From freelancing for a newspaper to writing customised matter for invitation cards, working for an NGO and dabbling in academic writing for websites – I’ve been where I never thought I would be. And let me admit, I did some things just for the money.

2009 has been the Year of Vanity in small measures. It started with our trip to our ancestral home in Behraich in January with close friends which, being as much fun as it was in such an unconventional place and in such unconventional ways, piqued everyone’s interest in us. My birthday celebration, also being so out of the box, put me on the social map of the city without my trying to be there. And what else would I credit a year with that has brought me the tag of being always well-dressed? Oh yeah, please let me bask in some effortless glory but let me also add that I’m not going to ever chase it.

But if anything at all, this year has been a Year of the Highest Highs and the Lowest Lows. I started the year with a big bang: I was raring to go, ready to soak in all the experiences life would throw at me. I had resolved to test new waters this year – do the new in small, irrelevant ways. And I succeeded at that. I was riding high on this wave of sensory and spiritual experimentation when I undertook all my journeys. I was constantly trying to come up with new ways to make life more fun. And then I hit rock bottom: the lowest of the lows I’ve experienced in all of my life. Professionally, financially, emotionally, I had never felt so hopeless before. But the year end feels like life has a come a full circle: I’m back to where I started – my spirits buoyant, my hopes high and I'm ready to take whatever comes my way in the new year.

And on that note, let me wish all of you a very Happy 2010! Here’s to many more years of blogging – Cheers! See you next year.

Blue Christmas...

2009-12-22T21:55:00.015+05:30

...is not for me! I really didn't think I would be doing up our Christmas tree this year, being in the mood that I was. But the holiday spirit taken over me! And I surprised myself with shopping for some more things to put up on our gigantic tree. Doing up the tree was just another excuse we needed to call our friends over. Which is exactly what we did on Monday.

We first did up the tree together

A ladder was put up to put the lights high up on the tree

We used a lot of stuff from last year. Such as this:

And some new stuff too

And this what the tree looked like in the end. Ot at least one side of it. Like it?

I also got really cute Santa caps for everyone

And being typically, pathetically mathematically challenged, I got only ten of these star-lit caps when there were going to be 14 of us huddling around the bonfire after putting up the tree. We ordered pizzas which we had with beer and scotch and vodka and whatever-your-choice-of-drink could be. And since we were hungry again by the time it was time to go home, we had some piping hot Maggi and anda bhurji by the fire.

And while we're on the topic of Christmas, here's a question I want to ask you: Who’s the Santa in your family? That’s the question they’re asking on Radio Mirchi for their Christmas Special. And it’s a question that got me thinking… who is the one person in my family who seems to have a mental note of everyone’s wish list, waiting to fulfil all of them? It’s sad but it’s true that the person who could have fit Santa’s bill in the entire khandaan is no more: my late uncle – my masi’s husband – who passed away five years ago.

He was the favouritest son-in-law for Nana and Nani because he knew before they could said what they needed. He was the favouritest uncle among his nieces and nephews because he never forgot a birthday or a gift. He was standing by anyone who needed him – at weddings and funerals, times of joy and sorrow. He was a brother to brother-less sisters, a son to so many parents, the shoulder you could lean on always. He was everything Santa should be because he never asked for anything in return.

Who’s the Santa in your family?

Think that over and have a Merry Christmas!

Physical vs Emotional Infidelity

2009-12-19T13:45:00.003+05:30

Picture this: You’re getting ready for work and your husband offers to help with packing lunch. He insists you stay in bed while he goes to the kitchen and instructs the maid what to cook and how to pack the food. And because it’s unusual for him to be so nice to you, you decide to check what’s really cooking in the kitchen. Turns out that the husband is fooling around with the maid, fondling and caressing her. And not the first time. He’s been physically infidel for a long time.

Now picture this: A recently-married boy is caught exchanging SMSes with his ex. They go out for coffees after work. He apparently still has feelings for his ex, as does she. And the wife intercepts their messages – they aren’t love messages, just messages friends would exchange. She accuses the husband of cheating on her. The ex thinks it is just friendship, but the wife doesn’t. She thinks it’s emotional infidelity.
(Both are real life incidents.)

What would irk you more – the emotional or the physical infidelity? Would you be able to sleep with a man who goes looking for easy physical gratification elsewhere? And would you be able to sleep with a man who seeks solace in someone else’s company? Which is worse – a spouse (it could be an unfaithful wife as well) who’s with you only physically or a spouse who’s with you only emotionally?

Technically speaking, it may seem easier to forgive a person for their physical transgressions than emotional ones. But when you catch your wife or husband in the act with another person, can you ever forget it? Can you overlook his carnal desires and be happy that he’s in it only for physical pleasure, nothing else? I, for one, wouldn’t be able to. If my man finds another woman so much more attractive that he cannot resist her, I would label him unfaithful and would never be able to love him the same way again. Because for me physical intimacy is also an act of love. It’s not something that exists outside the realm of feelings and emotions.

But it would be bad enough if I knew my man loves another woman, wants to be with her and is bound to me by only a superficial show of fidelity. If I cannot have his affection, I will not want any part of him. What makes emotional infidelity worse is that it is so much easier to hide. How do you draw the line between harmless flirting and repressed feelings? How easy it is for someone to say ‘We’re just friends’ but still harbour a love that can’t be categorised as mere friendship! And how difficult it is to sit and find categories for love!

But it could be different for you. I know so many women who overlook their husband’s physical rendezvous because they probably look at marriage as more elevated than any other kind of relationship. What would bother you more – emotional or physical infidelity?

A partyholic's existentialist dilemma

2009-12-17T12:36:00.001+05:30

Whither to? I assume every partyholic must ask this question at least once in her hectic social life. It’s the partyholic’s existentialist dilemma and I’m asking myself this now – to what end are we partying?

I don’t know if anyone of you know what I’m talking about: this stance where you step back from your active social life and wonder what purpose all this partying serves. Oh yes, I’ve enjoyed it for the last six years but how much longer must I preen and prance like the social butterfly I’m so sick of being? I mean really, except for being such a great pastime, it’s mostly as inane as you think it is.

