Dame lo que quiero

Give us a break

2012-01-19T09:50:00.000+05:30

So this morning the Good Men Project had two lovely and highly contradictory articles up. (Actually one of the reasons I love them is precisely because they do that--post all sorts of perspectives at all strengths.) The theme this week seems to be online dating, and the first of the pieces (in the order in which I read them) was this one, about being a man while on a date. The second was this one, about giving men a break because in the dating world, all the onus is on them. (I wonder how I'd have reacted if I'd read them in reverse order?)

Summarizing for those too lazy to read ;), the first one says that when it comes to the first date, be the man, take charge. Pick the location, pay for the date, text her the next day. The second one says that its 2012, men have to ask out, hold the door, propose, bring home the bacon, pay for dinner, etc. Cut them some slack.

I gotta say, I loved the first one. Yes, I can pay for dinner or go Dutch. Yes I am perfectly capable of getting myself home, and if I want to talk to you, I have your number and I can call. But when it comes down to it, even if I'm not evaluating you as future provider, etc, it's nice to let go and have someone take charge once in a while. I think that, in the context of me, and my peers, we've established that women and men are equal. Unfortunately, in the process, we seem to have established that the acceptable way to enact this equality while dating is to be discourteous--don't call, if you do you're needy; if a guy does something kind like offer to carry something, he's being sexist, just cos he's a guy and you're a girl; don't give people advance notice of things, you should keep them on their toes, etc.

The main reason why I'm totally with the first article is very simple: it's a first date, and you're essentially there to get a sense of the person. This does not mean a woman cannot be assertive and take charge. However, if you buy into the whole women are in power in the dating marketplace thing, since they, ultimately, are the ones who decide if anything is going to come of it at the beginning, then they are the ones who have to be given a good sense of who you are, so they can then decide fairly.*

Of course, having gone on god know how many terrible first dates in 2011, and having dated a pathological ditherer who drove me CRAZY with his inability to pick a restaurant, and generally never having been on the receiving end of a date like the one he describes there, I'm not exactly unbiased.

The problem arises when either or both parties thinks that this is or should be the norm. If I received a first date like that, I'd return the favour on the second date. Of course the problem that crops up there is that, whether they admit it or not, the standard desi man does NOT like women who take charge. Once you do, you're bumped. Which brings me to what's unfair about the dating world for women--we have to be equal and step up and take on our share of things, but do it in a delicate unobtrusive way that will not bruise the fragile egos of the men.

Conclusion?
Don't date.

*Notice that I'm saying this is in the specific context of dating today where women are supposed to have all the power. Haven't seen much of that vaunted power myself, but still...

The Reticent Mr Snuggles

2012-01-18T12:58:00.004+05:30

The Dragon and I once write a children's story based loosely around a rabbit called Mr Snuggles who was, well, reticent. It caused much hilarity because it was so lame and Mr S was a code word we had for a boy I was then crushing on. The reason I bring this up today, however, is that I've noticed a remarkable level of reticence in boys I date. Is it just me?

Granted, I am one of those people who will tell you what I've done all day if you ask me what's been up, but still, I've noticed that, when making plans to meet up, boys are supremely reluctant to give out information, even in response to a direct question. Often they do this across the board, resulting in my dithering for five minutes about whether I'm prying before deciding to say "You never answered my question" and repeating it. Though how on earth 'What time?' when trying to figure out if one can meet for a drink a certain evening can be constituted as prying I don't know...

Perhaps they don't see it as prying, and it's just how they are--not seeing the need to give me information as important enough to be addressed, and definitely not as important as their need for information.

In which you are given more unsolicited advice on relationships from atop my soapbox

2012-01-13T17:31:00.000+05:30

Moving forward from this post, there are there are other and far scarier things in relationships than someone not being your everything. Take parents.

Nothing is scarier than being with someone whose parents are irrational about you, and the person you're with dismisses it. 'No, they just need time to get used to you.' 'No, they can't understand what a girlfriend is; they'll be fine once we're married.' (Yes, personal experience. BBot's father used to leave the house when I entered. His mother used to harangue me with 'generalized' theories about love and marriage, unsubtly hinting that I was bad for her son and it would never work. Heh, guess she was right eh?)

Don't get me wrong--lots of people are hard to deal with and always will be. The problem to me is when the partner is like no my parents are FINE. No. Not okay. You have to accept that your parents are at least a little nuts, and acknowledge that they could cause problems. This is the only way I can honestly believe that you're on my side. My mum can be scary as hell, mainly cos she will take your trip as if she were your friend, and is rather merciless about it--totally not aunty behaviour and thus nothing any desi boy is prepared for. I know this. I tell her to behave. I deflect the teasing when I can.And I warn them to expect it and show no fear, as it were.

Then what about when the person you're with displays behaviour that you can't like. You try, but it doesn't work. You get hurt. You talk about it, they promise to fix it. The whole week they are good. Or say you broke up with them, and they want you back. New rules are laid down and they are following them. But somehow you can't trust them, and you wonder if you're being unfair. I've done this with BBot so many times--berate myself for not trusting him to follow through on the promise of better behaviour, even though I know he hasn't in the past. Don't do it. Don't resent the person, but until they have proven that they are truly in the past don't forget what they did to hurt you. Forgive, but don't forget, because you learned something, you had to recover from what they did; you have to heal yourself and learn to trust them again--why should you let it happen again? You'd be stupid if you weren't even a little wary!

But somehow women are expected to just let things go, in a way men aren't.Oh he's just a guy. And guys act like they're naughty rascals and you should just slap their wrists and let it go.

I'm tempted to make statements like "women are always more grown up; we're less fragile; we are more resilient. It's a sort of species trait, as it were". I don't know how true this might be, but I can't help but think it has quite a strong element of truth to it. But then again, maybe I just keep only SIW in my life and ignore the other women because for my purposes of friendship I don't need such a huge pool, but when it comes to dating I gotta keep em all around. Either way, there are still less SIM then SIW that I encounter. But setting aside the argument about gender traits, the goal in a relationship should be balance--that sometimes you can be the kid and he has to mollify, and vice versa, etc. Indian women, we often have this sort of ingrained tendency to just make things easy for guys.

Must. Fight. It.

May-kaaran

2012-01-12T09:54:00.004+05:30

Each year, when my sister is here and my cousins visit, we gather around the table for my grandma to prod our palms and produce occult pronouncements like "Ah yes, you'll want to get married after you have a physical relationship"--to The Snoog, who proceeded to gulp in shock till Scoo dived in to the rescue.

Now Nona is famous among many for the accuracy of her occult pronouncements (you can't really argue--once you have a physical relationship, you are more open to marriage, unless you're a bit of a ho like me). She told a friend of mine, who desperately wanted to study in Germany, that he wouldn't--but he'd study abroad all right, and use his German. He studied in the UK and is now in Switzerland. She told me, on the 2nd of January 2011, that I shouldn't fret about work--it would sort itself out in 15 days. Penguin called on 17th January. She told me at Deepavali that after 15th November all the things that had been bothering me over the past three years would begin to chill out--I found Career, evolved the right kind of relationship for me, and have a truckload of friends in Delhi now. She also told me I'd be promoted, and I was, on the 1st of November or something like that.

This time, her pronouncement for me was this: You'll have a very good year, with a very interesting middle. Will I go to Colombia, I asked. That's a very specific question she said. Okay, I said, Will I travel? Yes, short trips, about 15 days at a time. And also on work. Oh, also, you'll find yourself in a permanent relationship in May.

It was my turn to gulp like a beached goldfish.

What does it say about me that the one sentence I've been waiting to hear from her for ten years, when it finally came, my reaction was: What! May?!?! No! That's too soon!!!

Of course we've been referring to the proposed arrival as May-kaaran, or May-man. Though apparently there's a delectable double meaning in Tamil that I don't remember.However, Universe, if you're listening, May-kaaran better be able to furnish our house from Fab India ;)

Dammit!

2012-01-11T16:58:00.001+05:30

Does this count as writing?
Sigh
I guess not huh.

I spent half of yesterday travelling and all of today catching up at work, and it's karaoke tonight. So, no post till tomorrow I guess.

Sledgehammer*

2012-01-09T13:03:00.000+05:30

Many things have been bubbling in mah heid of late, especially the day I was fretting over BBot and the night I was crying for something--I still don't know what. After that night I wondered to myself why I hadn't called anyone. There are definitely people who would have soothed me telephonically, people who know what's going on and are unequivocally on my side. I thought maybe it had something to do with my wanting someone from our gang to be on my side, but I know that's not true, because of how much they did support me through the whole thing.

One night though, it came to me. While my life might be am embarrassingly open book with no boundaries, I hate letting people see me vulnerable. And then one of my friends suddenly confessed, in a moment of candour, to something, and it made me smile, because of our complicated history. I knew in that moment that he trusted me---something neither of us might have expected 2 years ago. And I realised that I trust him too. And then I realised that I don't know how I feel about trusting all my wonderful new friends in Delhi, mainly cos they are new, and experience etc. etc.

But then I started thinking about how this trust starts, and how it becomes the ultimate foundation for love of all kinds. There is a point when you do reveal your vulnerability to someone, and in that moment, when they swoop in, scoop you up and protect and nurture you--that's when you know you can love them, and that's when you start. That's when the seed is planted.

Also, turning that around, can you love someone when you have not seen them at their lowest and most vulnerable?

*for those who haven't watched the show, his tagline was "Trust me, I know what I'm doing".

The great meeting

2012-01-08T08:31:00.000+05:30

So when I came home for New Year and Her Ladyship, I called the boys. The Punjabi (which I realise is a bad bad nickname cos hell I live in Delhi!) asked me what I was planning for New Year and I said nothing at all, bumming at home. I never go out for New Year's and I wanted to be at home. He then asked if he could come over, since there really was only him and Disco Dancer in town. After the debacle of OOF at my birthday party we are all understandably wary of parties, and both TP and DD told me to tell my mum, no OOF! We'll be fine!

Then, the day I was leaving Delhi, TP said to me, oh, by the way, BBot is in town, you should invite him and his other friend.

I was in shock.

It's FINE he said, don't worry. He'll come and if he doesn't behave, I'll kick him out.

Something in me rebelled. Yes, I'd been hoping that one day we'd manage to be friends again. It would make everyone's lives easier, and well, I miss him. But like this?

For one thing, wouldn't it be better to meet in a neutral place, not MY house? Second, since he shut the door, and rebuffed my attempts to reopen it, shouldn't he be the one to open it?

Both TP and DD dismissed objection #2. DD said that I was being silly, because I dumped him I had to make amends. When I said I did, I gave him my best friend, he said please that's got nothing to do with this--she's an adult. Touche. But I'm not completely comfy with the way that everything is on me cos I "dumped" him. As if it was easy for me. As if he never did anything wrong. Etc. TP also reacted along similar lines. He also said, look I've never asked you to meet him before this; I'm telling you, he's ready for it. I explained that what scared me was that BBot has never met me halfway--maybe 10%--which is one of the reasons we didn't work. And I did not want to let myself believe that he would actually make an effort and meet me halfway. TP told me not to worry, he would guarantee BBot would.

I talked to Appa, who told me it was fine, we should all be civil and friends. I said okay.

But deep inside I was in turmoil.

Why?

I don't know.

Well, I have some theories. But those are for later.

I freaked out for two straight days. I was calling people. I cried myself to sleep after three months. I felt worse because the person I'd have called was the Dragon. Bombay Boy told me I needed to figure this out in my own head before I saw him, and I knew he was right. So I said no, not in my house. We compromised with the party as TP's grandma's which is ten minutes from where I live. I told the Poo she had to come with, cos I really needed someone unequivocally on my side at the party, someone who got that I didn't "dump" him, and didn't think that the supposed dumping sort of gave BBot martyr status--as if he's miserable now and not really much happier.

Then another friend called to say he was throwing a surprise party for his wife's birthday, and agreed to have BBot come too--so we met in a neutral place. This friend, for whom I can't be bothered to think up a nickname, despite the fact that we're all friends, is someone who has actually heard about the whole BBot story, right from the start, and is much closer to me than him. He promised to keep my glass full and let me hide behind him if I needed (thankfully he is the one person I can actually hide behind), and I went to the party.

BBot came. We shook hands. We made small talk. TP stuck around to be buffer. We were relaxed and cheerful. People who've known each other a long time, and have very close friends in common, but aren't close themselves. We even managed to talk about the Dragon, and hold our own alone for five minutes.

It was over.

And then the mindfuck began.
Which will get it's own post if I'm ever ready to talk about it.

But all told, we're fine; we can socialize, and even refer to the fact that we knew each other very well. New Year's went off well, with a few very minor possibly awkward situations, which he handled with grace. (Me too!) I wonder if part of the mindfuck stems from the fact that he couldn't do it to save our relationship, and still he gets to be the victim.

But I think mostly being around him is a stark reminder of how easily I was replaced in his life and in Dragon's, making it not a 2 year relationship I have to get over, but an 8 year one.

In which I discover I am most lowbrow

2012-01-07T09:55:00.000+05:30

Recently I wrote about how I need to start reading literary fiction again. Full of purpose, I decided to begin with one of this years most lauded books--Open City, by Teju Cole. It's a book about New York, about wandering the city, and everyone at work has been raving about it, so I said, what the heck.

Sigh.

I should remember not to read non-African non-Latin-American fiction. Though Cole is Nigerian. Perhaps I misunderstood the blurb; perhaps I've lost my ability to interpret blurbs accurately; perhaps I was nostalgic for New York. I wrestled with that book for a month. I'd keep losing my place, rereading it without understanding it, battering desperately at the impenetrable walls of his navel-gazing stream-of-consciousness narrator's languid prose. People told me the ending would be great, I should keep going. Three times I tried; three times I had to give up. It stood for all that I find revolting about the literary world today. India, Europe and the US seem to produce such obscure novels that are lauded as superior writing but serve only to send me into a stupor.

Mind you, my inability to read it had little to do with the fact that I've been running around with my niece. I know this because in a moment of frustration I tossed it aside and picked up The Brief and Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junor Diaz. I read all but the last 50 pages in one day, while chasing niece, baking, cooking, running errands and doing whatever was demanded of me. Three pages in I just fell into the novel. The fiery, agile writing was ALIVE; it grabbed me by the cerebral cortex and headbutted me. The characters were real; they DID, they didn't just think.

Then Scoo, Poo and I had lively discussion on writing (well mostly them, as always happens when the women in my family as discussing things and I'm supposed to participate), and I am amazed at how disparate our views are on the subject of what is good writing. I guess I'm just a pleb.

And another thing

2012-01-06T09:54:00.002+05:30

Save me I kinda made resolutions. And here they are.

1. To write something, somewhere, every day.
2. To work out 6 days a week--gym, walk, run, dance.
3. Not eat out or drink during the week, except Wednesdays.
4. Cook my own food 4 times a week.

I also, at the New Year Party, asked my friends a question--what is one thing you want to do this year.

One very drunk boy said get married. Last thing I'd expect from him!
I said I wanted to go to Colombia. Disco Dancer said that wasn't fair cos I knew I was going--but I don't. and I really hope I make it there.
DD himself refused to say anything.

What's one thing you want to do in 2012?

The New Year Post

2012-01-06T07:57:00.001+05:30

Let's sum up 2011, shall we?

POO.

Yup, I think that covers it.

What? You want details?

Well, I broke up with BBot. The Dragon dumped me. I found the perfect job. I cried myself to sleep for a few months. My parents were a rock. I was desperately lonely. I dated a LOT. I dated a psycho. I learnt a LOT about myself. I hid from the blog for a while, but I made it back.

And now I have friends in Delhi, who call me drunkenly on at 2am New Year's Day to yell WE MISS YOU GET ON A PLANE NOW. And I miss them too, after ten days in Hyderabad (though the two days in Chennai probably helped a LOT).

I think I finally know what I want to do with my life; I have finally made some peace with wanting to have kids; I am surer than I have ever been about the kind of person I want to be with, whether I'm willing to settle, and, most importantly, that I am just fine on my own. I even managed to hang out with BBot twice on this trip.

Gotta say 2011, you ended okay. But fuck you were SUCH a boy. *shudder*

Be nice to me 2012, I kinda need it.

Honesty is such a lonely word*

2011-12-13T09:10:00.000+05:30

I've been having a lot of chats with people on the subject of honesty. For example, I wish The Dragon had been honest with me about whatever it was that was bothering her about our relationship, so we could have tried to fix it, instead of sneaking away into the night like Barney Stinson. I wish I had been able to be honest with myself about how I felt about BBot and how he was disappointing me much earlier, so we could have escaped the long and drawn out ending.

The one big honesty question that comes up though is: Should I tell my SigOth I cheated?**

Now y'all know what I think constitutes cheating, but most people don't agree. Everyone says you have to tell the person it happened. I'm not so sure.

I did begin on this whole, ultimate honesty is always required--if you love someone you shouldn't lie, etc. A lot of this came from people trying to let me down gently and me reading too much into it, so I'd say, just TELL me straight out that you don't like me like that, don't string me along! Then, also, I had that whole sex-is-sacred-and-can-be-had-only-with-love thing going on. This, coupled with crippling insecurity meant that of course it was unacceptable for anyone to cheat, and then to not tell me would be compounding it horrendously, because you had BETRAYED MY TRUST IN YOU.

Then I went and grew up a bit, heh. I learned that the only person who could heal my insecurity was me--cos no amount of reassurance will stop me from needing more, and if what I have with someone isn't enough, they'll leave anyway, so why spoil the time we have together by stressing about it? I realised that sexual fidelity isn't a big deal for me, so whatever. Sure tell me about it, or not. Just use protection, kay?

Dan Savage, that wonderful man whose columns you should subscribe to if you're on Google Reader, has a very valid point, one that I have come to see myself.

The reason we tell our SigOths about one night stands is this: we are guilty; we hate ourselves for doing this, usually because we know they would not like that we have done it; and we really want to atone for our error and ease that guilt. But, and it's a big one, exactly what does telling your beloved partner that you got drunk and hooked up with your ex one night when they were gone achieve? Do you want to leave the SigOth? No. Do you want to do it again? No (If the answer is yes, THEN you have a problem). Not knowing that you slipped up will not hurt the SigOth. Knowing that you did and then having to deal with their own insecurities about you leaving them, when you have no intention of doing so, will traumatise them, and possibly forever destroy their ability to trust you or any other partner, and thus their peace of mind.

Telling someone about a hookup serves one purpose only--to make you feel less guilty--and not very well at that. You can tell yourself you've been honest, but then you also know you've hurt the person horribly, and you are guilty of a far worse crime. Yes, you can argue that if it hadn't happened in the first place it would all be moot, but nonetheless, in terms of the pain you cause your partner, telling them is a far worse crime. And yet, they will want you to tell them, because of this 'sacred covenant of honesty'. Makes no sense to me...

*Hands up people who've heard the song.
**Here I mean unplanned, random hookups, one night stands. Not saying that other kinds aren't fine, but that goes into the whole how-you-define-your-specific-relationship thing.

Bringing sexy back

2011-12-12T14:46:00.000+05:30

How cliche a title heh.

So, moving on from all the various things I've written on the subject of body image in general, and mine in particular, the writer of this article has exactly the same beef as I do with the world today. Why does everyone outwardly subscribe to that stupid stupid idea of sexy that is narrowly defined by society?

Mind you, I'm not saying I never do--whether in myself or other people. Yes, I'm often uncomfortable at parties and clubs because I don't think I can begin to compare to all those stick thin, silky-haired drop dead gorgeous women floating about (nearly literally). Yes, I usually expect guys to not find me attractive, though it rarely lasts past five minutes anymore thank god. Yes, my heart skips a beat when I see a tall, lean man who is clean-shaven and wears nice clothes.

But I also never, ever, thought I would be practically incapacitated by my attraction to short guys, fat guys, hairy guys, tattooed guys, long-haired guys or bearded guys. But it still happened, mainly because I was willing to give it a shot. And it worked. Similarly, I am often blown away by the power my body has over a variety of guys--but only those who are willing to admit that the social requirement of a attractiveness in women is not really valid in most cases.

So what is with us? We all know that different things work for different people. We all know that, when it comes down it, you can't really see the other person and they might really have moves that melt your bones. We all know that often a mental or emotional reaction can obliterate or outstrip any physical connection you might have. But we still continue to buy into and feed this whole idea of beauty, male and female, that causes so much misery!

Maxi Me

2011-12-07T09:35:00.001+05:30

In one of those delightful convergences, The Bride had this post up this morning. I say convergence because this idea of who I am and what it means as I've gotten older has been occupying my mind a lot of late.

Regular readers know about all my issues about my physical appearance, and how my personality can and does intimidate and put boys off. However, living in New York, being in a relationship for two years, finding inspiration in work, generally just growing up certainly seemed to have calmed a lot of those anxieties and issues. And yet, last weekend, I refused to take my shirt off with a guy I already had incontrovertible proof was very attracted to me. So I spent the week wondering why on earth it had happened--what happened to all my hard won confidence?

The oldest personality I remember having was a loud and enthu child who hero-worshipped her older sister and cousins. I also demanded a lot of attention, but that is something I only know now, with hindsight. I also got that attention from everyone but my mum, which of course is what led, in a very pleasing manner to our dear friend Sigmund, to many other issues. I was also spoilt and thus ate badly and ended up fat at a very young age. It happened between the ages of 8 and 10. I remember I put on 4 kilos in a month when I was 8. That's a pretty nuts.

This weight began, obviously, to erode self-esteem, cos I'd be teased about it, goodnaturedly in mt family, and meanly outside. I became less confident in myself, how I looked and how people felt about me. I think that's when I became the really need everyone-must-like-me me, and as a consequence, the doormat me.

Doormat me stuck around a really long time. As a teenager, I really wanted the cool kids to like me, and I bent over backwards trying to be that person they wanted me to be--it backfired, if course. Less self-esteem.I was also smarter than everyone in my class, and the boys did not like it--the same boys I needed to like me, cos they certainly didn't want to date me. Crush after crush was into my friends, or stopped talking to me when they found out. It became the strongest weapon against me--so I never could show people they were important to me, because it made me vulnerable. I also slacked off like mad about academics--though I think not pushing myself if I didn't care about the subject is a fairly innate characteristic of mine.

When I went to college, I regained some confidence about my brain. It was cool to be smart. I had friends who were smart. We all faffed and still did well. My inner romantic flourished, along with my inner optimist. I even liked a boy who didn't run when he found out--my first love. But he did screw with my head. Maybe he didn't mean to, but he did manage to obliterate whatever vestiges of confidence in my body I had left.

I returned to my MA, social and friendly and proud to have a brain. I made a lot of friends. And yet I was severely depressed--I even did some silly things as a result. I tried to embrace pessimism, to not expect things from other people, but it only made me more miserable. But I never, ever, not even with my closest and dearest friends, showed how I felt. It seemed that my earlier reluctance to reveal vulnerability had solidified into an inability. When I started therapy and finally told my friends, who included The Bride, they were aghast, saying they'd had no idea. And, honestly, how could I have expected them to, when I never ever gave out a hint about how I was actually miserable that every guy I thought I connected with only wanted my friends' numbers? It became this sort of conflict between rational and emotional--I could hardly demand that someone be interested in me, and yet, it hurt terribly that they weren't. It hurt even more watching them be happy with my friends, and yet I could hardly wish unhappiness on my friends or blame them for not knowing how I felt when I didn't tell them.

That was Conflicted me--I was open and friendly and would tell you anything you asked; I would show emotions for other people, and my own happiness, but I would never ever show you my tender spots. and then I was hurt you couldn't guess where they were or even that they did exist at all. Conflicted me still had Doormat me, just with more sass. I needed to be needed, and I wanted to swoop in and save people, which meant I put up with a lo more shite than I needed to--something that continued or a long time.

Then I moved to New York, and finally began to feel like I was attractive. Several boys managed to talk me out of the belief that I am unattractive. I began to be more willing to say what I felt, albeit politely. I began to agree to disagree. I found that socializing was an innate part of me. I didn't need to make polite conversation, but I was happy to hear about what anyone did or though,. I began to think about politics and economics and development--and suddenly had so much more to talk about and so many more people to talk to. Therapy had taught me to not be ashamed o what I felt on an emotional level, regardless of rational opinions. You cannot tell yourself not to feel something, you can only feel it and get over it. It was okay to expect things from people, and okay to be hurt when they disappointed you--no one had to judge anyone for expecting or disappointing. I would say that this was New York me: confident in my ability to attract men, able to hold my own with a stranger, able to put people at ease and make myself at home in most situations.

Then I had to move back. At first I was very upset, but then I found a job and made friends and settled in. I found many many boys who found me interesting and attractive. I was now a bit blase about attractiveness, but still devastated that no one seemed to want to be my boyfriend! Then I found one. I found the best friend-circle ever. I had a shite job, but I'd never cared about career, so it was fine. The boyfriend did not, however, do much for my self-esteem, because he blew hot and cold like mad. Again that rational-emotional disconnect kicked in, because I couldn't demand that he be besotted with me, but I needed him to be. And because I needed him to be, I drew the lines all wrong at the beginning, which is really why everything began to fall apart once I realised I wanted to move the lines. In a lot of ways, that was still Balanced me. I had learnt to deal with my emotion-logic disconnect. I knew who I was--and I felt no need to hide it. Yes, I was promiscuous, before BBot. Yes, I was very smart. Yes, I was not conventionally attractive. So? I was a strong independent woman and I was AWESOME.

