Damn these resolutions. But the RPF rocks!

So January vanished in a haze. I returned to mad tight deadlines and an asshole author, and then was off to Jaipur for the oh so famous Jaipur Literary Festival. (Yes, that doesn't link to the jlf site, surely you can Google that gentle reader.) The fest itself was madness, but it began with an unprecedented level of drama.

The cab picking up my colleagues and then FC and I from his house was late. FC took a little longer than expected to depart the house. The cabbie took us to Ajmeri gate, which is only about ten minutes of hard running across over-bridges to the Pahadganj side where he train leaves from. Laden with packages we trotted away in the icy morning. I even had to take my laptop, because I needed to edit some stuff and the train was the best place to do it. (Since I am not one of those INSANE people, like Tiny Colleague and FC, who believe that if you have to wake up early you should try and not sleep all night, thus ending with you crashing for 45 minutes and being miserable and bleary all day.)

We galloped into the carriage with about eight minutes to spare, and began to put our belongings down. At this point I noticed I didn't have my laptop. I looked everywhere. We called the cabbie. No sign of it. It must be at the X-Ray machine where we came in, we deduced. Okay, I said, let me go and find the TT and see what can be done.

I began the long walk through the carriages to the First Class carriage where the TTs hang out before departure. In a couple of minutes I noticed that one of my colleagues, whom i shall henceforth call White Knight Colleague, had taken it upon himself to follow me. We inched our way through the whole damn train (in hindsight, if we had walked along the outside it might have worked), and eventually got to the TTs. I left my laptop at the scanner I said. Okay, said the TT, here is a man from the Railway Protection Force, talk to him. This man, this angel in the guise of Rajbir Singh, radioed all stations and received the intelligence that there was indeed and unclaimed laptop bag at a scanner.

What colour is it, he asked me.
It's khaki, I said, pointing to his uniform. And if you open it, it has a blue laptop, and four books, two of which are orange and while, and a pair of orange chappals.
Having satisfied himself that it was indeed my laptop, he said okay, go get it.
That's where the problem came up--we were about three minutes from departure at this point.
I would, I said, but it'll take too long--the train will leave! Is there any way you can have someone bring it?
He nodded thoughtfully and told them, look she'll miss the train ebcause it'll take twice the time to come and go, so send someone with it.

The TT then asked the guard to pull out slowly, and told us to stand in the door of the last coach. WKC and I stood there, with him being a nice calm solid rock of common sense and crisis management, thereby keeping me a nice calm solid rock of common sense and crisis management as well. The train began to pull out. We waited breathless for the DDLJ moment of reunion. There was no sign of an RPF guy running towards us.

Other colleagues called, wondering why we hadn't returned, and if we'd missed the train. WKC fielded calls.

The TT then came up to us and said, oh dear, I guess he didn't make it in time. Give me your number, and I'll find out what you can do to recover it, and call you. WKC then produced his card (since mine were with my handbag at my seat, under the eagle eye of FC), on which we wrote both our numbers. We inched our way backs to our seats and sat back to wait.

A few hours later, the TT came to me and said, okay, this is Rajbir Singh's number. Call him, You can either collect it from the RPF depot at New Delhi on your return, or maybe ask him if he can send it with tomorrow's TT.. And this is my number.

So I called Rajbir Singh, who kindly agreed to send it with the First Class attendant on the next day's train. He also asked me to call him at 530, just to make sure he didn't forget. A short while alter the TT called me, to see if it had been sorted out.

The next morning, I woke up at 530 and called Rajbir Singh, who said that yes, he would go and do it, but it would take him a while since he wasn't posted on the same platform. He then called me back in ten minutes, to confirm that he had dropped it off, and to give me the attendant's name and phone number. I called the attendant and met up with him to pick up the laptop. Then I called RS again, and he said ah good you called me, I was just going to call you; I was beginning to worry. (The train was an hour late.) Then I called the TT as well, and thank him profusely for his help.

Don't nobody diss the Indian Railways around me, is all I'm saying.

Give us a break

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

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

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

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!

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*

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".