Sometimes I get the feeling I’m being sucked into this vortex, this unending cycle of inviting and being invited, of being polite and tolerant of people I have nothing to do with at all. And try hard to end it, but it just goes on and on.

My social life is made up of friends’ birthdays and anniversaries and now their kids’ birthdays as well. And then there are birthdays and anniversaries in the family – all of which are unmissable. I love the quiet/fun dinners with my immediate and extended family and my dearest friends, the catching up over coffee and films, the discussions and the interactions with intelligent/funny people. But the rest – those friends of friends whom I must be nice to by attending their soirees – I am tired of them!

And the gossip that’s such a natural fallout of the socialising, I do not enjoy any of it anymore. I positively do not enjoy the desperate posing for page 3 and the silly talks about one or the other kitty. Please spare me the horror of listening to who didn’t invite you and who did!

I do not like the feeling of being lost in a maze of inscrutable personas that hide behind clothes, jewellery and money. Show me an interesting, intelligent person and I’m all attentive. Show me money and you’ve put me off.

Sometimes, I just under-dress for an occasion so as to not live up to expectations – I love getting dressed because I love getting dressed not because someone else wants to see me dressed up. Don’t slot me even as well-dressed because there’s so much comfort sometimes in being sloppy.

And don’t ask me to be politically correct. I don’t understand politically correct people. They irritate me because they’re so pretentious. I can’t stand the idea of partying with someone I don’t like but in a place like Lucknow, you’re often thrown in with such group of mismatched people, you must either appear rude or be tolerant.

I have a strong suspicion that I party so much just to fill up a vacuum in my life and that consciousness makes me feel utterly tetchy. I also have a strong suspicion that partying so much has created a huge vacuum in my life by taking me away from all that I shouldn’t be away from. And in either situation, the answer is definitely not more partying. The answer is to learn to say ‘no’ when ‘yes’ is just a reflex response.

Disclaimer: The writer is an avid party-goer and may be suffering from the side-effects of excessive partying at the time of writing this piece. This post cannot and should not be used to prove a point against the writer’s (probable) incessant partying in the future!

Lost and Found

2009-12-14T20:15:00.005+05:30

Who? Me, of course! And there’s only one way to explain the long hiatus I took from blogging (my longest ever, I think) - an update post.

To cut a very long story short, I was caught in a social whirlwind. Between two weddings - my cousin’s and my very good friend’s, I lost track of my life! So instead of celebrating our 6th wedding anniversary on the 9th of this month, we were attending my cousin’s engagement in the day and our friend Nutsy’s cocktail at night. Why should I be complaining? The first half of the day I spent with my family and the second half with friends! Oh, and somewhere in-between I fit in an hour of dance practice for Nutsy’s sangeet ceremony. And oh again, I managed to cut four cakes as well that day, my favourite being the tiramisu cake I had ordered :) And I assume by the sixth anniversary, gifts are mostly redundant, as was the case with us!

What else have I been upto? Well, a lot of dressing up, every single one of the last six days. Vanity is a flaw I admit to. I love looking good! And love getting compliments! And I want to know if there’s anyone who doesn’t! Weddings are such an opportune time to indulge in all this vanity without looking vain – one of the reasons why I can’t understand the case against the big fat Indian wedding. I wore a turqoise gota patti saree on one day, a creme georgette saree with badla work and brocade blouse on another, a Benarsi silk in shot colours on still another day.

But everything can’t be hunky dory. Nutsy’s cocktail was supposed to be an all youngsters’ thing - by youngsters we’ve now begun to mean people in their late 20s and early 30s – times change and how! Anyway, so I was saying it was supposed to be this rocking dance and daru party but somehow, a whole lot of oldies managed to gatecrash the party. No, they were invited there actually and it wasn’t till they left that the ‘youngsters’ let their hair down. Yours truly was the first on the dance floor!

My cousin’s wedding was such a fun family re-union! We’re a bunch of crazy people who love doing crazy stuff and it works out perfectly when we’re all together. Which is precisely why staying up all night for the pheras was so much fun! The groom’s father seemed a tad upset with all our giggling that so often broke into raucous laughter, but did we care?! Not a bit, especially since our moms were all part of the mischief. It runs in the family, this funniness, you know!

And you want to know how did our dance go? Fantabulous! We were four of us up on the stage doing our little desi gig and trust me, it wasn’t all that easy to hop, skip and jump in tune while wearing a pavada, which, you should know, I'm mentioning, because it was in gorgeous colours of fuchsia, turquoise and green.

So what have I learnt from this week of weddings? That there are some people even in India who are super punctual! The baraat at both the weddings reached so much on time that the guests were a little shocked. And let me add very proudly that I was on time for all the occasions!

The day reception for Nutsy's wedding was such a great photo-op: the natural light, the lovely colours, the lazy winter afternoon. Perfect!

I wish I could share some pics I clicked and I clicked plenty on all the days! Of course, lugging around the camera in a saree at a wedding wasn't all going to be easy, so I left mine behind for Nutsy's wedding. But I had such a craving for my camera when I saw people clicking around me that I called for it from home! Am glad my photo fancy isn't yet over.

I promise to go visit all my blogger friends on their blogs as soon as I go back to work :D It’s been a week since I went to office, you see.

And a big 'thank you' to everyone for their concern. I think I've finally bounced back. And if you want to know how, let me tell you it always helps to have a little conversation with God.

And I almost forgot to share this with you: I got interviewed! Yay! Please go read me here.

Conversations with God

2009-11-29T18:24:00.008+05:30

Dear God,

I'm writing to you because I want me to continue believing in you like I used to. I know I don't think you're the same person you used to be but I think I'm being so selfish for believing in you when the going was good and for losing my faith when the going isn't so great.

Dear God, I would like you to know that somewhere deep down I still believe you will set everything right for me because I know it's beyond me now. And though I do not remember you as often as I should, I hope you still remember me. I am troubled that thoughts of you don't come easily to me these days and I wish you would change that at least. If I can't have anything else, can I have you at least by my side?

Several times in a day, a prayer begins to form at my lips but I never send it to you because I feel cheap asking for anything other than what you've already given me. You do know what's best for me, don't you? I hope it's just me right now who can't see it. I hope there's a good reason why you're doing this with me.

