Father Saluted: He Raised His Daughter With Courage And Integrity

Soldier For Women.

He Stood Up For A Woman With Courage And Integrity

Blogadda is running a cool campaign. They are asking bloggers to blog about those men who stood up for women.

Time to salute and honour these men.

Yes the men. Yes they do support/stand up/fight for women. There are millions out there. Thankfully.

And for those who claim that women do not need any help or support, I would say that I am a proud woman who is not afraid to show her vulnerability. Of course I have needed/still need help/support now and then. The need was/is not gendered, but in my case it was provided by men, sometimes.

So the subject is pretty close to my heart. But it needs, as far as I am concerned, a little twist in the tail err the title.

Father Saluted.

He Raised His Daughter With Courage And Integrity.

If I have to talk about a man who stood up for me it has to be my father. 

My father. A midnight's child, born in August 1947. He grew up in the nascent republic of India. People were loving their hard earned freedom. They wanted to build a fresh, new country on the foundation of one of the oldest civilizations of this world. This new India needed educated professionals, my father fulfilled this need. His family needed his presence and support, my father was/is the dutiful son/brother/husband/father/father-in-law.

When I, his first child, his daughter was born, he welcomed me to this world eagerly. 

Was I born in a country where a girl child is unwanted? No, not in my case. I was cherished and nourished. I was lavished with love, I was spoiled, I was pampered and I was scolded and disciplined, when the occasion demanded.

Most importantly I was raised as a modern Indian, without any discrimination. I got the same opportunities as my brother, sometimes more so. My parents and my extended family were/are responsible for this. Yes it needs the effort of an entire society to create a just and loving environment for any child to grow up in. I never thought of it as my incredible luck. I always took it for granted.

I grew up with my head held high, I got the best of education. My father did not stop there. He would continuously push me to be more practical, to be able to take decisions, to form my independent opinions. What he did then, now is called Life Skills Training.

While writing this,  images of me and my father pottering about flood my mind. In school as part of arts & craft training, we were taught various things like collage making, mask making, paper pulp (ugggh it sure is a stinky process) and painting on earthen flower vases. I took to pottery painting like a duck to water. I just loved it and pretty soon I was painting on vases, ash trays, flower pots, little decorative pieces etc. Soon friends and family started buying these pieces from me. In this my father was my champion cheer leader, motivator and of course chief investor in my teenage business venture. He would 'loan' me money to buy the raw material, but when I went to repay him the money after selling off the pieces, he would ask me to keep the principal along with the profit!

Apart from these, my father had/has a weird kind of faith in me. He thinks I can fix almost anything or suggest a solution ranging from a broken leg of a chair to his sitting problem in his office. I am not sure what was/is the source of this faith, but I remember grumbling to my mother in my teenage that I am not Jill of all trades and my mother laughing about it. Now I am filled with humble pride. Yes humble pride, you need to experience this weirdly harmonious emotion to know it exists.

Those were the days before D.I.Y., specially in India where there was a surplus of cheap labour floating around, needing work. Yet I remember working with my father painting and varnishing the cane and wooden furniture in our house, fixing odd things in and around home. He is a great proponent of do-it-yourself. I also helped him change the odd light bulb, I remember him explaining to me why a tube light needs a choker.

While growing up he dragged me with him, sometimes it used to fill me with teenage angst, but mostly I enjoyed doing stuff with him. Apart from the hands-on work, I remember sitting in  car garages, while the mechanics worked on the car, visiting carpenter's workshop, mulling over how to reuse an old cumbersome almirah, pouring over paint samples, selecting material for the curtains (they were all tailor made)...the list is pretty endless.

My father gave me my first pocket money at the age of 12. It was Rs. 40 for a week and I was told that I had to manage my own money, keep it safe and spend it sensibly. I remember how proud I was and how jealous most of my classmates were.

The next year was also big year for me. It was the year when I was asked to go to school alone. School was 20 minutes walk from home and along the way I had to cross two majorly busy roads. I remember my mother being worried. But my father insisted that I should learn to navigate  the streets on my own.

Learning bank operations on my own, followed hard on heels, along with going to pay the odd electricity/telephone bills, filing a complaint... By the time I turned 14, I was not only responsible for going and returning from school on my own. I had to make a detour, go to the junior school, pick up my younger brother and bring him home too. Most of the kids my age had their mothers coming to pick them up and there I was, the big sister, being responsible for my younger brother.