And then I moved to Delhi and broke up with BBot. Suddenly I was Doormat me again. I don't know what happened, but SIW me had gone into hiding. Then The Dragon dumped me too, and I thought I wouldn't recover from that. It was almost as if that fifteen-tear-old whose class had formed a MinCat Hating Association was back, curled up in a foetal ball in the corner, whimpering. I was nearly thirty and I was lost. It felt like the past decade had been erased. No one would want me--and unless I either got a lucrative career or a husband, I'd never be able to afford to have kids, and that was all I wanted.

And then The Architect happened, the job love happened, I found friends in Delhi--and I think I'm nearly Balanced me again. But I am Balanced me who is aware that Doormat me still lurks beneath the surface--and I don't know when she will take over. Still, I now know more than ever, that I don't want to settle: not in relationships, not in career, and not with friends. I know that I am honest, often brutally, especially with those I care about, but I can and will tell lies if they are needed. I know that whoredom is difficult to define, as is fidelity. I know that agreeing to disagree is all very well, but sometimes you need to agree. I know that I will always be social, enjoy socializing--even need it. I know that there are absolutely no hard and fast rules, and I'm immensely suspicious of anyone who thinks there are. I also know that there are things I will not enable. There is a line. It is here. That's it.

What about you? How did you become Today you?

In which I acquire Career

2011-11-30T09:41:00.001+05:30

People who have known the kitteh for a long time, or even have been reading the blog for a long time, will know that I really don't get career. I never have. Half the problems with my life stem from the fact that I'm not inspired enough by anything work-like (academic or employment) to make me take it seriously, devote all my time to it and allow it to use up all the brainspace I own. OOF used to have a theory that my "planet-sized brain" needed something to occupy itself, which is why I spent all my time analyzing myself and everything everyone did or said. Spot on he was, too.

I always swore that the only career I anted was a family--and that society was cruel because it didn't allow me to express that or reach for it without judging me for "wasting my talents", etc. I bemoaned that fact that I was drifting and couldn't find focus; and that the only thing I wanted to do with my life, I had no control over, because you can't force love. (Though, as you know, I tried ;) I was doomed to float about unfulfilled and uninspired. sob.

Then, a month ago, when I began to understand my new role, I suddenly found myself thinking about work when not at work. Huh. I found myself *not* obsessing about boys! (GASP!) Then I got promoted, and the new work began. The transition was insanely busy, because I had seventeen projects to hand over in one week. I didn't have time to breathe. Now they're all handed over, and my workload has lessened dramatically, but I am still thinking about work outside work. I find myself constantly thinking of ideas to apply in the office, people to talk to, and wanting to read literary non-fiction!

Most importantly, I don't really care about the boys that much anymore. I have met one more interesting chap, whom we shall call Chocolate Boy, but really, I have stuff to think about--can't waste every minute interpreting everything he says or does! It's most liberating.

The disturbing realization I had yesterday, however, was that apparently I have been so obsessive about boys over the past six months that all my friends interpret every statement I make in the context of a boy. Telling Scoo how I gotta read more litfic, I said I have to push. Chocolate Boy? she asked me, leading to me moaning and saying nooooooooo myself! to read litfic!

But I guess I can't blame people for taking my years of protestations seriously!

P.S. Any literary fiction recommendations? Published after 1990, not too depressing, not Young Adult? Am thinking of doing a series of reviews/responses to the litifc I read. And ahem also finish the Mahabharata.

In which I talk of boys--AGAIN

2011-11-30T09:13:00.001+05:30

Soooooo

Some of you might remember a certain gentleman who went by the moniker of The Architect. The Architect is a boy I met on okcupid, went on some dates with, and liked muchly. I was thrilled by how he wanted the same things as I did--to meet someone, settle down, start a family, etc; to be happy by his own definition of it and not by some random social yardstick--and he is an extremely talented photographer. He really liked me, and was sweet and nice. He wanted us to be a couple, in all of one month, and I was so happy I'd found a boy who wanted a relationship and made no boned about articulating it and working towards it! And so I acquired a boyfriend.

Ladies, a word of advice: If you don't like it when a boy kisses you, do NOT date him.

I went home for Diwali, and he was very clingy. He got clinger by the second--with total disregard for my sleep he'd insist on talking at 11pm, 6am, whenever he wanted to, and I, pathetically spineless, felt bad about saying no. Eventually I started saying no and he got even MORE clingy--attributing my refusal to lose sleep and talk to the fact that I had a social life. He whined about how my friends and my socializing took away OUR time together, even when I was in Hyderabad, I was out and couldn't talk to him on the phone. When I came back from Hyderabad, he came over to spend time with me, and we watched a movie. The entire time he had his arms clutched around my arm, staring at me. It began to make my skin crawl.

He also turned out to be BBot, just without the fun bits.

So I said, listen, this is too much too fast; we clearly don't know each other enough--you had no idea I'd b so social, I had no idea you'd be so clingy--let's go back to being friends and see. It's probably too soon for me to be in a relationship anyway. He said okay. And didn't stop clinging. Sigh. Eventually he asked me, about two weeks later, if I'd made up my mind about us being in a relationship. I gave up and said listen, not happening. At which point he kinda lost it and began to rant and rave and scream. Entirely fair, since, a month earlier, I'd fancied myself in love with him. Then he called me horrid names, at which point I said, dude, go to hell--only nicely. Haven't heard from him since.

The things I learned about myself from this whole mess are interesting:

I simply cannot put up with people who are always clinging and needy--when here I thought I's always want a boy who couldn't stand to be without me.
I am definitely not calling anyone my boyfriend unless I'm REALLY sure I want to marry him. Though I suppose I did think I did with TA. Maybe I mean that I'm not calling anyone my boyfriend till I'm sure I know him well.
I really need to be with someone who is sure of himself and in himself, who can and does enjoy a life independent of me.
I need to be with someone who enjoys socializing--because I love people and I'll always want to be around people, even if it's only four friends in my house. I tried twice to be with guys who didnt' enjoy it but were okay with my doing it and it's not enough, cos I'm such an extreme socializer!
I am really just fine being alone until I find the right guy. Settling is not an option. Whod'a thunk it!
I also do not have the energy, patience or reserves to coax another person out of their own issues and into fairly normal relationship behaviour.

In which I become a titch obsessed with the Gandhi family and unusual consequences follow

2011-11-24T09:56:00.001+05:30

**Edited a bit for structure and content.**

(I'm wondering I should be posting this kinda stuff on teh interwebs, it IS open to misinterpretation hee...)

So I recently got promoted at work (YAY ME!) and am working much more with the core business as it were--reading manuscripts and looking at them for structure, flow etc. One of the CEs asked me to read through this book on a Gandhi that we're doing, and it turned out to have me comprehensively hooked. I even cried at one point, which says more for the storytelling than the story cos, um, everyone knows the story. Anyway, apart from the information in the book, I've been Googling to fact check etc, and I find myself drawn into the whole narrative of Indian politics. (Okay, also into oh my GOD Rahul is so cute, and he hangs out at Khan, should I start skulking around Khan?)

My family has always been pro-Congress. I imagine the older people have their reasons for it, and we've never discussed them. I remember growing up with the Congress as the party people supported, but hey, when I was 10, it was pretty much the only proper party around. Then all the other exciting events of the nineties happened--Rajiv Gandhi was assassinated when we were joyriding in the US, the gold crisis, Babri masjid, Bombay riots, Manmohan Singh hero, Narasimha Rao tales of the neither-man-nor-beast figure who would save the world i.e. India, etc. I was fairly detached though, and never gave much thought to voting.

I finally turned 18, just after the BJP came to power with the NDA government. I was revolted by militant anythingism, so I was not happy with them. In 2004 I was delighted to be able to vote, but very upset because my options were a Soni Gandhi-led Congress (i.e. expected Forn PM) and a Vajyapyee-led BJP (i.e. good man in psycho party). I voted independent. I look back now and realise it was stupid thing to do*, but hey we do stupid things at 22. Then SG shocked the world by turning down the PMship and dear blue-turbaned Manmohan Singh began his first term.

All in all, UPA I was a shocker, a gleeful one for the Congress, but by the end of its term all one heard was criticism of it. All the young businesspeople, urban working people, people interviewed on TV ranted about how we needed the BJP back, just before the 2009 elections. That time I voted Congress. I REALLY wanted them to win. But, like most people, I didn't expect it to happen. Still, I was okay with it, cos well, the voice of the people, etc etc. And then the Congress went on to do even better than in 2004, AND Rahul Gandhi kicked ASS in UP. Jubilation! Joy! Etc. And then I forgot about it.

My political interest flickered into faint life when KCR, with the help of his terrorist supporters, successfully blackmailed the Centre for Telengana. Aside from some cursing of hunger strikes and people who use em, I tuned out soon enough.

Cut to 2011. The world has been going nuts. More hunger-striking blackmail. Scams crawling out of the woodwork everywhere. Manmohan Singh loking more and more like an ineffectual idiot man--which he isn't. But he's not a politican, and what we need now is a consummate politician at the helm. (By we I don't mean the Congress, FYI.) So what happens in the next election? Who do we vote for? Is the rural vote going to remind us, again, that urban India is a minor part of the entirety of this country?

India really needs leadership at the moment, someone who is able to take decisions. Now, setting aside MS's ability or lack thereof as far as taking decisions is concerned, any PM would need support in Parliament. Whatever your policies, unless you can enact them into law, you are faced with a problem. This is where the past decade or so of coalition governments has been so crazy.

Coalitions do not strengthen us in India. They weaken us. They give a minor party, with very specific regional interests, the power to manipulate the Central government, and how. Yes, regional interests must be looked after, but probably by giving states more power and moving to a more federal system. The government at the Centre needs to have the freedom to act if it needs to.

Granted UPA II is insanely corrupt. But who isn't? It is a system that awards the corrupt; it is shortsighted and filled with people who are mostly there to grab their fifteen minutes of fame, whatever material gain they can get out of it and take off. Of course this is not true of everyone in politics in India today, but the hierarchical geriatric trends in leadership are worrisome. If you aren't related to someone big, or you don't have a vote-bank, then you can't really get anywhere. So essentially, the system has to change. But that will take time. And until then, what choices do we really have? What does the Indian voter do? I cannot say that I am Congress supporter anymore, but what choice do I have but to vote Congress? Do I want to vote the BJP in? No, because they are definitely extreme. (The Congress however is extremely un-extreme hee.) Really, what are my options? Mayawati? KCR? Modi? The DMKs? The Shiv Sena? The TRS? No, no, a thousand times no. The least of the manifold evils remains the Congress, though I would love to be at a place where I could vote for a party for what they are instead of what they're not.

Which is where I return to the Gandhis. Dynastic politics are not a good thing--but sometimes the dynast has the ability to change things the way someone else might not. Some say, and I'm partly convinced, that Rahul Gandhi is one such person. HE has actually made a dramatic difference to the way both the NSUI and the IYC run, and might even be able to transfer this to the main party. The tough part is going to be keeping favour during the transition, because I'm fairly sure they're going to do badly in the next elections.

Ironically, for someone who is where he is and has the power to effect the kind of changes he wants, he owes it all to the very system he's trying to topple--and he knows it. Whether he will be effective or not remains to be seen--but I hope he is. (And no, not cos he's such a dish. Which he is. *swoon*.)

*The concept of party consistency and the policy of the government being dictated by the policy of the party had not sunk in yet--I was still mired in the cult of personality, and knew more about the US President and his powers than those of the PM here. Also, a stabler government is usually better, as coalitions have taught me this past decade, so randomly voting for an independent does nothing much for anyway, except to make a statement about not ovting for the parties. The independent is unlikely to win, and ifs/he does, the party that forms the government will have to cobble together a crazy coalition.

And I'm back

2011-10-20T11:16:00.003+05:30

It feels good to move on =) All the posts from the other blog have been imported.

Modern Marriage*

2011-10-14T12:08:00.000+05:30

None of the emotions that we expect to find inside a good modern marriage are unusual in themselves. We find them well described in art and literature across all cultures and eras. What makes modern marriage extraordinary in its ambitions is the expectation that these emotions should reliably be entertained over a lifetime with the very same person.

From this article.

Writing to a friend about relationships, and thinking about myself and my own fears/worries/apprehensions when it comes to my own very new one, and the memory of the last one, I was reminded of this article I had read ages ago. This point it makes is something I strongly feel on an intellectual and rational level**, and have discussed a billion times, of course, with The Bride. What can/should one expect from a relationship? What will one realistically get? Where to draw the line between compromise and doormat?

For starters, the article says the phenomenon of expecting everything from your partner only came about in the mid-eighteenth century, creating an idealized notion of marriage.

The new ideal set before the world the compelling notion that one might solve one's most pressing needs all at once with the help of just one other person.

I love that sentence. It so beautifully describes what we all do to relationships today. By we I do mean a specific sociocultural class of people. Everywhere you look, you are told that the ideal sexual-romantic life is one where you party, have multiple partners--but not, if you're a woman, too many--and then one day you will meet this Person, in whom you will find everything. He will find the snow globe you lost and thought you'd never find; she will fix your broken psyche--whatever it is that's hurt or sore in your life will be made magically better because this Person is so exactly your complement that nothing will ever be difficult anymore.

So why does this happen? (De Boton goes into a really cool politicized historical reading of this whole myth, so read the article.) I think sometimes that in the modern world, we've moved away from the family unit as it used to work. Families are nuclear, if that, and the speed with which society is changing means that there's a lot of generational conflict. Essentially, it's harder to feel one has the cosy comfort of love and belonging with one's family, especially if one doesn't know one's cousins. (I mean, not knowing family members means the likelihood of finding kindred spirits is lower. I do strongly think that family matters, just because, despite how much they can annoy me, there are not many people like my family outside, and on some very basic level they just GET how I work, which often takes a lot of effort by both of us for an outsider.) Then we also tend to move around a lot--some people travel too much on work to build a community of friends, others don't stay in one place long enough; very few people get to be near their families even if they are close.

This generally makes life feel lonely. So when you meet someone who you think can be your companion, they have to be mother, father, sibling, lunatic cousin, best friend from school, best friend from college, dance partner, singing buddy, drinking buddy--you get my drift. We begin with the weight of so much expectation, even if it isn't conscious or articulated. The expectations that many people quibble about in relationships--call me every day, don't be late, hang out with my friends--are really nothing compared to this!

Then, popular culture teaches us to believe that there exists a person who is perfect and not only can and will, but actually wants nothing more than to be all this to us. If you don't find this Person, you're settling. And settling is bad. In actual fact, finding a person to be everything to you is not really possible. So settling isn't settling. but we think it is, and we always hope the perfect thing will come along--there is no such thing as perfect.

(I find myself doing this all the time, and I'm trying very hard to just stop myself and ask myself one question: when you're physically with him, are you happy? The answer was no by the end of BBot, and the answer is a resounding yes with TA. I hope that works as a guide!)

I find so often that women are angry that their boyfriends don't respond the way they want, or like the things they do. You can't possibly have one person to like everything you like, and thin like you, and know how you feel all the time. It generally works if you have friends who can take up the slack. Sometimes you're both having an awful time, sometimes your problem is the other person--how can you turn to them to solve it? (And trust me, it doesn't work!) A guy will want to solve your problem--even my dad is like that when I call him upset. Sometimes you want someone to listen. A guy might not want to giggle for three hours straight. Sometimes you need to do that. Your SigOth might not want to wake up ay 6am and go birdwatching. Sometimes you might want to do that. You can't give up your lives so all you have is the space they intersect--and you cant force the intersection larger. That's why god made girlfriends and poker buddies ;)

In the end, I think one question you need to ask yourself is: Is there anyone else I want to be with? By anyone else I don't mean David Beckham, or your ideal partner, but an actual person you know who makes you think 'oh I could be with him?/her'. And if your answer is no, then leap on in. Because one thing we always forget is that relationships are SO MUCH WORK. ALL relationships. My parents and I do fine because of all the work we put into it, and still have to for maintenance. All the love in the world is not enough sometimes when you've had really bad days and you know each others vulnerabilities. At the end of the day, thats the key. Whoever youre with, however sorted they are, you'll have to work HARD to be happy. There is no one you can be with where it'll all be easy and simple--the only way you'll ever know if something can work is to jump in and try. The leap and the faith.

*Marriage here standing in for relationship, committed or not so committed, but essentially being with a person in a sexual-romantic way that implies building a life together.
**See, I'm not saying anything about the emotional way I interact with this idea ;)

Owlie

2011-10-13T09:52:00.000+05:30

Owlie is my niece's blankie. He is the most insanely cute baby toy I have ever seen. I remember when I saw him, I wanted one. Woggles was so thrilled with him that Scoo promptly bought two more, another Owlie and Moo-moo. I'm hoping I might inherit one of them some day.

This post is, of course, meekly copying The Bride's idea.

The first stuffed toy I ever got was a bear called, imaginatively, Teddy. (We got very imaginative in the middle, you'll see.) I don't remember him in all his glory--I only remember him when the felt has all worn off, there were holes in the fabric through which bits of sponge would fall out, his nose had come off, and he had buttons for eyes and well buttons. I don't even know what eventually happened to him, but I loved him so much.

Shwetu was the next one. She was a baby with a walkie talkie and blonde curls that my aunt, from the US of course, gave my sister before I was born. It tickled me to death that she was older than me. She was very realistic and would flop pathetically if you didn't hold her arms and feet in and support her neck. She has a hideous pink-green bindi on her forehead, and at some point I think my grandmother made her a dress to replace her ratty original white and pink one.

The third toy from childhood was Dapple Gray. He was a stuffed donkey--small and plaid, but we decided he was a dappled gray horse. Yes, really. And even when my grandmother recovered him in pink silk (!) cos we demanded it, his name stayed the same.

After I turned six there was a flurry of toys from the US--Roger, who was a black poodle, and Chingu, who was a panda. Only Chingu's real name was Chingling Mingling Pingling. Then we got another panda, and a scary looking tiger, Mayling Chayling Payling (Mingu) and Tiggery respectively. I was terrified of Tiggery--I wouldn't walk through the room alone when he was there. Both Chingu and Mingu needed reconstructive surgery every so often.

There were divisions, but Scoo and I shared most of the toys, except for the occasional really special one. Scoo's was Acoon, a raccoon, who now lives with her in Oakland.

Of all the tons of other toys we had, including legions of Barbies with extremely inventive names (we kept a register with all their names cos each had at least two and a surname), there are only three who are still around. When my parents moved in 2002 I asked them to give the chest away because it broke my heart that all my toys just lay in a chest; no one played with them, talked to them or even looked at them!

Bear, a giant black bear, I acquired on a trip to the US. I remember flying Emirates back form Sharjah and carrying him on board--he was about half my size--and all the air hostesses cooing. He lives in my bedroom in Hyderabad now, and is trotted out to scare/amaze/amuse visiting children, especially if they are smaller than him.

Caramel is a smaller bear, light brown, who lived with me the first time I moved out of home in Hyderabad, and shares my bed now whenever I visit. He was The Bride's favourite too whenever she slept over. I remember her telling me he was a perfect gentleman, and then the two of us giggling like lunatics.

Which brings me to the main man in my life, Apollo. Apollo is a St Bernard I have had for eleven years now. A then dear friend who stood in some sort of brother space in my life gave him to me when I was leaving for college in 2000. He was white and brown and had the cutest pink tongue that stuck out. You couldn't see his eyes. I used to have him dry-cleaned once a year. Heh. Now he's been squished and squashed and squeezed so much that he's gotten flatter, the white bits are a dull grey, his nose has been peeled off because I have kissed it so much, he's been cried into endless times, his eyes are visible, he's had surgery at least once and he's travelled with me to New York and now again to Delhi. He is currently giving me lumbar support. Every guy I've dated has had to come to terms with his presence and importance in my life. BBot loved him so much he demanded custody when I was in the US last year, and nearly didn't return him.

Suicide: A Death of One's Own

2011-09-29T11:50:00.000+05:30

Was reading this long and lovely article today. I'll be honest, I have no idea who she is, this woman who put a bag over her head and peacefully left the world. There is just something about the article that struck me. Early on, it describes this strong and very feminist woman thus.

She took Woolf’s concept of a room of one’s own to heart. In fact, she had several. There was one at her sprawling Central Park West apartment, purchased for tens of thousands of dollars in the sixties, and another at her country house (she had a “bat house” nailed to that house’s barn; Heilbrun loved bats). Then, when she was 68 years old, despite having three grown children, two grandchildren, and what by all accounts was a loving marriage, Heilbrun bought another house, all for herself. She wanted a house, she said, away from the “family togetherness” of the other house—“small, modern, full of machinery that worked, and above all habitable in winter, so that I might sit in front of a fire and contemplate, meditate, conjure, and, if in need of distraction, read.”

Then it says:

Heilbrun’s suicide was an act of will, an idea brought to life. It was something she chose, by herself, for herself. ...
And Heilbrun was nothing if not sensible: She made what she considered informed decisions, and seldom second-guessed herself.

So there is a picture they have taken pains to build here. And then they go and print this.

In the days since her mother’s death, Margaret has been up and down: She is not quite sure what to think. “It’s not that I’m angry as much as I’m mystified,” she says. “She had so many more friends than I did—friends and acquaintances, people who looked up to her, who saw her as a nurturer and role model. Was it that she herself had no one to turn to? Why did she feel so isolated? She must have had fears and other feelings I can’t begin to have known. I know for myself that if you’re scared enough of something, you won’t ever speak of it.” She twists one of her rings. “But,” she says, “it was her plot.”

I don't understand why, if the case they have been building in the article all this time is to have a death of one's own, why they needed this quote from the daughter. It's also interesting to think that this closest daughter of this unconventional woman, with a very strongly and clearly articulated stance on life, has such a conventional reaction/interpretation. (Ok I'm not being horrible she lost her mother she wants solace, she doesn't want to believe that her mother decided to leave her, I get it.) The fact that it's in the article sort of undermines the whole thing for me. The point is that this woman made all her choices and lives by her principles. To me, it doesn't seem like such a terrible thing if, like the witches and wizards of the Discworld, you could know or even choose when you leave the world. You lived the life you wanted to; you have achieved things you think are worthy; you're done. You leave.

Sorry this might seem random but it just really struck me in the context of this particular women, about whom I know nothing, in this particular article, that it turned something of strength and fire that she had built into something banal and trite. Why do it?

P.S. On a lighter note, here's an idea to adopt from her life! Her children, "In their teens, they were each suddenly required to cook dinner for the family once a week—it works out perfectly, Heilbrun told friends, as long as you’re willing to eat peanut butter and jelly from time to time."

Directionism

2011-09-26T19:53:00.000+05:30

Not to indulge in it too much, but when I went to the doctor on friday, and again this morning, for my evil bitch ass tonsilitis, I realised that the man, despite being phoren educated and working, and putting his registration number on the prescription, he would only talk to me in Hindi Which meant that I responded in Hindi, but then I couldn't really describe the horror of my plight in the most accurate way.

Funny, cos down south, an urban middle to upper middle class doctor would never talk in local language unless patient couldn't do English..

Also, my friends keep singing those handclap game songs, you know biscuit biscuit what biscuit cocoa biscuit what cocoa while clapping hands madly in rhythm kind of stuff. But the same rrhymes, saying the same things, are in HINDI! Again, no problem with that, but even in a school where we didn't actually talk to one another in English, we sang the songs in English.

Is it just cos the likelihood that someone in Delhi speaks Hindi is exponentially higher than the likelihood that someone in Hyderabad will speak Telugu?

Edit: super advantage of north Indians not speaking English--when a telemarketer calls and babbles shudh matrubhasha at me, I just say look, I don't speak that much Hindi, I don't want to buy anything, so if it's anything else please speak to me in English. They say, aap ki samay ke liya dhanyavad and hang up.

Fighting in the Family

2011-09-17T08:08:00.000+05:30

Did you know that the Mahabharata is cursed, and if you read anything but the holy bits, it causes fights in the house of the reader?

Nona told me, when I told her I was reading it, not to read it all at once, but to read it in bits of I'd fight with people. Another spiritual/astrology friend I have, who would know this kind of trivia, told me there would be fights in my house. Interesting, no?

I think it might apply only to the Sanskrit though.

However, out of deference to Noni and the size of the book and the weird looks it gets me, I'm reading it alongside other books.

In which we wonder about crimson phalluses and dark-skinned beauty

2011-09-16T15:23:00.000+05:30

A very long time ago, The Bride and I decided on a reading project--The Mahabharata. I think she, like the good girl she is, finished it and wrote about it at length. I, however, didn't, partly because the unwieldy hardback translation I had required bedtime reading, and once I started travelling and going out at night I never did read it.

