Sunny Spells and Rainy Days

2006-07-06T01:51:00.000-07:00

The words come and go, ebb and flow. Just so many words I’d gathered. Just so many thoughts I’d pondered. But what I really want to say hovers at the tip of my tongue…I don’t quite know the words, I don’t know if I’d ever say it if I knew.

The days are flying by. And beneath it all, I am scared. Really scared. Get through all of the emotions on the surface and beneath it all, I am just so terribly frightened.

I am frightened mostly of being seen. I’d rather hide. I’d rather just stay in bed with my head under the sheets. Remember how that always made you feel secure as a kid? It still makes me feel secure.

And I am also frightened that I may not be seen…that the words will hide me.

I hate them…these words that come and go. They pretend to set you free but actually, they bind you. How can words say so much and yet so little?

All too often, you catch what you think is a glimpse of the person only to find that the light was reflecting you.... and what you wanted to see.

Words…we use them to build bridges…. but the same words…isn’t it funny how they can build walls. Words can tear…. but can words really heal? And the questions without answers…who'll answer them? And what do you do with the answers that ask questions?!?!? Where, oh where do you stow them away?

The thing with words is.... they make a noise. And in all that noise, you miss out on truly listening. Of listening with the heart.

It might not be the wisest thing to ‘fess fear, but dear God, I am scared. I am scared to bits. It’s all so complicated. I want to and yet I can’t. I don’t think I can. It’s too much effort and I am tired and old. But then, why do I want to?

Maybe, because I am tired and old? And it’s getting too much of an effort to pretend that I am not.

2006-06-26T02:06:00.000-07:00

I’ve already spent the best part of my day chatting. Really shouldn’t be taking the time off to blog now. But it’s funny, isn’t it? How spent you can be. Yeah…that’s the word. I am spent.

And I don’t mean it in a * sniff* way. I am at peace with being spent. I like the quietness. I like the stillness. It’s healing me.

They shake their heads and say, “Poor thing, it changed her.” But they don’t really get it! I have freedom now. And the feeling makes me heady and steady at the same time. It’s like you know that the worst is over.

Nobody is indispensable. You thought you couldn’t live without them but you have. You thought stuff like that never happened but it did and it happened to you. You’ve faced what you thought you’d never face and heck! you survived! Nothing can quite touch you the same way again. And while one part of you regrets the fact, the other part is singing and dancing in the rain with head thrown back.

You’ll win this! You so know you will. The best part is how it cuts the ties, the bonds, the attachments. I don’t feel indebted to any human being. And I can say it and actually mean it when I say that I expect nothing from anybody.

It’s a strange sense of freedom. I can live my life the way I want, without people dictating how or what I feel. I can shrug my shoulder, look past you and keep walking.

2006-06-08T22:57:00.000-07:00

ISAK- Where has she gone?

ALMAN - You know it. She's gone away. Everyone has gone away. Can't you hear the silence? Everything has been dissected, professor. A masterpiece of surgery. No pain, no blood.

ISAK - And what is my punishment?

ALMAN - Your punishment? I don't know. The usual, i guess.

ISAK - The usual?

ALMAN - Of course. Loneliness.

2006-05-29T22:18:00.000-07:00

Just when I was getting used to the easy predictability of my life….the bug bugs me again. I am suddenly not so much in love with my job…or my city. I wanna be away and out. I think I’ve stayed here for far too long. Help! I am beginning to grow roots!

I think I’ve been working for far too long. I am so looking forward to just bumming around. You know…not bumming around feeling useless but bumming around doing things. Like go trekking or camping or go on a wildlife shoot or welll….something like that.

I am sick and tired of my stupid 9-5 job. I am sick and tired of sitting in front of the comp. I am sick and tired of having to be nice all the time.

That last one really takes a toll on me…. Having to smile and be nice when all you are longing to REALLY do is dance on the other person’s corpse. Ok, I know that sounds morbid but hey! I am PMS-ing.

I am also beginning to realize that actually I hate men. Believers or unbelievers, saved or unsaved they are all frigging egomaniacs, who are COMPLETELY full of themselves. Amma goes on and on about me having to get married…I was ok with that till like a coupla weeks ago. But then, in the last fortnight I find myself getting…. hard.

The word marriage makes me wanna slap someone like really hard. I told Amma that yesterday and she said that its cos I am becoming self-contained, which was exactly what she’d been fearing. She went on to say that that was what happened when people stayed single for too long. Whatever.

I told her I hated men. She got upset with that. And she said its cos I am allowing myself to get bitter. Whatever.

I don’t WANT to get married or hear of getting married for a very, very, VERY long time. I just wanna BE!! Speaking for myself…that is. I know that God might not want that for me…so it’s a bit like surrender at gunpoint. But I can’t help praying that God would please gimme a break and just swat all these mismatches outta my face.

I’m sick and tired of meeting all these egomaniacs.

Also…I’ve realized that I like my space. I’ve realized that I can never be with a guy who tries to be my ‘friend’. I think I need someone who is…like….I donno…a father figure?:-/

No, no…it’s not what you think! It’s not an older-man-daddy-long-legs-Rhett-Butler kinda syndrome. It’s just that I need to be able to you know…. “look upto” the person I’m gonna marry.

Does that mean I’m “weak”? Maybe…? I’d rather just have someone who took all the practical decisions without my having to preoccupy myself with all that. I want to be a child all over again and be taken care of. BUT at the same time, I don’t wanna be “dependent.”

And as for being my ‘friend’…. dude, I have enough friends. Why would I need my man to be my friend? He needs to be my MAN!! Lol!!! Ok! I know that I’m taking us all a few centuries backward with that statement. Spare me feminists all! I am not ‘stereotyping gender’.

I am not in favour of infantalizing a woman at the cost of her independence. But heck! I SO AM in favour of having my independence and yet being infantalized/ babied/ konchified.

Yes! I am COMPLETELY in favour of having my cake and eating it too: )

But yes, I do know that we are s’posed to be “partners” and equals and that just cos the guy is the guy, he won’t be infallible. But that never can stop me from wanting.

Maybe…maybe…. I’m too much of an idealist. Maybe that’s why I am always so troubled by reality. Somehow, I just don’t seem to be able to reconcile what I WANT with what actually IS. Or stretch that to who I want with who is…

: (

Oh dear…. whatever shall I do?

2006-05-16T08:25:00.000-07:00

I'd written out a long post today but then it got lost.

I can't help wondering why I am blogging again. I know I shouldn't try to analyse even that..I know it doesn't merit that much thought...but heck...when I am so overloaded with work, why am I blogging?

Perhaps, it is about the silence. I am really the only 'youngster' in my department. Everybody that I called a 'friend' at work...has left and I am feeling strangely conscious of the void. No more laughs, no more foolish jokes...no wait, I am exaggerating.

It's all there...all of those elements but I guess without the people who mattered to you, it doesn't seem quite the same anymore. Oh well. I am back on my own once again. And it really isn't the end of the world cos people like me were wired to be comfortable with solitude :)

The girls are all travelling so no more chit chats and no more mochas for a while. The girls are my only respite from the monotony of work and back. But age is catching up with the girls too. Our last time together was ever so serious...

But heck, why am I blogging again? If I can't determine that and find a satisfying reason, I guess I just need to quit all over again.

Back?

2006-05-11T07:52:00.000-07:00

There really is no reason why I should be back 'cept that the silence is getting a bit too loud...

2005-09-08T00:47:00.000-07:00

Don't feel like blogging anymore. So, it's goodbye for a long, long, long while.

A Wonderful Pome in the Wonderful Book

2005-09-02T04:54:00.000-07:00

You are who you are for a reason
You’re part of an intricate plan.
You’re a precious and perfect unique design,
Called God’s special woman or man.

You look like you look for a reason.
Our God made no mistake.
He knit you together within the womb,
You’re just what He wanted to make.

The parents you have were the ones he chose,
And no matter how you may feel,
They were custom-designed with God’s plan in mind,
And they bear the Master’s seal.

No, that trauma you faced was not easy.
And God wept that it hurt you so;
But it was allowed to shape your heart
So that into his likeness you’d grow.

You are who you are for a reason,
You’ve been formed by the Master’s rod.
You are who you are, beloved,
Because there is a God!
--Russel Kelfer

Read this in an absolutely beautiful book I'm reading right now called "The Purpose Driven Life" by Rick Warren. I don't know if it will touch anybody else like it did me....I hope it will.

Happy weekend everybody. I've moved so am yet to get internet access@home. The server at work is being upgraded so I have only about half an hour on the WWW...and then I blog and check my mail. I know I haven't visited many of you in AGES!! Excusez moi! And no, the poem is not copyrighted, so do feel free to pass it on. Just make sure you mention the writer's name too!

2005-08-30T01:21:00.000-07:00

I do love pretty things. A coupla new products in the market. Shopper’s Stop sale... I am trying hard to pretend like I don’t know about it. So what if there are new products? I don’t have to have EVERYTHING, do I? No, I don’t.

My cupboards are overflowing. In the last 2 months, I’ve bought about 15 clothes and three pairs of shoes. I must get rid of older clothes to accommodate newer ones. But there’s no reason to throw any of them away. They are still in great condition…I don’t wear half the clothes I possess and yet, I can’t stop buying. Am I suffering from some dread disease??

I have more lotions and creams than I ever use. Half of them are unused and have passed the expiry date. I can’t stop buying.

Mom insinuated that I’d have to move all my books to my room. That will give me even less room to live. I can’t stop buying.

I shall not get into the habit of buying movies. I shall not get into the habit of shopping for music. MP3 is a cheaper option. A much cheaper option.

Now that my B trip stands cancelled, I have a lot of saving. I must find something worthwhile to invest it into.

K has adopted an adorable baby. I’ve been trying not to think about that either. Besides, even if I wanted to adopt, I’d have to produce a husband. Apparently. Apparently, Indian authorities are still not open to single women adopting. Unless you are someone of the caliber of Sushmita Sen. Or unless you are willing to put up with a load of bureaucratic shit.

I intend to adopt a baby someday. Even know what I’ll name her :) She shall be called Anoushka.

I finished my M.A. course. Yet to figure out if I am first or second due to a supposed typo. So now I am Liquid Sunshine, 24 years, M.A. Mass Communications, M.A. Human Rights and Developmental Studies. Sounds rather somber, eh?

Who’d imagine that Liquid Sunshine was just a little girl, who is facing a major struggle with having to put away a certain pair of rose-tinted glasses? Oh well, may the appearance of poised, assured, receptive woman of substance continue to stand. In the meanwhile, am hunting for a good university to start my doctorate. Wondering if I should go Canada-Australia…hmmm…

AS, whenever she catches me online has only one solution to all my problems. “Go Canida,” she will say. Canida is what, according to her will change me into this poised assured receptive woman of substance. I am also supposed to find myself a boy toy there. Am also supposed to be eternally happy there. LOL.

Talking of AS, isn’t it really funny how much you can have in common with a soon to be 40 singleton? I caught up with her in Bombay last year. Sat at Barista and yapped away to glory. She bought me flowers (orchids) and coffee. I felt I’d known her all my life…she was amazing…I have never been so fond of a relative stranger as I am of her.

She calls me “annegal” (nope, my names not really anne, there's a story that's too long to tell about why she calls me that) and the way she says it, she makes me feel so loved! She always makes me want to snuggle up with her and go to sleep.

Why is it that I always turn to people for protection? I really must face this and deal with it…the latest person is my BIL. I have such a warm feeling with him and my sis. BIL told my sis, “Let’s adopt her. It’s so easy to keep her happy. Let’s just pack her and take her home.” And it’s true! I am so happy when I am around with them.

I think I’ve been spoilt silly all my life. All my friends (even the ones my age and the ones younger than me sometimes) have babied me. Maybe, it’s just that being physically bigger than me, they feel they have to protect me???

Why does everybody baby me?and it’s not even like they give me my way. N constantly got his way and got away with it simply because he konchified me enough and I’d just settle down to anything. I mean konchify me and you can twist me around your little finger!! That’s really ridiculous!

And why have I, without even realizing it, unconditionally given my trust to people who do that? OMG!! That’s true! I didn’t realize it until now. I UNCONDITIONALLY give my trust to people who baby me…

I can’t believe I actually wrote all that stuff against 'infantilization' of women when I love it so much myself! How deluded have I been! And I didn’t even realize it!! And now I am getting paranoid. More soul-searching awaits me. My poor ragged soul, I never give you ANY peace, do I??

The week that was

2005-08-21T22:33:00.000-07:00

Ok, so I am back. There’s nothing much to say really. But then again, that has never stopped me from rambling. So, it probably won’t stop me now either. I suffered from nothing as romantic as measles, mumps or the like. It was a “violent case” of amoebiasis…

So, I am s’posed to be on diet and take medicines for two weeks. Naturally, I’ve ditched the diet. On Saturday, I had meat. Had to. My body was revolting against the blandness of it all…

So, I think I am soon on my way to total recovery; meaning, I shall soon put back the weight I lost and stop looking like I escaped outta starvation camp. Electrolytes and the one week vacation from work came with a silver-lining, nevertheless. I caught up on my reading. Finished two books and have started the third- “Snow Falling on the Cedars.” Am intrigued….

Went for a concert and potluck lunch on Saturday. Slept all through Sunday afternoon and watched 'Hum Tum' in the night. On Friday, I watched a movie on Hallmark called “The trail to Hope Rose”...Or was it Rose Hope?? Whatever….it was nice….Not exactly a period movie but un-mainstream enough to be exciting.