I cry a lot these days because I'm weak and vulnerable from everything that's happening around me over which I have no apparent control but which affects me in the biggest way possible. But please forgive me for those tears. They are not tears of ingratitude though they may be tears of sorrow.

Help me forget the pain, please. And help me forgive. Because I'm tired of the weight that I carry with me. I feel I am drifting away from the people I love because I'm so bitter inside. Don't take those people away from me and blame it on me, God; don't blame me for being bitter.

I see the world around me changing. And I feel like a bystander with no part to play in it. Give me a part, God, in my own life.

Love you,
D

Filament and anther...

2009-11-23T23:19:00.006+05:30

And a little bit of pollen. Through my lens.
Click on the pics for a better view.

Rut race

2009-11-20T20:46:00.003+05:30

Have you realised that the routines we call mundane have the power to take over our lives completely? We sacrifice so much at the altar of these mundane routines: the first casualty is time and everything else just follows suit. Our talents are wasted because we do not have the time to pursue them. Friendships sour because we do not have the time to call. Our passions die because the dull routines of our daily lives have no place for them. We forget we had hobbies because we can’t remember to dabble in them. We forget to help people who can do with our help. Our health suffers because we can’t make time in the business of our humdrum lives for a walk, a workout. And just because something as irrelevant as our routines, which apparently we decide for ourselves, ultimately decide for us what we do with our days!

Thankfully, there’s more to my life than routine because I consciously make an effort to break their monotony with my quirky ways, by taking up new hobbies, for example, or pitching in with a good cause. Of course, work is another story, where quirky doesn’t always work! But usually, the dreariness of the daily schedule is nothing more than a case of inertia: an unwillingness to break a pattern because you’re simply too lazy to do it. It’s a good excuse to cover up for what we have not achieved in life, even though it seems so achievable.

I think women are more prone to being victims of this inertia than men, simply because they’re expected to find satisfaction in the predictability of their daily chores. A fulfilling life for a woman need not be anything more than a day of monotonous activities, according to a large section of the society we inhabit. So a woman must struggle twice as much as a man to rid herself of the burden of a routine which binds her to do sometimes banal activities and prevents her from doing something that can add more meaning to her life or at least a little bit of excitement.

Let me also add that I am not undermining the importance of either a routine or the daily chores that make up that routine. What I am saying is that we can’t let either of them take over our lives. We can’t let them prevent us from doing what we love.

I guess if you’re reading this blog, nine out of ten chances are that you’re a blogger too. And that means you’ve found time to do something you like to do away from the restricting motions of your everyday life. And that’s exactly what I hope more people would be able to do: to not get stuck in the rut of routines because there should be more to life than humdrum!

And this too shall pass.

2009-11-12T14:00:00.002+05:30

But when?

When can I stop pretending that I'm happy?
When can I start living my life like it's mine?
When can I start being myself again?
When can I start believing in optimism again?

Wrongs and Child Rights

2009-11-07T11:48:00.011+05:30

I don’t know if any of you in other parts of India have come across this news items about how an 11-year old girl was brutally beaten black and blue by a doc in Lucknow, but if you haven’t, you must go read it now. The little girl was working as a domestic help at the doctor’s place and had apparently been sent there by his uncle who wanted her to earn a quick buck for him when her parents died. She was rescued by a neighbour.

I know what most of us find appalling in the story is the way she was beaten, but what’s sadder is that we don’t feel sad or surprised that a child like her would have to go to work at an age when she should be in school. And that’s because we’re just so used to seeing child labourers around us, we don’t even stop to think about them when we see one.

Last weekend, my friend celebrated her daughter’s third birthday with kids and mommies. In a conversation I can’t get out of my head, a young mother of a one and a half year old told me ruefully that maids for children were so difficult to come by. Her daughter was accompanied by a six-year boy at the party to take care of her! To quote what she said, “There’s so much awareness among maids also these days that they don’t want to send their daughters to work and want them to study instead.” “Good,” I said. “Ya,” she replied, “But bad for us. We don’t get any young girls to work for us.” I don’t think I can have another conversation with this woman who is educated and yet not enough to know that education is a right everyone should have.

First of all, I can’t understand how a parent can entrust their child to another child and think the latter will be equipped to take care of her. And I can’t understand how people can get over the guilt of exploiting an underprivileged child’s situation to serve their purpose. How do they do it?

It’s simple, isn’t it, that you wouldn’t want your child to go working somewhere even if life put you in the worse possible situation? Then why would you think you are “helping” a family by employing their child? When you let a child work for you, do not deceive yourself into believing that you’re actually supporting the child. You are not. You’re just encouraging child labour. Imagine for a moment what would happen to the child if you did not allow him to work for you? He would go and work some place else, you will say. But what if no one allows the child to work? Will the child not return home? Will the parents not be compelled to take care of him and provide for him? If they’ve brought the child into this world, they must take his responsibility.

Also, if you really want to help the child and his family, you can do it without bringing the child home to work. Send him to school, for instance. Pay his fees and it’s a paltry amount to pay in a government school. It may not cost more than what you spend on the cake on your child’s birthday. And surely, there’s enough surplus money in rich people’s pockets to feed a single child.

I would like to mention here that these are not just my personal views. Organisations working with street and working children also say that the only way to ensure that children get treated as children irrespective of their socio-economic background is by stopping their parents from sending them to work. Even though they don’t know it, children have rights too.

I have been working with one such organisation in Lucknow since its inception five years ago – Ehsaas, (the website is still under development). And I have never spoken about it here because the NGO was started and is run by my sister and she doesn’t need me to talk about her; her work speaks for itself. However, I thought it was pertinent to talk about the work that the NGO has been doing because it is through their work that I have been sensitised to this cause. I was as clueless as any one of you about what to do with children who’re out there working to make ends meet. But I was made to realise that paying them for their work isn’t going to solve the problem. Because these children laugh and smile and seem happy does not mean they are getting what's their due. Without an education to help them in the latter years of life, we are ensuring that they never become part of the social mainstream. We are ensuring that the government continues to ignore them.