At the book fair I found Rupa selling the Ramesh Menon's modern rendering, as it's called, and it being paperback and two volumes, and eligible for publisher's discount, I bought it. I'm progressing in leaps and bounds. The prose is lucid and chatty, and retains enough strangeness and Sanskrit to remind you that it is an ancient epic. There is none of the awkward syntax that so annoyed my friend who also read Kamala Subramiam's translation. I'm about 260 pages in, and the Pandavas have reached Kampali for Draupadi's swayamvara. Apart from the fact that I love that they have their South Indian names--Arjunaa, etc--here's what I find interesting so far.

Menon's prose is very luscious--descriptions are vivid and evocative, but sometimes make me flinch a bit because they seem OTT. There are some pieces of description that certainly appear to be superfluous to me, especially considering this is an abridged version and, even if this is in the original, there really isn't too much need to translate it. My favourite example, while describing Bakasura sneaking up behind Bheema:

His head was in the trees, as he stood quite naked and motionless, only his strange phallus twitching with the lust of the hunt. He saw what Bheema had done to the food. The rakshasha's hairless body quivered. His crimson organ subsided like a distraught serpent, and rage replaces excitement in his tiny eyes.

Really? Is the 'strange twitching phallus' really necessary? Or its deflation as it were? My friend says it's a deep mellu obsession with sex, so Menon can't fight it.I wonder if his editor at Rupa tried to stop it...something tells me no.

The ideal of beauty is dark-skinned. I wonder if this is so in the original! Here's a quote describing Draupadi:

The burning stillness assumed a human form. There were long, dark arms there, a perfect head flowing black tresses. As Drupada, his wife and the rishis watched, stunned by her incredible beauty, her skin dark as night, her face and body so perfect they were from a more pristine time, a young girl stepped out of the light.

Then, earlier on, talking of Hidimbi:

...she had turned herself into a dark human beauty...Dark as night, and as enticing...

There are more, but I can't be bothered to dig them out...

There's no gray in his characterization. Again, I don't know about the original, but I know Kamala Subramaniam, or atleast the part I read, definitely had positive and negative sides to characters. As Jai puts it, Duryodhana is a tragic hero with a fatal flaw, not a psychotic evil motherfucker (my words, not Jai's), which is how Menon paints him. I kind of want to slap whiny bitchy Arjuna, and am immediately suspicious of Duryodhana's evil, because there's no cause! Why does Dritharashtra turn gleefully evil in the twinkling of an eye? In every other rendering of the Mahabharata I find I am always drawn to Bheema, but here even he is annoying cos he's just so fucking perfect, especially the way he's all rowf rowf command me o master and I shall destroy for you. My personal favourite Bheema is in Palace of Illusions. The only mildly human character so far is Vidura. More updates once I meet Draupadi and Krishna!

When funny doesn't happen

2011-09-15T10:53:00.000+05:30

Teh interwebs were aflame yest, at least here in Delhi and India, with this post by 'A South Indian Girl', that perhaps started out trying to be funny but ended up being vitriolic and venomous, and kind of making the case for a nice big SMACK.*

It made me cringe, because I like to think of myself as a sambaar (not sambhar) eating, dark skin loving south Indian girl from a family that abounds with wry and sarcastic humour, often at the expense of stereotypes, but somehow, when I came to end of that tirade, I wanted to say, no! I am not that kind of south Indian girl. This is not to say that I don't think there is a positive goldmine of fun to be poked at Delhi boys, some of it in her post, especially when seen from the perspective of Chennai/Hyderabad/Bangalore girls. I think it could have been done better. In fact, it could have been done like this, wittily, and then would have made its point and been funny too.

The thing is, dark skin and ability to pronounce dosai aside, desi boys are desi boys, whether Delhi or not--they all have their problems. No, I don't want to hear you talk endlessly about engineering, coding, banking or whatever 'higher' form of intellectual pursuit you think you indulge in just because you went to IIT, South Indian Boy. I don't want to hear about your BMW or party life either, thanks Delhi Boy. Read a book. Both of you! And no, Chetan Bhagat is not a book. Neither is Business: The Ultimate resource. Or Algorithms & Data Structures: The Science Of Computing.

Ask me about myself. Yes, really I am a person. No, seeing your eyes glaze over when I say I studied English is not appealing, SIB. Yes, I know it's not engineering, science or commerce. No, it does not make me a wasteful burden on my parents. And no, DB, just because I went to St. Stephen's I'm not a snob. Really. I don't know designer brands, and I rather like my whiskey cheap. That's right, no single malts.

SIB, your IQ might be an astounding number, but it doesn't entitle you to look down on people, or to stand in a corner and refuse to talk to people you haven't known since you smoked up and headbanged to Fear of the Dark in 1999. There is more to life than academic/career excellence. If you spend all your time at work and can only talk to people you see at work anyway, then you better be dating your colleagues. DB, you might have the looks of <insert Bollywood hero of choice> but I really can tell when you're looking at your reflection in my glasses and not actually at me. Both of you, the size of your bank balance does not make up for the size of your personality. And no, not the 'haalthy' type personality.

To be fair though, my favourite kind of desi boys are those who don't grow up in their home states. Just the ability to understand that normalcy is defined differently in different parts of the country, and no one type is better or worse than the other is a great help. also those desi boys who are used to SIW. There is nothing sadder than the boy who is petrified and emasculated by a woman who sees no need to make him feel like a MAN. The desi boy who meets an SIW and matches her stride for stride, word for word, who genuinely listens to ehr and considers her opinion, without dismissing it just because you know he knows better cos he's a guy, or he went to IIM--that my friends is the best kind of desi boy. And the rarest.

*There's this one girl i know from Hyderabad who posted this big quote with the link when she shared it on fb. I'm like girl when have you EVER lives in north India, let alone Delhi! You have to have fought off the gropers in the mudrikas, beaten an auto driver down to come by meter (though Chennai girls are exempt), had a slanging match with your khadoos Punjabi landlord, had abuse and lascivious suggestions hurled at you from passing cars filled with Delhi boys, and so many more rites of passage before you have the right to slang those boys. You hafta LIVE the war to tell the stories and have the PTSD.

The new man in my life

2011-09-14T13:15:00.000+05:30

Hellos!
I decided to stop whining, and refrained from posting self-indulgent nonsense. Thus the silence. Ahem. No, it has nothing to do with me being generally a sporadic poster No sirree.

However, I have big news. There is a new man in my life.

His name is Sameer. He's tall and fit, funny and sweet and I see him nearly every day for about an hour or so.

He's one of the trainers at my new gym.

Yes, ladies and germs, GymKitteh is BACK! (Interestingly they were playing Shady's back at the gym this morning.) GymKitteh is a lot of fun--she has channeled all her rage at self-absorbed exboyfriends and selfish disloyal exbestfriends into FINISHING THAT FUCKING SET! This means she has endorphins throwing Mardi Gras parties in her system all the time, and sleeps like a dead person. Which means she is a WHOLE LOTTA MORE FUN! And types in caps a lot ;)

Anyway, Sameer and I had a very itneresting conversation this morning, where he asked me if I had seen Bodyguard (based on Whitney Houstaon Kevin Kostner??) and I said no, movies are too expensive these days. (True dat. I spent THREE HUNDRED AND FIFTY rupees on a chick flick that had half the good bits cut!!!) 'Arre madam main toh bas download katra hoon sab ko. Aap ko chaihye?' was his reply.

Sameer's most endearing trait is the way he keeps saying shaabaash--I haven't had that said to me since I was eight and the gardener was helping me learn to ride a bicycle. Second highest on the list is the fact that, though he isn't *my* personal trainer, he seems invested in me, to the extent that he kept an eye on me today, despite my having been farmed out to someone else (Dharmendar) and noticed that I had been abandoned and was gasping and wheezing and trying to life the puny minimum weight on one of the chest workout machines. (When he'd been standing there the previous day he was pushing the bar too, so I could move it.) He must have signalled to someone else because another trainer (Raj) came bounding up to help.

I'm hoping the general well-being from channeling all the ugh out and the joys of DOMS will keep me at it--and maybe I'll lost some weight along the way and no longer be afraid to take my clothes off in front of a boy.

Who knew?

2011-09-04T20:40:00.000+05:30

That I'd reach a point where I was shy, and nervous and not READY for sex? And it's not like I don't like ot trust the guys involved either.

Despair

2011-08-30T18:02:00.000+05:30

When I was very young, more than ten years ago, I wrote a poem that a friend and his rock band later turned into one of those opeth-type depressed metal songs. It's running around in my head today. It was called Futility, and it still makes me cringe. But it's speaking to me today. At least part of it.

I cannot speak
Trapped in a bubble
Tears sting my eyes
I cannot fight
I can see it all
The ground rushing up to meet me
Nothing can break this crashing fall
But it never ends
Deeper into the pit
Bottomless black pit
Screaming in terror
Soundless screams
Beating the walls of my mind
Trying to break free

I don't know why the abyss is always so close these days, or why I keep coming back here to talk about it. I don't want to--I'd like to write about real things, not my own perceived and fairly unwarranted angst and despair. But I can't.

Maybe I'm here because the blog-space is the first space I ever felt free to be me in. Maybe because of the unconditional support I have had from all these strangers who know me so intimately, people I have never met who still reach out and send me virtual hugs. Maybe because when I'm typing here, my voice cannot break, and no one will hear my sobs or see my tears. Maybe because I can let myself be self-indulgent, because in the real world I have no reason for such sorrow.

It makes me feel better to think that someone, one person, will hear me. Maybe if one person could hear me say these words of fear and despair, words I cannot physically say, it will ease the weight they put upon me.

What happened to me today?
My niece is talking up a storm. She says words in Spanish, that she learns in daycare. I haven't heard her ay one word. I haven't seen her, even on skype, in a month. That little warm squirming squealing creature does not know me, and some days she is the only thing that makes me smile.
The Dragon has decided to take sides after all--or at least she's ignoring that only thing I asked her to do: not share the "BEAR" love on facebook. She has also not called me or reached out to me in any way. Part of me wants to make her admit it, make her see what she has done. But part of me knows that she never will admit she has done anything wrong. And a third part of me knows that I might not be able to deal with it when it is confirmed that yes, she would rather have him in her life than me.
My boss is being a bit annoying--which every boss is entitled to be, and nothing near the scale of annoying bosses can be. But I care so very much. Because this job, that pays me a pittance, this job is supposed to be what I get from my life and my choices. This job is supposed to make up for not having enough money to think of saving, for not being solvent enough to contemplating adopting kids this year, next year, or even the year after.

If you make all the unusual choices, if you take the road not taken, isn't the point that you will be happy because you're not stuck in the same rut as everyone? Is my road not taken still too taken? Is this really as good as it gets?

Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere,
Or would it be a waste?
Even If I knew my place should I leave it there?
Should I give up,
Or should I just keep chasing pavements?
Even if it leads nowhere

All the things they tell you about what you can be and where you can go--it's bullshit. Sometimes, you end up twenty-nine, lost and alone. And you know what, that's as good as it gets.

Maya Angelou

2011-08-30T13:03:00.000+05:30

Says it so much better than I can.

Alone

Lying, thinking
Last night
How to find my soul a home
Where water is not thirsty
And bread loaf is not stone
I came up with one thing
And I don't believe I'm wrong
That nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

There are some millionaires
With money they can't use
Their wives run round like banshees
Their children sing the blues
They've got expensive doctors
To cure their hearts of stone.
But nobody
No, nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Now if you listen closely
I'll tell you what I know
Storm clouds are gathering
The wind is gonna blow
The race of man is suffering
And I can hear the moan,
'Cause nobody,
But nobody
Can make it out here alone.

Alone, all alone
Nobody, but nobody
Can make it out here alone.

It's getting quite cosy in here

2011-08-25T09:42:00.000+05:30

At the bottom of my hole.

I realise that I have spent most of the last year in it, whichis possibly why it's all warm and familiarly bleak and desolate.

I’ve always been a kind of put yourself out there person—holdingback is something I’ve tried and failed at on several occasions. The mostmemorable was one that ended in such depression that I scared the watchman bycrying all night and he called my mum, who came home early from a trip. Therapyand changes to my life later, I realised that there was no point fighting who Iam: an open-hearted person who can’t really say no and can’t demand certainbehaviour from people. No, I’m not a little martyr, but frankly, if you have toask a friend to respect your feelings, then they’re not really much of a friendto you after all.

I try to see the other person’s point of view; I try toaccept their choices and let them choose how they will be with me, and I hopeearnestly that they will do right by me. A sort of do-as-you-would-be-done-byphilosophy. I wonder if there’s any point to it sometimes, but I know I can’t adoptdo-as-you-were-done-by strand of thought. I guess, for me, the lodestone isthis: when I look back at how I behaved in ten years’ time, will I be ashamed ofwhat I did and/or said? I’m not saying I always succeed, but I like to thinkthat I have always done right by the people I care about. I don’t always agreewith them, but I support them and I play by the rules of our friendship.

Sometimes, people screw up. When I care about them, I can’thelp but give them second chances, third chances, forty-fourth chances. Like I didwith BBot. Like I did with OOF. Sometimes I wonder if that’s the wrong way tobe. Should I simply stand firm on the one strike and you’re out principle? Willit save me from hurt and anger and loneliness? But then, if everyone is out onone strike, won’t I be lonely anyway? So where to draw the line? I have neverknown where to draw the line.

Maybe I embrace people too easily. As the Glare puts it, Igotta hike up my standards! Even Appa agrees, as he told me when I was sobbing onthe phone with them last night. You’re a warm and welcoming person, he said.But sometimes maybe you’re too welcoming. Sometimes you should hold back.

Ah if I had a dollar for every time someone’s said that tome. I might be able to adopt kids tomorrow.

But it’s not who I am, I insist. I am a loving person;I can’t hold back. It’s worth it for all the wonderful people I have in mylife. I might have a bad score for percentage of bad boyfriends, but it’s adecent score on the relative scale of horrible boyfriends. And I might have hadfriends desert me several times in my life, but it’s a decent score when youlook at the percentage of people I have in my life.

And yet, I am alone, and my ex-boyfriend is more important to my belovedfriend of eight years than I am.

I must be doing something wrong, no?

No, says Appa. You are doing nothing wrong. There is nothingwrong with you. You are smart and strong, and you will find your way.

What would I do without my parents?

And then he made me laugh, because he said this when we weretalking about my inability to find love. “Sometimes it’s difficult in your lifebecause you can’t find enough people of the opposite sex, or, as the case maybe, the same sex. But it will come to you in time.”

Yes, my crusty father, with his bizarre flashes of extreme authoritarianconservatism, told me he’ll support me if I’m gay.

A sigh is just a sigh

2011-08-18T23:15:00.000+05:30

The strangely un-sad yet painfully wistful realization of today.

Sometimes you want to come home to someone.
Sometimes you want to bury your face in a neck and breathe deeply.

Sometimes you want to hear 'Gnight baby, I love you' as you fall asleep.

And if you've never been in a relationship, you don't know how much you can miss it.

So much for posting regularly!

2011-08-17T15:19:00.000+05:30

It *was* a long weekend. And a very social week. Followed by a vilely PMSey Tuesday. Anyway, the Bride has post up about bag so I am following.

I have this lovely orange sling bag that I bought, funnily enough. while visiting the Bride in HK. It's now three and a half years old. The main zip has been replaced. Last week, two more zips died. I gave up and started using another one. It breaks my heart, because I LOVE that bag. It has exactly the right pocket ratio; it slings across my giant expanse; it's seemingly bottomless and yet quite compact; it's waterproof!!! And, did I mention, it's orange??

Anyway, the replacement is boring black faux leather, but more capacious. Visibly so. It's one of those armpit bags that nestles in your armpit and this immobilizes one shoulder.

In it at the mo:

Book. Eight Keys by Suzanne LaFleur. Young adult fiction--nice so far.
Bag hook in its case. (This is a lovely thing that only works if you have a non-sling bag, or at least one that can be made to have a short strap. you put one end of this u-shaped object on a tabletop, and the other hangs below as a hook for your bag! First seen with Spanish Friend, and then late given as birthday present by Scoo's friend.)
Wallet. Red, faux leather, and large. What's in it we shall leave for another post.
Bottle of Moroccan Rose spray.
Sunglasses in their red chinese silk case, acquired on same trip as orange bag.
Case for non-sun glasses--black chinese silk.
iPod
Earphones (okay, technically they're currently spewing Dave Brubeck into my ears off Grooveshark.)
Purple pen, blue gel pen and blue ballpoint pen
Nailfile
Nailcutter
Keys to house
Keys to office things (appropriately on keychain with wooden penguin on it).
Assorted clips of various types and sizes.
Comb (which I use once ever six months or so. Yeah, sue me.)
Dupatta--to keep hair from turning to Puttaparthi Sai Baba and allergies from closing nasal passages. Occasionally to shelter the ladies from the penetrating stares of Delhi's male population.
Pills
Tiny LED torch
Kajal, eyeliner, lipstick, lip pencil, lip balm (I only ever use the lip balm and the kajal. Still, just in case...)
Fan. (Batik and bamboo, from Bali. Saves my LIFE on a regular basis. People start out laughing at me, but an hour later they're begging to sit next to me or to borrow it.)
Cellphone charger.
Empty lunch box.

If I'd done this yesterday, I'd have had my dancing shoes on that list!

Missing today:
Mosquito repellent. Lotion. Hand mirror. Pen drives. Lacto-calamine lotion.

This bag just doesn't have enough pockets! It's so annoying--I miss knowing exactly where to put my hand to find something.

Resurfacing

2011-08-09T09:43:00.000+05:30

The past few weeks I've seen a few arty-type interesting-looking boys toting camera equipment walking busily around our market downstairs. Then, a new storefront, that I can see from the stairs as I hoof it up to the second floor where I work, came into being, freshly painted with this lovely red shutter. I was convinced the two were connected. One day last week, Favourite Colleague (FC) and I were mooching around the front of the office drinking chai, and I saw that the shutter was up, and a very lovely dark wood and glass door was visible.

'Oooo they've opened,' I said. 'I'm dying to find out what they do. I'm so tempted to pootle over and stick my head in and say hi, not to be creepy or anything, but I've been watching you set up and I'm dying to know what you guys do.'
'Well, why don't you?' asked FC.

I didn't have a reply really, so I roped him in and we pootled over. On first peek the inside had what appeared to be some sort of class, with people sitting on the floor around one person, and all their shoes were near the door. We concluded that it was some random class-type thing and nearly didn't go in. Then we decided that no, we should go in, just to ask. It turned out to be a rather interesting photography printing place, (which also turned up on my facebook page yesterday, how spooky is that?) and the interesting looking boys who owned it were photographers! So we had a nice chat and I fangirlishly promised to keep coming back and so on.

Last Monday, at an alcoholic launch, I did the same thing, and ended up befriending a woman who teaches in a college here, another woman who writes on spirituality, and then four girls who do design and suchlike things, and a very pretty English boy who works in publishing.

What makes this remarkable is that I haven not done something like this--make friends with total strangers--since college. I can't say why, but it's a side of me that I thought had sunk into oblivion--for whatever reasons. Since I came to Delhi it's been even harder. But it seems that the Inner Kitteh, as it were, is resurfacing. Rejoice ye all, and hide ya who fear the person who befriends you regardless ;) It is such a great feeling; I feel like I am coming back to life (ugh for the phrasing), and fulfilling all the promise of who I really am.

Before-I-turn-thirty

2011-08-08T16:15:00.000+05:30

Since it's happening next year, and I'm planning great Plans for it, I thought I should make a bucket list. I have done a post along these lines in the past, but this here is the real deal, standing solo and not in comparison to something I wanted at oh twenty-two. (Aw geez was I *ever* that young ;))

Learn to scuba dive
Take photos underwater
Become fluent in one of the following: Hindi, Tamil, Urdu, German or Russian
Take a cruise (monetary circumstances being what they be, methinks this won't happen till thirty-five. But one can hope.)
Bake foccacia and pita bread
Take a road trip. Anywhere. Any length. But you know, a road trip. This might end up being part of the birthday plans, a la Zindagi Milegei Na Dobara (or is it the other way round and this from the Rock On song?)
Settle down. Stop twitching frantically at everything in sight. Seriously, calm the fuck down.

Cheap Thrills

2011-08-08T09:34:00.000+05:30

On Friday, I had something happen that hasn't in a very long time. A boy, whom we shall call Overachiever on account of his, well, overachieving past, picked me up, took me to dinner and then drove me home.

But surely this is hardly an event of note, you might cry, Gentle Reader.

The thing is, it kind of is.

To begin with, my over assertive independence means that I don't usually ask for rides, unless it's really late or totally on someone's way. Second, I don't know a lot of people with cars in Delhi--the only ones have been girls so far. Third, Delhi being the size it is, and my own laziness and poverty being what they are, I'm usually asking people to come to my house and drink cheap whiskey.

Anyway, the thing with this boy is that the last time we hung out, surprising--to me at any rate, since I had no idea he was so inclined--events transpired. Not very many, and since I'm trying to neither talk nor think about this situation (and failing on both counts) I shall stop there. The idea was that we go get drinks and dinner, and since it was late I asked him for a ride home. At which point he said, yeah I'll pick you up too. And thus, there I was, at 8.45pm, running down the stairs from salsa class to jump into a car that was waiting for me downstairs, with the air conditioning running, and smelling of cigarette smoke, driven by a smiling boy in work clothes.

It really took me back back back to before BBot and I were dating, when he did give me the occasional ride, and of course, back to when we were dating, and he always drove me everywhere. Maybe that's why the very fact of being picked up, and then being dropped off, as close as possible to the stairs to my flat, and then running up the stairs after a quick goodbye hug, felt so disproportionately gleeful.

And no, I don't know if it was a date. It could have been one, but only the context of those events.

How to make sure your female friends never introduce you to their hot friends

2011-08-07T10:47:00.000+05:30

I have this friend. He's all of 24, very sweet; one of the nicest people I know. I haven't talked to him in a long time, and when I did today, I told him I've moved and have a new flatmate. Girl or boy? he asks. Girl, I say. Is she hot? he asks.

Why oh why does every straight single guy I know do this?
This being ask me about my friends, right off, in terms of their hotness. I mean, more relevant questions would be is she nice? Is she funny? Is she easy to get along with? But no, apparently the most important thing about my having new flatmate has nothing to do with our interactions, but with the faint possibility that there might, someday, be a chance to tap that.

Wednesday Guy did this too. He was in Bangalore and, while chatting with me about friends there etc, he asked me if I knew any hot chicks in Bangalore. Which was stupid of him, because my immediate reaction was, well, if I did, there's no way I'm introducing you now you shallow pervert, because clearly, all you want is to find hot chicks you can tap, and aren't interested in conversation, company or friendship.

Okay, maybe I'm overreacting a bit, but seriously. What do you think I'm going to say? Yes, these are my hot friends, go and be creepy with them?

Too Independent?

2011-08-03T09:43:00.000+05:30

While moving house this weekend, several people offered to help. One actually did (most kindly, even though she was sick, she drove the thirty kilometres to my house and bullied me into actually packing), but I had declined most offers. When I went to one friend's house for dinner on Saturday, he asked me if I'd manage, since he was one of the people who promised help--but in the way he wanted to, which was coming to oversee the movers in the evening, regardless of the fact that I was moving in the morning--and wasn't going to deliver.

I looked at him and said, of course I'll manage. I always manage; what's your point? I've always moved house by myself. (Except when I was living with dragonfly, when she and her then boy helped. But even then. I just benefited from her presence cos her boy was helping her.)

He looked a bit shocked and said, maybe you're too independent.

It's a lesson I've learned well now: I'd better be able to do it myself because what's the alternative when people let you down? Curl up in a ball and refuse to move? The only people I know will always be there for me, regardless of anything else, the people who I can call at 2am and say please, come and help me pack up my glasses, and they will come, are my parents. And Scoo, of course.

But it made me think about it. I realise that I wasn't quite as cynical about this pre-BBot. (Hee shall I create my version of BCE and CE: BBB and ABB?) I put a lot of pressure on that relationship, maybe because people have let me down in the past, and I somehow thought that a boyfriend wouldn't--surely it's in the job description? I guess some teenage and early-twenties relationship experience would have helped eh?

When I was moving house in 2009--about four and a half months into our relationship--BBot swore he'd dedicate the entire weekend to helping me pack and move. He was buying my couch off me as well, so he'd come and oversee movers for that, etc. My parents asked me if they should keep the weekend free to help, but I blithely told them there was no need; I'd got it--my friends, more importantly, my boyfriend, would help.

The Friday before the move, there was a mad house party. As I've said in the past, BBot didn't make much effort to get to know my friends, especially at that point. I knew that it would end up being like a frat party, with everyone completely smashed and behaving outrageously. I also knew that he would neither indulge in that kind of behaviour nor enjoy watching other people do it. I told him. He insisted on coming anyway. Predictably, he did not have fun. He got increasingly upset as the night went by, and I got increasingly drunk and crazy. We got home, and the next morning he wouldn't look me in the eye or talk to me. I tried very hard to coax out of him what the problem was--I figured he'd felt excluded and rejected and was upset. He yelled at me, telling me that I was crazy. We were all behaving like spoiled college kids. Didn't we realise we were adults and should behave like adults? Grow up! he exhorted me. I was pretty hurt, so I got angry and told him that he was being ridiculously judgemental, and I had told him not to come! He left. I didn't hear from him for two days--the two days he was supposed to be helping me move.