Shopped again. Now I am sure of it. It is a disease. I know that “Sale!!” never REALLY means that they are reducing the prices and that I am still paying more than I need to pay . But I buy into the game anyways. Mainly because it assuages my sense of guilt. Also bought stuff for the rest of the family to further allay the sense of guilt.

So, I am many 1000's poorer... :-|

Finally decided on the car. Santro Xing. Deep red. Not blood red but deep red..a mixture of crimson and red. I think I’ve chosen it simply cos of the colour. I've almost convinced myself that Xing isn't THAT ugly.

Dad’s car, which I’d scraped badly and promised to pay for is back from repair. Dad hasn’t mentioned about me paying :) :) :) I'm hoping really hard that they will all forget that side of the bargain…

Yesterday, as I was dropping off to sleep, it felt so good to be hugging my pillow...and it occurred to me how much I have to be thankful for. I looked at my life…compared and contrasted it to the life I knew before, when I was supposedly at my happiest…and realized how good what I have now is. This sense of peace, of contentment…this quiet little life…

I am lying on green pastures, I am being led by the quiet waters, my soul is being restored, the wound has healed, I am being comforted, my cup does run over…Surely, things have worked together for good.

I wouldn’t trade this quiet exciting life for the eye of the storm ever again. This is so good. The quiet. The ministering to my soul…It’s been one year and four months since I went into the waters. How much my life has changed…how much I have changed…with each act of submission, there’s one more victory achieved.

It’s good to stop rebelling. It’s good to have a resting place for my soul…good to have it lying on my lap and knowing deep down that it will be well with my soul. That I am Cared for. Loved. Loved beyond measure. Cherished.

Off for a while

2005-08-16T23:33:00.000-07:00

Recuperating. Recovering. Convalescing.

If you thought it wasn't possible to lose 3 kilos in 3 days, you thought wrong.

I wish I'd thought of mosquito bites before I fell sick. Loking at my face in the mirror, makes me wish I were blind. I look like something the dog dragged out.

Ugh. Cinderella has morphed into her ugly stepsister? Yeah, something lathat. Shall ponder over if I was EVER Cinderella later...when I feel better.

Until the sickness runs its course, until I feel a bit quicker witted,until I feel less lethargic and dehydrated, au revoir.

The Search Begins

2005-08-11T02:37:00.000-07:00

The hunt for a smaller car begins starting today…Am supposed to test-drive Swift, Indica, Alto and Zen….

Suddenly, am beginning to think that Esteem is the best car ever. And this, after having gone to such pains to assure my dad that I couldn’t see the road from a big car….

Dad’s keen on a Santro Zing….he thinks I can have a good view of the road that way. What an ugly car!

Sis wants a Swift for me cos she likes it’s butt! I think it’s over-rated….it looks like a fat middle aged lady, who simply can’t stop her bums from spilling over but is still trying to look funky.

Zen-been there, done that. Good car. But been there, done that…. so don’t find it exciting. It’s got a lot of good points though-excellent mileage, small and compact and tested and tried. But does anybody know what the mileage ACTUALLY is? Don’t wanna ask the dealers cos naturally they’ll say its much higher than it is….

Indica- Runs on Diesel. Perfect for someone who earns a pittance! I’ll be saving about 20 bucks for a litre of diesel. But am told maintenance is high for diesel engines. Also, that after a while, they begin to get…errrrr…..loud….Another thing…all the taxi cabs in the city are Indica….eeeks!

Fiat Palio-very, very, VERY bad reviews.

Alto- Too many on the road. But then again, tested and tried, small and compact and EXCELLENT mileage.

H suggested I try a Reva. Will spend nothing on Petrol. COOL!! But a bit tooooo small.

* sigh * I MUST decide by the end of this week. Do wish somebody would just decide for me.

2005-08-09T01:16:00.000-07:00

I used to read this verse in the Bible, which talks about not fretting…It reads, “Which of you by worrying can add a cubit to his stature?” those days, as a kid, I believed it was written for me. That Jesus knew I’d be worrying about my height about two thousand years later, and so he said it. So, every single day, I would re-decide not to worry about my height. But I worried, nevertheless.

Then, there was another verse, “ A little one shall become a thousand and a small one a strong nation.” And I decided to believe that. I don’t know why I wanted to become a thousand since one of me takes up all my energy. But I liked it….the idea.

So I continued to pray that God would make me taller. Every morning, I’d pray that first thing when I woke up. That’d be my prayer as I fell asleep at night…if anybody had asked me what I wanted above all things, I’d have said that I wanted to grow taller. I measured my height about four times a week.

At first I prayed, “ Make me as tall as A,” (A is my sis.)

Then, I said “Please…. make me at least as tall as Mom ( Mom’s 5’2)

Then I prayed, “God please make me at least five feet tall.”

God never answered any of those prayers. Mom consoled me by telling me that Napoleon was short, and so was Hitler. But I didn’t wanna be either Napoleon or Hitler. Then she told me that Mother Teresa was short too. That consoled me considerably. But considering the not very saintly things I’ve done since then, I think I’m disqualified.

So, today I am choosing my height as a valid reason to be pissed at everybody and everything. I mean I’ve done it all….

I skipped when someone said it’d make me grow taller. Everyday, I’d skip 2000 times.

Then I hung from the bars of the playground cos someone told me THAT would make me grow taller.

I ate Chavanpraash, drank Complan at night and Horlicks in the morning.Even took a hormonal treatment.

But nothing worked.

Then, I consoled myself wearing high heels. But now, the doc says I really must stay off it if I wanna save my back and my knees.

Why did my parents give me this f----- up gene combo? Why couldn’t I just be at least five feet two?

It’s not fair. It really isn’t. A has got all the good genes and I’ve just got the left-over ones. It’s not fair.

2005-08-09T01:09:00.000-07:00

Close your eyes and go to sleep. Forget about tomorrow. Forget about the bend. Forget about the corners, the nooks, the crannies. Forget shadows. Forget dark. Forget the clouds. Forget the depths. Forget the twilight. Forget the grey ghosts. Forget.

Enter stillness. Enter sunshine. Enter blue skies. Enter deep blue sea with frothy edges. Enter walking in the sand barefoot. Enter sitting under the waterfall in Kallaar. Enter bathing naked in broad daylight with the cold crisp wind making us break out in goose bumps and giggling hysterically cos I am 15 and she is 18 and we are naked and nobody knows and nobody sees. Enter walking barefoot in dew-wet grass. Enter bougainvilleas in sunlight. Enter thoughtlessness. Enter holding hands.Enter sleep.

Him and Her

2005-08-04T01:06:00.000-07:00

She sat by the window stringing her beads. Black and blue. Black and blue.

Black for his soul. Blue for hers.

Once in a while, she’d look out of the window, smile, gaze wistfully, and go back to her task. Black and blue. Black and blue.

In the evening, they’ d lead her to her room. They left her alone most of the time. Didn’t ask her any questions. Understood that she loved him more than she did herself.

Sometimes though, there’d be tears. Sometimes, they’d come to her with demands. Sometimes, with threats.

Come on, get out. How long will you stay here?

Shall we buy you chocolate pastries?? Shall we go to the hills? Shall we take you to the sea? Look who’s here. Don’t you remember?

The voices would grow louder and louder until she couldn’t shut it out anymore.

The next thing she knew the world was a sea of whirling faces, a bed from which she simply could NOT get up, and a high pitched scream that went on endlessly.

Then, silence.

She hated those days. But today… today, she was happy. Happy-contented.

She waved to them as they floated by in the sky. Beckoning. Go on, she said. I’ll come some other day.

You waiting for him?

Yes, she nodded.

All right. Do join us when he comes.

Yes, she nodded.

She went back to her beads. When she finished this, he would come for her. She knew it. She so knew it. Even if nobody else did.

Love at 18!

2005-08-03T20:41:00.000-07:00

I now know that you
are not mine to keep,
nor even to hold
in a short lease.
The strength of my want
wanes and dies in the strength
of your will, of your
not wanting me at all.
And yet, children are not
always reasonable.
They crave for the moon.

Beloved moon, come back
into this night of mine,
and shed your soft light
on all these contours.
What profits it that
there are a million stars,
Constant and cheerful?
There is but one moon-
Inconstant, moody, whimsical…
There is but one you.
No star, my love, just be you.
Plain, old, effeminate-almost,
scarred by the shadows
of so many craters
And yet…just you.

I was looking through my old diaries and came across this poem. Wrote it somewhere towards the end of my first year in college for D...someone I thought I loved. It was the first ever instance of my Mr. Rochestor syndrome.

Strange how true it felt then and how much it hurt. He flirted rather terribly with me given the fact that I was only 18 and he was 30!

What I liked best about him was that he loved books and had read so many! The only person who’d read more than me!He introduced me to Hesse, Camus, Jim Morrison, Jethro Tull and Dr. Hook. I discussed my syllabus with him and he always gave me a new perspective. He taught me how to read Shakespeare and gave me pieces to read.

We had rip-roaring debates about Abraham Lincoln and Gandhi! When I had to go for elocution competitions, he'd choose the piece for me....

He taught me how to smoke and how to use a 'chillum'! He told me how what I called 'dope' had an interesting botanical history to it. He knew so much more than the regular guys my age and I was TOTALLLLLLLLLLY smitten!!:p

Strange courtship!!And it was courtship, the way an old-timer would have done it and that made it all the more charming! It didn’t come to anything though. He seemed “attracted” to me and I was sure it was love!! Anyways, like I said, though he asked me out a number of times, he eventually decided to let it go....

And!!! D has another thing to his credit:p He is the first guy to have held my hand! The first movie we ever went for was “Split Wide Open”….the friend who introduced us was there then too, and all through the movie he kept pulling my legs for the silliest of things and laughing at my distress.

I thought he was quite irritating and was very surprised therefore, when he asked me out alone! A date! My FIRST ever!! Then followed a series of movies at the American Consulate and British Council. We went for plays, we went to the beach and even to my favourite graveyard!!

And then!! One day, he decided to hold my hands!! I even remember the movie… “Sleepy Hollow”…I was very restless and fidgety and he said in VERY suggestive tones “You seem unusually restless” and he held my hand. OMG!!!! I was so frightened my hands started shivering and he knew!!Ugh!!!!!! I think that has to have been my most embarrassing moment ever!

I mean I’d always wanted to hold hands with him but when it actually happened, I was SO scared. LOL!!! I was SO embarrassed and humiliated that it made me all teary. And he was so nice about it! Pretended like he didn’t see. Also, he gave me a quick hug, let go of my hand and NEVER asked me out again!!:p

Cos I think it was only THEN that he realized that after all there was twelve years difference between us and that after all, I was still a kid. Also, I think he knew he was the first guy to have held my hand and I think that made him feel quite daft.

He backed off so quick that I was very humiliated then but looking back, I realize I am glad that he was “cruel.” When he knew I’d started seeing N, he sent word through common friends that he knew N and that he was a sleaze ball. But I was already in too deep and my loyalty to N meant that I could not be friends with someone who bitched about him. So I had to cut out D and I did….

And I haven’t thought of him in all this while…. he’ll be 36…. wonder where he is…. knowing him and his cavalier attitude to relationships, I bet he’s still unmarried. Strange how far we’ve drifted and how difficult I’ll find it to face him…. after all, all that he said about N did turn out to be true….but come to think of it, it WOULD be nice to meet him and realize how far I’ve come.

jesuscares

2005-08-02T22:18:00.000-07:00

“I know you much more and much longer than anybody else,” she says. “ You analyze way too much.”

Yes, I know it's true. I do. Everything and everybody has been weighed and found wanting. Mene Mene Tekel Upharshin.One “interest” after the other.

Dancing classes? Oh yes!
MBA preparation?Move over, Kotler, here I AM!
IAS? Wowie!!

A spell of brief, intense passion followed by disillusionment, tears, the feeling of having been betrayed…

It’s only for the last few months that I’ve become “steady” and “stable.” I am a being in a state of flux; I am a process; I am clay that is wondering which side when turned at what pace, will accomplish the final end-product, that I do not even have a clue what is!! Did that make sense?!?!?

I am actually on my way to becoming a well-adjusted human being, a real accomplishment for me, says my mom!! Somewhere deep down, I’ve stopped expecting from people, learnt to make room for the fact that human beings are just a bunch of lost souls in a world that is too big for them, and that every woman (just to prove a point abt linguistic gender biases) must find her own way home.

I’ve come to terms with the fact that people have limitations and I have stopped going out of my way to help them out too, cos hey! if you have limitations, I am allowed to have them too. And life does seem a lot simpler, a lot more sedate....

I don’t know if the “learning” has been good, I don’t know if it means that my “fire” has been doused. Maybe. But I’d much rather just be a little candle in a little corner than a ravaging fire. It feels so much more comfortable this way....

And now, for all the times I tore myself apart, I have a Balm. And I am thankful. And I know that eventually, I will be what I’ve always wanted to be... I know that my healing has only begun. My journey has just started...

He's still working on me
To make me all I ought to be
It took Him just a week
To make the moon and the stars
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars
How loving and patient He must be
He's still working on me.

There really ought to be,
A sign upon my heart.
Don't judge Him yet
There's an unfinished part,
And then I'll be perfect
Just according to His plan,
Fashioned by the Master's Loving Hand.