Sometimes, it’s important to look at the bigger picture and say that even though it makes me feel good to hand a ten rupee note (sometimes lesser) to the boy who works at the tea stall, the child who sells bottles at the railway platform, the girl who sells balloons at the crossing, it’s not the best thing for that child. And believe me when I say it’s not. What can you do instead? For one, be part of efforts to rehabilitate such children. Find out what social organisations in your city that work for them. And let them do what is best for the child. Also, as privileged sections of the society, we must force the policy-makers to take cognisance of these children. It will not happen overnight but gradually - by creating awareness and raising debates about the issue. After all, they're as much citizens of India as you and I.

Don’t take a selfish shortcut. Take a stand.

Aisa Waisa Paisa

2009-10-30T13:38:00.006+05:30

So you know how terrible I am at numbers and figures. But it wasn't always like this. When I was a kid, I used to stash up my pocket money/money given on festivals, birthdays, etc. in different envelopes. So all my ten rupee notes would be in one envelope, twenty rupee notes in another and so on. And I would write the denomination and the number of notes on each envelope, I was so organised!

If you knew me from back then, you would be surprised to see what my wallet looks like now. You will find a note in each pocket of my bag, a little change here and there, a tiny bundle in the wallet. If you ask me at any point of time how much money I’m carrying, you will draw a blank. I never know the exact amount of money in my wallet and only have a vague idea of whether it’s “less” or “more”. And if someone ever flicked from my wallet, I would never know till the volume of notes did not change significantly. Pathetic, I know.

I wasn’t like this till very recently. Even when in college, I was so particular about keeping my cash well. I knew exactly how much money was in my bank account (and thankfully, still know that!), how much I was carrying with me in my wallet and would meticulously maintain the hisab for every penny spent, right down to the two rupees given to the PCO wallah. When I took a 360 degree turn from that and reached where I am right now, I have no idea.

And don’t for a minute think it’s because I have too much of it that I don’t care how much money I have with me. On some days, I feel so poor I can crib about it the whole day, nay, week. Some days, I feel super rich and splurge like there’s no tomorrow. You get the picture? Basically, I’ve begun to suck at money management. I never remember how much money I’ve spent, never remember how much something cost, never remember how much time the money I withdrew from the ATM lasted… I’m just so clueless about money.

And I don’t like it a wee bit. It’s like not knowing how deep the water is – whether it’s good enough to swim through, too much to drown yourself in or just ankle deep. Since I do not manage home finances, living in a joint family as I do, it’s not like I’m leading the family to financial bankruptcy because of my poor money management skills. I only have my limited resources to fool around with and that’s some solace!

I try to rectify my behaviour. Once in a while, I start putting down on paper how much money I spent on what and when, just so that I’m a little more organised, but the plan fizzles out soon enough. The problem is that since I do not have a steady flow of income that comes in at any specific time of the month, I do not have a time frame within which to evaluate my expenses and income. Okay, so that may sound like a lame excuse but it’s an excuse nevertheless.

Thankfully, The Guy is far more sensible with money than I am. He has an exact account of his money, wherever it may be. He knows how much we spent on an outing. He even remembers the prices of things we buy. As a couple we often resolve to budget our expenses, but it hasn’t ever worked out. We just roll along with the times - good or bad as they may be.

So tell me, how do you manage your finances? Do you have a monthly budget? Do you maintain a record of your expenses? Tell me, help me.

Things that should’ve been posts but were not

2009-10-26T13:15:00.008+05:30

I have a zillion half posts in my head. I've written them in my head and left them unfinished (in my head) because I don’t think they’re anything more than half posts. In the absence of any full-fledgedpost, I’ve put together a collection of all these unfinished thoughts for you:

1. I should have written about The Guy and my 12th anniversary in the first week of October. Twelve years of being in love, not being married. But considering that both of us almost forgot about it, a post was not happening. I remembered with shock and shame some time in the afternoon that day how we’d both forgotten all about it, but both, the shock and the shame stayed with me for only a moment and we continued to enjoy a lazy holiday, not giving in to Archies’ card propaganda.

2. I should have also told you about all the Diwali shopping I did. I even clicked some pics to put up here but I wanted to click so many more and did not have the time to. The post was thus killed even before it was born! My pre-Diwali shopping had me going to various exhibitions for home décor and Diwali decorations. I picked up some tee-lights, candle stands, lanterns, garden decorations, a funky red kettle, platters, gifts, new curtains for my room and an onyx vase among other things! Here’s a peek at some of the stuff:

3. I should have shared with you some details of all the Diwali bashes I attended, but they were all so similar and I was so not enthused about them, that it seemed like a purposeless post. I could have, in fact, told you about how out of sorts I was on Diwali, how I celebrated the festival so half-heartedly because some part of me just wasn’t able to get into the spirit of things. Worst of all, I had a severe asthma attack at one of the parties forcing me to return home and spend the rest of the night wheezing and sneezing.

4. Nevertheless, I clicked a lot of pics on Diwali because there’s nothing like good times spent with the family. I dressed up in a silk saree and turned on the bling, even though the sexy blouse I was supposed to wear that day wouldn’t zip up. (No, it wasn’t the fat, it was the darned zip!) Anyway, I’m still bringing this quintessential Diwali pic hoping to brighten things up a little bit here.

5. One of the reasons why I’ve been blogging lesser is because I’ve been in very low spirits of late for reasons I cannot discuss here. It’s been not-so nice on most fronts but I’ve decided to bounce back despite all that. Ain’t in me to be down and out for too long!

6. But among the good things is my determination to get back to writing full throttle. Actually, I’ve been writing all this while but now I’ve made up my mind to earn some money out of it too. I’ve started doing customised cards for special occasions apart from continuing to write for print media. And as a lot of you suggested, I’ve started doing academic assignments online and getting back to my love for literature! I’ve also volunteered to do some writing for an NGO and may even be paid for it. I’m happy!

So what's up with you?

A plate full of memories

2009-10-19T21:53:00.008+05:30

Purely Narcotic tagged me to do this very interesting tag about food memories: Five memorable meals ever eaten: It could be anything that makes the meal memorable - the food, the place, the place you were in your life when you ate, the company, the weather, the ambiance - heck, the guy who served the food!". Considering that I have such a large storehouse of memories, it wouldn’t be difficult to dig out some that are associated with food.