I called my mum and ran home to be fed and cossetted a bit, and she came back with me to help me pack. My dad came with the movers and oversaw them and took the truck back home with all the stuff. I made two trips to my new place with my stuff, and dumped it. Eventually, BBot showed up, with his flatmate, to collect the couch. I was thinking wtf dude? He skulked about and muttered to me how he felt left out and alienated by my friends, and he was sorry he hadn't answered the phone or even called me, but he really did need the space.

That might have been the beginning of the end. We managed to drag it on a while though eh?

The effect this incident had was twofold.

First, that's the first time in my adult life that I had fully put my trust in a guy, and he crashed that plane well. Second, that was the first time I had put all my belief in our relationship and he kinda pooped on it. Especially because he kept saying it was my fault for taking him to that party. I don't think I was ever able to put that much faith in him and his commitment to our relationship ever again, which is why he probably felt he was not man enough for me etc etc.

The thing is, the universe gives women very contradictory signals. On the one hand, you're not supposed to put expectations on people because then you'll be disappointed and it'll be your own fault. On the other hand, women must be frail and delicate and need men. You may say I'm simplifying it, but even if one looks at the middle ground--be self-sufficient, but don't be incapable of asking for help--once you've been let down enough times, regardless of emotional effect, you kind of just get used to doing it on your own because it would never get done otherwise. Also, some sorts of gender-based divisions of labour are hard to incorporate in your life simply because you do live on your own for a long time before there is a man to kill the spiders or change the tyres*. You can't live your life unable to do these things until a guy comes along! And once you're in the habit of doing it yourself, you're in the habit. It's hard to change. The older you get, the harder it gets. Of course, one hopes that the older they get the less men care about this stuff. I'll keep you posted on that.

I do know women, like Dragon, who are totally capable but manage to exude this aw-pore-lil-me thing that has men flocking to drive them places, buy their drinks, carry their bags and help them with this, that and the other. I just can't do it. What you see is what you get. Growing up, Amma taught us to be self-sufficient--always be able to carry your luggage on your own. Learn to change tyres and lightbulbs. Try doing it on your own first!--and so I had to learn to ask for help.And once I did, I found it's harder to deal with help being refused or, worse, promised and then denied, than with just having to take care of yourself. So I can't deny that a large amount of my independence has more to do with fear of those two things than with actually being self-sufficient. Deep inside, I *do* want to be able to sit back and rely on someone. I just don't want to deal with the crashes, or even test a relationship that much.

*Completely random choices; I realise there are many kinds of roles and thingies. substitute whatever works for you.

Unsolicited Advice

2011-08-02T09:26:00.000+05:30

Expanding on the life lessons from before, here's a pithy phrase to keep in mind when you're breaking up with someone.

If it doesn't make you feel better, don't do it.
Regardless of how much better it makes them feel.
Seriously.

You're both going to be bad guys, so don't lie down and be a doormat. Give yourself sympathy. Breakups ARE shitty. That's kind of the unavoidable innate nature of them, and you can't make it happy and sweet and kind. Don't try.

Circumstantial Infertility

2011-08-01T15:40:00.000+05:30

I was at a dinner party at a friend's on Saturday, where someone brought their insanely adorable 18-month-old daughter. Half French and half Mizo, that girl was too much. She was cranky as hell, because it was past her bedtime, but I managed to coax her out of it, and we had so much fun. My friend, the host, who loves kids too, was very miffed that she took to me, because she doesn't like him much. Cheap thrills. He asked me how I was so good with kids? And I said, I dunno, maybe I was born to be a mother?

At this moment, two of my closest friends have kids, Scoo has a kid (aka the Centre of my Universe, or Her Ladyship), and six people I know are going to have em in the next six months.

It's a very strange time for me. I love all these women (well the ones I know well at any rate), and I'm so happy for them. But it also really hurts every so often, because all I have EVER wanted was to have kids, and I haven't the faintest prospect at the moment. I even think that one of the reasons I have don't have a Career is because I don't care enough about anything more than I do about raising a family. Perhaps the cooking ties into this too, and perhaps that's why cooking is something that does inspire me.

Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions about how exhausting and difficult it is or about how much it can swallow you up, emotionally, physically and mentally. I know it's not roses and kittens. But there's something about kids. They love me; I love them. Maybe because I am not at all self-conscious about 'behaving like a child.' When I'm around a kid I have a legit excuse!

Anyway, the Bride pointed me to this lovely piece, where I got the title of this post from. I wish more people would write things like this, so people have to think about what happens between the cracks. And so they stop saying 'Oh you've got tons of time!' There's only as much time as you want there to be before you start feeling it's too late. If feminism is about choice, then what happens to those who choose they want children? All the freedom means someone like me--who might have had an arranged marriage and kids by now in a different time, and been perfectly happy--is wandering around in circles and questioning her sense of self and belonging.

Of course, you could say that I am not circumstantially infertile because I do want to adopt after all. Still, it's not a financially viable option.

I am terrified though, that I'll be her in the end. Maybe I should be a Montessori school teacher, or run a daycare!

Scooped

2011-07-29T14:57:00.000+05:30

I was gonna write a long post about how dating is such shite in India these days (maybe it's Delhi, maybe it's everywhere, maybe it's my age...) but eM scooped me. Still, go read and pretend it was me, so that I'm not violating my new must write rule, even though i don't have internet at home and am moving this weekend...

Fables of Friendship

2011-07-28T11:43:00.000+05:30

(To expand on yesterday's post and this abrupt decision. I warn you though, there might be a lot of angsty person rants on the subject of BBot in days to come.)

While ranting to the Bride about how I love my blog name and I do not want to lose it, etc., she raised the point that, well, it's not really possible to hide the blog from SigOth for ever; also, why would you want to?

I completely agree.
If we break up and you continue to read my blog, you should expect that I might say uncomplimentary things about you.
The problem is that I'm a bit pathetic, and so don't want to inadvertently hurt his feelings (okay DIDN'T want to...now I don't give a flying fuck). I still kept at it though.

However, an unsavoury development occurred.

I've always believed that when you're dating someone, especially when they're officially the girl/boyfriend, it pays to get to know their friends. First, it's highly likely they are people you will like, since you like the SigOth. Second, you will not always force them to choose to make time. Third, and this is the most important one, they can give you insight into the SigOth, and help you when you're in a dilemma and need to know more about this person you've upset, by shedding light on something in the past, or something about their habitual way of expressing themself, that will make it easier for you to reconcile. So I made it a point to befriend all of BBot's friends in Hyd. I'm very glad I did, because it brought me three people who are now exceedingly valuable in my life.

BBot, on the other hand, isn't quite as social as I am, and didn't really try. Even though Dragon, for one, and he are ridiculously similar, he would only bristle when she came to visit, and make no effort at all. Though that's probably my fault for telling him one day, when he'd let me down for the seventh time, that my friends thought he was bad for me because he never put me first. He was a fool, because he'd have gained a great friend, and a lot of insight into me, and maybe our relationship would have survived, because someone ELSE would be telling him he was deliberately misinterpreting everything I said. I might also have not got exhausted at being the chief counsellor and peacemaker for both of us, having to explain to him everything about myself and having to guess everything about him.

Anyway, cut to January 2011, when he was visiting, and all we did on the visit was fight and cry. He'd stal off to the balcony to smoke, with Dragon, and they started bonding. The next time we met, in February, things were as bad between us, if not worse, and he got all the fun and comic relief he wanted from hanging out with her. Which was fine by me, because I was REALLY hoping he was trying to get some insight!

Finally, in March, I gathered the courage to break up with him. He was, understandably, upset. He wanted to stay friends, which I wasn't sure would work, but he was very dear to me, so I said yes. We continued talking as we always had, and he bemoaned the fact that he needed to talk about his breakup. but couldn't talk to me. So when Dragon asked me if I minded if he talked to her, I said no, go ahead; it'll be nice for him. So he'd call me, we'd talk, then he'd call her and they'd talk.

Dragon and I have been close friends through all kinds of shit, her breakup with a common friend, my on and off friendship with OOF, and countless other things. She is fiercely loyal, as am I, and we don't believe in bullshitting each other. There's never an impulse to lie or prevaricate to protect; we agree that ignorance can be the most devastating thing. It's good to know in advance, to have time to prepare for something. Since BBot was going to be our friend, it made sense for her to be there for him, because she understood me, and could give him some solace maybe by explaining to him the parts of me that he never really understood.

The Bride, to whom I will always faithfully listen in the future, told me I was an idiot.

When I came back from the Us in April, I found that BBot wouldn't talk to me straight. It was the verbal equivalent of staring at your feet and scuffing your toe. I asked him point blank: Do you want me to to leave yo alone and stop calling? He said: I'm here if you need me. I said: That doesn't answer my questions; do you want me to step away and give you space? again, he gave me a typical evasive answer: If you want to talk to me I'm always here for you. Irritated, I stopped calling him.

That's when he and Dragon were on the phone for hours every day. Periodically she'd say MinCat, BBot's so funny, look what he said. They'd have little mad posting cycles on Facebook. It really began to get to me. So I asked her to stop.I said look, I'm not comfortable with this. She said: I asked you if it was okay. I said: Yes, I know I said it was okay in the beginning, but I really did think we'd all be friends. He changed the rules of the deal. She said: I'm sorry, but now we've become so close, and I need him as much as he needs me. So I said, okay, fine, just keep it out of my face. Which she did.

But I knew, at that point, that the paradigm, as it were, had shifted. She was not my friend, she was his. Anyway, sparing you the boring details, there were several times when she didn't tell me things because he'd made her promise she'd never tell me anything about him. I found myself unable to trust her or confide in her. She stopped spending time in the house--always with a perfectly good reason.

This contributed hugely to my increasing sense of isolation and loneliness. I was crying all the time, for no reason. I blamed the hormones, which probably did have a large role to play. I went and met my mum in June, and cried in the train when I left, because I couldn't bear the thought of leaving what I felt was the only place where I really did know I came first. I began to wonder if I'd made a terrible mistake in breaking up with BBot, because I missed him so much, and I'd never let myself accept it, or express it. I'd been making space for his hurt, and ignoring mine, punishing myself for hurting him or something ridiculous like that. I never discussed it with our common friends, whether mine or his first, because it would put them in a bad position. They had also developed the annoying habit of persuading me to get back together with him, saying that he was a great guy, and why did I have to be so unyielding, and the like. Finally one day I said, and what, am I a horrible person? Didn't he screw this up a bit even? Did I deserve to never be first, and always be tense and fighting? That shut them up, but it didn't make me feel better.

Last week, the grapevine gave me the news, that later turned out to be incorrect, that he was seeing someone, in Delhi! Hadn't Dragon told me? I as in shock for a while, not because I didn't think he could date other people, but because this person, who'd been my friend for eight years, did nothing to protect me from this shock. When I asked her about it, adding, what if it had been true, sh said there was no way she'd ever even hint to me; it was non-negotiable to their friendship for her to never say a thing to me. I asked her if that wasn't a bit unfair, since we'd been friends so long surely she owed me at least an attempt at protection? No, she said, that's the way it's set up--no talking of me to him or him to me. So I said, okay, that's how you want it to be, so be it.

To me, the fact that someone, who's been the kind of friend we've been for as long as we have, could claim that she was not picking sides, when she befriended my ex AFTER we broke up, means simply that she is, in fact, picking a side. His. There's no question of being in the middle. You're my friend, you're on my side. Yes you can pop across occasionally, but you are on my side. By standing in the middle, you're standing on his side.

Though the thing is, with Dragon, I've been realizing, she's on one side--hers. But not in as evil a way as that statement might imply.

Anyway, it was at that point I realized that what I'd been trying to deny was true--she was not a good friend to me anymore. she isn't in my corner. She'll say caressing things and offer to get up and fetch me water, but she won't actually be there for the things I really need her to be there for anymore. And I really needed to write about it. I am, however, not suing for a divorce, and would be happy to stay friends casually. (Though part of me wants to throw a giant tantrum and tell her to get the fuck out of my life. However, and you'll get another self-indulgent post about that soon enough, I have this annoying need to not make a fuss and let's all just get along shall we?) This meant, simply, that while I don't care if BBot reads that I think he's a puerile, self-centred, self-indulgent moron, I can't really post this kind of stuff. Even though Dragon barely reads the blog, and doesn't comment because she wouldn't want BBot to think she's taking sides, she might take it into her head to pop by. And so we have damelo part 2. literally.

I must say, BBot clearly won this breakup: got all the sympathy, even from me, didn't need to examine himself or his behaviour critically at ALL, and took my best friend with him, when he barely knew her at the time we broke up!

Life lessons

2011-07-27T09:11:00.000+05:30

Funnily enough, I just wrote a post of the same title, on the food blog, in a different vein. However, let us move on to things I have learnt this past week.

Do not share your blog with your boyfriend, no matter HOW much you believe it is for ever or that even if it is not forever, he can be an adult. He can't. He won't.
At the risk of sounding whiny and self-righteous, do not make it a habit to make life easier for other people. Seriously, don't. It will backfire.
Try not to rationalize other people's behaviour to suit your image of who they are to you. Remember to keep it in the back of your head that you've seen them do something you wouldn't want done to you, so that, when it starts happening to you, you can recognize it.

Ta-DA! And we're doe for today. More to follow. Expect invective and vitriol my friends. But possibly also humour and Ideas. Of which I had two in the shower but I can't remember any. Sigh. Maybe #4 should be: Always write things down when they occur to you.

Dormant

2011-07-27T09:04:00.000+05:30

Events have transpired, partially involving the ex who, despite wanting to cut me out of my life, still reads this. At this point in my life, *I* really want to cut *him* out of my life, so the blog is going under. Not much loss eh, not like I'm writing or anything. Still, I don't feel safe here, and haven't for a while, which might be the reason I haven't been writing.

Drop me a line if you want to know when I start writing somewhere else =)

Adoption

2011-06-30T18:40:00.001+05:30

I have always strongly believe that, in this day of overpopulation and scarcity in India, there's no reason to have children. There really is no need to bring a new child into the world. Add to this the pain and trauma of pregnancy, birth and breastfeeding, the fact that there's enough crazy shit in my family to compete with most children put up for adoption, and the fact that I want five kids, and I simply don't see myself ever, you know, getting pregnant and giving birth.

This was a huge bone of contention with BBot. It seems to be a hue deal for most guys that I've met. Granted, women also say things like ohhh but don't you want to have your OWN baby, and be pregnant and feel that BOND, or, when you meet the *right* guy you'll want to have his babies, but men respond on this visceral level that seems immune to logic.

For example, there are women who are infertile, in a way that could possibly be cured with months of hormone treatment, but that treatment is a BITCH. She doesn't want to put herself and her body through that. But guys expect that she should. That's the amazing thing. There is a sense of entitlement to your partner incubating, birthing and feeding your baby,. whether she wants to or not. It's true that most women want to, which is fine, but some, like me, don't. Then what? A man can share all the caring for a baby (cept the breastfeeding, quite is quite traumatic), but he can't share the needing to throw up every second for months, or the peeing, and all the things that can go wrong. So where is the justice in demanding this?

Guys are so fixated on having their own genetic child - evolutionary imperative if you will - that once even told me he'd use a surrogate, but that of course violates the pint about not needing to bring more children into the world.

It helps that in my family, I have an adopted niece whose parents managed to have a son after they adopted her. She is the most captivating thing I have ever seen (barring her Ladyship of course), and her brother...is...um...not captivating. Clearly our genes aren't all that sparkly.

This is how I have felt for at least ten years, and heaven's the arguments I have had about it. People always say, have one adopt the second. It just won't work. One parent will favour one over the other, and while parents always do that, there will be a very real cause of pain here. Then, also, which first? Adopt or birth? Some people say that they can't imagine bonding with a child not their own; some day they can't imagine adopting a child and bonding with it without having gone through the whole pregnancy with it's attached misery - sort of like listen I survived that so I'm bloody well going to get past these first three months of madness!

The weird thing is that, lately, as her Ladyship grows and becomes more and more like me, or so Amma sez, I am seized by the curiosity - will my kid turn out like Scoo? Or will s/he be like her Ladyship? Will s/he be madly scientific like everyone in the family? Will s/he be artistic like Acrosticus and his brother? And so on. For the first time, I might actually be considering having my own child. Spooky.

Lunch Wisdom

2011-06-24T14:37:00.001+05:30

Today, as Favourite Colleague and I were avidly discussing the dearth of decent relationships, we came to this conclusion*:

Average people are bad at relationships and thus must have many to practise, so they can be good at the final one. We, on the other hand, are so good at them that we hafta wait around for the final one.And who do all these people use to practise on? Us of course!

*Please to be taking in spirit in which it is intended: humour.

Keeps me awake at night

2011-06-18T23:05:00.000+05:30

Today, while watching The Proposal (oh hush, it's hilarious, and Ryan Reynolds is SO HOT), it struck me. I finally realised why I'm so scared of being alone.

Nona, my grandmother, was diagnosed with breast cancer recently. She's 87, and has had a long and happy life, besides being chronically asthmatic, so the drama was minimal. She had surgery this morning. She's fine.

But what if she wasn't? Today, the Dragon is here; who will be here tomorrow? Amma? What if Amma is sick? Who is going to help me be strong when my world comes crashing down, if that person is always a parent?

Siblings

2011-06-09T13:01:00.001+05:30

The Bride (of course) has a post up on the whole same sex siblings vs both sex siblings, and I began to respond, only it became so long that you get a whole post!

I have only one sibling, my sister, known to y'all as Scoo. We have not had a supercalifragilistic happy happy joy joy relationship - quite the opposite in fact - but about five years ago we settled into a normal adult sibling relationship. She is, in case you haven't guessed, a girl, like me, hurr hurr. I also have a band of five cousins who are honorary siblings, three boys and two girls. Some are known to you: the Poo, the Snoog and Acrosticus.

Starting with the whole issue of being compared. Hell yeah we were compared! I remember being referred to as Scoo's sister all through school, and having teachers say to me, your sister comes first in class, why can't you? I was once incensed enough to reply: Because I'm not her! Got smacked for that too. My extended family would indulge me and not her, mainly because she was always quiet and reserved, quite to opposite of me. She is also a superachiever. No really. She had her PhD at 26 (about 3 months past actually), and from the school that was number one for the programme she applied to. She was, as previously mentioned, always first in class. She has Head Girl. She went off to only the best college in the country for engineering and sciences. She had an obscene GPA. She only lost 20 points each in both the GRE and the SAT. She never quits anything.

I, on the other hand, am definitely not stupid. I did fine in school, if I wanted to. I remember I didn't want to write a Physics exam so I didn't answer any of the questions. The sports master, whom I had such a crush on, was invigilating and said, hey, come on, revise your paper, don't just sit there till time is up. So I revised, and rewrote the paper, and then got 100. I never had trouble with maths (okay, I'll admit, functions give me the screaming heebie jeebies), or any kind of science; I just never felt engaged enough. I was always hovering around fifth in class; I went to a mediocre college for a year and then dropped out to change to English and go to the country's top college for that. However, English is not a REAL subject in South India, as many kindly people told me, so I should just do a computer course and get married off. Look at my sister! Studying in the US! With full scholarship! Of course I also went on to do that eventually, but you know, some lame thing called Latin American Studies. They speak Latin in America? I thought it was only English.

My cousins are also rather overachievers. Good tambrams the lot of us. Acrosticus also went to the same college as Scoo, also with obscene marks; and got his PhD from India's top university. His brother also did some such madly achieving thing. The thing is, no one made that big a deal out of it in the family. It was never academics that differentiated people in our family, it was socializing, taking and making jokes, getting along with everyone around, and I'm really good at these things. Scoo, not being here much since 1996, is not. So people are different with us, and this made us hate each other for a while.

We never shared clothes, she's tiny next to me, and I don't mean only in terms of weight. We shared books though, and our birthday, and tried to outdo each other with plans. But we also shared those things (well not the birthday) with the Cousin Pack. Mind you, there's lots of my mum's cousins who are part of the pack, seeing as how young they are. We rarely confided in each other, or talked about insecurities - maybe because we felt we'd be exposing underbellies. Even now, there's an element of stiff upper lip old thing about our interactions. I wouldn't call her to cry. No, it's not because she wouldn't help me, but it would just be letting the side down. I'd call Acrosticus though, and he's a boy.

Being younger and far less driven, focussed and motivated, to my parents I am the problem child. I drive em nuts. I never do things unless I really want to or need to. I will not commit to anything and I quit too easily. So I am not spoiled because of her; I don't get relaxed attitudes because they rode out the worry on her; I have a much stricter setup than she does.

Which brings me to the whole what kinda siblings thing. Ideally, I'd have two of each, you know one to bond with of each sex, etc. Seriously though, I don't know if having an older brother would help any more or less than an older sister, and all other combinations. I also don't know if same sex leads to more bonding; it's more like there are more similarities, so more room for connection and friction. I do believe, however, that growing up with someone of the opposite sex around, you learn to be comfy around the opposite sex and treat them just like people. So boys can understand about menstrual cramps, and girls can understand about kicking in the nuts. But mostly, so kids get used to thinking of people as people, regardless of boy or girl ness.

P.S. I do want a boy and two girls though, and maybe one more of each. Hee. Girls so I can teach them to be strong and brave and take no shit from nobody, like Amma taught us, and boys so I can teach them to be strong and brave and treat women right ;)

Passionate about what?

2011-06-08T14:29:00.000+05:30

That is such an overused and rather abused word. Passion. Find your passion. It's a passionate story. Pfft I say. It's the most overused (okay maybe second most after Harlequin, but no one takes Harlqeuin seriously, or at least enough people know that they shouldn't) when it comes tot hings like jobs.

For example, as the Bride said, have I always dreamed of coming to sit in an office and have to repeatedly consult dictionaries and usage manuals about the placement of zs and commas? Does it fill my heart with joy to think of the obnoxious authors who get to spew at me when they want, without the guarantee that someone senior will yell at them for it? (I'm lucky, my Commissioning Editor did, but it's very rare.) Can the need to correct the placement of every apostrophe, with intense consultation with three other people, be a calling? I don't think so. Editing is not very creative. It's not particularly challenging either, because, at the end oft he day, the author calls the shots, and his or her name is on the cover. I can suggest a better way to say something, but they can keep the shite. It pays nothing.

But I wouldn't say I'm unhappy in my job. It know what's expected of me. I know I'll be home and free of work at 530pm. I know I will get vacation when I want it. I know I will have many long and amicable conversations with colleagues on all sorts of stuff, not the least how annoying a particular person is. I also know that if something goes out with *gasp* an inconsistent style, no one will die. No great horrific thing will happen. It doesn't have a lot of room for failure; but it doesn't have a lot of room for success either. Which is fine. I took something I'm good at, and I found a niche where I have the space to work at my pace and indulge in all the other activities I want.

The tiny paycheque does hurt, I will give you that. Maybe I can't travel as much as I'd like, or buy the equipment I'd like, or even think of saving up to open a cafe someday, because I can't save. I'd still rather be here than at the last job, though the work was similar. Do I get excited about the Amitava Ghosh launch? Yes. Do I get livid about said obnoxious author? Yes. But is this my Passion??

The thing is, it's not simply about find your passion and life will be cookies and margaritas. First, what is the passion? Second, what if you never find one? Third, what if you find it but you suck at it? Fourth, what if its one of those things where its practically impossible to keep your head above water, like wildlife photography? Fifth, what if choosing the passion means giving up something else that's important, like having kids? Its never as simple as 'finding your passion'.

Fidelity

2011-06-07T13:14:00.000+05:30

Ambling about teh internets today, I found this. It raised some interesting issues. It also was sad how she tries to very hard to ensure that she's condemning the dude, but that's another story.

Since I've been on this whole dating crusade, the idea of what constitutes fidelity has become a much talked about subject.I get a lot of shock from random strangers and people I know when I say that sex, to me, has nothing to do with fidelity. Sex is, let's be honest, pretty great, but often traumatic. It's a great weapon and an even better recreational activity. But fidelity and commitment are about emotional bonds, and sex need not be tied to emotional bonding at all. I know, for example, that I can have great sex with a person I absolutely know I have no possibility of an emotionally bond with, and mediocre sex with someone I do have a bond with. In fact, life usually gets messy when I have sex with someone I think I could potentially bond with emotionally!

What has always devastated me is someone betraying the emotional bond. Granted, I've only had the one boyfriend, but it's happened. It's happened with friends as well, and, if you cry no fair not the same, it's happened with boys I liked but wasn't dating. Again, not the best examples cos, well, not dating=no commitment, so where's the question of fidelity? So fine, I will spare you the stories, though if you've been here a while, you must have seen them. With BBot, at one time, when we were both new to this thing, and staggering under the weight of our respective life problems, I remember him telling me I couldn't help him feel better, only another girl could. That I think might have been the worst moment of our relationship for me (though it's all still too delicate to poke about and award that prize at the mo), and it took me ten days before I was even able to email him and say wtf??