And maybe I’ll make mistakes, maybe I’ll go wrong, maybe I’ll “fall”, maybe at every point I'll drive myself insane with the questions that won't stop, but deep down is the truth that rests quietly in a little corner of my heart.... that beneath it all are a pair of Everlasting Arms that will hug me tight when I come home dirtied in the mire outside, give me a nice hot bath, set me by the fire, wipe away my tears and put me to sleep saying “Go to sleep, tomorrow will be a better day.”

And I will, 'cos I know I am safe in the hands of a Master Craftsman :))

2005-07-31T23:52:00.000-07:00

When I started this blog, I promised myself that it would mostly be sunny spells. I told myself that writing positive things would make me feel positive. But every time I start writing, the truth takes over. I can't write that I am happy when I am not.

I've been accused of being a lot of things. Maybe I am. The latest was G's accusation that I "take without giving". And this, after having made such a conscious effort….am feeling so inadequate…so like a loser…

Well, one thing I'd like people who 'know' me to know is that I am a private person. Or as Mel would say 'reclusive'. I am not quite sure if that's the same as being introverted. And it does not certainly mean that I am a loner. It just means that.... I'd rather love a few people with all of me, than scatter my love in little portions to many, many more.

Maybe, that's wrong? Maybe. But it's the only way for me. Cos I've tried doing it the other way. Made a conscious effort. But it's not true. It's not me. I have always been reclusive and pretending otherwise never did get me anywhere.

I like my small world. My parents, my elder sister, me. Apart from this my family, there was N. No, let me rephrase that. When there was N, there was only N. Have you ever loved anybody like that? To bits? Have you ever made anybody the reason of your existence? Have you ever made anybody your god? Have you loved like that? (Or do 'reclusive' people have a different understanding of what constitutes 'love'??)If you have, then you know what I am talking about. If you haven't, you are wise.

Apart from N, for a very long time there was S1 and S2. My supposed 'best friends' in college. But now, they've all left….Betrayal by a boyfriend/fiancé/lover is one thing….betrayal by best friends is another thing. And perhaps the only reason it hurts so endlessly is cos I am a private person. It meant that my whole world collapsed.

And I'm done licking my wounds about it. What's happened has happened. And I am still hoping that one day down the line, I can see the wisdom and the reason behind all of this. That one day down the line, I will say, I am glad for all that has happened in my life.

But there are days when a small thing triggers it all off again….like this deal with G. On Saturday, I broke down in my church. I simply couldn't stop crying. And the more I tried to, the more I cried, till I was bordering on hysteria. I've never cried like that in front of people. And somehow it felt liberating and humiliating.

But my pastor was very nice about it. "I know it's been traumatic for you," he said. And that had me blubbering again cos he got the right word. Yes, it was traumatic. And what hurts most is that there was nobody to share the trauma with. Not a single soul.

And now it's an old, old wound. And for the most part, it has healed. But when there are days…whom do I share it with? To whom do I explain that its not him I mourn but the girl he killed?

To whom do I say that back then I believed in one true love and that it hurts cos I can't anymore. That it hurts cos I want to but I can't. It's just that what I felt was so true, so deep and it doesn't make sense that it isn't meant to be.

And G, being with you, hanging around with you, having to deal with your constant emotional demands, just makes me so much more conscious of how inadequate I am. Cos I know that you are expecting emotional succour from me and I don't know the words to say or how to make you feel better. I don't know.

It makes me feel lousy, cos do what I may, I never seem to get it right. I always seem to be falling short. You are clingy even without words....I just feel that you are looking in me for something that I don't have, and you are finding fault with me for not having it. And you use your tears and your so called fragile emotions to claw at my old wounds, not even aware that you are doing it.

And I shut up again and again and then you tell me, I don't give enough. Don't you get it? I have nothing to give. Nothing. And the little that I do give is the best I can do. Either take it, or…just leave me alone. Go find new friends....people who CAN give it to you. Really.

I have nothing to give. All that I had to, I have. And now… now I am hard, I am the unreachable, I am the untouchable. I am the strong person here, aren't I? I don't have these emotional outbursts, I am not supposed to feel inadequate, I am not supposed to show my emotions. I can't cry in front of others. I can't cry at all to show you I hurt. I lack that talent, somehow. And emotions are copyrighted by G.

All I can do is type my frustration, and go figure.

2005-07-31T03:25:00.000-07:00

A thousand thoughts. A myriad emotions. Amorphous. Defying touch. An expanse stretching into infinity.

And just one small head.

How much longer this march? And really, where are we headed for?

The goal is not perfection. But being aware, hurts. It’s just a pinprick, really. And yet, it blights the day.

Somewhere, over the rainbow, there is no wanting. No yearning…

She becomes more insistent by the day. This spoiled self that I try to ignore. Wailing, groaning, whining, always and always.

She sits by the waters looking deep down at herself. And into herself. Wondering, if the reflection really reflects her. Enamored by the changes that just one reflection can reflect in one day. I’ve tried explaining to her, that it’s only the sun at different angles, that it’s all about what time of the day it is.

But she is so immersed in her narcissistic exploits that she cannot hear anything else. Or, anybody else.

She loves herself most in the twilight…it hints at depths that the radiant sunlight could never reveal. The hint of possibilities is always more alluring than the certitude of certainty.

As for the moonlight, it transforms her. Turns her into a thing of aching beauty. So beautiful, so aching that she cannot bear to look at herself. She melts into the night, most moonlit nights…

And as the voices within and without unite to reach a crescendo, she bursts into brilliant crimson flames.

Replete, she cannot hold herself in any longer.

A friend accused me of being self-centred....well, what can I say? I called up half a dozen others and they all denied that I was...I donno maybe they felt they had to.....? PD gave me what I think is an honest answer though.She said,"You arent self-centred, you are self-involved. There's a lot of difference." "Like what?"I ask. "Like you'd like to think about others, but you are way too caught up with your own thoughts and the questions in your own head."

What insight, PD! I am afraid I'll have to give it to you. I agree. There is. And if real life (or the person I'm with) does not interest me, I retreat into my own space. I am who I am. Learn to deal with it, G. Or go find yourself a new friend and let me be.

2005-07-28T15:34:00.000-07:00

You know there's one thing I'll never understand and that's meanness. Have you met people like that? People who are mean to you for absolutely no reason? Just cos it makes them feel good to be mean?

I met P at the lay-out artist's place. She is like that. Mean for no reason. She asked me in a very sarcastic tone if I was an intern. It wasn't until G pointed it out that I realised she had been bitchy.

Oh! That's another thing, I can't ever really claim to have grasped-'the bitch' act. You might ask me WHY I even need to grasp that. But believe me, not knowing how to be a bitch is to lack survival skills.

I used to pretend to be one too, in college.A rather pathetic effort cos i dont think anybody ever bought it. The reason I tried so desperately to be bitchy was cos it seemed as though the bitches were the only ones who were moving forward.But now, I've given up. I know it isn't me. I know I won't be happy pretending to be what I am not. So, I'd rather just be myself. Anything else is too much effort.

Cos you see 'bitches' are s'posed to be thick skinned. And I'm quite the opposite, to say the least. So naturally, college was a very torrid affair, what with all those endless pretenses. I came out with a zillion gashes, bleeding from many edges and many corners. Bruised,hurting and angry. More often as not, I just ended up confusing people with my inconsistency.

Often, when I didn't mean to be bitchy and was just being honest, people said I was bitchy. Often, when people were downright bitchy, I wouldn't even realise it until everybody else pointed it out to me. So, all in all, I was extremely confused about social mores. And the fact that I had spent the first 18 years of my life cooped up reading books and poems that nobody else had heard about didn't help matters any. I bordered on eccentricism and supposed bitchiness, which was, in retrospect, a very warped combination.

But sometime last year, with my March 13th the end and my April 5th new life, I accepted the so-called unpalatable, boring truth--i am a rather tame (read boring) person.

I don't "have a life" in the popular sense of the term. My idea of a good time is having lots of space, nobody breathing down my neck and idling around with a book or watching a movie. I love solitude a lot more than i like "hanging out". I hate crowds and crowded places. I hate having to go the pub or to a disc on Saturday night cos that means I'll have to put up with noisy people. I'd much rather catch up at a friend's place, with a few close friends,have a quiet little drink or two and talk about matters of the heart. Totally, totally uncool.

I don't know the people worth knowing and I don't want to. Like I said, there are few people I care about and even fewer who care for me and somehow, I'm comfortable with that.

Yesterday, meeting P, I realised that without my quite realising it, I've come a long way from the confused person who joined the workaday world 2 years ago. I've learnt to do my own thing without bothering about fitting in. Sis says I've gone into "auntie" mode and that 24 is too young to retire from life. Well, what can i say? Maybe. Maybe, it's more natural that I should be 'chilling out' with friends, going for girlie night-outs and male-bashing sessions. But the last time I did that was 8 months ago and I was painfully aware that I had outgrown all of that.

I think the girls realised it too cos since then I've turned down all invitations. Now, they don't even tell me about it anymore. Fact is, I don't hate men. I don't think they are "all jerks". I don't want to chop their "thingies" off. I don't get vicious satisfaction from bad mouthing them and so, I am not gonna pretend to enjoy doing that just cos I want to belong.

And then, there are other things I've learnt to accept. Like the fact that I am shy. I know that's a rather weird word in today's world. But there it is. I can't make polite conversation to save my life.I can't talk to strangers..I can't meet somebody for the first time and then start calling that person my 'friend'.

My 6 months doin PR was the worst ever. I hated the 'media rounds' and unwittingly, cos I seemed so uncomfortable doing it, won the sympathy and in the process, became the blue-eyed girl of the journos. They generally have a reputation for being tight-assed and pompous, but I suppose I looked every bit the young little fresher-intern that I was, that they were really nice to me and I didn't even have to ass-lick them to get my stories in.

In real life, I am yet to make a single friend. The handful of friends I do have, are the one who made me. I mean, all my friends are people who've become my friends simply by persisting at getting to know me better. They've taken all the initiative and I value them so much more for that. Okie, I know it's not a very nice thing to be THAT withdrawn. One day, I shall start making an earnest effort to become a friendlier person. But not yet...

My mom is terrified to take me to relatives' houses cos I am so shy and she's scared I'll be a social embarassment. Those who know me well are horrified when they hear of this side of my personality. But well, there it is.

Another thing,I believe in God. I've realised that believing in God is extremely unfashionable these days. The 'cool' thing is to be an atheist. Better still to be an agnostic. But nope, i am boring that way. I believe passionately in God and what's more I love him.

Another thing-I veer drearily close to being a prude. All through college, I encountered people who were giving me long winded details on their sex life. Frankly, I don't care. I mean, by all means have sex, but why DISCUSS it? I don't know if you quite get what I mean....but I am thinking of S and R from college. They used to give everybody these detailed descriptions about their sex life and it was in a tone which implied "Oh we are SO cool!"

I mean go ahead and have sex, but WHY errrr....discuss it? If anybody asked them that, they would give this spiel on how people were narrow minded and how sex was nothing to be ashamed of and how it was the most natural thing in the world. Sure thing. So if it's THAT way, why talk in length about it???You assume everybody is doing it and just don't make a hullabullu about it!!Crapping is natural too...do you discuss the quantity and quality of your crap?

I know that sounds gross but hey don't push your sex life down everybody's throats like you are God's gift to mankind!The latest was when S mailed the whole Lit Group on the orgy that she had at her professors house in the U.S. of A. Do I think that sucks? Absolutely!! And sue me for being narrow-minded!

It's not about the moral issues involved in an orgy. It's the "we are so cool" motive behind it that's pissing off.

Then, there was another R from college. After every week-end she'd ask stuff like, "Hey, does sperm travel through water?" This would be followed by extremely vivid details of her time in the pool with someone else's boyfriend. Made me wanna throw up or at least say something. But we were all very politically correct those days.

Oh well! The reaosn behind this rant is all cos I met P yesterday and it brought back such horrid memories of college. The most miserable time of my life!!In my college there were broadly speaking, 2 types of people: those who didn't know English and those who did. Those who didn't were nice but considering the fact that there was nothing we shared in common and considering the fact that they thought English speaking girls were all bitches, my conversation was restricted to smiles. Sometimes, they smiled back and sometimes, they didn't.

Over time, each of the 2 species started living and letting live and not really acknowledging the presence of the other species.Oh but if you think the non-English speaking gals were the seedha saadha types, think again!!! I once over heard two of them talking about how they made out with a guy in the bus-stop. Very randy college I went to, I think!

Anyways, to go back to the classification...among those who knew English there were the Anglos and the Non-Anglos. The Anglos looked down on the Non-Anglos and vice versa. Among the non-anglos there were the with-its and the mis-fits. The with-its were the pub-hopping, boy banging, we are so cool kinds and the misfits were just...well, misfits.

Technically, i should have opted to belong there. But then, i realised there was another sub-class here--those like me and others, who I would later call my 'friends'. We weren't EXACTLY the pub-hopping kinds, but we weren't exactly the misfits either. We talked about Nietzsche, the environment, the global policy, Bertolt Brecht and Schopenaeur and Buddhism among other things. We branded ourselves the 'intellectuals', but to be frank, I think by the time we'd reached third year and started hob-nobbing with the 'theatre' hash-bash chillum party, we were fix-its who were full of themselves than anything else.

We weren't with-its and we weren't misfits...we were the fix-its.