And the first one that comes to mind is of Sakhawat’s kebab and biryani. A lot of you may have heard of Tundey kebabs from Lucknow, but Sakhawat’s kebabs are far better than even Tundey’s! And I happened to have spent a substantial part of my life in a house that was located right opposite Sakhawat’s shop. The evenings at home were characterised by the smell of the kebabs wafting into the house. And it coincided with Dad’s returning from the court. Now, my Dad isn’t a foodie, but he had a weakness for these kebabs. He would come back home and steal me away for a quick bite of kebab and roomali roti and the day’s specialty. It was a great time for us father-daughter to bond and also great food to bond over!

When I was in college, I couldn’t get over the taste of palak paneer that my Mom made: simple, delectable and flavoured with mother’s love! The first meal at home after I returned from hostel had to be palak paneer. Nothing less, nothing more. I know the recipe by heart but I can’t come close to mom’s cooking!

Another palak paneer memory is from Cairns, Australia where I tasted the most amazing Indian food out of home. Surprising but true, the Indian restaurants there whip up better food than most restaurants in India! Or perhaps it tastes better because you’re so far from home. Imagine sitting in an open-air restaurant near the lagoon in Cairns and enjoying palak paneer and naan. It’s the best of both the worlds! I can’t quite forget what that meal tasted like.

And them there are the innumerable club sandwiches that I have had with The Guy. When I started dating him, I was already in love with them – the sandwiches, that is. And he would unfailingly get them packed from The Taj here in Lucknow. I still savour the sandwiches simply because of the memories they bring back of our dates!

My latest food memory isn’t of a food at all – it’s of coffee: cold coffee. It’s a memory that’s in the making. I don’t know how it became part of our routine, but there’s hardly been a day in the last two years when The Guy and I have not had cold coffee together in the morning. We aren’t breakfast people, but coffee is just as good. Some days, I have cold coffee just because I love the time we spend together gulping our mug-fuls and talking of the day ahead. I look forward to those five minutes as the most precious moments of the day.

So what’s your fave food memory? You can answer them, but I’d like to tag:
1. Maid in Malaysia because I’ve read so many of her payasam tales, I know she’ll have lots of food memories to share.
2. Chandni, because her tweets convince me she’s a foodie!
3. Goofy Mumma, who is quite fond of cooking, I guess.
4. Monika Manchanda, because if she can think of starting a food blog, she must have lots to share from her meal memoirs
5. Broom Box, because of the lovely food photography I've seen on her blog.

"But you don't look married!"

2009-10-08T12:51:00.001+05:30

You bet I don’t because when I got married, I didn’t also go for plastic surgery! I’m sure you didn’t either, then why are married women expected to look a certain way?

Why is it that the symbols of wedlock must only be displayed by women in the form of sindoor and mangalsutra, bangles and bichiya while no one even notices the wedding ring on the men? I find it amusing when sweet, plump, inquisitive aunties check you out head to toe to find that one sign that will give away your marital status, if the girth of your waist doesn’t.

Over the years, I have consistently forgotten to wear the sindoor and I have no mangalsutra to flaunt. I wear the bichiya when it suits me and for reasons that have more to do with fashion than anything else. I have put on some weight since I got married almost six years ago, but ever so gradually that most people haven’t noticed it! And therefore, I get that line often, “But you don’t look married!” Not that I’m trying to look single, but I don’t think I need to look married either. I mean, if you know me you would know I’m married and if you don’t, how does it matter?

I’ve often thought of carrying a placard with me stating I’m married since I don’t look it and since people so want to see all married women to look it! Of course, all the while I think that, I have my tongue in cheek, so you needn’t worry about me ever really doing that!

What’s more amusing is that no one will so much as give a second glance to a man to check out whether he’s married or not. The mister will always just be mister – single or otherwise. But even the telephone operator wants to know when you give your name whether you’re Miss or Mrs! Does it make a difference? Is there a thought process behind this inquisitiveness or is it just conditioning?

Could it also be that this is a culture-specific thing? I remember I knew even as a child that a woman who was in a pale-hued saree and not wearing a bindi must be a widow. So it works both ways: while married women are supposed to dress a certain way, widows are also expected to dress a certain way. And to what purpose, I wonder. Why does the society need markers to demarcate married women from single and widowed women? How does a woman’s marital status affect her social status? And how does that affect discrimination against her?

Answers, anyone?

Are you where you were meant to be?

2009-10-01T12:46:00.004+05:30

Am I where I was meant to be? No, let’s rephrase that question: Am I where others thought I would be? How does it matter what others think, but when they tell you that they never thought you would be doing this now and here, you begin to wonder – where did they think I would be?

Last night, over a long phone conversation with a friend, it came up – this line about ‘I never thought you would be doing this, living like that.’ And I started thinking of how I’ve actually lived my life in defiance of most expectations of me, unintentionally though. I haven’t lived up to the idea of ‘me’ that various people formed in their heads. How funny, no?

I have friends whom I lived with in Delhi and who cannot understand how I can live in Lucknow, live in a joint family, live knowing what I have left behind. They cannot imagine how I live like a party-hopper because they haven’t seen me live like one. I have a former editor who can’t tell me enough what a fool I have been for giving up the opportunities that I did. I have a family that tells me I’m not following my calling in life; members of that family tell me how law should have been my calling in life. I have school friends who think nothing of pointing out how I should give it all up (whatever they think ‘all’ encompasses) to be a mother. I have other friends who think I’m successful, pioneering, talented and quite close to the top doing what I was meant to be doing!

How strange that all those different pictures are of me! How did I morph into so many things at the same time and none of them at all?

When I was young, very foolish and very young, I wanted to be nothing but rich. Actually, I always wanted to be well-educated and rich. Polished and rich. Knowledgeable and rich. Smart and rich. And I never then thought I would work to be rich! Somewhere down the line the idea of financial independence took hold in my head and I wanted to do something. At some point, I wanted to be a lawyer but never wanted it enough. I had no idea what I could do to be rich, but I knew that the one thing I could do reasonably well was write. Things fell into place and I started writing. I was still not rich. I gave up writing after some time to be rich. Now I'm neither rich nor a full time writer! Of course, I'm still trying my luck at both! I always wanted to be my own boss and at least, that I am.