I could understand if your SigOth didn't understand, or tried and failed to help; but to skip over SigOth completely and turn to someone else, when the problem concerned does not involve the SigOth; that is cheating. It is cheating because it tells me we are not partners, we don't turn to each other first, and then to others fro help, that we are not a team, we are not on the same side, and we don't have each others' backs. And frankly, to me, that's really what a relationship is about - not the sex. If you want to see how it feels to sleep with some girl, go for it. Use a condom, get a check-up, and, if it was really good, tell me about it.

I didn't always think like this, mind you. I remember, when I was dewy-eyed in college, earnestly telling The Dragon that your own definition of fidelity is not the point; you're getting something out of a relationship, which doesn't mean that you promptly cease to find anyone else attractive, but only that you don't act on it. I guess I still think like that, because, at the end of the day, every couple has to work out what it means to them. And, in a relationship, A's definition applies to B, and vice versa. So, dating someone who does believe in sexual fidelity, and doesn't believe in emotional fidelity, means that I would have to be sexually faithful, and he would have to be emotionally faithful.

I imagine it would make life difficult.

The other thing is, I just don't see the POINT of jealousy. It's not that I haven't been jealous, of course I have. But I know that stalking someone and clinging and weeping doesn't make it better. It's one of those things where the switch is inside your own head. If there is something you need from someone else there's very little I can do about it. If you're going to sleep with your ex, I can't stop you. If you're not going to sleep with your ex, my obsessing about it is only going to push you away. So either I can decide to be psycho or I can decide to let it be. I can only give you what I have to offer.

If that's not enough, then we should both find people who match better!

Epitaph

2011-05-18T14:44:00.001+05:30

Chat with the Snoog produced this.

Whatever comes we will make do. It is the lesson of life.
You take what you get and you make what you can; you dream of other ingredients and you hope for different results, but it is what it is at the end, and at the end you made what you made.

Leaving Home

2011-05-18T08:52:00.000+05:30

Regular listeners to MinCat's babble know that I really do believe that home is where I am. When I was in college I used to confuse people endlessly by saying I'm going home, when I meant I'm going to the hostel. It’s an idea that has always appealed to me anyway, and at that time I was so very far from at home while actually at home.

Hyderabad when I was growing up was not the most varied of places, and it current feeling of cosmopolitanism has a lot to do with the huge numbers of people coming in with the ITES boom. I was a freak child, who spoke, read, thought in, listened to music in and watched movies in English. I asked my parents why they wanted me to do things. I was encouraged to think for myself. I was far from conventionally attractive in my teens, if attractive at all, both inside and out. I didn’t really have any friends! My relationship with my parents was very fraught. Small wonder that any place I felt I had more acceptance was easier to think of as home.

College was a great help, and everywhere I’ve been since, including my return to Hyderabad at the pisspot, I have managed to create a home within myself, where I would retreat whenever I needed. Somewhere in 2009, I acquired the most incredible friends in Hyderabad, and sometimes in 2010, my relationship with my parents reached the wonderful place it is at now. I have an extended family, for want of a better word, of friends who cocoon me in love and hatch outrageous plans to prevent me from leaving the bar, and by extension, the city. Amma puts the a/c on for me, and drives me everywhere. Appa doesn’t say a word about late nights. Every moment of the day was subject to my whims. Suddenly, I have a HOME here.

After my short visit home this weekend, I find myself intensely sad, while of course happy to return to my grownup life. I love my job, and that very fact seems to be keeping my head above water at the moment. Don't get me wrong, I am happy in Delhi, despite how difficult I'm finding it to feel community. I have The Drsgon, but she's leaving soon. Despite all my nesting and friend-making in Delhi, I feel like I am, indeed, leaving home, and going somewhere that is not, in fact, home. I seem to have lost that home inside me, or maybe I’ve just lost the optimism that believed I could always find it there. Perhaps, with all this other family-wanting that’s in my head, I feel that I might actually never have any other home, filled with friends and family, than this one with my parents.

Irrational Optimist

2011-05-18T08:50:00.001+05:30

Apologies to Matt Ridley!

There’s a distinct lack of optimism and positive things about this blog these days. I’m sorry. I do think of funny things sometimes, and I do have entertaining moments, but somehow they seem more and more fleeting, despite the steadily-improving level of background stability in my life. Somehow, no matter what is going on in my life, I can’t seem to move very far from the psychedelic elephant in my head.

I have a few other friends who are my age and older, and single. One is a dear friend from college, who, like me, did have a great relationship, but simply could not see the future and broke up with him. Granted, she was 24 at the time, if not younger, but since she is also 29, single and apparently without hope on the horizon, we feel like we are in a similar place.

The one thread that seems to be common to all of us is the disappearance of optimism. Perhaps it is cliché to think of youth as a time of optimism – heck I was so depressed when I was 24 – but I cannot deny that when I was younger, it was easier to believe and believe in people. One made an effort to meet new people, and it didn’t matter too much how they responded. These days I am so reluctant to make the effort, because I simply do not want to waste it unless I can be sure of a positive outcome, that the friendship will be worth it. One friend says he doesn’t even try to meet new people, never mind date them, anymore.

My friend from college says, and I agree, that the problem with trying to date at this point is somehow there have been enough bad experiences to outweigh the good ones, and I don’t even want to flirt anymore because I know, I KNOW, that the guy will not call, or play games, or just be a jerk. (Not saying women don’t so this too.)

KaraokeBoy, at the ripe old age of 23 and a bit, tells me I’m stupid, because everything works out. I’m beginning to think that 23 is the right age to get married, because at 23 you do, actually, in the face of all evidence to the contrary, believe that everything works out. You do believe that you can surmount anything with love. You do believe that people genuinely aren’t just fuckers, and its circumstances that make things turn out the way they do. You do believe in third, fourth, fifth and seven-hundredth chances.

Somehow, I can’t bring myself to believe even I will have a second chance, not just at love, but at a career, or opportunities to do things that excite and fulfill me.

Rage

2011-05-11T10:51:00.000+05:30

It's funny. Not a lot of things make me froth at the mouth (oh hush). Bureaucratic stupidity, general stupidity, selfishness - they bug me like hell, but they don't make my innards twist with ire. Lately, though, I've noticed some things that do.

I stumbled upon the blog of someone I know who lives in New York. (Of course we come back to New York.) I don't particularly like or dislike this girl, and she's married to someone I am very fond of. They lead a highly privileged life - good for them.* The blog is food oriented, mostly restaurant reviews and recipes. She always did love to cook and eat out. It is also, as I find most of these things to be, slightly pretentious, or at least for someone who does not appreciate strange leaves in her food. I read it, and I saw recipes I want to try, and then slowly my tummy began to hurt and I realized that it was twisting in rage. I am so angry. Not with her, not with me, I think mostly with the universe. Why not me, my gut seems to be asking (a variation on the other oft-seen why me theme of this blog).

Maybe it's because I'm still struggling to find community here in Delhi. There's something that might have evoked rage in the past, but only evokes despair these days (ooo I'm getting dramatic!). People are so...L.A. Yeah, that seems like the best word. It is impossible to pin anyone down, and they never can be bothered to make the effort. Not such a big deal you might say, and yes, I do agree, I do have other things to do. I read, I have salsa and tango, I cook - I'm covered. But I do miss people. I just got used to having my friends. I never had in my entire life, until 2009, when suddenly I did. And it would be nice if someone else wanted to see me, made the call, or even showed up when I plan.

The new plan is to not call anyone anymore. I hope it works! There is rage latent in this situation too, because eventually I am going to get very angry with myself, and that implied I will be eating a lot of things I shouldn't and plugging right back into another destructive cycle. Yay me!

But living here does rmeind me of living in New York, when I did these very things - cooking, salsa, tango, wearing coats and sweaters...which makes me mad that it doesn't live up to what I want from it. Or something. Ah I dunno.

*Have I mentioned how much it annoys me that i have to use SPACED HYPHENS instead of unspaced em dashes in blogger? HYPHENS CANNOT BE SPACED my Outer Stickler screams, AT LEAST USE AN EN DASH!!!

The Lord Save Us From Cargoes

2011-05-06T10:19:00.000+05:30

Stop press. Someone tell the men of the world that slouching around in pants too big for you, or cargo pants, with a ratty round-neck t-shirt does not a sartorial statement make. The former can in fact induce hysterical laughter.

Seriously though, I do understand the need to be comfortable, but for the love of god! Dress like a grown up! Put on a shirt! yes! with buttons! and no, I said grownup, not lumberjack!

Foolish modern man does not know the pit-pat that the sight of a man in bootcut jeans and a button down shirt can induce in the female heart. Do you know, that if you actually look like you care about your appearance, you're already halfway to getting laid? cos then I now I won't be smelling nothing funky.Take a shower! Invest in subtle aftershave - don't send me home with half my face smelling like you just cos I hugged you hello three hours ago.

But stop there, don't become one of those men who needs an hour to get ready, and whose hair I cannot tousle because 1. It would mean that I needed industrial solvent to get my hands free of product, or 2. it would cause you to snap because I ruined your hairstyle and now you need another hour to set it right.

The New Normal

2011-05-06T10:12:00.000+05:30

Chatting the The Bride the other day (of course), I found that we were bemoaning the loss of a certain kind of guy, what we'd call normal, but somehow seems to have become rather rare and, as it were, abnormal.

I was telling her how annoying it is that people in general and men in particular have become so discourteous*. I don't mean that one must live by Emily Post, but it is immensely irritating how no one can be bothered to respond to things anymore. Or tell you that they're running late. Or bother to dress well - by which I don't mean suits: merely taking the effort to dress a little spiffy, shoes, a shirt, not cargoes...

Essentially, what with all this trying to be proactive about life and love and meeting new people, I've been talking to several guys my age - mostly online of course. Now, granted that talking online has it's own set of rules rather removed from those around meeting in person. However, when eventually setting up said meeting in person, why must people be discourteous? I'm comparing chiefly the behavior of two guys. Let's call them Normal and New Normal.

NN and I were talking a LOT online and he was always extremely busy, but would make time to talk. Once we broached the subject of meeting in person, he got even flakier with contact, so much so that the day of said meeting came without my hearing from him. He then breathlessly told me how ill and busy he'd been without mentioning our scheduled meeting, and when I brought it up told me we must catch up soon. What a terrible turn of phrase, calculated to piss me off, since it's one of those meaningless things people say in this day and age.

I promptly ignored him for a few days, and that Sunday he called me and invited me to a gig he had, which I accepted with many caveats, because I had to go dancing before. I finally did go there and meet him, and he was rather different from expected and visibly nervous. The nervousness was cute so I thought heh it's fine, let's let the rudeness go. After more silence he reappeared abruptly and we talked a bit and I said hey do you want to hang out again. He said yes, lets get a drink tonight, I'll be done at 9, so I'll call you and if we're both up for it lets go. Of course I haven't heard from him since.

Regular readers will know I have very little patience with the game, and I do honestly think that the initial premise of He's Just Not That Into You is very true. If a guy likes a girl, he goes for it. This I have seen with all my friends, both male and female, barring possibly BBot. So when, at the beginning, he was making time, he was into me, but now he's not, so he's not. Regardless, the part I object to most of all is the rudeness of not responding to people. Would it kill you to send a text/email saying hey sorry it's late I can't make it? Hey, sorry, I'm sick, can we take a rain check? Hey, I'm madly busy so I'm going to go off the radar for a few weeks. It really wouldn't. So then why be lame and not do it?

N, on the other hand, is much older than NN, and extremely courteous. Our rendezvous also had to be postponed, and the minute he found out I got an email saying I'm very sorry, this is when it will likely be, I will let you know as soon as I can confirm. And the thing is, I can believe him. Long before we were due to meet, he picked a date, and then repeated in another email. He worried about the time we set and told me to pick a place close to me so I wouldn't have trouble getting home, adding that he had a car and could drive me, but wouldn't want me to be uncomfortable since I didn't know him.

I'm not demanding chivalry or claiming women need looking after, but it is simply the courtesy inherent in thinking about the complications something could cause another person that I appreciate. Being on time, for example, or letting people know as soon as you know that you're going to be late, is another example. It means that you're thinking, okay, this is going to inconvenience the other person so let me tell them quickly so they can be inconvenienced the least. If I'm going to take forty minutes, I should say forty minutes, not ten. The number of times I've been left standing on the side of the road because someone refused to tell me accurately how long they would take!

*Oh sweet jesus I'm eighty-five aren't I?

Holy Devlin

2011-04-23T23:40:00.000+05:30

Well, it's the Holy weekend as it were, as my dear friend KaraokeBoy explained, it's not happy Easter till Sunday; today is only Holy Saturday. Yesterday was Good Friday, only to me, who spent the day with Katie Melua and Stephanie Plum, and more importantly, Ranger, it was more like Awesome Friday.

I woke up at eleven today, which anyone will tell you is insanely uncharacteristic for me, especially since I went to bed at twelve and woke up once to let the maid in. But, for some reason, I did not want to get out of bed today. I finally did. I squeezed my eyes till they felt less heavy, and I drank some chai and listlessly checked email. Maybe it's delayed jetlag I thought. I scrolled through reader, and talked to a friend about seeing a movie. She declined, so I went and saw it myself. I had lunch in the food court and read Eleven on Top, and giggled to myself hysterically for an hour, before I went in to see the movie and nearly pissed myself laughing.

Then I had a few hours of what the fuck are we doing with our lives with my friend before I headed out to a beeeg gay dance partai. Only, the Poo and Dragon between them, the lazy bums, didn't want to wait till ten thirty when the partai started, so here we are, at eleven thirty, sitting in my living room. And I'm listening to more Katie Melua and writing posts, while Dragon is in her room, chatting with someone, and the Poo is on the divan, reading her book.

Somehow, tonight was a night I could have used a very drunken party, or some serious affirmation. Or both. But ther'es no fun in a reluctant party! So this post is for my friends back home, for KaraokeBoy, and Diepe, and Krum, and DancerBoy, and SingerBoy; for those friends of mine who are always ready to party. I really needed you guys tonight.

Untitled

2011-04-22T21:05:00.003+05:30

A pome wandered into my head today.

It toyed fleetingly with my words and then ran away giggling wildly.
"I've got the wrong address," it said.

Empire State of Mind

2011-04-19T17:12:00.003+05:30

Here I am, back in dear Dilli after a nice whirlwind trip to the US. Much joyous worshipping of the niece (also known as the queen of everything or her Ladyship Wogglesworth Kafka) was exulted in, and a whole new wardrobe was bought. I also managed one night in the city (what do you mean what city? There is only one the city!!!) with a large and rambunctious group of friends. Well maybe it was only me and one other person who were rambunctious, but there were many friends and it was lovely to see them all. Especially the couple who were the other half of BBot’s and my couple couple. Because I never imagined I’d actually get to spend a night out in the city with those dear friends from Hyderabad. Seeing as how I’ve always wanted to transplant everyone I love to the city.

Goodness me I’m rambly today. Blame it on the insane amount of alcohol I have ingested in the past three days.

Anyway, when I was on the plane home, after that wonderful quintessentially New York night (yes, that city), I resolved that I clearly could not get over that city and must therefore try and channel my life towards living there again, perhaps more permanently. I even began to consider the MBA! I have never felt belonging like I do when I’m there. And it's hard to feel like you have no place in your own country.

However, today, as I chatted and ambled my way through my day—full of books and conversation about books, and ranting about translators and commas and the strange new girl—and sat at my desk and peacefully worked my way through 200 pages of proofs, a sense of contentment stole over me. I didn’t even realize it had arrived until, during an oft-repeated discussion with Karaoke Boy where he yells at me for moving and demands that I return since anyway it’s not like I’m making money, I said to him, why would I come back, I’m happy here!

It turns out that I am quite happy in my peaceful ambling job, with restful literary types scattered everywhere, who have long and articulate conversations about anything at all, and expect me to take breaks to read any book I like, and give me the space to execute my clearly defined work at whatever speed and in whatever way I choose, as long as it is executed to their requirements.

It turns out that I have a home here, one that is familiar and welcome; that I missed my armchair, and even though we need to find a maid AGAIN it's delightful to be running my own house again; that I sleep with a smile on my face in my own bed.

Now that is a welcome home present, especially after recent drama.

The P word

2011-04-08T10:28:00.001+05:30

Heavy evangelism alert!

In terms of activism, it's not always possible to do something to help a cause. Take poverty. Not everyone can join an NGO, right? As the Bride said to me, we can support from the outside. But it's drops in the ocean.

Well I think we can do more. We can, for example, all not waste food. Give leftovers to our maids. Pay the auto driver the extra 10 bucks. Not bargain with the subziwala. Once a month, not eat out and give 1000 bucks to an orphanage to feed kids. Or to someone we know will use it well. Because if we sit down and we look at the sheer enormity of this problem, we will have to collapse in terror. No, we cannot eradicate poverty. It is not a disease. It is not finite, just like wealth is not finite.

On the one hand if you think of the entire endemic problem its a terrifying and impossible task; but if you look at one kid getting a meal tonight or a sweater to survive the winter and live another day, it's not so difficult.

Do some charity, and think of all the lives thst are better for it. If you are overwhelmed by the horror of poverty, think about how much worse it would be if it were not for everyone doing their tiny bit. 100,000 drops is a lot. even 1000 drops is almost a glass of water.

It is not possible to eradicate poverty. The way the world functions, the way life is, there will be rich, there will be poor, there will be people saying that the poor deserve to be poor because they always want to fight and drink. There will be studies telling you that children raised in alcoholic households till the age of five can never become functional members of society. I do not think that we have any hope of change unless we return to barter, lose electronics and grow a few more planets. But we can alleviate poverty. We can make some lives better. Step by step. If we all try, then there will be so many less undernourished children in India. Think of the difference it could make.

Who are we to say that without policy change improving the life of one kid is not worth it?

Social Scam

2011-04-08T10:09:00.010+05:30

I get it. Social networking is an amazing thing. It really gives you this feeling of being all plugged into the world and other people, and you find all sorts of interesting things to read about, talk about, think about.

It also brings home the utter imbecility of people sometimes. Tell me, how many lives have you changed or dollars have you raised for a cause by posting a random word that talks about the colour of your bra or your relationship status? Putting a badge on your profile picture might show support for the Indian cricket team (yay we won!) but it won't matter a whit to corrupt politicians. Go ahead and use facebook to sign petitions supporting Anna Hazare's fast unto death.* Let's just see how much difference it actually makes.

This is what drives me nuts. I will guarantee that fifty percent of the people who are signing petitions on facebook and making their status messages reflect this thing aren't even registered to vote, regularly pay off cops for traffic fines, rarely every stand in line and deal with the government to get stuff done, or even know the laws of the country enough to know when they should or should not stand up to a shady customs officer.

Bottom line: It is against the law to bribe a cop instead of pay your fine. So if you can break the law, why cant A S Raja?

Seriously people, sitting around and complaining will do nothing. We can't just expect someone to wave a magic wand and change everything from the top. We are all people who say we know other things and better systems. But we are unwilling to take the responsibility to do anything about it. No, we want to get the jobs and make the money and then bitch at the government. If all of you care so much about corruption, go to law school, join the IAS, do something for the reform of the judiciary and the administration.

I am not saying that it is a good thing. I am not saying it is ok that the system is so fucked up. But we cannot lie here under the blankie and say that it's not our problem to fix it. Not while we're whining about how it is a problem in the first place! How is it going to work for someone to fast to have a law passed that cannot be enforced?

Sit down and do the math. (I know I should, but I'm too lazy. Volunteers?) We are talking about 1.2 billion people. Divide that by resources and amenities, and see what people get. Find out how many people pay and how much it comes out to. See how much money there eventually is per capita. I will bet you it's less than any of those wonderful place where all these 'work.'

If you really want to fight corruption in India, take some simple steps. Find out what the law is. Find out what the fines are. Ask for receipts, copies, acknowledgments, names. Make a noise. You'll be surprised what a difference it makes.

Edit: lovely article by Nitin Pai.
Edit: And another one by someone else.

*Another post, another post...

Reveal ten impossible things after dinner

2011-04-08T08:38:00.000+05:30

And, if you're in India, believe em before breakfast!

I've started dabbling in okc again, which is great, cos i'd forgotten how much fun it is. Somewhere along the way I began to play my usual, come on then tell me ten random things about you. In the process, here are twelve random things about me.

I cook by nose! I can test salt by my nose!
Nature is wonderful. This is why I like wildlife holidays, theres something so serene and wonderful about lying in the middle of the forest at 2pm, listening to the wind the grass and the leaves, and knowing you absolutely have to do nothing at all. Ah kanha how I love you
I love all sorts of music, I only object to it if its too loud or jars too much so yeah that means no hard rock concerts.
I am a grammar nazi. I have an outer stickler bad spelling and grammar make me physically twitch. Though I do make typos a lot heh.
I love writing in theory, somehow I never get around to it. You guys know this! I'm not sure I'm very good but people tell me I am so I can't be bad =) I hope.
I think life was lovely when I was a child but I also think it was quite terrifying in ways that I have forgotten as I grew to adulthood. I think I even wrote a post about it at some point!
I am turning thirty in a year and a half and I'm psyched about it! My twenties have not been..er...ideal. and lets not even start with my teens. I'm quite happy to get on with life and FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT!
I am always in a hurry to find out what happens next, so I'm sometimes amazed I manage to finish books at all heh. my grandma cheats and reads the end first. I have been tempted.
There is some innate obsession I have with order and chronology in me that won't let me jump to the end of the book. Funnily enough, I LOVE achronological stories!
I'm okay with myself...I love the person I am...but my self image would be better if I were thinner. Though I suppose I could move to latin america where they appreciate my ass.
I love letters. writing and receiving them, though in this day and age I settle for lonnng emails.
I love india but I'm not sure I'd want to live here always. Which is the exact opposite of many people I know. Heck, most people I know.

Life is a Rollercoaster

2011-04-06T03:40:00.000+05:30

Yes yes cliche. Forgive me.

I had a long chat with Scoo today, about life and purpose and so on. In the past few months I've written dozens of posts in my head around the theme but never had the balls to put em out in writing because fuck that's so scary I can't even begin to deal with it unless I don't look at it.

Anyway, here I am, nearly thirty and quite happy about it. But here I am, nearly thirty and extremely directionless. And I'm terrified. I really am. I know its supposed to be exhilarating and exciting to not know where you are going. The books and the movies and the married and settled people never cease to tell us so. But it terrifies me.

It terrifies me that for the past three years I have been trying so very hard to acquire focus, a goal, SOMETHING to make me feel like my life is more than an endless string of weekends and summer jobs strung together pretending to be a grown-up life.

Is it merely a question of being too lazy to go for what I really want? I don't know, but I do know that I don't know what I really want to do with my life, beyond things like open a cafe and raise a family.

And now, I'm having that panic attack I've been trying to avoid.

Life experiment

2011-03-30T09:35:00.001+05:30

After I decided to break up with BBot, for complicated reasons, of course, I decided I need to be proactive about this whole wanting to get married and have kids thing. I called in the big guns, the village tom toms as it were - my parents. Only they are clueless at this whole arranged/introduced marriage thing, so we decided it was time for me to get ona a matrimonial website. Yes, really.

Now I did this once before, while in the US, and it was quite the fail. For one thing, not a single person I would conceivably date ever noticed me or responded to me. I really wonder what people are thinking when they try to date someone who is so wildly different from them, and it is patently obvious. I agree that I'm a sob about expression and articulation, reading, and a certain level of awareness of the world. But even making allowances for that, there were people who barely spoke English, had no education and worked as technicians on oil rigs in Muscat who would approach me. How could they possibly think that this would work? So I went off it.

Now, three years, or more, later, I'm back on it. This time, Amma, Appa and Scoo were all consulted, with Appa giving me inputs on my profile and whatnot, and the whole operation has begun. I figured I could try and write about it. Then I realized that a blog quite so public might not be the best idea. Granted, not many people read it but it can be found quite easily. So those posts are going up on a password protected blog, email me if you’d like to read.

2011-03-27T13:51:00.000+05:30

I've noticed, over the past few months, that I'm just getting bitchier. It's really not cool. I've always been sassy, and happy about it; you know, one of those people who tease other people and give smartass responses to things. But somewhere along the way I've become just plain mean. It' like i crossed over from protecting myself by not caring what other people say, to not caring what I say about to other people!

I was trying to figure out why, or where it comes from. BBot says it started in July, and Dragon agrees. The current theory is that my stress level ramped up insanely because I didn't get my scholarship, and a lot was riding on it for me. I was also hating living at home again, feeling like I lost my independence, and that my life was, again, heading nowhere fast.

Granted, these are all excellent reasons to be stressed and upset, and I deeply appreciate all the people who put up with me all this time, but, first, even if it were okay to do that, the stress is gone now, so wtf; and, second, it is not okay to do that!

It's a very strange phenomenon of human nature that we all tend to behave the worst with the people we love the most. Granted, the logic of them understanding best does hold true, but sometimes I think that very acceptance is a very good reason to refrain from treating people we love like punching bags. It's a fine line between venting and taking someone for granted. Often the recipients of the nastiness know what it is and refrain from mentioning it, but then slowly the mean person stops noticing when they're doing it.