Do I feel ashamed about that?? Not really....I think it's a necessary phase....identity crisis and wondering where you really belong to....necessary before you can come into your own. And maybe, (now that the rant has got me into a kindlier frame of mind) the misfits and withits would say the same of themselves too...maybe, we were all trying on personalities.

But today, thinking about P, it struck me as ironic. In trying to play the rebel, in trying to be unconventional, in living to break the rules, I'd actually conformed. Peer pressure...identity crisis...nietzsche...Godlessness...rebel without a cause....rebel without a pause....aping Dylan Thomas....

I'm glad...I'm glad to have left all of that behind.

I have my music. I have my books. I have my faith. I have hope. I have friends whom I can count on one hand but they're friends who deserve the term ....and all in all, I think I am...rather happy.

Please tell me what to think!

2005-07-28T02:02:00.000-07:00

http://www.saveindianfamily.com/pages/nofeminism.html

2005-07-27T23:21:00.000-07:00

Boss is on leave. I have the option of writing what I like, reading any book I want on Project Gutenberg or writing up the tsunami update.

Oh dear, sometimes, I do wish I didn’t have a conscience.

2005-07-27T11:18:00.000-07:00

Woke up so late today. No ‘quiet time’. Just hurried to get breakfast and lunch ready and then run to work. Had no time for breakfast though and ended up packing myself some museli instead. Haven’t got time to eat since yesterday. Spent time with the designers laying out stuff and proofreading and finally, by the time I could eat, I wasn’t hungry anymore.

Went back home and there I was- all alone. Dad was around but somehow; having people around you and not being able to connect just heightens the feeling of loneliness. My knees ached so badly and my back hurt. So I crept into bed, wrapped myself tight, cried some for no particular reason and went to sleep. When I woke up, it was past 9.

Felt groggy and tired from not having eaten the whole day. The lunch I’d taken such pain with, looked very sad at not having been eaten. So I decided to have it for dinner instead. Was small comfort though, as the microwave wasn’t working and all the vessels had piled up. There was no space in the sink and no more vessels to eat from, so I washed up the whole damn thing. Wished for the zillionth time that Mom and Mary, my maid would come back.

There are advantages though to not having Mary around. For one, my perfume isn’t missing and I don’t have to obsess about leaving my expensive stuff out. My room however, is a total mess from not having seen Mary for the last 5 days. So I cleaned that up too.

Wondered if I should go online and find some recipe but then decided against it.

Wondered if I should read but then decided against it.

Wondered if it was ok to look back or travel memory lane but decided against it.

Wondered if I should call somebody and catch up on the latest in the real world, but decided against it.

Wondered if I should go and chat with one of my online friends then decided against it

I am so friggin tired of making ‘friends’ who aren’t around when I need them most. I am tired of bearing everybody’s burdens. “Seek not so much to comfort as to be comforted.” One night in April, I woke up to hear that being said to me. Crystal clear. As though someone was right by my bed, telling me.

I argued about it for a long while…I still do, during those ‘quiet times.’ But what you sow is what you reap. That’s Divine Justice. And suddenly, for the last few months, I’ve been forced to do the comforting. Much as I groan against it, much as I seek to escape, I have been running into people who are looking at me for an answer.

And I wanna bail out. I wanna hide. I wanna say, “I am lost too.” But I know that wouldn’t be the truth. …

And so I shut up. I shut up from saying what I really want to say. That I am tired of staying alone. That I am tired of being lonely. That I am tired of standing outside looking in and inside looking out. That I am tired of being a spectator. That I am tired of pretending to be strong.

Sometimes, I see someone who looks strong and I just long to go and hug them tight for no reason. I realize there are very few people I really care about…. even fewer who care about me.

And in spite of all that effort…there are certainly no accolades coming my way. No pats of approval. Everywhere I turn, I am saddled with expectations, accused of not caring enough, blamed for zoning out into my own space. But hey! Reality does NOT impress me. I choose to escape. Since WHEN did THAT become a crime???

And even to that, I have an answer. Since the 5th of April, 2004, I suppose. Help me, stay by me, dear You. This road is longer than I imagined. Much, much, much longer.

It's only a thought

2005-07-26T22:17:00.000-07:00

- It can’t be just because it’s only Tuesday and not Friday, like I’d like it to be. Something about the day that keeps tugging at me. Urging me to look backward. It can’t be really “taking stock”, cos I have nothing to take stock of.

- Even the thought of my successful Pork Vindaloo and the pizza I made for lunch, does not cheer me up.

- My calender says, “Avoid self-imposed pressure by avoiding unrealistic deadlines and unattainable goals.” I know there’s supposed to be some deep truth in that, but right now, it eludes me.

- I have an upcoming pimple. Seems like its gonna be one of those types that leave a scar. I think it’s all the meat. I really should get off meat for a while.

- The new cleaner boys in the office are such leches. Something about the way they look that makes me feel all creeped out.

- I wish I’d grow up to be tall and buxom.

- Didn’t get time to dry out my hair properly this morning. It’s sticky.

- I am so hungry but too bored to eat.

- I wish G would stop obsessing about her marriage and prospects and would bes and can’t bes. It depresses me so much.

- I heard someone say her favourite book is “Nausea,” by Jean-Paul Sartre. Somehow, I don’t believe it. More on that later.

- My phone has suddenly started working again. Somebody paid my bill. Not me. I don’t know who did. A says that one fine day I am gonna get a 30 or 40 k bill. Well, what can I say? I’ll simply have to flush my phone down the drain then and claim I haven’t been using that phone in ages.

- I am feeling ugly today. And hungry. Did I say that already?

- I think I’d feel better if I could just slap someone really hard. I mean REALLY hard.

- I love babies. Saw such an adorable one.

- The girl baby thinks she’s a boy ever since they gave her a summer cut. When you tell her “good girl”, she corrects you and says, “No! good boy!” LOL. As she understands it with her two and a half year old brain, everybody who has long hair is a 'girl' and those with short hair is a 'boy'!! I do SO love babies!!

- Started reading the crappiest book ever. Didn’t get through the first para. Didn’t want to.

- Do wish I’d wake up some day and find that I am tall and buxom. I like the word buxom. Especially when you tell it out loud. You can tell it’s something desirable just from how it sounds. Buxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx---ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm!!!!! See what I mean?

- Oh Lord, I am feeling so crappy and depressed and this isn’t even cathartic anymore.

I'm Missing.....

2005-07-25T22:54:00.000-07:00

I miss Mom. Mom is the only person who konchifies me. Who understands my need to be konchified. I do so love being konchi-fied! The thing is I’ve been konchified all my life. I am the youngest of 24 cousins. More than 50% of my first cousins are old enough to be my aunts and uncles. All through my childhood, I was hailed as a child prodigy, when in reality, I was just a precocious brat.

I was the person who knew all the secrets. The secrets that nobody else knew and wasn’t even supposed to. I wasn’t surprised when my maid ran away with the errand boy. I’d always known they were a bit soft on each other. For a very long time, nobody realized that I understood more than I let on.

They said all kind of things before me cos they thought I was a baby. And I used to talk with baby gestures and that baby drawl until I turned seven. Cos I’d realized that as long as I spoke lathat, people would continue to konchify me. Then, I came off to the big bad city and I didn’t know how to speak English. And when I learnt, I found that English was and is a darn horrid language for konchifying in.

There’s something so clipped and harsh about English words that precludes tenderness. It’s a very expressive language and I say that only because I am most fluent in English. But when I learnt French, the only other foreign language I know, I couldn’t help but notice how fluid the words were. French flows you know….

Anyways, to go back to konchifying. I love konchify-ing. And the inefficiency of English to do justice to the subtleties of konchifying has not been a deterrent. At least, not anymore. I have invented a whole new language for myself, which includes words like puchu-kuchu, ennamoo, babynoo and so on. And no, none of those words ACTUALLY mean anything!

And sometimes, you don’t even need words. Gestures can be even better than words. Like pecks on the cheek, like rumpling my hair, like pinching whatever there is of my cheeks….or…or like bear hugs! I absolutely LOVE bear hugs. And talking of bear hugs, I’m missing my best friend from high school-S.

She is in Aussie land now and is a smug married. But she was about 4 times my size and when she gave me bear hugs, it really DID feel like bear hugs. Was so nice and fuzzy. Her then-boyfriend-now-husband, also S, was 8 times huger than me.

S was very generous about him and used to allow him to bear-hug me too. I felt a trifle awkward at first, cos after all he was HER boyfriend, and I have always been a beeet cautious where boyfriends of girlfriends are concerned. I don’t wanna lose my gals for the boys (more on that later). But after boyfriend S of girl friend S gave me ‘de hug’, I was hooked.

That boy really DID know all the rules of bear hugs. He is the only boy I’ve ever known, who gives platonic hugs that simply ooze love, comfort and hey-be-of-good-cheer.

Oh no, I do miss Mom and I do miss girl friend S. I also miss K. I also miss both my college friends. I miss everybody who has ever given me bear hugs or konchified me. I think, in spite of all my “poised, assured, woman of substance” act, I am just that-the sum total of all the bear hugs and kisses and pats and pettings I’ve ever received. Cos everytime someone gives you a big, unconditional bear hug, you give away a small piece of you. It's like you are both locked away in some other dimension....suspended like that until death.

Is that a bit fanciful?? Oh well, blame it on my mood. And blame it on the fact that it's been so long since anybody protected me. Suddenly, I am so sick and tired of playinng the protector. Longing to be babied again. Oh well. Life.

Remembering some more...

2005-07-25T00:19:00.000-07:00

As a kid, I always woke up long before everybody else. I used to wander through the huge ancestral house, pulling down everybody’s clothes, which had flown up during the night. For some strange reason, nobody locked their bedrooms and when they woke up, they’d find themselves mummified in their blankets and they’d know I’d been at work again.

It was a source of great amusement at home. They all found it cute. Everybody but my parents.(Talk of a prophetess not being respected in her own home!!) My mom thought I really shouldn’t wander into rooms lathat and that I might find some strange goings-on in bedrooms, which might tarnish my cherubic innocence forever.

For all that precocity, I was cherubic you know. But I didn’t think of it that way. I mean anybody who has seen that many undies by the age of 3, cannot fancy themselves innocent. And I had seen so many. On different kinds of bottoms. All kinds of undies.

I was most fascinated that my aunt’s husband often wore one of her teddy-bear undies. When I grew older, I thought back to that and thought ewwwwwww Gross! Now I’m just very mildly surprised that even in remote Kerala, people can be so kinky…

What a boring day! So much work and here I am on rewind mode.

Of This That and the Other

2005-07-21T21:40:00.002-07:00

Oh, oh I have been away for a long while, haven’t I? Almost a week! And so much that happened...

I think I spoke too soon about not having enough work. My boss probably has started reading my blogs….cos this week I’ve been flooded with work. Add to that a sore throat and cough and a series of dinner invitations from married couples who feel they have to be kind to poor old maids, and ta da da da, you have a verrrrrrrrrrrrrrry busy person.

Besides, it’s irritating having to get out of my room to the comp, cos I am scared about what lies outside my bedroom! Ever since dad retired, my folks have been having an overdose of each other and are constantly bickering about the stupidest of things. They squabble over who should pick up the phone!

I mean, of course I know people slip into second childhood, border on senility and all that, but this non-stop nonsense drives me crazy. Besides, they aren't THAT old!
Makes me wonder why I ever want to get married!I mean think about it....24/7 with ONE person for the next 50 years!!!

If I’d been younger I could have claimed my parents’ bickering as the sole reason of being a traumatized person. But I suppose 24 is too old for THAT excuse. Oh well.

Apart from that, I have a PDF and HTML version of Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince. Which I don’t intend to read cos I am scared. Yes, scared. I have a very low spook tolerance and the 5th book frightened me so much I couldn’t sleep for days. And with mom off to Kerala for a whole week, I can’t even crawl under her blanket :(

Harry Potter really frightens the little child in me*sniff * Just don’t get it how kids can like it so much. When I was a child, I was exploring caves and solving mysteries not casting spells on people! Bah! The only appealing aspect of the Potter mania if you ask me, is that JKR is making an obnoxiously large sum of money!

Why couldn’t she write a non-frightening book that became a bestseller? Like the Narnia series or the Tolkien series? Somehow, neither frightened me cos I KNEW the good would win.

In Harry Potter, I am not SO sure. It’s a lot more mature and realistic that way in spite of the ‘fantasy’ tag. Even Potter often veers scarily towards the dark.

In the other stuff, good characters come under the power of the dark force cos they are temporarily blinded or misled by appearances, it’s the power of evil that leads people astray…. Rowling however suggests that every human being, including the ‘hero’ has the potential for good and bad right within him. Evil is not so much an external force subverting good judgment, as a force, which the individual is fully in control of to release or hold back....it makes the person concerned responsible… And that makes me, the reader quite unsure if good will triumph in the end after all….

By the way, would it be terrible of me to reveal the end??? Or is it all over the place already? Have been quite cut off so I don’t know whats going on outside.If you do know the end, tell me did you EVER think HE would be the half-blood prince:-O And it was bad enough having to lose Sirius(I had such a huge crush on him), now this :( Oh Harry, Harry who is gonna help you now?

24 and Counting....

2005-07-14T22:34:00.000-07:00

24 and counting. I can still remember being a child and looking up in awe at Julian from the ‘Famous Five’ series cos he was fourteen…! When I read those books, I still look at them in awe cos 14 still seems a big age! Once again, I am just a child; once again I am eight or nine. And then suddenly, I remember. I remember that I am 24 and counting. And that’s a sobering thought.