I was never ever sent somewhere with my younger brother as my guardian/companion. A common occurrence in India. Or was when I was growing up. A practice which I find really humiliating. Every-time parents send a younger sibling, especially male out with the elder sibling, especially a female, the girl's confidence takes a beating. She is told she is not capable of being in-charge, but someone who is younger to her, but a male, is. He can look after her and bring her back home safe.

But I am diverting. Lets get back to my story.

Of course I was not totally happy with all the extra work and responsibility that was heaped on me. There were fights at home, arguments and screams. But when we both had cooled down, my father would explain to me that rights/privileges like being independent, having my own pocket money had some counter responsibilities/duties like going to the bank or bringing my brother home from school.

In hindsight I realize he was helping me become my own person and teaching me  to be independent and to take decisions.

This is just a small slice of my pre and early teens. To this day my father continues to be my rock, his faith in me is my strength. At the age of 28, I won a very prestigious scholarship to a foreign university. I was 28 and single, meanwhile a somondho/rishta came for me. My father did not even bother to consult me. He said "my daughter has own something which most people dream about. I will not stop her. I am sure she will get married at the right time, to the right person." He is the father I had the confidence  to call one fine day and declare that I have met a guy whom I want to marry. My father calmly replied back "I trust your judgement, if you have chosen someone, I am sure he is worthy of sharing your life". 

So is my father the soldier Blogadda's campaign is searching for?

Of course he is. He is one of two chief architects (the other being my mother) of my life. His ideas, principles, his beliefs he passed onto me. With his efforts he molded me to be who I am today. He could have taken the easy route and raised me traditionally. It could have been simple, certainly cheaper and much less trouble. But he did not.

He stood up and poured in all his time, energy and resources to bring me up to be an independent and modern Indian woman who knows who she is and is mighty proud of it.

I salute him.

Thank you Baba!

This post is a part of #Soldierforwomen in association with BlogAdda.com

Of Greetings, Blogger's Blocks and New Ventures....

Dear Readers,

New Year's Greetings! 

Am so relieved to have made it before the Valentine's Day....you see once I wished a friend in May....now that was bit of a stretch, even by my standards, but February, first week at that, is fine, is it not? Oh please say yes!

Now that I am finally here and writing, I must also apologize  for my dismal blogging performance (long gaps between posts) in the last six months. I hope you have missed me much. I sure did miss you lots.

Wish I could say that I went on an exciting expedition to meet the old woman in the moon or  spent six months playing with the penguins in the Galapagos Islands!

Sadly I only have some utterly mundane excuses to offer to you. 

You see it all started when I decided to go off to India. I got so excited at the prospect of going home after two years that I completely fell off the blog-wagon. There was also the usual last minute rushes and too much to do and too little time to do it in kind of problems.

Still I thought I will bring back from India many stories to tell you.

Alas soon after returning from India (with all the lovely stories as promised) the dreaded blogger's block hit me! I could not string together a few words, let alone a blog post,  to save my blog. 

I was brimming full of stories to share, but would they do me the courtesy of writing themselves down, oh no, not they. Unsatisfactory drafts started crowding my inbox. Words, my old friends,  failed me to take your heart away!

However with the new year, I decided to reclaim my writing and hoped that a brand new story may bring back the old glory.

A new blog, Kitchen Karma. 

In this blog I talk about FOOD, the food I love, foods which cheer me up, memories associated with certain foods, traditions around food, new cuisines I try, restaurants & cafes I eat in, people who motivate me to cook and much, much more. 

Of course apart from all that talking about all that copious amounts of food, I am actually going to do some cooking too. And I am going to share my kitchen adventures and experiments with you. The whole range from the regular home fare to exotic gourmet dishes and everything in between--baking, street, party, picnic, festival, soul, comfort....

Of course this blog, my pet, stays, unaltered.

I need your august company on both my blogs and eagerly await your comments, my unending source of good cheer and motivation. 

Yours,

Affectionately and sincerely,

Pre-birthday....

With my birthday knocking rather loudly just round the corner, thought I would jot down some bits and pieces of who I am this pre-birthday-y gloriously sunny Thursday afternoon. Why today of all days? Don't know, just in the mood to write I guess. Purpose: Nothing really. Okay found one---they will make me laugh in a couple of year's time.

