what is in your refrerigator?

i have a love hate relationship with my refrigerator. i love it when it is stocked  with food but at the end of the month/week when i open to find it empty  with  just two fruit flavored yogurt whose dates have long expired, some peppers, half a sad looking aubergine, half a jar of jam....i must say i hate my fridge then. i mean what the hell, why can't it be a little proactive and stock itself or hoard some food at least? today is not the day to be empty...it is Sunday and i feel like having sausages...why can't it figure that out and stock some sausages and produce them miraculously???


muttering darkly to myself at the unfairness of it all, i instead look at the cupboards hoping against hope that they would reveal riches/food beyond compare...wheat bites which are so horrible that we avoid it like plague, few apricots, a box of mint chocolates which i am not fond of (i am sure that is why the box has survived the month) and one lone soup stick which had evaded me this long and in the fruit basket two dead bananas.

it is such a depressing sight, i swear i feel like howling. but then life is sad and if at every turn we give in to the temptation to howl, i would be crying about 89.9% of the time....so i refrain....instead i  hit the couch and tell my husband that its his turn to make breakfast or whichever meal we are trying to have. my husband being who he is, does a cursory round of the fridge and  promptly rings some food place. once the fresh hot food arrives, i forget the sad state of our fridge and happily eat. but then the next day or during the next meal i confront the fridge again and come away feeling more depressed than ever. cos by now i know it is officially my turn and i could order some food from outside but if i do not take charge of this situation, we  would be forever eating out. also i like a well stocked fridge with loads of food options...


so i drag a reluctant husband to do grocery. invariably we leave the list (over which i have laboured) at home or find it two days after the entire exercise  in one of the pockets of our bag which we never bothered to check.  anyways so while i try to take stock and remember what all we need to pick up...my husband taking advantage of a preoccupied me, does his own grocery...   a bottle or two of wine, some smelly cheese, definitely some chocolate in which mint chocolate is definitely included...some meat to grill and the love of his life-- eggs  and for him grocery is over. with a triumphant smile  he is about to push the trolley towards check out,  at that instant my brain completes the mental grocery list, so with a smug smile i get him back to the shelves  chanting out the mundane things like pasta, milk, bread, veggies, fruits, yogurt, oil while he picks them up albeit reluctantly. some stuff like the bananas he protests vehemently over cos he hates them. so then we start a debate on what food we should eat with the banana in hand while some other person is desperately trying to reach for another dozen! just to be mean and to win the argument i point out that some of the stuff he has picked up are not good at all or way over our meagre budget....by now the other shoppers are giving us curious looks...i staunchly defending the fair trade bananas, while he is defending his wines.... we are suddenly rudely disturbed  when someone asks us to move from the front of the banana shelve...by then we have both lost stem, so like loving partners we compromise on our food... giving up some and keeping others.


 back home after the fridge is stocked i feel quiet proud like i should be given a medal or something for good stocking. for the coming week i am happy with the choices that my fridge offers me....but once they start dwindling i start getting irritated cos i know that the day when our fridge will have nothing is not far away. but i keep pushing reality away and soon enough one Sunday when you feel like having a big lazy brunch...the fridge reveals nada and i hit the couch while husband happily orders food...

Look what I gathered during my walks...

Let me in...

Standing at the threshold, waiting to be let in, knocking and knocking...no one answers. How long can you stand, how long can you knock? At times feeling frustrated I try and knock loudly, raising the heavy brass knocker with all my might and crashing it back on the thick oak door, at other times I make half hearted attempts, rapping my knuckle feebly against the wood. I have been at this door for a long time...sometimes it rains, sometimes it snows and sometimes the sun is out. Sometimes I feel cold then I draw my cape tightly around me and sometimes I feel so hot that I throw my cape down.

Trying to get in is testing my patience most horribly. Sometimes I just give up and sag against the door, at other times I feel determined and ready to persist till eternity. Once when I had almost given up, a little face peeked out from one of the upstairs windows and smiled at me. Now I know they are all there just a door away and I have to get to them. But how?

Oh God give me patience and give me courage and give me faith to keep knocking!

Love myths...

One of my friends in face book has posted a link for all her single friends. This video is about men proposing to women.

Watching the video took me back to the not so long past when I was single and such videos would just add to the trepidation that I might not find the right guy at all. Specially after hitting 30, I had become more sensitive, suddenly all the time that I thought I had in life to find the right guy had vanished and the pressure to find one now and here had steeply mounted. Here I talking about the pressure that I felt within myself, not going into external pressures.
Since young we are fed on stories where a prince comes and sweeps the princess away. Music, movies, literature all glorifies love and relationships and urges us to fall in love. In teenage love is all about Archies card and venturing into the forbidden. In 20s love is all about the man wooing you with flowers, gifts, dinners and dates.
In the video I mentioned above it was the men proposing and all the women looked shocked/surprised initially. When will we women claim the space and take the lead in a relationship? Why cannot we propose and ask the men to marry us?
The points that I am trying to make here are--

• Women should not be pressurised by society, family, peers, friends, literature, music, movies etc etc etc to get into relationships. Our lives should not be defined by the existence of the 'other';
• Happy projections of relationships-- the candle light dinners, bending down on knees to propose, the diamond engagement ring, flowers to woo the girl somehow gives us the message that all relationships should be like this. So when we are in relationships for the first time and after all the magic moments go and left is the regular, a disillusionment comes cos the expectation is of the magic at all times.
• In these days of emancipation why do men always have to propose? Why cannot we women take the lead in our relationships? Come on sisters we can do it.