Anyway, since I had to go and wash a ridiculous number of dishes right now, my train of thought has left me far behind, so I shall leave it here. Thoughts?

Friends and Lovers*

2011-03-23T08:32:00.003+05:30

So yesterday, a discussion came up on the subject of men who abandon their friends after marriage. (Coinkydink, the Bride has a post up on the subject too.) I have seen this happen many times, where a guy has these friends he is close to, and then he meets a girl and poof it's like the friends don't exist. And I'm not talking about teenagers here. There's two reasons this happens, I think. First, the girl doesn't let him, either directly or indirectly, or, alternatively, the guy doesn't need any other kind of companionship once he finds the girl.

I might not go all the way like the people at the Bride's party and say that it's all the girl's fault, but I can see how there are women who can control their men like that. I personally know one case where the guy was not allowed to see his friends anymore cos the girl didn't like them, and heaven knows how many cases of the guy not bothering to see his friends anymore cos he has all-in-one in the girl. I also know one case of the girl dropping all her friends when she got married, though she did come back eventually.

When I've called people on this kind of dumping, they often deny that there has been a dumping at all, and sometimes plead new life, new things to deal with etc. With the kind of adjustment required from an Indian woman in a marriage, I can understand why the woman might lose touch, though I still don't think it's ok. With guys, however, I've also seen that they generally don't keep in touch. I've had many guy friends, who've known each other for years, only keep in touch because I am in touch with both of them and can pass messages along.

Which makes me wonder if it is something to do with the innate styles of interaction men and women have, Though I guess it could be the innate styles of interaction I and my friends have. I find that, even though generally people are less inclined to keep in touch because they can keep tabs from a distance in today's world, there are some kinds of people who do respond, even if only to say ACK IM FLOODED WITH WORK! That, however, is talking about people not in the same city, though sometimes in the same city.

Sometimes people marry** people who don't necessarily fit in with their friends. I know someone who has all these super intellectual type friends and well, it would be hard for someone to be comfy around them unless they came from a similar background, partly because the friends don't make an effort to make newcomers feel comfortable. My own friends can be terrifying to any guy I date, simply cos we've been so close for so long, heaven knows what intimate details they know, and well they're fiercely protective of me, and therefore highly suspicious of all guys. Sometimes one side or the other won't make the effort. Sometimes people are nervous of letting a partner see the side of them that is filthy-mouthed and endlessly ribbed.

I have a friend who is quite the partymaniac. He can be horrendously inappropriate, and so we are all equally inappropriate around him. He suddenly had an arranged marriage, to all our shock, and then he started to bring his wife out with us. She's very nice, but rather quiet, and not the drinking partying kind like us. But he brought her every single time, he stuck to her side like glue, and made sure we all tried really hard to make her comfortable. Eventually she told him it was great but please could she just spend her weeknights at home, so now he comes out without her. But that's a pretty awesome situation right there. Both of them made an effort and then they found a mutually acceptable solution.

What happens though, when you don't like or can't like your partner's friends? I guess you could do separate things, but then you run the very real danger of eventually leading separate lives. I somehow think that whatever the situation, it really pays off if you make an effort. I gained some fantastic friends by working really hard to hang out with BBot's friends, and somehow, these days he time with my friends back home, while I languish in Delhi! Win-win.

But, back to the original issue, does one person make the other stop seeing their friends? I think it happens a lot. Sometimes because the women is demanding, sometimes because the man is demanding and doesn't want her to have a life without him (often a guy will go out without his wife, but the reverse can't happen), sometimes because people get caught up in their new lives, sometimes because they are trying really hard to fit in with their partner's lives, and sometimes because they just can't be bothered to make an effort now that they have to make an effort in their relationship. Whatever the cause, I think it's unfair to blame the partner, male or female, because at the end of the day it is the person who decided they will cut their friends. It only takes 5 minutes to send a long email these days.

*with due apologies to D.H. Lawrence, though, now I come to think of it, maybe he owes the universe an apology =D
** let us assume when I say marry it's shot for marry/date/engage in serious relationship with

Edit: I just realised that, when I was in college, we had a gang of two girls, the Dragon and me, and two guys, OOF and Chica. Chica and I were friends, OOF and Chica were friends, and the Dragon and OOF were friends, and we all came together because the two boys were friends. And here we stand, 9 years later, with the two girls friends (living together) ad the two boys not having talked in years. Though, to be fair, there was a nasty breakup in there.

Libya

2011-03-21T09:47:00.000+05:30

This is just not a good month for the world, no?

Off the cuff, this is what is annoying me about the terrible situation in Libya:

USAmericans worrying not about successfully saving the innocent civilians of Libya, who are already being sodomized by their ruler, but about how USAmerican forces are not "taking the lead."
Again I ask, for the eleven millionth time, who died and made 'the West' god? When has an intervention resulted in anything good for anyone?
When are we going to disband that most pointless of organizations, the United Nations? Keep the UNICEF etc, but please, stop pretending that they care about the general welfare and security of countries that are not Western Europe or the USA.
Dithering! Why did they dither so much? Why not help when help was useful? Like when the rebels had control of most of the important bits of the country? Gaddafi has the oil now.
The inability of all these people to decide on one single way to spell the man's name!!!!!! (this one most I think.)

Holi weekend

2011-03-21T09:39:00.001+05:30

This weekend I went to the Sultanpur Bird Sanctuary, outside Gurgaon. It was such a beautiful place I wish I had discovered it before winter died! I acquired 561 photos, a tan and two new friends. Not bad, eh?

What struck me a lot is that we saw so many trees shedding their leaves - it was like the fall colours, just no red or orange, only yellow. At one point we could see a whole copse, and it was patches of yellow and green, much like upstate New York. This morning, on the way to work, I saw that again - the trees carpeting the ground with yellow leaves. Seeing as how yesterday was Holi (India's worst festival, especially in the north), which signals the beginning of summer (late signal this year my friends!), I was wondering if, since our deciduous trees need to shed leaves in the summer to survive, aestivate if you will, if this was out Fall. (Sorry, long sentence.)

Which made me wonder if this is why Holi is the festival of colour: cos with the advent of summer the trees change colour. All the legends explain various things, often unrelated to what one actually DOES on Holi, but none seem to talk about the colour thing. So I went to our dear ol friend wikipedia (cos one useless person is holing my Devdutt PAtnaik hostage), and found a story of a Bengali festival of celebrating Krishna and love and covering idols and devotees with Abir, or red coloured powder.

This whole where does Holi come from thing is very interesting. Everyone has a different story. The Hindustan Times Brunch weekend magazine had three; one of which was about an ogress who, like many baddies in India mythology, prayed to the god who gave her invincibility as a boon. She then proceeded to terrorize the people of the local village.* However, she was immune to verbal abuse apparently, so one day the village boys got drunk and started screaming abuse at her and ran her out of town with drums. Apparently this is why boys are supposed to get drunk and rowdy on Holi. The most believable theory if you ask me.

Then there's the one about Kamadeva, who is supposed to awaken Shiva from penance to impregnate Parvati so she can give birth to Kartikeya who can kill some asura. (Yes, really. Let's not go there shall we?). Course Shiva is all pissed off because he'd rather meditate in ashes than you know winkawonka his gorgeous wife, so he open his third eye (what about that symbolism? another post eh), and burns Kamadeva to death. Then Parvati is all pleeeease resuscitate him and so he does, as a spirit, which makes love all permeable and so he then "consummates" with Parvati and the world is saved. Isn't it amazing how the survival of the universe depends on one man's orgasm? God I'm going to get trolls for this post... Anyway, I simply cannot see how this is related in any way to Holi as it is celebrated - the bonfires, the colours, the getting stoned.

The third one is Holika, sister of Hiranyakashap, who, of course, prayed to the gods and was granted the boon of no one being able to kill him, and so he turns into psychotic tyrant and demands to be worshipped as god. His son, however, is all no, I'm sticking with Vishnu. Several attempts to kill him fail, so finally he's stuck in a bonfire. Enter Holika. Now the way I've heard it told is that she was overwhelmed by Prahalada, the son, and wants to save him, so she tells her brother that she will go into the fire and hold him down, because she, also having prayed to the gods, ahem, had the boon of not burning in fire. Then, once inside the fire, she prays to Visnhu and transfers the boon to Prahalda, and then died. Thus the fire. Yesterday I found out that there are many versions, most of which make her evil chickie! She has a shawl that keeps her safe from burning but Vishnu becomes a wind and blows it onto Prahalada, saving him. She didn't know the fine print said the power could only protect her if she was alone. She didn't read the fine print that said it would protect her only if she didn't harm someone, etc.

Right, I don't think I have a point anymore, except maybe I don't like Holi and none of the legends explain why it is so annoying? Though why a legend should make me okay with it I don't know!

Mutual breakups

2011-03-18T11:57:00.000+05:30

Is there such a thing? I just wonder, can there ever be a breakup where you both think it has to happen, and you can actually stay friends? When neither of you is dissolving in tears on a regular basis?

Recent experience seems to indicate not. I guess, just as the love in any relationship cannot be equal, the non love can't be either. One person wants to break up. One doesn't want to break up.

So what then?

Having been the recipient of a lot of breakups, and I don't mean just romantic relationships, I always said I'd never be on the other side of the fence. And yet, here I stand. Ready to call it quits, with my heart twisting in pain as I see what that does to him, patently aware that we stand at different moments in time. Oldest Friend says it's like that, the breakuper has closure. Or is closer to it at any rate.

Whatever the reason, I am very confused. I don't see what to do here.

On the one hand I don't want to give up, I want to try harder, what if all it needs is a little more time? I don't want to be the person who breaks this thing that brought us so much joy. But somehow the joy is gone, and not just for me. Though in all fairness maybe his joy is gone cos mine is. Why did it happen? Did I make it happen by overanalysing everything and putting too much pressure on it? Did he make it happen by shutting me out? Was it just bad timing in the universe that my full lau and his didn't overlap enough?

The scariest question: What if I never ever meet someone like him again? Someone who just gets me? Like no boy unrelated to me ever has? How many intelligent articulate funny loving boys are there who are willing to put up with persnickety, crotchety, obnoxious, loud, fat me?

And what do I do when all we have these days is the occasional spike of guarded happy in an endless ocean of tense and unhappy? I don't want to put this on me. But I also don't think it's going to get any better. I think if it doesn't happen now then he'll really hate me and I'll really hate him, and we could never be friends again. And I can't lose that hope. Even if I know it's in vain.

Distance

2011-03-18T11:53:00.001+05:30

You know, when I think about my childhood, when Amma was off travelling in the wilds of India, and the only way we used to keep in touch was letters, I am amazed at how easy it is to stay in touch today.

This was a time before cellphones, heck it was before STD booths! We wrote her letters at various PWD rest houses, that she'd go and pick up once in a while. The inlands she wrote us would turn up to great excitement. I remember writing to my cousin, and scribbling in tiny letters on every spare millimetre of the inland. I remember receiving letters as recently as 2000, when I was in college. I have a big box of them somewhere, all the letters my friends wrote to me when they left for college. IT took time and effort to communicate, and we did it.

Today, however, its as easy as blinking, and we don't! Maybe it's because today you can keep general tabs on everyone and everything, while back then if you wanted to know how someone was you had to call them or write to them and hope they would reply. Now, you just scroll through the status updates on your facebook feed!

I'm not saying it's a bad thing, and I'm not sitting here and bemoaning the loss of letter-writing - though I do miss it.

I think it's amazing that I can watch my niece scoot around the floor and climb onto things, and wave at her and see her wave back, and listen to her babbling madly. I love that I can see a new photo of her every week, in fabulous quality. But sometimes I think that it makes it worse. Sometimes, when I look at that wicked grin and that soft hair, I want to reach out and touch it. It kinds brings home to me that my niece is so far away, and I don't know when I'll get to hold her in my arms, or be bitten by her, or sniff the top of her head like a crack addict.

All this shrinking sometimes only emphasizes the size of the original distance.

Ok desperation

2011-03-14T12:56:00.000+05:30

For some reason I always feel silly about what I think I want to post. I toyed with returning to woke-up-brushed-teeth-had-a-poo type writing, but then the Bride started this, and, seeing as how she's my inspiration (cure corny song), I decided to hop on the wagon.

But now she tells me, as I'm writing, that it's a monetizing thing. Sigh.

Ok help me, both of you. Leave me questions and I'll try and answer?

Hello 2011

2011-01-04T12:44:00.000+05:30

What am I going to tell you 2010 MinCat?

The most amazing thing will happen to you - your niece. She will bring so much joy and delight into your life. She will completely turn your plans upside down. She will make you get off your ample arse and work to a goal. She will make you cry on a plane for the very first time in your life.

You will travel a LOT. To really cool places: Arunachal PRadesh and Assam (2011 MinCat, go back there!), Binsar, Kanha, and Mudumalai, and Tadoba. To really fun places: Berkeley, Washington DC, New York, Dallas, Bar Harbor. Keep going my love.

Absolutely nothing will be stable at all. You will quit your job, and find another one ind exasperation, that will drive you to exasperation as well. You won't be going to Spain. I'm sorry. It will make you feel like shit, but it will really help you in your relationship with your parents.

You'll cross the 1 year mark with BBot! It will be hard and you'll nearly break up twice at least. There will be one major fight a month, more or less, and a lot of tears. There will also be the feeling of being so special, so vital, so wonderful. There will be much support and even more love, there will be many evenings of crazy fun.

You will find that gang you've been hunting for your entire life. Yeah, and it will be awesome! These are people who go with you wherever you want, talk to you, laugh with you, eat your food and fill your life with happiness. You will also leave them behind.

You will walk away from all that security and love, and you will move to Delhi to another kind of security and love. You will live with Misha, and your house will be beautiful and even close to that house, you know the one you're going to have someday.

You will flounder and thrash and cry because nothing is working. I wish I could tell you it will pass, but I don't know yet. (Any feedback 2012 MinCat?)

What does 2010 MinCat say to 2011 MinCat?
Face up to it, you want to lose weight, you want to get married, and you want kids. And you are the only one who can make it all happen. No, life is not going to just work out. You need to focus. So do it. And marvel at what can happen once you do.
P.S. I found you a theme song.

Exciting nooz!

2010-10-20T14:28:00.000+05:30

Shameless plugging here, I have an article published in an actual magazine!

Mailed em!

2010-10-12T10:17:00.002+05:30

Ladies! Yes, all four of you. I mailed your post card yesterday =)
I am astounded at how expensive it is to mail postcards! hee.

Kiddies in public

2010-10-06T17:31:00.001+05:30

I love me the kiddies. People who know the Person Behind the Kitteh know that I have longed for years to have children, and that my brain short circuits around my niece and nephew. I love all kiddies, needing no genetic bond to adore and worship them. But mother of god why are they so badly brought up these days?

This article got me off my butt to post.

I have to say, I agree with the man. For you lazy people, it's about a restaurant that says leave if your kids misbehave. Notice it doesn't ban kids; it doesn't say no kids on planes or modes of transport; it just says if you don't teach your child to behave in public then keep it at home. I heartily agree.

When I was growing up, if I ever brushed against a grownup in the pool, I'd splutter and beg forgiveness for interrupting their swim. When I went on trips, I was never ever allowed to put my shoes on the berth or scream IWANTIWANTIWANT to my parents. If we went to a movie and I got scared or upset, one parent would swiftly extricate me from the cinema and we wouldn't go back inside. It was a high honour to go out to eat and my french fries would disappear if I behaved badly. Oh I did throw tantrums, but in the car on the way home.

Which is why, today, when a kid pours water on my head on the train, or has a screaming tantrum in a restaurant because he wants dessert NOW, and howls through a movie, I want to SMACK the parents and be like, yo! I get it! It sucks BALLS that you can't go out and have a nice fun life for now, and you totally DO need to get out. It terrible that you have no kindly friends and or relative who will/can babysit. But you knew all this, and you had the baby. And you know, good for you. And you brought the kid out, awesome. I love kids. But dude, if your kid doesn't recognize the You're in trouble voice, then you should take him/her home for some training. Really. Cos if you can't/won't do it, I'm gonna have to.

Snailr Project (or I am quite stupid)

2010-09-29T22:38:00.002+05:30

So there's this blogger. Heaven knows how or why I found her blog, but thank the google demons for it. Her name is Anna Pickard, she's English and lives in San Francisco, and introduced me to Nightlife at the California Academy of Sciences, and it is my one greatest regret that I never had the courage to say umcanwemeetforadrinkmaybeheeI'mnotacreepystalkerIswear!

Why? This, for one. And this for another. That actually caused some extremely painful problems for my consultant friends stuck in boring meetings.

Anyway, I did manage to establish email contact with her, and when she launched this Snailr Project of course I was begging for a postcard. I mean snail mail AND trains!!! It has been a lifelong ambition of mine to take trains across the USA. Then I got one! A postcard, not a train. Or an ambition. I leapt and whirled about the house with joy, and Appa said er why do strange women you meet online keep sending you postcards? I searched and searched and SEARCHED for a scanner...and never found one. Guilt mounted, because well other people were posting their cards! Then last night I realised, I could just um take a photo of it...

That, in case you were wondering, is the front. And this is the back.

If you click you will definitely be able to read it. Also, Anna, I LOVE how you wrote my name! And your handwriting.

It's postcard number 4, and got here pretty darn quick! For those of you who can't/won't click,the text is this:
We have our first lunch on the train! In a formal, outdated routine, we're directed to make a Reservation as the dining steward passes through the train. At the appointed hour we go to the dining car and are seated opposite complete strangers. They don't introduce themselves by name, so we don't either. They're, we think, in their mid-70s, originally from New Jersey, now Southern California. She's short, and short of temper, and short-sighted. And short with the waitress. He is gentle, and determined. He has Alzheimer's/ At one point we all spend 10 minutes trying to help him find the words "Christmas tree."

Anna, I love you even more now that you hyphenate short-sighted.

Tidbit

2010-09-08T12:54:00.000+05:30

Frantically putting the finishing touches to my Spanish course I'm proofreading and the like. This means I notice that of the two verbs "to be" in Spanish, it is ser (permanent/intrinsic) that is used for bachelor and spinster hood, while estar (temporary, transient) is used to say married.

Of course this might be because the words married, divorced and separated are all participles and estar is used with participles, but it's more fun to wonder if this reflects an attitude to life. Heh.

One liner. Okay, two sentencer.

2010-09-08T10:23:00.004+05:30

I just love how, when Appa signs off an email responding to me on the family emailing list he signs it Appa/(his name).

I also love how, when he used to write us letters when he lived in Indonesia, he would sign them "Rgds" or "Affly."

Ack ack ack fat rant alert

2010-09-06T11:39:00.000+05:30

So looking for stuff online I bumped into this. The photos are lovely. Really they are. But what bothers me about it is these women are supposed to be overweight. REALLY??? Okay one of them could classify as plump, but if any of them is larger than a size 12 I'll fall over laughing.

What is the matter with us?

Pisspot

2010-09-04T14:41:00.000+05:30

Where I did my MA, there's a reason I used to call it the pisspot. A miniscule institute perched on the edge of the university, with a total of maybe 200 students in its MA, MPhil and PhD programs. People crammed three to a room in the hostels, teachers who did whatever they wanted and called it a course, without actually you know planning it or having any external evaluation of it, or looking at how to make a holistic program out of the business.

I remember in my first month, we had a strike! how exciting it was. We all lined up with posters in front of the admin building, we shouted slogans and giggled a lot and gasp ditched class. There wasn't room in the hostels, food in the mess or electricity.

Seven years later I go back. It now offers undergraduate courses and has been converted into a university proper. A central university with funding and everything. Now there are over 1000 students crammed into that same campus. The hostels have been "rebuilt" and "expanded," but people are now living three to a room. The lines are an hour long and there's no food at the end of the line. The students had a strike, almost a regular event now, and the acting vice chancellor refused to meet them. Well I hear he tried to wriggle out of a meeting he had agreed to. So they gheraoed him. And the professors in their indignant fury had a meeting. Shall we expel them? This disrespect for the dignity of their professors is unacceptable.

To you I say sir, or madam, what about the dignity of the student? What happened to the dignity of the human being? According to Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

Everyone has the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of himself and of his family, including food, clothing, housing and medical care and necessary social services...

Is your dignity as a professor more important than your responsibility, as a professor and a part of civil society, to uphold the UDHR? Is your dignity as a professor more important than your duty as a professor to wish to impart and nurture knowledge, to which end your students should have managed to get a good night's sleep, take a shower, and put some food in their tummies before they get to class?

It makes me sick.

So much is so wrong with the way we look at education in this country (and the rest of the world, but right now my life is involved very deeply in this country and education), and that spills over into everything else. I'm not even touching the subject of school education. That's a whole parallel universe of worms.

Literacy is defined as being able to read and write your own name. Then guess what, I'm literate in every language that uses the Roman script.

Qualifying to teach a language at the university level means you can spout a lot of facts about the literature written in that language. You don't have to know the meaning of the word "predicate" but you can pass the NET exam and teach English in a university. Because, you know, being able to write a critical essay on Chaucer is immensely important to teaching modern English for daily usage to non speakers.

The point of going to college is to get the degree that is currently in fashion, not to actually learn to think. Because B.Tech or MBA on your CV will get you that BPO job where you work nights and make money.

Learning a language is a waste of time - putting one in the syllabus at your institute is merely a nod in the direction of the "trends" in favour of communication and international relations. So you can't be expected to actually pay for it. And the more people you can cram into a class the better, surely a student doesn't need more than three minutes of teach attention in a week! Also, why on earth would you need to know what a demonstrative pronoun is? It's not like you need to know the difference between subtraction and division to get an equation right.

Nobody cares. There are so many of us. Everyone wants an education. Everyone kills themselves saving up so their kids can go to engineering college. Those kids come out and they can't engineer anything to save their lives. But hey, they have the stamp. And they are the perfect little drones to perform all the pointless repetitive tasks that the outsourcing industry needs to get done. Should one of them wake up and rebel, out it goes, there's a hundred more dying to take its spot. That's exactly how we look at higher education. Never mind there's a hundred more where that one came from.

I want to scream at them. STOP IT. DON'T pin your life to this. Don't do it. Do not rush headlong into that furrow and dig yourself into it so deep you die there.

I, who am a vociferous and venom-spitting critic of "cultural studies;" I who woke up one morning in the middle of my MA litt and said FUCK woman, could you BE doing something more worthless; I sit here today and I think, well, it may be self serving and annoying; it may be a bubble, and it may lead to nothing much, but at least the humanities teach you to think. The humanities are the only discipline in India where you can look at your professor in your first year and say, no, I disagree, and be fairly confident you're not going to be failed. And they are the only place where you have a hope of being taught to life you head up, look around and go hmmm lemme try going the way the teacher said not to. (I'm talking about first year Bachelor's degree here.)

Ok I don't know where I was going with this anymore. Heh. I got distracted by an I-used-to-be-fat article, and of course three more posts mushroomed in my head. Here's hoping they see the light of day.

You never believe it’ll happen to you until it does.

2010-09-04T02:28:00.003+05:30

Growing up, I never thought I’d be one of those girls. You know, with parents that wait up for them, and don’t let them out. With parents who make snide remarks that consistently undermine them. You know, with parents who don’t let them go out with their friends, parents who gently and persistently erode their lives until they don’t know if they're living in reality or a soap opera. One of those girls who’s always lying to her parents about where she is, who she’s with. One of those girls that will make her friends cousin pretend to be someone he isn’t so that her father will be a normal human being.

But apparently, I am one of those girls. “Oh! You’re going out carousing again” “Ha ha ha you’ll be up all night and lazy lie abed you’re going to sleep till 8.” Carousing – do you even know what that word means Amma? Do you? Because if that’s what you think you raised your daughter to do, then well you might as well a madam in a brothel no? And lazy lie abed? When is the last time a twenty-eight year old woke up at 730 because you would want her not – not because she slept early. Not because she had to be at work. Not because of anything. Except the fact that it makes a difference to YOU. You who can’t appreciate one damn thing about her. You who spend all you energy and time and insinuation telling her she’s not good enough, she’s failed. You who are hypocritical enough to say, be whoever you want to be, just the whoever we want you to be.

And me? I’m lying down taking the kind of behavior I’d be furious of my friends put up with, my mother and father would be furious of my friends put up with, my mother and father would give their own friends hell for for inflicting on their children. Can I support myself? Yes. Do I have savings? Yes. Do I have to live in your house? No. Do I have to live by your rules? No. Do I choose to? Yes. Why? Because, whatever it is, I am the child that is HERE. I may not ever have done anything the way you wanted, I might be the eternal disappointment, and if I’m not you sure do a helluva good job convincing me otherwise, but I’m HERE. I’m HERE. Under your roof. You can SEE every drink I have, every friend I see. You know what time I wake up. No, I'm not doing you any favours. But hey guess what, neither are you.