So onto the bits and bobs...

I type with one hand while my other hand clutches a Cornetto cone which is threatening to melt and drip onto the keyboard. The fact that the laptop is perched rather precariously on my lap, while I am half hanging from the sofa while trying to nudge the cushions into a comfort giving position is not helping matters either. If there was ever a wobbly set up, this is the one! You may ask why do I have to type like this? Specially since I am using my husband's beloved laptop. Frankly balancing is a bit of harmless fun (since husband is not at home, he cannot get a heart attack from what he does not see)....and I do not worry about dripping the ice cream.....at the cost of my humility I have to say I am the very expert at not wasting even a bit of ice cream!

I read romance books every night and often during the day too. Reading romance makes me happy, relaxes me and brings a silly grin on my face.  Are these not good enough reasons? Do you need more? Mmmm okay....reading romance is infinitely better than reading about another hanging order, mother locking her children up, floods destroying entire villages, gruesome murders, politicians messing the world up, mother earth dangerously warming up etc etc etc....if you are still not convinced just open today's newspaper!

I HATE a dirty house, bedroom strewn with clothes, kitchen counter in a mess with dishes piled up, cushions on the floor, sofa filled with bits and pieces and no place to sit in the drawing room....but more than that I HATE cleaning this up.....in my home it is like a constant one-upmanship with the mess. This vexes me no end....even my dreams have changed, knight-in-shinning-armour has been replaced by an expert maid and a pristine house! I so feel middle aged....

I am so boringly normal that it is pitiful! I wish I were a witch, or a magician or a fortune teller or even a tarot card reader. But, no I am just a boring ol' me and sadly tea leaves look just like tea leaves to me. Wish I could be a gypsy or a sailor.....though I am sure after a while I would tire of moving around so much and would just want to be home! If I have one thing in spades that is paradoxes!

It is almost 3 months since I have given up chewing gums. Yes you read it right the first time round...no more chewing gums for me. Why? Leaving apart damaging the pearly whites, did you know one teeny tiny chewy gum takes 50 years to degenerate? That is longer that many people live on this earth. I cannot leave behind an earth full of chewed gums when I depart hence the decision. And best bit is I do not even miss it. If only I could leave carbonated drinks this easily and firmly....*sigh*....

Glorious, fantastic ideas (THE IDEA) crowd my head always at the wrong moment, mostly when I am drifting off to sleep or miles away from my laptop and then when I need to remember them, they obstinately refuse to come back! Which is frustrating because I am convinced that with the right ideas I can change the world, or at least have a go at the laborious chore....

I have something of a world kitchen happening at home. My husband is never sure what dish is going to hit him for dinner--last one month I have cooked up Filipino, Korean, Mexican, British, Italian, Chinese, American and of course Indian cuisine. Not all have been glorious success. My attempts at sun dried tomatoes resulted in sad charring of two kgs of juicy ripe tomatoes. RIP tomatoes. I shall always remember you.....

I am in art &craft mood recently and painting lots of stuff with Indian kitsch and how I love all the glorious colours :-)

I am going home for a visit soon and it is still a few weeks away and am trying to control my excitement and act cool. Lets see how long I can do this cool act. Just the thought of home makes me smile crazily. Yayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy....

I am disappointed that summer has come to an end yet thrilled at autumn.....autumn means durga pujo, dhak er awaj, kash fool, notun jama, narkol naru, bhog, dhup dhuno, lokkhi pujo, bhaiphota, khawa dawa, hasha hashi, golpo adda..... autumn means festivals, meeting friends and family, smiles, laughter, cuddles and joy, cosy jumpers,  old trunks, oranges, long walks, falling leaves, childhood memories, nostalgia, coming of winter and of Christmas......

I have a to-do list as long as both my arms (mmmmm not long enough, throw in the feet too) and here I am day dreaming and wishing away!

[Dialogue with the self: Please lets not talk about shrinking duties and other baddies, two years later I will definitely not be wanting to read about this! I want good stuff, so that I can smile fondly at myself and think 'oh I was such a sweet young thing back then'. Seriously Suchismita sometimes you are such a spoil sport! Okay, okay sorry, you carry on, just later don't tell me......NO, no I won't tell you anything, shut up and let me luxuriate in happy thoughts!]