The other day I went through my 7th standard diary. All through those pages- I wanted to be three things- a writer, a social worker, a doctor. I wanted to be all three of that. The last one though was a transferred thingie…everybody wanted me to be a doctor, so I wanted it too.

I was the brain of the family, the one who put all the cousins and cousins’ children to shame. When I got 97% in my twelfth, they were even more convinced that becoming a doctor was my destiny. I was born to heal, they said. But by then, the rebellious streak had started. I defied all expectations, shattered all dreams and took up, oh horror of horrors, literature instead!

My parents shattered into a zillion pieces and let me be. They never took interest in my future again. To this day, they don’t care. But I didn’t care either.

Cos I believed that I had a dream. Cos by then, I’d decided that what I really wanted to become was a writer. And so I wrote. All through school, I’d scrawled poems in all my books, even in the books that we kept for tests! Suddenly, I’d be inspired and I’d start scrawling. The compulsion continued into college when I wrote a lot of abstract things that appeared in journals that nobody but lit students would ever read or understand!

But then, after three years, I changed my mind again. I decided I wanted to do something for humanity. I did ‘Social Communications’ a course that was geared to make me a more “responsible” media person. So I pegged away at Noam Chomsky and debated upon every issue under the sun. But, there was a hitch. I realized that beneath the aggressiveness, I was a poet after all; a poet, even after the meter and the words had run dry.

I couldn’t and didn’t want to play dirty. I couldn’t and didn’t want to spend the best years of my life writing stupid PR pieces, which is what I would do, at least for the next few years. Cos I couldn’t beat the hierarchy. I’d have asked my prof if I could waltz away into the village and train to be a development journalist but he was working on his latest book and somehow, I had a feeling I’d be more an encumbrance than a help. So I didn’t.

And that’s how I am here. Writing for a development organization. A fund-raiser, a ‘creative copywriter’ (as my offer letter says) and an activist all rolled into one. And the work’s not bad. In fact, it’s good. I don’t earn much, but I earn enough to support myself. But that’s not the point. Money is never really the point, is it?

Course there are days when I crib but deep down, I know I have no “commitment” and even if I choose NOT to work, my parents will support me….Besides, there are so many people making money and I’ve always believed that if you are passionate about what you do, the money will come…eventually.

But, what makes me feel guilty is…am I really just carrying on from day to day, meeting deadlines and yet compromising? Just cos everybody around me is happy with my work, am I letting myself take it easy? Am I really doing the very best that I am capable of?

I have no doubt that the mailer we’ve finished recently is one of the best. That all the mailers are far better than the previous years. But, is it MY best? If I ask myself honestly, I’d say I am not working hard…I am just drifting, letting myself do the easiest thing.

Why have I stopped writing things that really matter? The poems…where are all the words? Have they vanished or am I just not looking for them hard enough? Am I being lazy? What am I doing to “develop” myself?

What happened to my dream of writing scripts like Satyajit Ray –“so lyrical and so passionate”- as I wrote in my diary in college? What happened to the book that I wanted to write? The book that I started? And what happened to my dreams of becoming a travel-writer? Of wanting to write for National Geographic? Why did I just let them remain as dreams and never really do anything to actualize it? Why am I content to just do all this introspection thingie and not really DO things?

What happened to the photo exhibition I wanted to hold “someday”? Why is the camera that cost me a fortune gathering dust at home? Why didn’t I ever pursue it? Why have I allowed the last two years of my life to be lost moping?

This isn’t good enough. This wasn’t my dream. Not just this. I am letting myself rot. All the hours I waste chatting with strangers…all those words….all the time I waste staring at the walls of my room, all those hours I waste doing NOTHING!

I’ve let so many years roll by…so many years that I still look at Julian and think that 14 IS a “big age”. How did I get to be 24 and counting? I was nine the last I remember.

That Four Letter Word

2005-07-13T01:40:00.000-07:00

I’ve been blog hopping. And not really commenting cos I don’t know what to say. There are so many broken hearts lying around. Tread softly, I tell myself. I see people beating themselves over, people with huge egos, people who are sour, people who are bitter, people who are hopeful….just people laying bare their souls…and I’ve done all of that too…and so,I tread softly.

Isn’t it funny how capable we are of loving? Isn’t it funny how love always comes in the guise of 'forever'? However many times you’ve learnt to unlove…(though I personally don’t think its possible…though you learn to accept that it can’t work and though you pick up the knack of moving on… do you ever really un-love?), when you truly love a person, doesn’t he/she become a part of you forever??

And when you lose, doesn’t he/she carry away a bit of you? That bit of the person who was once you? Is that the reason why you feel like it wasn’t you and that it was somebody else,when you reflect on lost relationships ? Even though reality tells you that it's over, have you felt that that somebody who was you is still suspended in mid-air leading a parallel life?

And stranger than strange is the fact that however many times you learn to unlove, do you….really, truly EVER do that? Aren’t you trapped in another space, another time, another person? Or is this just me?

And well…it’s surprising but there are quite a few guys talking about their love…the meterosexual thingie I suppose it is…I also observed that while women turn bitter and dejected…. and turn their sorrow inwards….men seem somehow to take it out on others….

The day before yesterday, I was having a low day…the result of getting home too early n going to sleep at 5.30 p.m (very bad idea)…when I woke up at seven I felt dejected and extremely empty…it was too late to make plans cos I live quite a distance from the city….the T.V. was already occupied by Dad….Mom was listening to music…I wandered around from room to room…the driver had left and somehow I was too lazy to take the car out and go buy the ingredients to cook anything…so I just wandered round and round and finally decided I’d read that Amy Tan book. But the protagonist was going through a divorce and that got me even lower.

And, horror of horrors, as I continued reading, I started thinking about N. And I was very angry with myself for thinking about him. So angry I could have slapped myself really hard and not felt bad about it. Why is it that everything comes back to him, I asked myself. I didn’t have any answers to that.

“I will get the better of this yet,” I told myself as I went online. Two minutes later, who should come but K!

He was raving about his newest girl friend. K by the way had been gunning for me for months before he eventually realized that when I said no, I meant no. Then he went away and found another girl after two weeks. It was that simple.

And it hurt not cos he did but cos I couldn’t. It hurt in an angry kinda way cos I wanted to forget N and here I was, still trying to understand the complexities of “letting go”, while K had breezed into a relationship. True, I was seeing N for years and K was never really seeing me…. but still…what was this that everybody else seemed to be learning EXCEPT me??

And as we talked, I felt more and more dejected cos I so wanted to fall in love again, but I simply don’t think I can. And if I can’t, it means that I’ll keep replaying N and me, cos he’d be the only person I’d ever loved in my whole life….I was angry cos somehow, I simply couldn’t get myself to kill him, kill us. I wanted us to stay alive…I wanted what we shared to stay alive, even while I tried SO hard to kill it.

I told K all of that.

“You mean you CAN’T EVER fall in love again,” he asked puzzled. “Why not? It’s so easy to fall in love. Maybe, you should just start dating more. After all, if you haven’t dated anybody after N, how do you even know you can’t?”

“I can’t just date anybody,” says I.

“You mean you need to be in love?”

“Yes!”

“But you can’t love before you date,” says he.

For a moment, I don’t have a counter argument. Then, I realize the obvious.

“But that’s cos I haven’t found anybody interesting enough. They are all so bland. Good to be buddies but not really my kind.”

He is silent for a while.

“You there?” I ask.

“Yeah, that kinda hurt…the bland bit.”

Sheesh! I feel horrid. I can be SO insensitive sometimes.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “But you know there were other issues.”

“Yeah, yeah, now stop consoling me. I am happy and that’s that.”

“Good for you.”

“Yeah,” he says. Then, “Tell me something, if things had been different, would you have given me a chance?”

I wonder if I should be kind and lie or be truthful and unkind. Eventually decide that honesty is the best policy.

“No K, I wouldn’t. We are too different. I’d always have been and still am extremely fond of you and really care for you and I’d do a lot of things for you, but I don’t think I’d ever love you as much as I am capable of loving. Or, as much as you’d deserve to be loved. ”

He sends me a smiley face…one of those beatific ones….

“I love the fact that you can be so truthful and so horridly rude,” he says. Then, sends me a grin. “Anyways, let’s move to you. What keeps you from loving?”

Cos

a ) I have nothing left to give
b) I simply can’t move beyond the questions and uncertainties
c) After N, everything else seems muted and second rate

“I don’t get it,” he snapped. “ The guy is a bloody jerk. He cheated on you. Not for a week or two weeks, but for four years. Wtf IS with you? How CAN you weep over somebody as faithless as that? What you loved and who you loved was one bloody lie. Don’t you get that? Come on, you are intelligent. Stop acting like this stupid bimbo. Stop romanticising him and making excuses for him. He was a creep and the sooner you accept it the better.”

My turn to go silent. I don’t know what to say. I know he’s right. But somehow, deep down I can't accept it. I can’t accept he’s a “creep”. Cos I simply cannot imagine that any human being would be mean enough to have an “agenda”, pick me out and carry out this agenda!

“Maybe, he screwed up K…maybe, he didn’t mean to hurt me….maybe, he wanted to get out but couldn’t…maybe, he did love me in his way but it just wasn’t my way…?”

“If it makes it easier for you to think that, go ahead. But you know what the problem with that is? You are still seeing him as the victim of circumstances. Every person is responsible for what he does. This isn’t about a small period of cheating. It was years. It was pre-planned, premeditated AND there was an agenda…accept it or not.”

“But why?? Why me??”

Then, I realize, I am still asking the same question I did almost 2 years ago. I KNOW there are no answers. Why then do I even TRY to get into his head?

“Cos you were 19…you had no right to even be dating a 30 year old. Cos you didn’t look before you leaped. That’s why.”

"So, for that one mistake of having gone with my heart, I am supposed to pay penance for the rest of my life?"

“Nope not for the rest of your life. But until you learn the lesson…maybe.”

"But K, if I couldn’t tell he was lying for 4 years, how the heck do I ever trust ANYBODY again? How the heck do I trust my judgment again? How do I believe the people I meet? How do I know it’s not just a farce?”

“I wish I could just shake you and slap you or somehow hammer it into your head that you deserve better.”

“That doesn’t answer my questions.”

“You think too much. Anyways, what do you mourn? N? Or, are you crying cos you’ll never be in love?”

“The latter. Cos I don’t think I ever can again. Cos though I lead this active life in the REAL world, it’s like N and I are suspended someplace else…someplace else where we have this parallel life. Does that make sense?”

“No,” he said. “I’ve never loved anybody like that. I don’t know what it is like to love lathat. But one thing ….if you have so much love to give, you will love again. Cos it’s human to love.”

And that’s what struck me…. that sentence…. and it’s been re-playing over and over in my head as I’ve been blog-hopping. The need to love. The need to be loved back.

Is that it then? Is love the REAL need of all needs? What’s it like for you? What would life be if you knew that nobody…nobody in this whole wide world really loved you? Would it be a killing thought? What if you had no parents? No siblings? Just acquaintances…what then? How much would it hurt…?

I think K was right….I think love is the greatest of all human needs…air, water, food, shelter…we know of people who gave it all up for love.

Yes…love must be the most powerful force in the whole wide world… No wonder they say God is Love. And no wonder God made man AND woman. We were meant to love.

2005-07-11T20:59:00.000-07:00

The weekend was calm… quiet… nice. Just my idea of perfection. Caught up with A and we talked and talked and talked. All day and all night. She says she really likes being married. And she knows the fight was worth it. I am so happy for her…

Apart from that, I’ve been having trouble with my knees again. I should stay off heels :( that’s the only thing left for me to do now…. But it sucks not to be tall…*waaaaaaaaaan* screws up eyes and sobs*

My hair’s going through that horrid in-between stage. I am quite sure that I wanna grow it out this time, so every time I pass RG, I turn my face the other way. Am tired of funky hair cuts…now I’m gonna let it grown and look all grown up and propah! Anyways, right now it’s in that horrid stage when it’s not very sure which sex you belong to K It’s falling all over my face and I really think I look like the most horrid of the canine species-the Pomeranian. UGH!!!!

I’ve decided I’m gonna start taking my looks and my health a tad more seriously. So Calcium tablets for the knees are a BEEEG yes. I’ve also finally got a large bottle of water that I’ll simply HAVE to drink. I am told that the general feeling of fatigue could be the result of sitting in the same spot and allowing myself to be dehydrated. Did you know that ACs could dehydrate you??? I really didn’t! It can also do terrible things to your hair and skin!

But I am not gonna diet or even think of it. On Starurday, I made sinfully cheesy pizzas for lunch It was awesome. It really was, so I don’t mind being immodest! Could have done with a wee less of oregano, but it tasted good anyways. Cooking btb is my latest passion, and mom takes that as a sign that I am now TRULY READY * rolls eyes*.

There’s something so calming about it….cutting up stuff, mixing, waiting, smelling, tasting…somehow it helps me re-centre myself. And it gives me so MUCH of joy to see people relishing MY food!!! Now I know that Astrology is absolute crap! Cos Linda Goodman is very sure I am Gemini and not Cancerian and feeding people is such a Cancerian trait! So everyday, I download a recipe, pick up the ingredients in the evening and cook away!