But because it’s not in your language, you cannot see the work I do. You cannot see the value I can bring to lives. No, not just in terms of my work. You cannot see the people who are GLAD that I’m their lives, the people who say I DON’T CARE HOW FARFETCHED IT IS, YOU ARE FUCKING AWESOME YOU WILL DO IT SO WELL. And when you are forced to see them, you can dismiss them because they’re your stupid child’s stupid friends. And she really did fuck up with one friend so of course she has no judgment.

Why do I care? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because you always told me I could do anything I could be anyone. That there are no rules about how someone should be or should act. That if I fulfill my responsibilities to other people, what I do otherwise is all mine. That being social is GOOD. That having conversations and interactions is GOOD. That I'm actually BEING a responsible contributing adult. Maybe you need to have a failure child. Maybe you need to see what it's like to have that.

I just wish I could turn it off. Like I have so blithely told people in the past, parents are your past. However much you love them, they are your past. You are your own future. But when it's you, your parents, the people whom you think gave you that feeling that you are superwoman you can do anything...it's not that easy to walk away. And god KNOWS I have tried. Emails. Conversations. Being the adult. Adapting to them. Now I'm done. You're the grown ups, right? Especially if I'm the fuckedup child.

Sometimes I just want to be the kid you know. That one. The one they love. The one they believe in. The one that they support.

Not the one they always question. Not the one they always doubt. Not the one who's always defending herself at the age of twenty-eight for doing things her older sister did at the age of FIFTEEN. The one whose presence is acknowledged and appreciated. The one who gets an "Aw you woke up early to spend time with me" not a "Good afternoon its 8am you lazy bum."

But I think I have FINALLY accepted that I'll never be that child. That child already exists. They don't need another one. Thank god I have a decent relationship with that child who can do no wrong, despite all the history. I'll never be good enough. Ah what a cliche. Now to grow a pair and accept it.

So you know what Amma and Appa? I love you. I respect you. I drive kilometers every week to spend time with you. I lose hours of sleep every day to conform to how you think I should be. And you cannot even begin to acknowledge it. Well now, you're getting her. That rebellious fractious obnoxious child. That one who doesn't care what you say. That one who does what she wants and parties like a crazy person. That one who wakes up at 3pm and makes unreasonable demands. Cos fuck, if I'm paying the price I might as well enjoy the product no?

I'm done being a grown up only to be treated like a child. Let's see how you like actually getting what you think you've got.

Rereading the old blog

2010-08-06T21:15:00.000+05:30

A lot. Don't ask. I find all these interesting things I want to return to, 6 years later. Y'all might remember the thirteen post I put up a while ago. I've tried to write those posts often, but well, hasn't happened. But the rereading at least pushed me to think about these things again!

So, thirteen songs against which I had no defences, back in 2005.

Thirteen songs I have no defences against. When I hear them I have no hope of not being whipped across the temporal-spatial continuum. For future ref, none of these lists is comprehensive or static. Just the first 13 in each category.

Always – Bon Jovi. I associate it with a time in my life and the people who populated it, and it yanks me back there with a physical painful jerk. Yeah now it makes me snigger. And exaggeratedly sing along, with actions.
Trouble – Coldplay. I could be walking on the road in the blazing noon sun, but in my head I’m in a cold, dark, and empty place of peace. Now it feels more like sorrow than peace.
Lightning Crashes – Live. I’m sitting on the floor of the lil room in Misha’s house, its dark and Chica is playing the guitar over the noise of the cooler. You know, I don't think I've heard it in forever. Maybe cos Chica, who played it, is gone and wants no part of my life, and OOF, who sang it is gone and I want no part of his life. It's a nice enough song though...
Love me for a Reason – Boyzone. [Stop sniggering you lot! Like Mr. Sumner sez, don’t judge me, you could be me in another life, another set of circumstances.] I’m in the backseat of the car, being driven home from French class, just going round the Public Gardens roundabout. It’s dark and the a/c is on cold. This memory seems to have been completely wiped. Thought I guess I should play it first eh.
Every Rose has its Thorn – Poison. In Scoo’s altima, cruising down the 5 in the carpool lane and belting out the lyrics at 90mph. Yup, still got this one. I guess family stays forever eh.
Pal – KK. On the steps of the shops opposite Mata Gulab Devi College Girls’ Hostel, like a buncha shady characters, Ships in her orange white and black shawl, me in my black shawl, on a Delhi November evening. Ahhh released this one too. In fact I find the song a bit whiny these days.
Horse with no Name – America. On the floor of Aleya’s drawing room, nicely tipsy, watching Debayan and Chica do their synchronized head-bob with tongues sticking out. This one also stays...
Jhanjariya – I have NO clue. This one time my cousin Ajay visited and proceeded to launch into it when someone demanded a fast number. Also erased, maybe cos said cousin doth not inspire the fondest feelings these days...
Baar Baar dekho – Rafi (?). Waltzing round the living room – aged about 9 I think – with my sister and my cousin, playing the “guitar” on badminton rackets. Nope don't have this anymore either.
Hero – Enrique Iglesias. Crooning along with Adit while trying to control hysterical giggles. This one stays.
Yaron – KK. At Bhongir. Chillin. Ohhh yeah this one's gone too. Woo.
Cotton-eyed Joe – Who knows??? Standing in the door of my sister’s bedroom in Marredpally, and watching my adorable 1 and a half year old (?) nieces boogie. Hee. Now I imagine Her Ladyship of Wogglesworth boogie-ing to it.
Twist and Shout – The Beatles. Room in HMI guest house in Manali, asking my sister and cousin [who is wearing a green jacket, you remember tad?] wot on EARTH that guy was saying. Got this one too.

I toyed with writing a list of songs that move me now, but yeah it ain't the same. Though Angel by DMB makes me purr cos (puke buckets ready ladies), it's my BBot's ringtone. i.e. what plays when he calls me ;)

Grateful

2010-08-05T16:10:00.000+05:30

Last night, and this morning, I sat next to BBot and watched him nearly rip his hair out in sheer frustration and boredom, because he was "on a call" with self-important idiots in the US, had nothing to say, has nothing to gain from listening, and yet had to spend hours glued to the phone. I said, "Hah, welcome to my life in corporate whoredom." At that moment I realized that I am now free. And whatever the worries that plague me right now about the choices I have made, or the viability of the path I have chosen, or my own ability to be different and stand by never going back to the Brothel, or any equivalent, I know that I made the right choice.

Snail mail

2010-08-03T08:49:00.003+05:30

Recently I received a much abused post card whose ink had mostly been washed off by I hope the monsoon rains. It was from Broom, and was a part of one of her month resolutions to mail a postcard every day.

While cleaning out the endless crannies in my room. I found a huge stack of postcards I bought on various trips, mostly to Europe, in the vain hope that I would gaze upon them fondly when on my couch I lie in vacant or in pensive mood. Hah. Fat chance. Forgot they blooming exist!

So, anyone wants a postcard in the mail? Subjects are:

Flamenco
Spain (Salamanca, Valencia, and random posters of bullfights and flamenco peformances, and two demanding equal rights and the right to smoke in the workplace.)
The Beatles
One funny one about the characteristics of people in the EU
Prints of various Turner, Goya and obscure impressionist paintings
Print of Blake's "Newton"

If you want one, email me with postal address and preference, if any.

P.S. Editing to add something of which Mungi's comment reminded me. My grandmother has always sent us inlands, I have one for almost every week I was in college. She even used to send aerograms to my sister in the oosa. Now she writes em out on bits of paper and resident grandchild emails it. However, she caused no small sensation on the small island of Bar Harbor when the Poo was a recipient of a REAL letter from a REAL person with a REAL intention.

OCD

2010-08-02T20:52:00.004+05:30

Everyone has their slight tinge of OCD, right? Whether it's someone wanting everything done their way, or needing minions all the time, or not being able to step on cracks or washing hands and never eating food that's fallen down...er... you get my drift. This evening, as I refolded all the clothes the maid had folded, including the towels, whose only crime was that they were inside out as it were, and I could see the label tucked into the hem, I thought I should make a list of mine.

OCD

Folding things just right. Shirts and top half things in thirds, evenly, so that they are as small as possible, and then doubled or trebled depending on length. Pants folded with the butt on the outside and the crotch pulled out as far as possible, and then reshaped to fit regular shape. It takes me about 10 minutes to fold a salwar, and I'm usually scared of patialas. Square/rectangular things with corners and edges matching up perfectly, and if they're warped, then the outside must not show anything uneven!
Getting every last faint feeling of dirt or oil off the vessels on the outside and bottom as well as the inside.
Putting off lights and fans and switches when I'm not using them. OR someone else has temporarily left the room.
Noting down page numbers of books left open facedown, and then closing them with a muttered curse for person who left them so.
On a related note, smoothing out all dog-ears in a book before I read it.
Needing everything in a system. Even if I think up the system after 95% of chaos has been included, I will spend hours fixing it and then halfway through come up with something new and start over. To wit, the music debacle.
Things must be angled. Appa and I have clashed over this many times, because in his universe things must be perfectly aligned and at right angles. Good thing my room is a hexagon!
Rinsing dishes out before leaving them in the sink, and preferably soaking them also.
Homogeneity in my mouthfuls - every mouthful must have the same proportion of all components. One reason why I love one dish meals, and eating with my hands.
Spotless counter before bed. Wiped down with cleaner and all. And scrubbing the sink after doing the dishes to get the lil bits of food stuck to the sides off.
How my chai is made first thing in the morning: Measure 3/4ths of a large mug of water, pour into pan, put on fire, add milk to just the right colour, put in one spoon of Society tea leaves, and leave on sim till it comes to a boil. Turn up till it almost boils over and off and pour out onto sugar that was put into the wet mug and has half dissolved already. Edit: The Mungi is the only person to ever have managed to make it just right. For which we love her. And that's why we managed to survive a year living together ;)

Not OCD:

Eating off the floor. Really, if it's not sticky and wet and I dropped it, I'll pick it right up and eat it. This one gives BBot the heebie jeebies.
Daily baths. TMI people? Hee. You want this blog to revive it won't be pretty ;) As long as it averages out to about 365 a year it's all good.
Making my bed. I got into the habit while in college of hopping out of bed and making it immediately, and changing the sheets every week like clockwork. Not so much anymore. If I DO make it though, it has to be perfect...with a king bedspread on a double bed, lengthwise, and the top tucked under the pillows and the extra hanging off equally on every side, and NOTHING touching the floor. While off the bed the spread spends all its life in a bundle on the floor, but details...

People who know me in real life, any contributions?

PS: I'm dedicating this one to BBot, who, over the past year, quietly and uncomplainingly adopted 3, 4 and 8, and panders to 11 by letting me make my own chai, and 2 by letting me wash the dishes. Though maybe some of that has to do with my needing chai long before he's awake, and him disliking my standing behind him muttering as he does the dishes and then not surreptitiously feeling all of them and redoing them...

Traffic, the talking continues

2010-07-30T09:53:00.001+05:30

Responding to The Bride's comment, I realised I might as well write a new post.

Bribes, here is my problem: the point of fines is to punish people for contravening a social contract, and act as a deterrent from making those violations. By this definition, yes it doesn't matter.

I'm letting my objection to violating said social contract stay out of this.

The other thing with fines is, they are a source of income, along with taxes, which many people evade in India. Those fines end up paying for flyovers, repairing potholes, building pavements, buying buses, etc. Granted, with corruption etc possibly half that money reaches its destination, if not less. Again, set aside the problems with corruption and suchlike. To have the kind of infrastructure one wants from a city, to have an MTR, you need the fines to go to the government, because the more that goes in, the more that eventually makes it way to the destination.

That's why I always pay fines.

They went through this period where they were writing down the license numbers of cars who ran traffic lights, parked illegally etc. But of course we were all bothered by this because frankly what's to stop someone from just making up a number or randomly picking numbers to have a quota filled? Camera surveillance is the best option there. But cameras are expensive to install at traffic intersections etc, and don't work for parking violations and so on. They did install a few here and there, but they hit upon the simple yet brilliant solution of giving the cops digital cameras. So one is now treated to the sight of a policeman slowly walking down the street in a measured way, taking a photograph of every car that's violating parking regulations. Some time later said person will receive a complicated legal letter that allows him/her, among other things, the option of compounding the offence* by paying the fine. Hilarious, no? But effective.

They also have them at major intersections with a lot of violations in a particular direction. By them I mean the skinny cop with his trusty digital camera, taking pictures of people running lights, etc. I've often wondered if I could just take a few myself of people driving the wrong way, making illegal u-turns on the flyovers, etc., and submit them. The next step maybe? Perhaps if Chandrababu Naidu was around with his e-obsession.

One thing that worries Appa occasionally is how, if you promptly pay the fine, you seem to get more. Of course they have photographic evidence of the violation, but there are about 5 people committing it at the same time as you, so do they send you the ticket because they know you'll pay? While I agree that if you've committed a violation you should indeed pay, the trouble is that half the time it's extremely difficult to know you're committing one. Many of the major traffic lights in our side of town are off most of the time, with a policeman directing traffic. Often there's one directing even when the light IS on, and if the cop is waving you through to run the light, can they then ticket you for it? There are lots of these weird lights on T-junctions, where the people going along the top of the T shouldn't have to stop, but the light will be red, and if you DO stop a cop will furiously wave you on...so which of those lights are supposed to be obeyed and which aren't?

Etc.

*Yup, compounding. I did a few double takes myself, and though wait they DON'T want me to pay? But BBot explained to me that there's a complicated and clearly archaic nomenclature in place that defines offences are compoundable and non-compoundable, where compoundable offences can be adjudicated by the police inspector/superintendent and can be settled by pootling down to the station and paying your fine. Non-compoundable ones have to go to court.

Traffic. No, really, this is RIDICULOUS!

2010-07-29T19:01:00.004+05:30

This morning, driving to work at a more normal hour than my usual 1pm, I found myself stuck in traffic. Insane traffic. I travelled all of half a kilometre in 40 minutes. Really. Mind you, this wasn't technically rush hour, it was past rush hour - 1030am. Granted, it rained and everything falls apart when it rains, but for heaven's sake! All that road widening and we're still stuck in traffic as bad as it was when they were building the flyovers...

Anyway, there I was, sitting in standing traffic, unable to read my book, and cursed with racing the engine since Roxy's new trick is to protest stop and go traffic by dying if left in neutral after about half an hour. Once I finished swearing in six languages, I began to think of solutions.

The first one that came to mind was the good old, odd numbers on M, W, F and evens on T, T, S. anyone on Sunday. That's a little hard to implement, as is anything in Hyderabad, because well who's going to catch the people breaking the rule and fine them and not let them get away with a bribe? These solutions only work in internally panopticonised* worlds, and India is definitely not one of them.

Then I remembered those glorious two days when the call centre cabs were on strike. The roads were empty. I tried desultorily to google information on this, but I couldn't find any (BBot, DiscoDancer, volunteering?) so I'm going to say one third to half of the four wheelers on the roads in Hyderabad are owned by companies who provide transport to the multinationals who have their BPOS in the city, and spend their days transporting copious quantities of call centre workers to and from various points. These guys are hellions, and commit on average one traffic violation every ten minutes. How about if we averaged that to about two an hour and totted up the amount of money the city should be getting in fines, and imposed it as a tax on either the companies who run the cabs, or the ones who use them?

Half of that money could go STRAIGHT into upping the salaries of traffic policemen. That would give them some incentive to not accept bribes. One quarter could go into snipers who shoot tranquilizer darts at every two wheeler that commits a violation. Said driver will wake up bound and gagged somewhere on the outskirts of the city. Ok, ok, I'm kidding. Though I think we could also apply the average violation tax to two wheelers and autos... So, one quarter could go into infrastructure - drains, maintaining the roads, building pavements etc. The rest should go into building an overhead light rail metro.

Eventually, buses should become free, and taxes on other vehicles should be enough to run the public transport system.

Of course, eventually, global warming will end, as will war.

Till such time, I think I'm going to telecommute.

P.S. I forgot, if they banned municipal vehicles and staff on the arterial roads between 6am and 11pm it would help a lot. The pyschokiller garbage trucks are terrible, the street cleaning trucks are terrifying and nothing is scarier than making a turn to have to screech to a halt cos there's a little old lady in a visibility "vest" wielding hr broom.

*I actually think this is fascinating. I alway thought the idea came from Foucault, but I think I might be mistaken. However, I think that this Panopticon has been so neatly internalised in Western society that one would never dream of doing something wrong even if there were no witnesses, because we each have our personal prison supervisor in our heads. This is also why, of course, the honour system works, and cheaters have so much to win.

ARGH!

2010-07-29T16:06:00.001+05:30

Two news items in today's Hindu have provoked much argh, though one more than the other.

I caught sight of an article putting Sachin Tendulkar and Shah Rukh Khan in the same boat as being intrinsic to Indian culture. Now, I'm not arguing with the importance of film to pop culture in India (and surely they refer to pop cultura, not that I'm dissing pop culture either), but even to such a cricket non-enthusiast as me the idea of putting them on the same platform is a titch ridiculous. I can't stand SRK, but putting that aside, the man has some talent and a REALLY good sales pitch. He knows how to read the audience and give them exactly what they want. And let's not forget the PR. Sachin, on the other hand, is mindbogglingly talented and has honed that talent to such blistering skill that it leaves me fair gasping - and I don't even LIKE cricket! Subject them, I say, to the radio test. If we had no TV and only radio, would SRK be as much as a celebrity as he is? Would Sachin?

***

The second item was a heartbreaking piece on the planned and apparently now confirmed reintroduction of cheetahs into central India. The horror.

Now, any sort of environmental conservation effort should be viewed optimistically, because we are a country with limited resources and far more pressing demands, like poverty and education and so on. However, it pays to turn the occasional jaundiced eye on our efforts. There was the wonderful idea of reforesting Karnataka with eucalyptus, which isn't native, doesn't really provide much protection from erosion, and drains the groundwater so much that remaining native vegetation dies. That was stopped, mercifully.

The latest brilliant idea is this cheetah one. I'll leave the dissection of Mr. Jairam Ramesh's masterful articulation of WHY this needs to be done for later. Has it not occurred to anyone anywhere that reintroducing a powerful predator that was on the decline for several years before it finally gave up the ghost into regions that have now evolved without it might upset things a bit?

Secondly, why the North African cheetah? If you're going to spend Rs. 300 crore on a project, how about investing in some breeding pairs and trying to do something in captivity before introducing a similar yes distinct subspecies into the wild? Or maybe even do it parallel? Existing wildlife sanctuaries in India struggle terribly with poaching, and less dramatically, the spilling over of humans and livestock into sanctuary areas and of protected species into buffer areas. Why not use that Rs. 300 crore to rehabilitate people and establish a more enduring system of reserves? From what I can tell, Kanha is one of the few that succeeds and even they see some serious trouble with poachers.
(Feel free to yell at me if I'm talking through my hat.)

And now, of course, we come to the gem that emerges from the sainted lips of His Pompousness Mr. Ramesh:

“It is important to bring cheetah back to our country. This is perhaps the only mammal whose name has been derived from Sanskrit language. It comes from the word chitraku which means spots. The way tiger restores forest ecosystem, snow leopard restores mountain ecosystem, Gangetic dolphin restores waters in the rivers, the cheetah will restore grasslands of the country.”

I'm not going into the epileptic fit that grammar induced in me, and am going to lay the blame, probably rightly, at The Hindu's door. But really? We must bring the chetah back because it's name comes from Sanskrit? REALLY? THAT'S what we should base our conservation efforts on?

L is for the Way you Look at Me

2010-07-28T22:17:00.000+05:30

Ah supersize me. I have realised I need a pretty girl to attract men who will then be exposed to stunning by my stunning personality.

Written a long long time ago, back in 2006 I think, I never finished this post. But I still think it's true. BBot, before you freak out, I'm not on the lookout =)

But. I've noticed that, whether male or female, if one is not conventionally attractive, it helps to have a hot friend who attracts tons of attention and then you can get the leftovers. Only, it doesn't work for girls. By which I mean that if I end up in a conversation with a non-hot boy whose hot friend got my attention, then I'm quite likely to forget the hot friend if we connect. Never seen it happen that way to a guy.

I LOVE the transparent idea

2010-07-28T19:24:00.003+05:30

in bloggers new templates, but I don't appreciate being forced to use their images. For now I had to choose between two. This is option one, and highly appropriate too. What say?

Edit: Yay, fixed it! Apparently all you need to do is go into your dashboard, scroll to the bottom and select blogger in draft under tools. You can keep the draft dashboard by checking the box on top once it reloads. Then, in the Template Designer, you can upload a photo. The size requirements are complicated, so go to Imgur and upload and resize as ye wish. Download the resized photo and then delete it from imgur.

Could it be that air travel in the US got a titch better?

2010-07-21T13:10:00.000+05:30

Pardon any racism I seem to emanate, it's not intentional.

Boarding my flight to Duffai, I noticed that somehow security chec doesn't suck so much anymore. Maybe it's cos we've gotten SO good at the stack belongings, pop out computer, remove belt and shoes, display liquids and shuffle in an insanely slow line. Maybe cos the TSA is nicer. No, wait, hear me out.

The TSA has changed so much! From being formidable and downright hostile white people we have come to the point where Sergio, the nice latino man who checked our passports today, and knows how to say hi, how are you in many languages, who chatted blithely with me, the Indian family in front of me, and smiled at every single person who passed him. He even told me to take care and have a good flight – and sounded like he meant it! It's funny to see the very large proportion of TSA employees who are now black, hispanic, or somehow people of colour – and by extension generally nicer, younger and far friendlier than in the past.

Cruising at 30,000 feet

2010-07-21T13:07:00.001+05:30

and this is all I do. An attempt to restart this blog. Bride, you want to send me tons of tags?

It's official. MinCat is a Bollywood whorejunkie. I'm sitting in a plane en route to Dubai and I'm wondering why the FUCK I didn't get around to watching Wake Up Sid while it was in theatres. Granted, I didn't know Konkona was in it, but even her stellar acting aside (oh man, I was just blown away in that scene when she's dripping form the water he's thrown all over her and he hugs her), it's such a fabulous movie.

Perhaps it my adoration has something to do with it being shortened for a plane; or perhaps something to do with being an aspiring photographer, and being reminded heavily of college in Delhi (boasting alert, where I did work on a play with Konkona who was my senior and a total sweetie); or maybe I was just insanely amused by how immensely obnoxious Rahul Khanna's character is, having met several people who patronise other people for their tastes – whatever the cause I feel like I'm watching a movie tailor-made for me. I laughed. I swore. I giggled. I sniffled. I even cried a bit – though that might have more to do with leaving the beloved niece than the movie itself. Granted, there's no way she could afford that flat or to furnish it without a job; and hahah let's not even approach the seamless ease with which she jobs was found and passed on to him; but I think many people I know could identify with that life. I guess what I'm trying to say is that I have never had a movie-watching experience that simple incorporated me into itself so comprehensively. I worry that nothing else will satisfy on this flight now.

Edit: no, nothing did.

Yes abandonment has happened

2010-07-02T10:24:00.001+05:30

Or, as we'd say in my family, the blog has been ABONDENED.* But The Bride has shaken me out my stupor to put up this list.

First off, in terms of the larger aspects of stereotyping and questioning it, and speaking for a gender etc goes, The Bride and Broom have said it all for me, and I' too lazy to rearticulate what has already been done so well, so go read my disclaimers on their blogs before you ruffle any feathers.

My manly traits:

Loud slapping laugh and filthy disgusting mind. Always making dirty jokes and sniggering at double entendres.
I burp, I fart: I have bodily processes and I'm proud of it.
Always carry my own stuff - luggage, shopping, whatever.
Open doors for girls; put my arm along the back of the seat; drop them at their doors when it's late; generally look out for them.
I can drink. A lot. I have yet to meet the man who can out drink me.
*If* I carry a child and give birth to it, I want it to have my surname - much along the lines of The Bride. But, since I plan to adopt it shouldn't be an issue.
I swear like a truck driver. A Haryanvi truck driver. Though often enough it's in Spanish.
I'm very loud and er physically expressive. I will smack and punch and shove etc.
I hate shopping. This might have something to do with how difficult it is to find clothes that work for me, but even in Target and Old Navy, I like to come in with a purpose, and get out in 30 minutes or less.

My womanly traits:

I LOVELOVELOVE to cook. Yeah I know, whoda thought it what with the food blog and all.
I LOVELOVELOVE to keep house. Set it up, decorate, tidy, clean, grocery shop, etc.
I LOVE kids. And mostly, they love me. As my father puts it, MinCat holds a strange fascination for those who are below the height of a dining table.
I love romcoms. Seriously, if it's not Bollywood, animated, a romcom or in Spanish, I won't watch it.
I'm very touchy-feely. This is extension of 8 of course, only in this direction it's girly. Hey don't ask me, I don't make the rules!
Porn bores me. Really. It's not gross, or anything more than yawn inducing.
I have always wanted to marry and have kids and run a house. I don't think I am incomplete without it, any more or less than someone who wants to be an astronaut but isn't is incomplete. I have considered running a guest house or bed and breakfast.
I'm terribly social. I get along with everyone and have lovely pointless Stepford conversations.
I'm always mothering people and worrying about them and trying to fix their lives.
I love dressing up. It's just hard to find the right clothes sometimes. hee.