I never wanted to live in Lucknow. I loved this city always but I knew I could do so much better if I were in a place like Delhi. I met The Guy, married him and settled down in Lucknow. I was not meant to be here and yet I am. I did not want to live in a joint family. I live in one with six members now! How come I ended up doing everything I was not meant to? And yet, it never occurs to me till someone points it out to me...

Of course, we rarely live our lives that way we thought we would as kids. What did you want to be when you were a child? What did others think you would be? Are you there?

Fasting, feasting and all things in-between

2009-09-22T16:41:00.008+05:30

If I told you I fast all nine days during the Navratra, would you think I’m very religious? Or would you think I’m ritualistic?

No one has ever asked me to fast. I do it of my own volition and I do it the way I want to. I do not read the Durga Saptashati and I do not eat ‘fast’ food. I do it because I believe in the female form of the supernatural powers that be and I do it because it’s a good way to detox. I do not think that if I fast, God will be kinder to me and I do not think that if I do not fast, God will be unkind to me. I do it because it helps me exercise some of my will power on my errant ways. Ideally, the fast should not just be about abstinence from food, it should be about abstinence from all vices. However, that’s not a stage of evolution I have yet reached and therefore I abstain only from gluttony.

Why am I telling you this? I’m telling you this because a lot is said of the Hindu religion and the rituals that come with it. And though I'm not a theologian, I think it’s not the religion that stipulates the rituals, often it’s the people who make them up. A lot is also said about rituals without differentiating them from traditions while for me, there’s a great difference between the two. I love the elaborate Dusshera and Diwali pujas not because I’m ritualistic but because they are part of a tradition that reminds me of my carefree days as a child, the happy memories associated with the festive time. It’s a tradition I would like my children to partake in because any parent would want their child to experience the same happiness that they have felt.

Perhaps, I was able to enjoy the various pujas because they were not imposed on me and we participated in them because it was a time for family bonding. Perhaps, I was able to enjoy the pujas because it was a time for us to reaffirm our faith in God and not to reinforce superstitions. I realise this because I see a lot of people around me performing a lot of rituals without the teeniest bit of faith because it is not what their faith is about. And that’s why they feel it as a burden.

However, if we do not suspect our religion so much of perpetuating meaningless rituals, we may be able to understand that rituals are often symbolic. And if we do not agree with what they stand for, we have the choice to reject them. What is the point of education and life in a civilised society if we cannot make informed choices? My parents do not feed a pandit on the shraddha of their deceased parents anymore simply because they do not see the rationale behind it. Instead, they send some food to an orphanage. If the purpose of pitr paksha is to remember and offer respect to the dearly departed, feeding the needy should serve the purpose just as well. And surely, it’s better than feeding overfed pandits. I know a lot of women who do not keep a nirjal fast on Karva Chauth and that does not mean they love their husbands any less than those who do not have water. Personally, Karva Chauth has no significance for me except as a tradition that I observe only because I do not want to offend the elders in the family. And frankly, abstaining from food on a single day comes easy to me. Perhaps, at a later stage in life, I may stop observing this fast. And I’m sure my husband will still have a long life.

But what makes rituals binding on us? I don’t think it’s so much the religion as the society. If your mother-in-law wants you to perform a certain puja, why blame religion for it? Did Hanumanji really tell his devotees to abstain from non-vegetarian food on Tuesdays? I seriously doubt. Yet, his devotees abstain from non-veg and also alcohol because for some people, abstinence from your favourite foods is a way of offering respect to your favourite deity. In that case, it’s an act of faith. But some people do it without giving so much as a thought to why they do it and regret that they have to do it. Then it’s just a meaningless ritual.

You may totally disagree with what I've said here and that will not make me right and you wrong or vice versa. Because no one’s faith can be wrong. And you can't disagree with that (?)

Dead or alive?

2009-09-15T15:27:00.001+05:30

I have been in love for 12 years now and there are days when I feel totally out-of-love. Those are days when I wonder why him and why me? They are the same days when I wonder why I live with this man. But most days are better. Most days I tell him I love him and that he’s the best. I tell him I can’t live without him. And he nods his agreement.

But being in love for twelve years isn’t easy. It’s bloody difficult, if I tell you the truth. How do you love a man (or a woman) if you know all the flaws in his mental, emotional and even physical make-up? (No, I’m not blinded by my love.) How do you want someone when you can have them every waking minute? How do you not get bored of living with the same person all these years? Where do you get new things everyday to talk and share with each other?

Falling in love is so much easier than staying in love. While the former is easy, the latter is not. And there’s a school of thought that asks if you have to work on being in love, what that could be worth. But there’s another school of thought that says love isn’t something that can sustain you; you have to sustain it.

Or perhaps, love is not the right word for it. It’s chemistry. Or spark. Or that special something that keeps two people going. Perhaps, love can exist without much effort, but the spark can fizzle out so easily. And all you couples out there reading this, testify for the rest that that spark is ever so important!

The Guy and I used to have a lot of it – the spark, that is – in the five years that we dated each other before we got married. Don’t ask me how I know it, but I do. And somehow, one fine day – the day after our wedding day, to be precise – that spark disappeared. It vanished without a warning! And two very-much-in-love people were left clueless about what to do with all the love that was stored within their hearts for each other. Without the spark, how do we ignite the passion? Of course, we learnt later that we weren’t alone. There were many like us among our friends who had been excited by the chase and fallen into complacency at having got the prize. And that’s when we learnt that the spark wasn’t self-sustaining; it needed to be kept alive, it needed to be worked on, needed to be stoked to create a warm fire that will sizzle and crackle once in a while! I guess there is some chemistry involved there – how to mix the right ingredients to produce the right results.