Tonight, I intend to make Crisp Fried Chicken….mmmmmmmmmmmmmmm………….. And if there’s no chicken, I’ll make Pork Vindaloo. Or, if neither happens, Bhindi in Coconut Milk. Yaaay!

P.S. I see that my previous post has evoked a lot of very different responses. I am almost tempted to write a sequel-disclaimer kinda thing, assuring everybody that I am now in the pink of mental health. But what a bore! And anyways, that is the best part of my virtual identity. I don’t have to apologize for who I am. Or who I was! Three Cheers to Sunny Spells AND Rainy Days! Hip Hip Hurray!

tagged!

2005-07-11T20:30:00.000-07:00

My first EVER tag! Thanks Mel!!

Three names I go by:
1)M--
2)Dammu (my sis)
3)Buns (S calls me that)

Three Screen Names:

1)M--
2)Fragileweb
3)errrrr….Swati :p (and no, that’s not my name)

Three things I like about myself:

1)I forgive easily
2)My sense of humour
3)I am a good listener and give pragmatic advice (or so I’ve been told)

Three things I don't like about myself:

1)I get hurt easily
2)When I am hurt I get really nasty
3)I get too emotionally involved and intense

Three things that scare me:

1)Having to lose somebody I love
2)Growing old
3)That my trust will be betrayed

Three essentials:
1)God
2)Love
3)My space

Three things I like in the opposite sex:

1)A girl’s hug can never quite feel like a guy’s strong hug (platonic hugs of corrs:D)
2)They make more loyal friends than many women
3)I like babies and we all know men are babies in thick hide

Three things that I want to do badly now:

1)Be curled up and asleep
2)Watch a movie holding hands :-|
3)Cuddle up with :-|

Three careers I am considering right now:

1)Social Sciences researcher
2)Work for the U.N.
3)Write for UNICEF

Three places I'd love to go on vacation:
1)Egypt
2)Jerusalem
3)Europe

Three kids' names I like (Why?):
1)Sanyuktha
2)Smriti
3)Anoushka (yeah I wouldn’t like to have a boy baby cos I am s’posing the baby’s father would suffice :D)

Three things to do before dying:

1)Write a prize-winning novel :D
2)Have worked with the U.N.
3)Travelled the world

Three people who get to take this wonderful quiz (!!!):
1) Pranav
2) Rat
3) Thetis

The Pilgrim's Progress

2005-07-10T21:14:00.000-07:00

I have this everyday calender thingummy on my desk. G gave it to me coupla weeks back for my birthday. It is a very thoughtful gift and the fact that it’s not dated means that I can use it day after day, year after year! Everyday, there’s a word of encouragement there, something to keep me going. But the most beautiful thing about it is that it doesn’t ask me to look inwards for answers. Nor does it ask me to look to other human beings. It directs me upwards in some way…it confirms me and when, like today, my Faith is weary and Hope is hard to find…it urges me forward.

Isn’t it funny how things you already know, when they are said at the right moment, can brighten up your day? It’s like Somebody up there just KNEW you HAD to hear this.

“ From a bush with thorns comes the beautiful rose.
From a broken heart comes powerful prose.
From a cramped cocoon comes a butterfly new
From a tough mountain climb comes a breathtaking view.”

Like I said, nothing brilliant. No free verse, no intelligent imagery…. no genius. But so simple and in that simplicity I rest.

P.S.

I’ve left Giant Despair of Doubting Castle far behind…I believe I am only a few steps away from Palace Beautiful :) Yes, this pilgrim is not so far behind. She is progressing and she still has Faithful and Hopeful RIGHT beside her!

Those Days

2005-07-09T04:56:00.000-07:00

*1

A blog friend I made wants to meet up. And I’ve said no and I’ve said no again. But he insists. I am probably living a coupla streets away from you, he said. Well, so?

I don’t know if that’s terribly mean of me but honestly, blogging wasn’t and won’t ever be a friend-making exercise. I do have a friend who has a blog friend and now the blog friend and I have hit it off. That’s different.

But honestly, why would I wanna meet a blog pal? And if I do, will I ever be able to blog with total honesty again? Won’t I go into a self-censorship mode and decide to leave certain stuff out?

And I don’t wanna do that. Simple.

Cos it’s like living two parallel lives. A real one where I am Superwoman and this virtual identity when I let on that I am just another ordinary human being, who is not so much in control…

*2

All the people I’ve been coming across recently have been truly nice. Faulty, but good at heart. And that’s such a nice feeling. And I compare it to my college days and wonder if my college years were so miserable cos the people around me were fucked up, or if the trouble was with me. And if it’s the latter, how did I suddenly become un-fucked again?

Come to think of it…I think it was the company I kept…. It feels so disloyal to be saying this cos we did have so many ‘good’ times….only they weren’t really ‘good’ in the technical sense of the word….and each time I did something, that I knew was wrong, deep down it did hurt something, until I was a raw bleeding mass….ugh…what ugly days they were…so dark, so dank…I wouldn’t wanna go back for anything.

Every person I was introduced to those days was either a druggie, a boozard, into sorcery or tarot or some pseudo crap lathat…or, they were confused about their sexual identity…or they were dealers. And each time I met someone like that, something inside died. I ceased to believe that there could be people who were just….clean.

Looking back again…a I reflect on the person I am today, and I simply cannot relate to the person I was. ME??? Admitted for overdose? Me? Doing magic Mushies? Me? Getting drunk and doing a 20 km trip. Me? Bunking classes and downing 8 beers in a row? And so many of N’s friends were dealers!!

OMG!!! REALLY!! WHAT WAS I THINKING OF????HOW COULD I?? ME?? THIS QUIET, SIMPLE, UNCOMPLICATED, LITTLE ME???? WHAT WAS I DOING THERE?? WHERE WERE MY PARENTS? WHY DID I THINK THEY WERE MY NUMBER ONE ENEMIES? WHY DID I TRY TO HURT THEM SO MUCH? WAS IT JUST IDENTITY CRISIS AT ITS PEAK OR HAVE I BEEN SAVED FROM SOMETHING MUCH BIGGER AND MUCH MORE DRASTIC??

* sigh* I don’t know why I am thinking so much of “those” days…just that B, my ex-best friend, sent a message yesterday…and it’s brought back with it a deluge of memories…of times when we were ‘best’ friends.

And the memories keep flashing before me and I can't help but ask-What WAS with me?

And I am so glad You stepped in when you did cos I am scared to think where I might have been otherwise… so desperately trying to get out and yet slipping downwards… and now I appreciate this...the light....the simplicity...the goodness...and I want to tell you, you and you how sunny it is out here, how relaxing for the soul….I wanna tell you how that bleeding mass that was me is being healed….how even the scars are being removed day after day….but how will I, when I know that you think I’m the one who’s turned looney…and when you say ‘believer’ like it’s a dirty word…

I wish, so, so wish I could tell you how good this is…how truly (sorry to be using this rather colorless word) good. How pure. I wish I could tell you how good it feels to be clean. To know that I am spotless. Without blemish. And not to just know it or just feel it, but to know it and feel it and BE it.

And do I regret any of what has happened? No…I don’t…I wish I had spared myself the suffering, but then again, I think all of it HAD to happen. Cos I have a mind that questions way too much…and at some point, I’d have questioned it and wanted to explore…I had to fall and learn my lessons….on my own…instead of simply being spoon-fed. I do believe I’ve come full circle…

And also, I am glad that all the exploration was done during my ‘younger’ days….True, it’s left me feeling more jaded than I have any right to feel, but it’s also made me wiser…I KNOW that what I believe in is true…cos if I need “proof”, I only need to look at my life.

Cos I am the sign, I am the confirmation, I am the miracle.

Of K and such

2005-07-09T03:37:00.000-07:00

Have you met people who are nice and sweet as long as you agree with them but go into this horrid mode when you have a slightly different opinion??

K was lathat. That’s what I hated most about him.

I think that’s what the REAL trouble was…. both of us were too bloody opinionated… and now, I don’t exactly miss him…but I do miss his tantrums…and the way we used to fight on YM at work, my fingers would fly on the keyboard cos he jus enraged me SO MUCH with his insistence that I think EXACTLY like him…what IS it with people? Why do they take it so personally if you happen to have a different point of view??

Update

2005-07-07T03:52:00.000-07:00

The niggling feeling continues….

Suddenly, I wanna re-do my cubicle.

The world looks tired today. Is this pathetic fallacy??

I made exotic lunch again today. The novelty of cooking is wearing off.

My quiet times have been very hasty affairs. The power failure at night makes me way too tired to wake up at six.

I haven’t read the newspaper in days. I don’t want to.

My phone hasn’t rung even once today….

It sucks that you can't read my mind. It sucks that words are such a snare. It sucks that I allow myself to get taken in and AGAIN AND AGAIN AND AGAIN by words.

Tonight, I am gonna make alu gobi. I hope it turns out well.

I notice the beginnings of what has the potential to turn into a paunch! Heavens forbid! I AM gonna go walking this evening.

The canopy…I don’t feel it so much anymore…the fire it doesn’t burn so bright anymore…I wish there were better ways of walking this road. I wish I had a flesh and blood helper.

I must remind Su to get the 2nd of the series.

I feel let down by somebody. Simply can’t figure out who…Do wish I'd learn to stop expecting.

The niggling feeling continues.

Sunny Spells and Rainy Days

2005-07-07T03:35:00.000-07:00

if i could, i would. i wish i knew.

i wish there were surer ways of knowing a person than the words he/she used.

Sunny Spells and Rainy Days

2005-07-07T03:33:00.000-07:00

why???why not???

maybe.maybe not :(

damn, i so hate uncertainty.

Sunny Spells and Rainy Days

2005-07-07T03:32:00.000-07:00

:(

I want....

:(

2005-07-06T13:57:00.000-07:00

Floating above it all, I am scared to look down. Scared to look behind. Below, there’s an abyss, behind there is you. And I don’t want either of that….

A random chat with a random stranger…somehow, it hurt something inside. Something I needed to get through this day…stranger, why did you do that? Did you know it hurt?

I have this nasty habit that I thought I’d outgrown. When I am hurt, I get nasty. Cos it’s too much of an ego-issue to admit that I am hurt. I’d never tell anybody if I was hurt, never let them know they have that effect on me. And technically, they shouldn’t. I really shouldn’t let people get to me so…

I’ve made a lot of ‘friends’ in the last few weeks…and yet….I don’t know…there is no REAL intimacy. I am always looking for the hitch. Somehow, I just can’t believe anymore that people would wanna know me minus any agenda.

It sucks. It sucks cos I wanna trust. Why do I always swing extremes? First, it was being too trusting, too naïve. And now, this. V and F…I’ve tried to be a good friend to them. But they are intelligent, and I suppose they sense that behind the camaraderie, I am on the alert. Always, always on the look-out to jump back if they should strike.

I fought so hard to build this shell and now, I can’t take it off even when I want to. I tried doing it today but it wouldn’t come off. And that’s when I realized I had been successful. I wanted to shut out the world and I have.

But it was never the world that was ever the problem, was it?

Where ever I run, I run into myself.

2005-07-06T10:53:00.000-07:00

#1 Have you ever felt so many things at once that you didn’t know which feeling to explore first? And as you fumbled around, have you noticed how you end up saying precisely those things you didn’t want to? Have you felt the disappointment of not being able to feel what you know you SHOULD be feeling? Have you ever welded an armour and then realized that it serves its purpose too well and there’s no chance for reversal? That you have lost the key to the room in which YOU decided to lock yourself up?? Wish life were like Alice in Wonderland. One potion to make you grow, another to shrink you. But then, I suppose, the rest of the inherent absurdity in the story isn’t lacking…

#2 After a long while, I am coming across a novel that has me engrossed. Or maybe, that’s cos I always have been partial to Amy Tan. This one promises to be light enough. I’ve stopped reading books that make me think. I don’t want to. ‘Sula’ by Toni Morrison had me plumbing the depths of sorrow for weeks. I am almost tempted to google this book and figure out if it has a sad-ending. Tried reading “Bridges of Madison County” again…but somehow couldn’t. I will though…someday…when it won’t hurt, I intend to read it.

#3 I’ve been looking through all my old books… ‘Hans Brinker and the Silver Skates’, ‘Little Women’, ‘Secret Garden’…I still remember each and every bit of it, like I was there. ‘The Count of Monte Cristo’ brought a lump to my throat. ‘Jude the Obscure’ had me plummeting downwards again. But then, I thought of the first three and felt better again…I’d rather believe life was like Hans Brinker and co.

#4 Jane Eyre…Mr. Rochestor is still my ideal man. In spite of the re-interpretations, I’ve always chosen to believe in the romance.

# 5 Suddenly, I am beginning to feel guilty about the DVDs I picked for 100 bucks. I mean, it IS illegal and it IS piracy. And it IS stealing and I am flouting, ‘Thou shalt not steal’. Oh no!! Am I being asked to give up this too??

#6 I must look up a recipe for my lunch tomorrow. Sick and tired of veggie food but somehow I don’t trust my culinary skills enough to try non-veg. Oh!! :) I just remembered that my stir-fry came out yummy. Much to mom’s chagrin. She was quite convinced that I wouldn’t be able to manage on my own!

#7 There’s a storm brewing…I can always tell. Sunny spells…I really SHOULD learn that they cannot and DO NOT stay forever.

#8 Up-down. Up-down. Why, oh why don’t I EVER learn not to swing the extremes???