SATC 2

Have you guys seen the trailer of Sex and the City 2? OMG it is like a Bond extravaganza with exotic locales, skimpy men in plce of skimpy women and glittering sets. To keep a flavour of the S & the C there are of course the four women (wearing some not so nice dresses), husbands, kids, cocktails and resurrection of ex boy friends. I am not sure I liked it, at least the trailer has packed in too much of everything and no substance.
When Carrie in her usual style said 'What happens after you say I do?' I was expecting some dissection on marriage, dreary domestication and of course the fun time they usually manage to have etc etc. This movie instead has taken a leap into the exotic and in my opinion completely lost it. The movie is releaseing in the UK soon but I am not spending money to watch it.
If you guys do, do let me know how you liked it.

Post script: Someone after reading this asked me in facebook whether I have at all seen the seasons or the first movie.. here is my views on chicklits in general and sex and the city in particular!

Sunday breakfast....

This Sunday I was suffering from a hangover, so my husband made me breakfast. He made the traditional English breakfast which was more a brunch than breakfast except that mushrooms and tomatoes are missing.

Looking back...

Now that I have again developed the habit of not being to sleep at night, my favourite way to spend nights is to watch the railtracks and listen to my husband's ipod. Lately I have been listening a lot to Ajan Datta.

His music is as fresh as ever. I am listening to him after a long time. His music takes me back all the way to my city Kolkata, to the old days, to the happiness, the sadness, the growing up. Now when all those memories come flocking back, I smile to myself. Its been a long journey and when I look back I don't think I would want to change one single thing.

On a completely unrelated track spent a very nice evening. We went to listen to a symphony, it was sold out, so went with a friend to his college bar, had some yummy cocktails at really subsidised rates and sat in his common room which we had all to ourselves. I am going to miss Oxford and its various colleges when I leave.

Tomorrow we are planning to go for a picnic and our usual Sunday walk, weather permitting.

Have a happy Sunday.

Midnight train to nowhere...

We have been living next to the railway tracks for over 9 months but the romance of the trains has hit me yesterday night. Before I used to cringe at the sound the trains make, sometimes count the number of trains standing on the tracks and basically moan about the sound and pollution.

But something changed yesterday night and now I feel tuned to the trains rushing past. Now I want to know which one is going where, who all are travelling inside, what stories they carry with them. I want to be part of the movement that these trains are. I want to be travelling in them and go to an unknown destination. Have you ever taken the midnight train to nowhere? I have never, I wish I had the courage to do so.

Never cease?

Years ago it was the late night flights piercing the dark Calcutta sky. Sleepless I used to stand in my window and gaze at them with longing. From my window I got a clear view of the sky above. Sometimes it would be inky blue sky dotted with thousands of twinkling stars, sometimes a full moon would envelope the whole sleeping world into its silvery rays, sometimes in the darkness of a moonless night a black bird would silently fly by, sometimes it would rain so much that I could hardly open my window, except a crack.  Most nights the planes would go by. They would come into my view as tiny dots of light, grow steadily to reveal a silver machine carrying hundreds of people to a far away destination. I would feel terribly jealous of all those sitting in those planes, flying far, far away. Away from all the heartbreak, tears, the known and the mundane. I would foolishly think that traveling physical distance would absolve my pain and rid me of memories.
Now I smile at my  foolishness. How naive I was!
Thousands of miles later, I know that distance does not erase pain, time does. I know there is no easy way out, a broken heart does not mend itself quickly, nor are there any good medicines guaranteeing hundred percent cure. I know new pain takes over older ones. From life's experiences a new person emerges, fleshed with a bit of past embedded in the present.  But inspite of it all life goes on at her own sweet pace.
This time there are no planes in my slice of the night sky. There are  trains whooshing by, rushing off into the darkness. The carriages of the trains look to be in a great hurry, pushing and clanging, making a mighty din. They seem so sure of their destination, they look eager to reach that place and dump the load they have to carry. In the dark of the night, they look like naughty, noisy children rushing off to play. Once they pass by, the silver tracks look empty and bereft. A deep silence replaces the clanging sound. The night regains its poise and lulls us back to sleep. I look longingly at those rushing carriages  wishing I could be in one of them, crouched among the cars, or other goods they carry, or sitting on top of one of them, my face raised towards the sky, the wind kissing my face. I would not mind the discomfort or the cold as long as it took me to far distant lands, to the unknown, to some adventure, away from the mundane.
Will my longing for the unknown never cease?