Don’t ask me what I do to keep the flame burning because honestly it doesn’t burn as brightly all the time as I would want it to after reading enough Mills & Boons. But I also know that Mills & Boons is no realistic benchmark! But tell me if you agree that there is no eternal spark that can light up a relationship. Tell me also if you agree that love is no different and that both need to be kept alive. And if it’s not too much to ask for, share with me how you do it…

Quote unquote

2009-09-14T02:38:00.005+05:30

I've just put down Eat Pray Love by Elizabeth Gilbert and loved the book. Not just because I like the book so much for what it is but because I found one of my favourite quotes in there:

"I was never not coming here. This was never not going to happen."

It's a quote that sums up by my philosophy of life in no more than two lines and so much more beautifully that I ever could have.

And then I got thinking about all those lines that have stayed with me during so many years of reading. I first read Wuthering Heights in standard XII and the whole class of girls fell in love with the idea of the dark and broody Heathcliff. But there were these lines in particular that Catherine says of her love for Heathcliff that we ooh-ed and aah-ed over:

"If all else perished and he remained I should still continue to be; and if all else remained, and he were annihilated the universe would turn to a mighty stranger: I should not seem a part of it... I am Heathcliff. "
Doctor Faustus is also one of my favourite reads because Christopher Marlowe seems to have written some two hundred years ago what all mankind can feel even now:

"Why this is hell, nor am I out of it.
Thinks't thou that I who saw the face of God
And tasted the eternal joys of Heaven,
Am not tormented with ten thousand hells,
In being deprived of everlasting bliss?"

And there’s the simplicity if these lines in Alice Walker’s very complex book Color Purple that appeals to me:

I think it pisses God off if you walk by the color purple in a field somewhere and don’t notice it.

Take the time to smell the flowers, to stop and see the beauty around you. Simple, ain’t it?

My fifth most favourite quote is from a famous play by Samuel Beckett called Waiting for Godot:
"Nothing to be done."
You won’t know how much that line means if you don’t believe a little in existentialism – how we all exist for the sake of existing though there’s nothing really to be done in this life.

Those are a few of my favourite quotes. What are yours? I’d love to hear.

Where am I?

2009-09-08T13:48:00.001+05:30

I’m in limbo. I seem to be moving on but haven’t left the past entirely. I seem to be at the crossroad of things, not choosing a turn but letting the road wind itself onto a new path. I feel I’m on the brink of change but I don’t know for sure. I don’t even know if the change will be for better or for worse, but this does feel like a lull before the storm.

I’m in the thick of things. I work and I pretend to work and then I look for more work. I get worked up. I write – for myself, for friends, for a newspaper, for money, for free. I click. I party. I entertain. I worry. I laugh. I cry. And it seems to me like I do nothing at all.

I do nothing at all. I wake up late, I sleep late. I google, I Facebook, I tweet, I blog. And it fills up my days and parts of the night. And I know it all amounts to nothing at all.

I’m aimless. I’m clueless. I have no idea where I’m heading. I don’t even know if I’m moving forward at all. Time might just as well have stopped. And yet it’s September already!

I’m at a place where I create new opportunities for myself every day: possibilities that don’t become reality. I plan, I imagine, I dream. And I try to set the ball rolling. It doesn’t seem to budge but in my head, I’ve set it rolling. And it makes me happy.

I’m at a juncture where I feel happy yet discontented. How can that be, you ask. I feel happy for what I have, where I am and discontented for where I could be, what I should have. I fill my life with good things and wait for the best to happen.

The fortune cookie says, “Some pursue happiness; you create it.” And I believe it.

Some days, you just NEED to be out!

2009-08-31T11:12:00.007+05:30

This is what a week that I began on the I'll-stay-at-home note ended up as:

Monday: I was invited to judge an event for the Direct Marketing firm Amway. They were having a Mr. and Mrs. Amway contest and said it wouldn't take more than 2 hours. I reached the venue punctually at 5:00 pm and knew right from the onset of the programme that with 20 couple contestants, there was no way I was going home before eight. I was so wrong! The programme ended at 10:00 pm! Five hours of judging that left me ravenous for good food. The Guy and I ended up going out for dinner that night, but more out of necessity than anything else.

Tuesday: Was supposed to be a stay-at-home for sure. The Guy and I had gone to check out stuff at a furniture shop in the evening and were supposed to be back in an hour and a half. But Destiny had other plans for us. My sister received an award that day for her contribution to the cause of street children and my nephew wanted to celebrate it with an outing. My parents were roped in without a hitch and there was no way we could have refused. Nay?

Wednesday: My friend M had planned a dinner at her place for our newly-wed friends (eight months into a marriage is still newly-wed!). It was a well arranged but informal gathering that we thoroughly enjoyed.

Thursday: The only day this last week that we were home! The Guy and I have been fasting on Thursdays for Sai Baba. Thankfully, unlike the past few Thursdays, there were no invitations this time and we spent the evening constructively by eating healthy and staying at home.

Friday: Technically, we did spend this day at home but with friends coming over for dinner, it didn't quite feel like what a day at home feels like. It was a dinner, I thoroughly enjoyed hosting! I had planned a sizzler party because with only six people to feed, I could do justice to the idea. I wish I had pictures to show you how much pains I took to lay the table, but there was just no time for clicking! But please let me describe the details and feel good. The starters included, sunken submarines, galawat kebabs (outsourced), paneer fingers and corn salad followed by vegetarian and non-vegetarian sizzlers. I added a slight drama by printing out tiny menus for everyone and I can show you at least what they looked like.

My friends loved the idea though I was fully prepared to have it laughed at. I was doing it for fun anyway!

Saturday: Two more freelance bylines for me! A friend of mine and colleague also made her freelance debut in the same issue of the same newspaper. And that was cause enough for us to get together for dinner! Actually, it was a long overdue dinner: my friend and her husband have also recently launched their own placement consultancy and that's quite a big deal that we wanted to celebrate! Finally managed to do it this Saturday.

Sunday: No reprieve on Sunday either because it's the weekend - the official outing day. I stepped out of home at 11:30 in the morning and returned at 10:00 in the night! A hawan to welcome the latest addition to our family - my pretty li'l niece - at my parents' place was followed by lunch. We went shopping for The Guy after that. In the evening, we went for Kaminey with our friends and decided to try out a new eating place with Awadhi cuisine thereafter. Came home and had another couple drop in for coffee and discussion.