Heights of Boredom!

2005-07-05T06:27:00.000-07:00

Blogthings says!

Your #1 Match: INFP

The IdealistYou are creative with a great imagination, living in your own inner world.Open minded and accepting, you strive for harmony in your important relationships.It takes a long time for people to get to know you. You are hesitant to let people get close.But once you care for someone, you do everything you can to help them grow and develop.You would make an excellent writer, psychologist, or artist.

What's Your Personality Type?

Blogthings says!

Part Romantic Kisser

For you, kissing is all about feeling the romance You love to kiss under the stars or by the sea The perfect kiss involves the perfect mood It's pretty common for kisses to sweep you off your feet

Part Expert Kisser

You're a kissing pro, but it's all about quality and not quantity You've perfected your kissing technique and can knock anyone's socks off And you're adaptable, giving each partner what they crave When it comes down to it, your kisses are truly unforgettable

What Kind of Kisser Are You?

Blogthings says!

You are dependable, popular, and observant.Deep and thoughtful, you are prone to moodiness.In fact, your emotions tend to influence everything you do.You are unique, creative, and expressive.You don't mind waving your freak flag every once and a while.And lucky for you, most people find your weird ways charming!

The World's Shortest Personality Test

Blogthings says!

Your Dominant Intelligence is Linguistic Intelligence

You are excellent with words and language. You explain yourself well.An elegant speaker, you can converse well with anyone on the fly.You are also good at remembering information and convicing someone of your point of view.A master of creative phrasing and unique words, you enjoy expanding your vocabulary.You would make a fantastic poet, journalist, writer, teacher, lawyer, politician, or translator.

What Kind of Intelligence Do You Have?

Despite

2005-07-04T21:18:00.000-07:00

Despite all the bullies, despite all those who trample, despite all those who tear down every good thing with harsh words.... despite all the heaviness of heart, despite the fact that a lot of things simply don’t add up....or measure up.. .despite having evil returned for good, despite "friends" who figure out your Achilles heel and attack you precisely where it hurts most...despite knowing that human kind is one seething mass of ants trying to build their ant pile higher and higher…

Despite knowing that sometimes there are no answers ever, despite knowing that the need to possess and have people at your mercy is more important than simply being content with loving and being loved back, despite not having any definitive answers on “one true love”, despite knowing that unfaithfulness and betrayal is more the norm than the exception, despite knowing that one day the person you love and cherish the most WILL let you down (simply cos they are human), despite all that, I don’t think people are really evil at heart.

It’s strange what insecurity will do to a person. I think, maybe, all evil is born out of insecurity… the urge to be one-upping the other? The insistent need to prove your worth? Somehow, it’s difficult to believe that anybody would willingly and knowingly plot the downfall of another human being. Somehow, it’s difficult to believe that someone would sit down and map the plan of action to let someone else down. I mean, I know people are different and all that, but I also know that essentially people are all the same. Note, I am talking about normal people here, not people with psychotic tendencies!!

So! Insecurity it is.... also maybe, a huge dollop of thoughtlessness? And the inability to shut out that voice that screams "Me, me, me"? And so you trample…cos deep down you think that if YOU don’t, the other person will trample you down. Yeah, nobody said life was easy. But nobody ever told me it was warfare every day either. But if only, if only we'd actually be gutsy enough to acknowledge it, EVERY day is a battle between good and evil.

Like I said, there are no good and bad people, just people in circumstances and good and bad decisions. But the sad bit is, while the “good choices” don’t guarantee that you’ll be good forever…bad choices are like a pit. The more number of “bad” decisions you take, the more you shut out that thing called conscience, until finally, anything goes…..Maybe, people take “bad” decisions ‘cos they don’t ponder about the ramifications of every single deed?

One word, one action could change the course of your ENTIRE life. And THAT is so scary a thought that you'd rather NOT think about it. Or maybe, it’s just that their NEED is so huge that it blinds them from looking ahead?"Go with the flow" you say and shrug your shoulders. What has to happen, will. Really, now? Oh yeah. You cant fight "destiny" you say wisely. What an absolutely EASY way to live. YAAAAYY!!

I mean that’s the "in" thing these days, isn’t it? (No wonder I am so lost…have never been an “in” person!!) To "go with the flow"…pretend that you are dead wood....be happy to simply drift and go where the river goes...but then, what will “they” tell you when about a decade from now, you sit up and realise that you are not who you wanted to be that sunny afternoon when you were 10, and you are not because you refused to look life in the face, and that you did that cos it was so much easier, so much simpler than having to account for every single minute?“Taking it easy” was so much more ”fun” than taking charge. And that same evening or night or morning a score of years from now, will you be wishing you'd THOUGHT things out a little more upstream?

Despite all the bullies and bullying…despite people who try to snuff out that light that you carry deep within you, despite people who laugh at that fire you fight to keep alive, despite it all, I still believe that people are really good at heart.

Thunny Zpell (I'm speaking with a lizp todhay)

2005-07-03T20:59:00.000-07:00

: )
: )
: )

Me iz very, very yappie yappie today. Dunno why. I think the last three lazzy days did me zome good. Today me iz yappie to be at work. Today, me iz yappie to be alive. Today, me iz yappie being me. (And at this point, I am tired of lisping....but I am still not bored with being yappie.)

Of course, I am very tempted to analyze the source of my yappiness, but things don’t survive my analysis. Tsk tsk. So I shall be a good gal and give me a break. Give me soul a break.

Come to think of it, very ragged soul it must be…given the number of operations I subject it to every coupla days. Sometimes, I wonder how my soul puts up with me. It must be a very patient soul…

Imagine you were just about to drop asleep after a vigorous day of work and someone shook you awake. You jump up, oblige, do whatever the person asks cos you are living in that person’s house after all. And then you are ready to go back to sleep. And this horrid person shakes you awake again. And so on it goes till you are ready to drop with weariness.

No guesses to whom the credits should be attributed:-D

Person trying to sleep- Soul
Horrid person- Yours truly
House- Yours truly’s body (corrs everybody knows body houses soul, no?)

* sigh* poore soule, on this yappie day, I do solemnly agree (pssst…please note I don’t ‘swear’’ only ‘agree’) to give you the rest you so truly deserve...!!

IF I COULD I'D TELL YOU...

2005-07-01T13:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Mom,

Thank you for screwing up my last three days of high. I wish I could be rude and ask you to shut up, but you are my mother. And daughters are not s’posed to tell their mothers to do that. Especially not when they know that mommies talk of such things out of concern.

But FYI, I’d like you to know that I am not as averse to marriage as you seem to imagine. I know I could just tell you that but I am a tad proud. Even with you. And I don’t wanna seem lonely or desperate even with you. I’d like to be the hunted and not the hunter. So no! No matrimonial ads in the paper for me please! I find it highly humiliating AND disgusting. I’d like to be wooed. I’d like to fall in love….again.

And what’s the point in talking endlessly about my age to me? Its not like I don’t know my age. And my knowing my age is not gonna make a wee bit of difference to me or to that non-existent somebody cos he is non-existent. See? And I do wish you’d stop telling me my age cos dammit, I am trying to forget. If I could, I’d be 12 all over again. Or even 19.

If I could, I would turn back time, stop it at 19 and not have met N. And if I hadn’t, I would have fallen in love with the guy you asked me to. But having fallen in love, having known what it is to lose myself, I couldn’t allow myself to settle for less.

Oh! And please stop pestering me with “If you have someone, feel free to tell me.” If I felt free, I’d tell you. If I didn’t, I wouldn’t tell it anyways. And when I don’t have anybody, it seems like you are being insensitive and rubbing it in.

For the zillionth time, NO I do not have anybody! No, I have NEVER EVER EVER spoken to N after that. And NO I do not EVER EVER EVER intend to. So jus please STOP TALKING ABOUT HIM TO ME COS IT BLOODY HURTS.

I know you wanna know if we did it. Well Mom, you do understand that you can’t be my friend and confidante and mother all at once, don’t you? Even if I DID “do it”, I am not gonna tell you. And I don’t know how it was in your day, but these days there are grades and levels to “getting intimate” than actually DOING it! Duh?!?!? And what’s more I think “doing it” is all in the head…At what point does a girl say she’s done it, eh? What if she had NOT done it? Does it make the pain of an engagement gone awry any less painful?

Most of all mom, please don’t remind me of love. …or marriage. Cos I am trying to forget. I am trying to heal. And if you understood me even jus a very very tiny bit, you’d know that I am still hurting though it’s been “almost two years.”

Cos you know what? I got it from you. The bit of me that hurts and tears itself apart into a zillion pieces every once in a while. You bequeathed it to me…this quiet, lonely feeling of silent desperation. Even if that isn’t true, I don’t want you to tell me it isn’t cos I’d like to believe it’s the normal thing.

Love,
Me.

Random Jottingz

2005-06-30T04:02:00.000-07:00

I have 3 gray hairs. That’s one every year since I turned 21.
I am not lonely. I am just alone.
I wish uteruses were up for donation. I’d give up mine any day.
My knees ache. So does my tummy.
I am broker than I’d like to be.
Petrol prices have increased. Why the heck don’t companies come out with alternatives for fuel??
I have decided to sell off the big car cos I'm too broke to maintain it. Am gonna get myself a diesel car. I need a car that’s small enough for me. Any suggestions??
Ugh the tummy REALLY aches.
I miss S big time. Or, do I? Maybe, I’m just missing all the attention.
I haven’t signed in to YM or MSN. Trying to get more work ethical.
I watched “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” yesterday. More on that later.
I wish…I wish I were tall and buxom.
I wish my hair would grow out. I so do hate this in-between stage. I have also sworn to myself for the zillionth time as always that I shall NOT cut my hair again.
Someone told me I looked gamine. I don’t know if I should take that as a compliment or not.
Someone else told me I look like a pixie. I donno whether to take that as a compliment or not.
Are pixies pretty or ugly?? Are they male or female??
The first time I suffered from identity crisis, I was five. I was new and the kids ganged up against me asking me if I were a boy or girl. It was extremely traumatic cos when I said I was a girl they said I lied, and when I said I was a boy they said I lied.
I’ve made all my friends bloggers.
Today has been sunny all the way. No delving, no soul-searching.
I think overall, I am doing rather fine :)

Wedding Blues (Not mine)

2005-06-29T02:50:00.000-07:00

Went for a wedding the other day and was told by my old school ‘misses’ that I am getting prettier by the day. The elation I felt, however, was immediately doused when another teacher exclaimed, “Who would have thought, you’d have turned out looking good?” (Excuse me!! But I don’t think I was EVER UGLY!! A tad plump maybe…but was I ever ugly? And if I was, is my so-called ‘prettiness’ a relative thing??) By the time I’d been told that unless I busied myself in the task of getting a husband soon, I’d soon wither and grow old, I’d forgotten the initial compliment and was feeling more than a bit depressed!

*sigh* I always seem to be going for weddings these days. Everybody is getting married. It’s like an infection. And with each invite, I am subjected to snide remarks from everybody at home. Not that I mind. I am perfecting the art of selective hearing. And I know it’s just that they are worried….

As I watched the couple, I found myself aching...and aching pretty hard. I was so scared I’d start sobbing cos I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and the lump in my throat swelling. Not because I didn’t have anybody but because….it occurred to me that I could never get married and smile at my husband like C was smiling at R…Anybody could tell she was madly in love. I recognized the smile. She was me….me in love.

It was adorable…the way they held hands… there was something so pure and so innocent about it…and it ached cos I wonder if I can ever do that again…it hurt cos I don’t have that innocence to shield me…. it hurt because the first and only man I ever loved is not the same person with whom I am going to spend the rest of my days…it hurt because when I do get married, I won’t have stars in my eyes like C did…. it hurts because the hands I hold in mine won’t be the same hands….

Back home

2005-06-29T00:53:00.000-07:00

Ok. So that’s that. Here I am. Back. After a rather rolling trip (literally) , it feels good to be back tapping away at the computer and sipping strong, sweet coffee. My neck aches from having slept in extremely weird positions but then I look at the photographs and flip through all my interviews. It was a good three days of work!

Ok, no wait. The pictures, are not that good. I just loaded them on the comp and thanks to the very elementary digicam, it was impossble to alter shutter speed. End-result being that quite a number are smudged. Ugh. Now I am feeling low again.

*sigh*

Today, there is that indefinable something about. Feels like a Monday. I am not happy or unhappy. But there’s that niggling feeling, which I am stowing away RIGHT NOW. Will examine it later. Too much to be done.

What, why, how…they are swimming round and round in my head. But what what, why what how what? I know what this is about. I don’t have a deadline. And I find it extremely difficult to work without deadlines.

Setting myself deadlines never quite works…. Actually, there are a lot of other words too. But I know once I start spilling, I won’t be able to stop. There are issues I need to thrash out, reflections that need to be reflected upon, stories to be told, reveries to be noted…but wait it shall…wait it will have to.

Oh! And I almost forgot...made a couple of new friends and laughed more than I have in a very long time. Also ate hot, spicy fish fried near the sea. The shop-keeper told me his shop was much, much bigger before the tsunami, but he is thankful that at least none of his family lost their lives.