*This is reference to all the dilapidated railway buildings one sees, with the word abandoned stencilled on them. except it was often abondoned. or abondened.

Mah Momma is teh BESTEST

2010-04-30T10:09:00.001+05:30

Today is the day my mother retires from 22 years of service at one central government institute. I don't know how many years she was at the one before that, and consequently how many years she's been with the central government in total. Anyway, as the only family representative in town I've been going to her various farewell parties. Sitting there, and listening to all the uncles and aunties talk about her, how long they've known her, the things she's done, etc, I almost burst with pride.

To begin, how many of us can even assimilate the idea of working with the SAME people for twenty-two years? The mind boggles. We congratulate ourselves for surviving 22 months. Or at least, I do. The sense of community and camaraderie that comes from working with the same people for that long is something else. For me, removed by one degree from these people, my memory of the past 22 years is peppered with stories about them - melting solder on one uncle's desk, drawing trees on someone else's blackboard, begging for computer paper to scribble on from a third, and so on. I remember antakshari sessions, and practising Hindi, being quiet because Amma's boss was in his room, going to flag hoisting at least once a year, demanding egg biryani from the canteen, going to Numaish with Amma's friends, and heaven know what else. For Amma, who's gone on field trips running into multiple months with these people, and has spent a significant part of every day of her life all these years with them, it must be something else entirely.

What I take away most though, is just how special a person Amma is. On the basis of science, and marking sites and setting instruments all over rural India, she has reached out to people of every imaginable type and forged these strong bonds of friendship that have reached out and embraced us as well. Her first boss was saying last night, that he remembers the first time she went to the field, they were nervous, because she was the first woman to do this kind of work (a fact she's always forgotten to mention), and the first night she didn't turn up at camp they were panicking so much. She turned up at 9, indignant at the questioning of where she was, and dismissed all the worrying and fears. She then went on to take care of all of them in the field he said. One story he told is, for me, representative of who my mother is. In the wilds of Gujarat, in her flannel shirt and jeans, burnt black by the sun, at a time when letters and occasionally telegrams were the only way to communicate, and they took their sweet time getting there, she's sitting in a jeep, with all the drivers, helping them write letters home.

That's my mother: comfortable with anyone, always reaching out to people who are generally at the fringes, careless of appearance and stereotypes. She has the largest, most generous heart of anyone I know, and its door is always open. She's blunt, brutally tactless, very far from emotional or gooey, but the immense strength of her affection will show itself in the letters she'll help you write, or the wife she'll take to hospital. I have never known anyone quite like her, who gets along effortlessly with anyone, from anywhere, in any language, of any age, and at any time. She has that rare and valuable ability to put people at ease instantly, and inspire loyalty and admiration that know no bounds. Half my own friends have adopted her - and come to visit for HER birthday. She is ready to take anything on, and her interests and abilities are so varied that I get a little tired out just thinking of them! She refuses to entertain the idea that women are weaker or less than men, and in a decidedly non-feminist, non ideological way. I cannot remember a time that we have waited for my dad, or not done something because there was no male presence. It was only later when in college I encountered feminism that I realised that Amma is that rare thing, a non-feminist feminist! She believes that anyone can do anything, if they want to hard enough. And she planted that belief in ourselves in both me and my sister - something for which I am so grateful.

Today, I sit here and think about this brave, intelligent, hilarious, generous woman, without whose presence my life would be so very boring and dull; to whom I have to talk at least once a day, if not three times when I don't live at home; without visiting whom I'm grumpy all week; for whom I'll wake up at 6am and blearily exercise; and I am very grateful to have been blessed with her as my mother. I think that if I can ever be half the person she is, my life will have been well spent.

I love you Amma, way to go!

Mahiatus

2010-03-29T14:30:00.000+05:30

Well. I was sick and then travelling so needed small book, and while sick started on Banker's Ramayana, so the Mahabharata's been on the back burner. However, tonight will resume.

Book Reviews: Guns, Germs and Steel

2010-03-29T14:22:00.000+05:30

I quite like Jared Diamond; I'm fascinated by evolution and evolutionary history; and when I started this book in a friend's house in Delhi, I almost wept when I had to put it down.

Cut to last week, when I finally resumed the book. The first part, where he talks of food production and its connection to development, is fascinating, especially when he first introduces it. He does a great job, taking small steps and leading the reader every step of the way. I loved how he explained the development of writing, the development of disease and it's connection with animal domestication. I was tickled by the chapter names.

But then he goes and explains everything again. In the same chapter. And then once more for good luck. And ends with a summary at the end of the chapter. I felt like I was meant to be a retarded 15 year old. Which is not a nice feeling when I'm reading an interesting non-fiction book.

Ashamedly I must admit I didn't finish it. Yesterday, in the afternoon, something snapped. I AM NOT A RETARDED FIFTEEN YEAR OLD I screamed as I slammed it down on the table. I get your point Mr. Diamond, I do. All seventy-five times you made it. Also, the Andamans are part of India.

On Reading

2010-03-29T14:07:00.000+05:30

Following on The Bride.

I have often wondered if this reading thing wasn't entirely a good thing. Now I know this isn't true of everyone, but I for one find myself severely restricted when it comes to film, because I like to read so much. For one thing, something in me rebels by not having the freedom to imagine things - watching a movie is so passive. When I read a book I can imagine all sorts of back story, and paint in the leaves on the trees, and the creases on someone's face. Take a very recent example, when I watched Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief. I read and LOVED the whole series, and was horrified and repulsed by what Hollywood did to it. Granted, the oversimplification of the story and the complete removal of any complexity to characters or psychology was expected, as was the massive edit - the movie is essentially about 50 pages of the book. But what I hated MOST of all was how they dressed the gods. And how Poseidon looked, and Grover. Essentially, having spent so many years tapping into the internal magic of my imagination, I resent having that freedom taken away from me in movies. And this is a hundred times worse when it's a serious film, or something brutal about life etc.

Ok digression over.

I always have a book on me. Usually, when I travel, i carry one book per day, and get very upset if I don't meet my targets. I even lugged the hard cover edition of Wolf Hall all over Delhi in December, because I wanted to finish it! The Mungi was not pleased. In Goa, I refused to get into the water because I needed to finish Empire of the Moguls. I twitch as i walk past Landmark, and have never yet been able to leave a book store with one book. I even eat lunch alone a few times a week so I can catch up on my reading. I wish I took public transport because then I could read; and absolutely ADORE train journeys for all the reading I can get done.

I wonder why the reading doesn't feel like it's spilled over into writing though...

Green Revolushun

2010-03-12T12:06:00.000+05:30

This morning, reader greeted me with this post form The Bride. Of course I had to do my own!

Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on the context, I don't live in HK, so I can't do the calculation thingy. My workplace has one of those though and I usually come out in the 90s of the percent green footprint. (Wow that makes no sense.)

The things I do that I think make a difference:

I never open a tap on full, unless I'm filling a bucket in a hurry. I'm pyschotically anal about no drips - my maid will be happy to testify about how many times in the two hours we share the house in the mornings I will summon her to close the leaky tap properly. I have even asked her, don't you have a water shortage where you live, where do you think it all begins! Big houses who waste water! It still makes me twitch to see how people do the dishes in the US, with about half a bucket per mug. *shudder* This probably has a lot to do with acute water shortages as a kid, which meant summer baths were in half a bucket of water, which you then used to flush the loo.
Point#1 probably links to why I rarely take more than 10 minutes in the shower, if that much. Am proud to say I can still clean self, this includes two washes and one conditioning rinse when I wash my shoulder-blade length hair, in one bucket.
I'm crazy annoying about putting off lights and fans. Poor BBot has received irate texts messages about there not being a switch elf who will turn the fan off after he leaves. NF has the habit of leaving lights and fans on, and now whenever I wake up in the middle of the night I do a little circuit of the house. Yeah, really.
I used to take public transport when I lived in NY, where it was efficient, reliable, and useful! I also walked a lot. Unfortunately this has not translated to my life in India - but I do drive a diesel car with no emissions that gives me 18-20 kilometres to the litre of diesel, so I'm not doing too badly. I also insist on not taking more cars than necessary - cos most of my friends live in the same area, when we go out together sometimes we end up with a car per person almost and I can't handle that. Course this means I spend a lot of time steaming gently cos I'm always 10 min early, and BBot is always 10 min late, but it's still worth it.
I wish we could recycle where I live. We have some sort of recycling service where my parents live though, and my mum is very big on the little-dustbin-for-vegetable-waste-to-put-in-the-compost-pit, so there's that. I also re-use most plastic take out containers, and use plastic bags from the grocery store for the garbage bins. We also use old wine bottles for water in our house, and I always carry a water bottle, thereby not having to buy bottles/use paper cups.
I have a one-tissue-per-meal rule. Seriously. Very rarely does one really need more than one tissue per meal, and sometimes when I see people use 5 at a time just dotting the corner of most of them lightly, I start to twitch. I also use sponges and cloth towels, not paper towels, and if its absolutely necessary to use paper - old newspapers. (There's one way the internet will never kill them!)
Switch off plugs when they're not being used, especially if they're plugged into chargers.
Am vegetarian, so yay! Hee.
Print on both sides. Am fiendish about this, and have actually been seen going fuckfuckfuckfuckFUCK when I hit print without checking the settings. Luckily we have a shredder right next to the printer, and the shreds are recycled so I feel a titch better. I also bring paper waste from home and stick it in there.
Am lucky that I hate yellow light and love white light, so left to myself all lights would be energy saving.
I never wash clothes hot, even when I lived in the US! I did use a dryer though, boo. But here in India, where there's ample room for clotheslines, and lots of heat and dry air, I don't.

Things I could do more:

Carry my mug when I got to get coffee!
Carry bags to the supermarket - though I do recycle the bags, I think they're less biodegradable than garbage bags, so it might be better to just buy garbage bags and carry cloth to the store.
Fly less. There was a time when I loved trains so much, and was so broke I never took planes. But now, especially since I end up going places that are more than 14 hours by train, and become impossible to do on weekends, and have acquired frequent flyer miles to give me free flights, I can't remember the last time I took a train. Bad MinCat.

Anything else?

Blogshetra: Away we go

2010-03-02T14:29:00.003+05:30

The Bride and I decided to read the Mahabharata, together and in different countries. She's done this before, only that time she chose Joyce's Ulysses. *shudder*

We're also probably going to end up reading different translations, given the fact that here in desh I have access to whatever I want. Mine is Kamala Subramaniam's, and she (The Bride, not Kamala) is still deciding.

So last night, after dragging all and sundry to Landmark to acquire said book, and acquiring about 6 more in the process, I settled into bed to begin reading.

First off, I'm always nervous with translated books, especially if they are originally in a language very far removed from Latin, Greek and the Germanic languages that are the foundation of English. It really does become about interpretation, and then I often wonder how the original is. I found, for example, that W. S. Merwin's translation of Neruda's "Tonight I can write the saddest lines" is quite bad, because he Englishises the structure so much that I feel that much of the charm of the original is lost, since a lot of it lies in the inversions of word order etc. This problem is a million times worse with Indian languages, so I was very happy to see, when I began reading last night, that KS manages to keep the complicated structures and cadences of what I imagine is a chanting, sonorous, oral tradition alive. It may seem a bit...strange, because the sentences are often abrupt, and there is very little active voice, and way too many words - but that's just how I think it would be in Sanskrit. Of course, my Outer Stickler is dying to rewrite the translation for an audience more familiar with traditional English...but I can keep her in check.

The story began very simply, and very much in the way my Grandma's used to when we were children, and I slipped into it immediately. It also ran very quickly, and after Bheeshma spent several years several times over to raise various princes and marry them off and do everything but 'spill his seed' to further the dynasty, I have reached the point where he has successfully married Dritharashtra and Pandu off to Gandhari and Kunti respectively.

I expect tonight's session to be a titch more exciting, and definitely enter into those parts of the story I am familiar with (I had no clue who Devavrata was until the word Bheeshma appeared. Also, it annoys me that I don't know the meanings of these words and names - any ideas where I can find out online?)

P.S. Will post extract for Bride to read and put her out of her misery of not knowing what it reads like in this translation.

I'm trying REALLY hard

2010-02-24T18:38:00.002+05:30

In an attempt to start writing again, here is TIME's Top 100 novels of all time from 2005, which I shall now assess and see how I measure up to it. Then I'm making a list of the books I'm going to try and read in 2005, and then maybe write about them. Though why I must choose to do this while I live in HYDERABAD, forget about India, I dunno.

Also, The Bride and I are co-reading The Mahabharata, like she did Joyce! WooOOt!

The Adventures of Augie March: Saul Bellow nope, might want to
All the King's Men: Robert Penn Warren nope
American Pastoral: Philip Roth nope, but I read another one by him, sort of what if Lindbergh had become President, and it was frankly, boring.
An American Tragedy: Theodore Dreiser never even heard of this one
Animal Farm: George Orwell but of course
Appointment in Samarra: John O'Hara nope
Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret: Judy Blume many many, MANY times
The Assistant: Bernard Malamud nope, no clue who he is
At Swim-Two-Birds: Flann O'Brien ditto
Atonement: Ian McEwan the trailer of the movie bored me so much I shudder to think of watching the movie let alone reading the book!
Beloved: Toni Morrison in college, and I LOVED it. SO MUCH. What a genius writer.
The Berlin Stories: Christopher Isherwood nope
The Big Sleep: Raymond Chandler I think I read one of his novels once, but was too young. Stick this on the list.
The Blind Assassin: Margaret Atwood I have either read this or it has sat on my shelf for ages taunting me. I think it should go on the list either way! Had her poetry in college, and loved it; also read Cat's Eye, I think, and A Handmaid's Tale.
Blood Meridian: Cormac McCarthy *shudder* I feel like I've read something by him... (yes I am hopeless at remembering authors' names) Sounds a bit bloodthirsty for me, but maybe it can go on a waiting list.
Brideshead Revisited: Evelyn Waugh Always wanted to read her because of glancing references in Wodehouse. On the list she goes.
The Bridge of San Luis Rey: Thornton Wilder See, just for San Luis Rey, I'll try reading it.
Call It Sleep: Henry Roth nope
Catch-22: Joseph Heller Yes, but can't quite see the brouhaha. Did read it in one sitting though, so must have something.
The Catcher in the Rye: J.D. Salinger Yes, and man was it boring. Sorry. I think I was too old, plus I don't really identify with self-destructive irresponsible types... yes yes high horse.
A Clockwork Orange: Anthony Burgess *shuddershudderpuke* Never made it through the movie or the book. Quite happy to never try again thank you.
The Confessions of Nat Turner: William Styron whoooo?
The Corrections: Jonathan Franzen whaaaa?
The Crying of Lot 49: Thomas Pynchon I feel like this guy is famous for a butterfly thing. Or not, his wikipedia page reveals that I am unlikely to like him. "Thomas Ruggles Pynchon, Jr. (born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist based in New York City and noted for his dense and complex works of fiction."
A Dance to the Music of Time: Anthony Powell nope
The Day of the Locust: Nathanael West nope
Death Comes for the Archbishop: Willa Cather nope (why have I not heard of any of these people???)
A Death in the Family: James Agee nope
The Death of the Heart: Elizabeth Bowen nope
Deliverance: James Dickey nope
Dog Soldiers: Robert Stone nope
Falconer: John Cheever nope, but I did read a lovely short story in college. Now if only I could remember what it was.... heh. On the list.
The French Lieutenant's Woman: John Fowles Somehow I've never liked the objectification inherent in that title...still, waiting list.
The Golden Notebook: Doris Lessing nope, and totally want to.
Go Tell it on the Mountain: James Baldwin wait....like a baldwin brother?
Gone With the Wind: Margaret Mitchell Many times. Much adore. Takes a twist of the kaleidoscope to see the good in it, and not dismiss it as "romance". I was blown away by the tapestry she weaves around the story, of the South, the Civil War etc.
The Grapes of Wrath: John Steinbeck nice. depressing as hell. but brilliant read that paints a beautiful picture.
Gravity's Rainbow: Thomas Pynchon see above
The Great Gatsby: F. Scott Fitzgerald read it in college and was most bemused. I don't think I ever got the poignance of it, just seemed a bit like Wodehouse, only in America, not as funny and rather more risque.
A Handful of Dust: Evelyn Waugh see prev
The Heart Is A Lonely Hunter: Carson McCullers say whaaa? Also, I'm torn between wanting to read it cos a Boy wrote it and choking on giggles because a Boy wrote it. Waiting list methinks.
The Heart of the Matter: Graham Greene Ah Graham Greene. I read the one about the Catholic priest on the run in Mexico. Something and something. Or is that the Faulkner theme?
Herzog: Saul Bellow hrfxt
Housekeeping: Marilynne Robinson Again, it tempts me, but I think it's probably about some deep crisis in suburbia, not chicklitt. Waiting list
A House for Mr. Biswas: V.S. Naipaul See, I tried to read Among the Believers and it was horrible. Naipaul just seems like such a whiny, patronising bitch. Really. I think my horror has a lot to do with early exposure to some non-fiction of his.
I, Claudius: Robert Graves LOVE LOVE LOVE. Anything by the man. In fact, I think it's time I re-read this one and it's sequel. On the list to goes!
Infinite Jest: David Foster Wallace Something about that title makes me wary... Waiting list
Invisible Man: Ralph Ellison nope
Light in August: William Faulkner nope
The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe: C.S. Lewis like 50 times? Much prefer the Voyage of the Dawn Treader myself.
Lolita: Vladimir Nabokov meh. Really overrated, either for scandal or for anything else. The one Nabokov I really liked was called Laughter in the Dark
Lord of the Flies: William Golding Never read it. Always had it on the list.
The Lord of the Rings: J.R.R. Tolkien 13 times I think. Give me The Hobbit any day.
Loving: Henry Green whaa
Lucky Jim: Kingsley Amis Lord. I've always heard this name, and then Martin Amis of course, and I think I've read him being scholarly about something in my Literature course...but...do I want to read him? Votes anyone?
The Man Who Loved Children: Christina Stead Ooooo sounds interesting. On the list, if I can get hold of it.
Midnight's Children: Salman Rushdie done. Meh. Well, actually lovely book. but then I read a few more and realised that Mr. Rushdie, much like Sr. Márqeuz has one book to be re-written many times...
Money: Martin Amis see above.
The Moviegoer: Walker Percy I like the name of the book, and the name of the author even more! Shall try and read if I can get my hands on it.
Mrs. Dalloway: Virginia Woolf Ugh. Yes, I've read it. Self-obsess much anyone? I do, however, want to read and/or see The Hours.
Naked Lunch: William Burroughs Hee. Deffy want to read.
Native Son: Richard Wright no way.
Neuromancer: William Gibson Not read, want to read - on the list
Never Let Me Go: Kazuo Ishiguro Have tried to read many times...but fall asleep. Shall try one more time.
1984: George Orwell read, and liked very much. Funny, I prefer dystopias to utopias.
On the Road: Jack Kerouac never read, allus wanted to. On the list.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest: Ken Kesey Have started many times. Will put on waiting list. Maybe.
The Painted Bird: Jerzy Kosinski nope
Pale Fire: Vladimir Nabokov not really, unless Acrosticus vehemently recommends.
A Passage to India: E.M. Forster Lordy...Maybe next year. I think this year is heavy enough with the Mahabharata and Ramachandra Guha's history of modern India.
Play It As It Lays: Joan Didion nope
Portnoy's Complaint: Philip Roth NO
Possession: A.S. Byatt NOOOO
The Power and the Glory: Graham Greene Oooo! That's the one! Not bad, I think I might want to re-read it with my more recent appreciation of the history of Mexico.
The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie: Muriel Spark no
Rabbit, Run: John Updike nope. Read a short story, possiby a book of them, and quite liked it. Also like title. So on the list.
Ragtime: E.L. Doctorow not read, but I LOVE the name and the title. If-I-Can-Get-It list.
The Recognitions: William Gaddis never heard of it
Red Harvest: Dashiell Hammett He sounds familiar, but. nope.
Revolutionary Road: Richard Yates Lemme make it through the movie awake first...
The Sheltering Sky: Paul Bowles Nope.
Slaughterhouse-Five: Kurt Vonnegut YESYESYES! Ah I ADORE this man, shall read Cat's Cradle as replacement.
Snow Crash: Neal Stephenson no
The Sot-Weed Factor: John Barth no
The Sound and the Fury: William Faulkner o lordy, no!
The Sportswriter: Richard Ford nope
The Spy Who Came in From the Cold: John le Carre never read him, though my dad has em all. Shall stick in on the list for lighter reading.
The Sun Also Rises: Ernest Hemingway Have read Farewell to arms, and the Old Man and the Sea. Toss it on the list.
Their Eyes Were Watching God: Zora Neale Hurston Er...don't know how to react. Votes either way anyone?
Things Fall Apart: Chinua Achebe Yes indeedy, and the other three in the series, plus other ones by him. Quite liked it.
To Kill a Mockingbird: Harper Lee Lovely lovely lovely, of course. I'm probably the only girl I know who didn't want to be Scout. Though I might name my next puppy that.
To the Lighthouse: Virginia Woolf *brrrrr* no.
Tropic of Cancer: Henry Miller nope
Ubik: Philip K. Dick Been dying to read him, but am open to other recommendations by him.
Under the Net: Iris Murdoch My parents had one of her books, The Sea The Sea, and it always seemed so strange and scary and yet boring. Waiting list.
Under the Volcano: Malcolm Lowry Wikipedia leads me to think that's a yes. If I can find it.
Watchmen: Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons Eeeeeep no. I've tried. And even seen and quite disliked the movie.
White Noise: Don DeLillo Haven't read, putting on waiting list
White Teeth: Zadie Smith *SHUDDERRRRRRRRRRRR* nevermore. I actually finished it cos The Roommate loved it so much. But. No. Never. Again.
Wide Sargasso Sea: Jean Rhys Awwww read in college alongside Jane Eyre. In fact, fairly sure I did a seminar on it or something. Quite lovely.

In which we are bitten by the Zen

2010-01-25T15:21:00.003+05:30

Yes, quite the oxymoron. It refers, however, to the new Zennity that has pervaded my life. I'm at a loss to explain how the switch flipped, but I simply can't be bothered to get upset about things anymore - quite the reversal from flipping out over every tiny thing.

Essentially, after a fraught month of not enjoying my time with BBot much because I was angry with him for being perpetually late (by a minimum of thirty minutes, which, added to my minimum of ten minutes early for everything, makes it forty), not answering the phone, stealing my laptop charger without telling me and making me feel like in his estimation whatever I was doing that might have been lost if the laptop crashed was worthless, or doing small but infinitely annoying things that matter to me, I took a deep breath one day and decided it just wasn't worth it. Granted, the annoyance can sometimes be very real, like missing the beginning of a movie, or leaving someone waiting for you all alone for an hour, but the solutions are simple - plan for the lateness! If the punctuality is that important, retain control of your travel arrangements. If the crisis is so bad, call your mum! Or the Dragon. Because you cannot control another person, nor can you control most events, which makes it far more important for relationships and blood pressure to just deal with what happens instead of ranting about how it should have been.

Now this seems to be sound relationship advice, and I must say it has had a wonderfully idyllifying effect on my relationship. I find, however, that it's also spilled over into other things!

There was a serious snafu with the key to my house, which meant that I was locked out on arrival and stranded without access to work clothes or work laptop, and the New Flatmate (NF) was off on a trip. I stood there and began to fume - what the fuck! I've told him a million times he should check to see the spare is outside before locking up! I also asked him a million times to get the key copied so the maid and I will BOTH have keys! After adjusting to his routine I was the one who'd have to find a locksmith, miss half a day of work, have the house broken into and a new lock put in, and deal with the building (my name's not on the lease) if they asked quesitons, and worse still, deal with the Horrid Brownnosing Boss (HBB).

But then, I suddenly took a deep breath and realised, I could get a loaner laptop, and I was planning to sleep at the parents anyway. I could go to work for this one day, and since the next day before the return of NF is a holiday, I'd be fine. So I didn't yell at NF on the phone, I did sleep well, I did have a relaxed morning, and here I am at work, type-typing away, with no tooth fragments in my mouth from the gnashing, and no stress migraine.

But the Rents were upset, telling me that

[a] it was irresponsible of me to not have copied the damn key myself (true, but then it is hard to do on a weekday with the schedule of store hours and my work timings; and weekends just vanish), and

[b] I was being a pushover and letting myself be taken advantage of AGAIN! (referring to their interpretation of the whole sordid OOF epsiode) since *I* am the rent-paying tenant and the maid is secondary to me!

I do see their point, and I wonder if I am being too Zen.

On the whole though, I think it's quite worth it ;)

Changes

2010-01-25T14:50:00.003+05:30

Minor they might be, to the template. Book list updated - if you like the idea, tell me and hopefully I'll remember to update it more!
Am also hoping it reminds me to read. Heh.

Also added link to Photography website - please visit, leave me comments and PIMP IT! =D

Blogroll duly updated to feature the best of reader.

All this and more in the

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