All of this happened in a week I was intending to spend at home :) But tell me, which one of those things could I have avoided?

Cross-posting this over here to revive my party blog.

Vote for...

2009-08-26T11:14:00.004+05:30

your favourite header and make things easy for me. It's probably irrelavant for you (is it?) but obviously not to me. And since I can't make up my mind about which header is best suited for this blog, I'm going to go by popular choice.

#1: The first one literally was the first one I made myself! It's about who I am and what I like to do. Decode the images and you'll know what I'm talking about

#2: Just a little bit of creativity. Used a picture I clicked on my trip to Agra to make this one.

#3: And another one from another picture I clicked on the same trip.

#4: And here's the one that's not been put up yet. It's about a few of my favourite things.

So now you take your pick on which one you prefer and help a very confused me.

UPDATED TO ADD: And the voting results choose Option 1. Option 2 lost by a very, very narrow margine of 1%. Here are the stats:

Option 1: 38%

Option 2: 37%

Option 3: 7%

Option 4: 16%

Thank you for helping me out!

Pink Weekend

2009-08-21T15:25:00.016+05:30

A photo essay on our latest weekend trip to Jaipur

We took the train from Lucknow to Jaipur on Thursday and as is usually the case with all our trips, our train was delayed. So instead of arriving in Jaipur at the scheduled time of 11: oo am, we reached a good four and a half hours late! We made the most of that time by playing scrabble on the way and when we crossed Agra we caught a glimpse of the Taj Mahal. That faint structure in the picture, yes, the one that's barely visible is Taj Mahal. It appeared much clearer to the naked eye than the camera could capture.

Instead of checking in at the hotel, which was some 25 kms from the main city, we first stopped at the busy Jauhari Bazar which is a must-visit for all tourists. And all tourists do visit it for various reasons.

For one, the Hawa Mahal is situated right in the middle of this busy market place. For those who don't already know this, the Hawa Mahal isn't actually a palace; it's just the facade of a palace. If you happen to take a peek at what's behind, you'll find squalid slums!

It's a tiny window into the rich world of Rajasthani art and architecture. I was quite fascinated by these lamp posts that lined the dividers on the road.

The market follows a standardised pattern of signages and you won't find the facade of the building crowded with signboards of all shapes, sizes and colours. Talking of colour, the orange colour of this building is what people refer to as pink. But if you ask me, it isn't pink at all!

Of course, the shopping in Jauhari Bazar is supposed to be a tourist's delight. You'll get everything here: from bandhini sarees and kohlapuris to mojaris and bangles. My friend totally flipped for the colourful mojaris and picked about half a dozen of them!

They are lots of typically Rajasthani things to choose from as well like fancy embroidered umbrellas and multi-huded puppets.

The LMB -one of the most famous eateries in Jaipur - is also located in Jauhari. While the delectable kachauris that we snacked on did not make for such a great photo-op, this pile of phirni sure did!

By the time we reached the hotel, it was dark and the illuminated hotel facade looked rather impressive.

We were staying at Hotel Shiv Vilas and loved the grandeur of the place.

We spent most of our time relaxing in the pool since relax is what we had gone to do!

We had been a tad worried about the weather in Jaipur before leaving Lucknow, apprehensive that it would be too hot there to move out at all. But the Sun was holidaying too and the weather was perfect. There were dark clouds overhead that sprinkled light showers on us intermittently but never to spoil any of our plans!

We spent the afternoon of August 15 on the terrace attached to our room and enjoyed the view from there.

We decided to have dinner at Rambagh Palace that evening. On our way, we stopped to get ourselves clicked at the Jal Mahal - a palace in the middle of water.

I could go on and on about Taj Rambagh Palace, but I'm going to save that up for another post, another blog! For now, I will leave you with an image of moi in the royal washroom of the hotel!

Me vs blogger me

2009-08-18T12:57:00.002+05:30

If a rose by any other name would smell as sweet, would a blogger by any other name write any differently? Perhaps not. But perhaps, a blogger who writes anonymously would write a whole lot differently. I’ve been in the blogosphere for a couple of years now and been around enough to know how different people are at different levels of comfort making public their real identities: some will safeguard it will all their might, others will make no effort to be known in the virtual world as they are known in the real.

Most people who read my blog know me as D and most others who know my name have chanced upon it by accident. I don’t think I’m any different if you know me by one name or another. So why am I at pains to remain D for the blog world?

I mulled over this question for weeks and months and finally came up with a coherent answer: I just don’t want any more relationships. I like meeting people, I like to make friends but I can’t labour to do either. If I meet people, good. If I make friends along the way, good. If I don’t, still good. Is that hard to understand?

In the real world that I inhabit, I have plenty of friends and plenty of family members around me. There are relationships I cannot sever even if I wanted to and there are relationships I do not want to sever, ever. Then there are people I meet at work, because of work, through work: colleagues, business associates, ex-colleagues... some people I can’t wish away and some people I do not want to wish away. Between all of those, where is the will to forge new relationships?

I spend a lot of time on the internet but I’m not here to be tied down by a new set of strings. When a regular blogger is away for a considerable amount of time, I do wonder if everything is alright with her. When a blogger goes on a vacation, goes on a new diet program, tries out a new dish, talks about her babies, I’m interested. I feel for bloggers I read. But I cannot go beyond that.

I have never tried actively to meet a blogger even though I haven’t tried to resist it actively either. But I’m conscious of the fact that once I meet someone, I’m committing to go beyond the blogosphere relationship. And once I do that, I will not step back. But am I ready for it? Am I ready to take on another relationship and everything else that comes with it? What if I do not like the person I meet or the person doesn’t like me? That’s going to affect our virtual relationship as well, isn’t it?

I hear all the time of bloggers finding some of their best friends in blogosphere. Perhaps, by resisting new ties, I’m resisting friendships that could be. But any relationship is about give and take – of emotions, times, energy. I have nothing to give just now that I already ain’t giving enough of to people around me.

Some people are great at managing a zillion relationships and managing them well. I’m not one of them. I have to labour at every one of them. And it hurts when a relationship goes wrong. I don’t want that hurt. Is there something wrong with that?