Out there, I was happy to be here. So what if I will never make money…it feels worth it. I am suddenly taking stock of what my priorities really are. Job satisfaction or money…seems like the two will always be mutually exclusive. I completed two years on the workaday world on the 25th of June. I can quit right now and take up a bigger, better job…one that will help me live the life I want to. But something holds me back. This job, I think, needs me as much as I need it…

I know if I quit now and manage to get the bigger, better job…I know, that I will be making a huge mistake. There’s such a sense of belonging, such a sense of home…am I jus getting too comfy? Am I getting afraid of change?Errr....am I getting...old??

Blinded (??) by Love?

2005-06-24T02:08:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, PS and me met up after a long time. We watched 'Mr. and Mrs. Smith' together. From Brad Pitt being too wuss for Angelina Jolie, we discussed someone else we knew. There, PS stopped and exclaimed, "Please! R thinks Bryan Adams is 'deep'(* gag*, it was implied...) and H thinks Bob Dylan is. That’s how wrong they are for each other.”

"Well, that's hardly fair," says I. "Judging people and liking them for their taste in books or music is shallow."

"No, it just says what kind of people they are," she said. "It shows their intelligence levels."

"And you think intelligence is the factor that decides love," asks I?

"Yes...long time love," she says.

"But...maybe not," says I again. "Maybe, its not about intelligence cos how can you guage intelligence. R may be brighter than H in other areas. So how does one say she is less intelligent than him? Maybe, their sensitivity levels are different. Maybe, their grasp of language is different. Maybe, their expectations from music is different. Maybe, in short, their inclinations are different and how does that make anybody more or less intelligent."

"Oh well," says PS. "I think R is just a dumb blonde."

"No, I know R and i certainly do NOT think that," I protest...and so it went on...

But then…that set me thinking. Isn’t it funny how the most unlikeliest of people get together? And often it isn’t even about opposites attracting or like begetting like. They might just be so deviant that no principles and theories will suffice to explain the difference or the attraction.

The other day my friends, a young married couple came home. Mom was seeing them for the first time and was shocked that such a good looking guy should have married someone so…. welll…not aesthetically pleasing...and so different from him.

And of course, one could go on and on and on....

The only way this love business has been explained is with that old cliche, “Love is blind.” But is it, really? Why can it not be the opposite, instead? Why can it not be that love is having an EXTRA eye-one that makes you see the good, the possibilities and the potential that nobody else can??

Remembering (the journey to here-dom)

2005-06-21T23:08:00.000-07:00

I had acquainted myself with the ways of sorrow. I had given myself over to dark thoughts. I had seared my heart and hardened my conscience. I’d forgotten all I had been taught of right and wrong. In new experiences, I sought fulfillment. But pain left me dull and pleasure left me aching. And both, left me empty.

I questioned life. I questioned the reason for living. And finding no reason, I tried to snuff it out. It seemed better, so much better than living such an empty life from day to day.

On the surface, everything seemed ok. I laughed and joked with my friends, went for parties, drank and smoked and got my few moments of high. But the moments of high were always clouded by heaviness. I knew all along, I knew I was losing it.

I needed answers…more than anything else. But I didn’t really know what the questions were. I just knew that there had to be something that did not leave me empty-handed. There had to be something that just let me be.

I read, “Waiting for Godot” and was surprised to find that it perfectly explained my predicament. I was not alone. What I was going through was the malady of all mankind. Everybody needed answers but eventually nobody had any answers. They just carried on living because they had to. Beckett, the playwright, offered no solutions and I was left even emptier than before.

I read more of existentialism. Since it described my predicament so perfectly, surely it must have an answer somewhere! Surely, at least ONE of these clever men should have found a solution. And the more I read, the emptier I felt.

And that was when I met N.

Random Ramble

2005-06-13T23:48:00.000-07:00

Not asking questions, not wanting to ask them is a blessing indeed. The ability to live. To live fully, completely, wholly, knowing that all times add together for the good. The freedom of not wondering about your purpose, your destiny, your meaning in a meaningless universe. The release that comes with knowing that what you see is what really is. Those were the blessed days.

With much wisdom, comes much sorrow. Ignorance is bliss. But I know…only too well…see only too clearly. I know it all. Isn’t that a rather wearying feeling? And yet, I do believe I am learning to move beyond the cynicism.

A cynic they say, is only a wounded idealist. I don’t know about that. I suppose there are those cynics who have learned to be that way and yet there are some, who’ve always known, who’ve always been burdened by knowledge.

Which category do I belong to? Sometimes one and sometimes the other... And at times, the cynicism is only a shield, an armour painfully welded amidst the rancor of the crowd. Strengthened through tears that drench my pillow on a stormy yet silent night, while the questions swim round and round.

I’ve asked all the questions I’ve had to ask. And no, I haven’t found the answers. At least, not to all of them. And maybe, I never will. For there are more questions to go around than answers in this world of ours. And it is a blessing not to ask those questions, to not ever let it occur to you to ask them….or is it?

I remember a time when the word ‘love’ was untainted and pure. I honestly believed that love meant happily ever after. Of course, I didn’t think there were areas of gray. I hadn’t been told that. Of course, I’d heard of two-timing, cheating, adultery and divorce. But those were things that happened to others. Within the pages of a book. On the screen. I believed that when I loved, I would be whole.

Love came. Love went. And though the experience has left me bitter and angry, it has also taught me a lot more than a hundred other experiences put together. You know…simple things I’ve always heard but never understood now make sense.

‘never make a god out of a man.’

‘people have limitations.’

‘don’t trust everybody.’

And the greatest thing of all, I’ve learnt that you cant, try as you might, simply erase love, like it never was. Not if it was real. Of course, time and distance heals the ache. But you never can stop caring, can you? You know you should. You know it’s the ‘respectable’ thing to do. You never tell anybody else-not even your dearest friend- how much you still love cos they’d ask you if you were a door-mat. And in time, you learn to live in spite of love. In spite of the distant music that wafts to you amidst the grind of daily chores. You learn…you accept…you move on. But there is a mark. A signpost on the road of your life. And that one spot where you loved…can you ever push it aside as though it never were?

I am told its only first love that hurts so much. And I can well believe that. After having loved so completely the first time, who’d have the energy, the will or the inclination to do that all over again a second time?!?!?!

Bah! I do sound like I am pining!!!! Fsh! I am not! I am just… reminiscing.

So, the point being..it didn’t occur to me to question love and that made it complete. Pleasurable. Beautiful. But having learnt to ask questions, nothing ever will be as untainted and as pure as it was.

But then again, maybe the fact that I DO question, will save me from another potentially disastrous relationship. Asking questions isn’t a bad thing. It keeps you from falling into mindlessness.

And strangely enough, the more questions I ask, the more my faith grows. For I know that it is beyond my comprehension. The ways of the world elude me. I am not exactly worldly wise, though I’m being taught to be…

And I allow myself to be battered against the rocks, to hit the bottom and then as I look up in agony from the bottom, knowing I can’t sink any lower, I can feel it. The resurgence of faith, life coursing through me, willing me to live.

And live I will.

First Grey Cloud

2005-06-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

I am tempted, ever so tempted to be ‘reflective’ but then, that would just disprove the whole point of having this blog...so! I shall refrain.

What have I been doing with myself in the last six months? A lot actually. First and foremost, I can say it and mean it-all men are not jerks. I’ve made so many nice guy friends, people who have been there with me and for me, without asking anything in return. And even the ones who did were open about it, without playing sneaky, snide mind games. And I appreciate that.

I’ve learnt that all jobs, even the most ‘interesting’ ones can get to be a drag, if you allow it to. I’ve learnt to go beyond ‘being excited’ at my job to sustaining that excitement, that fire, that passion. And yes, it is possible, if only you keep at motivating yourself and keep learning and keep growing and challenging yourself to just go one step ahead this day. There’s nothing like learning all you can. There are always newer ways and if there aren’t, you just aren’t trying hard enough! And that should be motivation enough!

I’ve realized that a lot of people love me so much more than I can ever love them back. And I wish I could love them as they love me, but I’ve also learnt that you can’t force yourself to love (like you can’t force yourself not to love someone…however unwise it may be… or just like you can’t force anybody to love you back.) And that’s made me kinder to people who haven’t loved me back as I loved them. Old friends who never reciprocated…and the only old love that never did…I am trying hard to stem the tide of bitterness and resentment.

I’ve also learnt that frankness is not always a good thing. I used to have this theory—Always speak your mind. The ones who matter will know what you mean and won’t mind, and the ones who do mind, don’t matter. I don’t believe that anymore. I think it’s the most warped and the most cruel thing...being inattentive to others’ feelings. It’s not just high-handedness, it’s just plain crappy!

A friend was very harsh with me. Maybe, what was said was true….I am not yet sure about that…but I do know there were kinder ways of saying the same thing. And I realized what I’d been doing all my life. Just speaking your mind and expecting people to accept you…it’s not playing fair at all.

Sometimes, it’s easy not to be kind simply cos you don’t feel kind or cos you don’t think the person deserves kindness. But then, I look at people I’ve met. People who simply by being nice have put a smile on my face. Is that so hard? And I’ve realized that all of us carry hurts, wounds. And when someone is unkind, those old wounds hurt. Maybe, its totally unrelated but one harsh word can bring the injustice of the entire world right to your doorstep.

I’ve also realized that sometimes, ‘the end’ is inevitable. But that the least you can do is to see that it doesn’t end ugly. Ugly hurts. Hurts long after the wound has healed. And please, please, please, if you are the type to use foul language in an argument, don’t even take the trouble of getting to know me! Really! I detest resorting to name-calling. Maybe, that’s prudish, and I come across like this stooopid goody-two-shoes, but then so be it.

I’ve also learnt to shrug my shoulders when the end comes. And I’ve realized that for me, the thing that works best when I am most hurt is to sleep it off. Try it! It works! When you wake up, it’ll seem like it happened in the distant past. Of course, there are times when you’ll hurt so much you can’t sleep, or do anything else….then, my advice is, go with the flow and allow yourself to get mindf**** cos there’s no use fighting it right then. It’s just too much effort and won’t work either. So, just give in and indulge yourself in whatever way works best, even if it’s masochism. Cos at such times, even prayers can turn masochistic.

* ugh* if you’ve spent a night like that, tortured and agonized and totally mindf***** , you’ll know what I am talking about!

Pride, Prejudice and etcetera

2005-06-06T21:02:00.000-07:00

Sat and watched five of the six parts of Pride and Prejudice. Couldn’t stop grinning as my favourite dialogues came up. That really must be one of my all time favourite books. The true test of a classic, they say, is its ability to transcend all ages and all classes and any number of readings and re-readings. Going by that definition, I’d think there aren’t very many classics today!

Little Women, Wuthering Heights, Jane Eyre, David Copperfield, The Count of Monte Cristo….Pride and Prejudice, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Gone with the Wind-they have survived the vicissitudes of time. By that, I don’t mean generations…I mean, that in spite of all the ups and downs of my life, they retain me.

Does that seem a rather quaint statement to make? But really, there is no other way I can say it….yes, they retain me. Going back, I find a glimpse of me that I thought I had lost forever. The little girl in me who still believes in happily-ever afters. I do believe that I still have those stars in my eyes all intact.

For those brief moments, it is only too easy to believe that my life is still waiting to happen. That none of that which happened was real. That it happened to somebody else. Going back, it is easy to believe that reality is unreal and it is the life in these pages that are really, really…real.

It feels like a homecoming of sorts. And I love them all-Eliza Bennet, Mr. Darcy, Mr. Rochestor, Jane, Heathcliff….they live deep down in that place where I’ve shut away the stars.

And yes, for those brief moments, I can say it and mean it…that in spite of everything, I still believe that life is beautiful....and that people are really good at heart.

First Sunny Spell

2005-06-03T04:16:00.000-07:00

Don’t ask me why but I am feeling extremely happy today. Actually, that’s probably not true in the least. But I’ve decided that happy posts lead to happy thoughts and therefore, a happy me. So, this is it.

* chirp* *chirp* * cheep* *cheep *

Am really curious…. I mean you know….having grown up with Thomas Hardy under my pillow and being cradled with a Thomas Hardy lullaby (yes there are Thomas Hardy lullabies) does not contribute to a cheery or cheerful disposition.

But I have a certain someone in my life, who keeps insisting that I speak happy thoughts. So here I am. Actually, the thing is, when you’ve been so accustomed to being unhappy, you become unhappy even when you are happy cos you have absolutely no clue WHY you are happy.

But I shall never let that happen to me ever again. Evah evah!

Then of course, there’s the fact that there’s nothing much happening in my life right now. No boyfriend, no potentials in the offing, no major exams or well anything of that sort. On the whole, my life is peaceful and naturally everybody knows that peaceful people do not keep blogs. You have to be disturbed, more disturbed or most disturbed to have a blog. And neither of that applies to me.

So why the heck am I keeping a blog? I am cheerless yes, but that does not mean that I am sad, you know. I am just having this rather in-between existence, which is rather a new thing for me, considering my volatile temperament.

These are peaceful days really and I am a bit clueless what to do with so much peace. So, I thought I’d give gyaan instead. Gyaan is easy to give. It costs you nothing and gives immense pleasure to the recipient. Quite a selfless deed if you ask me. But then nobody is asking me. But then again, I shall just kinda ignore that bit of the deal.

So! This is gonna be a gyaan blog. Course I know there won’t be any takers, but then again, who knows;-) we are a very gyaan-starved world. Or rather, the supply does not QUITE meet the demand. If anybody needs gyaan, do let me know. Am all yours. Yeah!

2005-06-03T00:35:00.000-07:00

Ummmm...welll?