Birthday wishes....

I want a total make-over this birthday. I want new hair (curly permed type), new body (size eight), new height (5.6, no 5.8), new eyes (green or violet), new nose (any nose would be better than what I have) new clothes (gypsy skirts with tinkering bells), new shoes (red, dangerously long heeled boots but which will be miraculously soft and a joy to walk even run in, but hold on if I 5.8 then would I be needing heels?)....I want to retain my skin, my ear rings and my hair colour.

I want a bank full of money at my disposal, to spend as I wish, to shop till I drop, to buy anything I want, to be my own queen (you get the point right? No, no, not you.  Money Goddess Lakshmi ji please hear my pleas).

Of course world peace, withering away of class and caste and all things bad....

I also
want........................................................,................................................even....................................................................also..............................and............................oh yes and also.......................................and of course...............last but not the least..........................!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I am not daft enough to wish all my wishes openly....some wishes should be kept a secret.....pssssssttttttttt.......

I'm nobody!

I'm nobody! Who are you?
Are you nobody, too?
Then there's a pair of us-- don't tell!
They'd banish us, you know

                                          Emily Dickinson (1830-1886)

How perfectly these lines describe the present me. Me, the present tense is surely a nobody and an outsider to boot! Hmmmmm......

Marriage: An Over-rated Institution?

A friend of mine shared an article called 'Marriage: An over-rated institution?' which was published on women's web. You can find the link here. The author Rs Mom basically wrote about an office washroom conversation of three married women. What I find interesting is the comments which were posted in response to this article. Some women were pro-marriage while others insisted that it is a highly over-rated institution and marriage and motherhood does not suit or fulfill every woman. Also some of my husband's school friends are having a discussion on romance in married life and most seem to think  that after 5 years or more of marriage you should be given a Nobel prize if you do not strangle your husband!


Not that I am an expert of any sort on this, being married a measly one and a half years. But so much discussion on marriage got my idle brain thinking and I realize that just by observing married people around me since childhood I have picked up a lot about human beings and this institution. Without going into the complicated observations, some of the lighter ones:

Each marriage is as unique as our finger prints--Hold on, I am not asking you to appear for a biometric test for a perfect marriage (urghhh my brain is running wild). All I am saying is not only are no two marriages same, even an individual has varying perceptions of marriage depending upon the partner and the circumstances. So if a marriage ends in heartbreaks or tears, does not in any way mean that person cannot have a happy and fulfilling marriage with another partner in another time. Generalizations do not really work in case of marriages. Each one of us approaches it differently and behaves in it differently. So if your marriage is not going the way you feel it should and your smugly married friends or busybody female relatives tell you how perfect their marriages are, do not be disheartened. Work at it the way you feel best. They do not live with your husband, you do dahling.

Marriages are not made in heaven-- Come on whom are we kidding or passing the praise buck too? Why bring in heaven in this very earthly endevour?  Max I can do is thank my guardian angels for introducing me to my husband err through a mutual friend, so she should also be thanked, right? And all the work, effort, adjustments, compromises that go into making a marriage work is ours, just ours-- ours and our partners. So pat each other backs. That might bring in some romance in life as well.

Marriage is unfortunately a 24/7/30/365/all your life thing-y--wish it was like our jobs, wish we could switch off after 8 hours. But the sad news is once we marry it permeates our whole life, a bit like the sand particles creeping into all those tiny, almost nonexistent nooks and crannies of your self and filling up them tightly. The freaking truth is that marriage is a combination of rocks, pebbles and sand. So if you are not careful, marriage will creep into your being and totally take over your identity and before you realize you have no other identity except for your married self. This is how most women approached marriage for centuries. Sadly some girls still do it like that. Be careful, do not let this happen, stop the sand particles from seeping into those nooks. Whoa those  are yours and yours only, guard them zealously.

Marriage is about the good and the bad-- okay first the good bits
*You have a permanent date for life-- for all the weekends, movie nights, Val Day etc-- gone are the days when you had to frantically search for someone to go watch a movie with you
* You do not have to do dutch every time you go out (complicated calculations of dividing 77 rupees among three people and some such-- all those laborious ticking on the mobile calculator)

*You can force your husband to listen to your girl-y woes, involve him in the excitement of reading a chick lit or watch a rom com and/or bitch about people (though be careful he will give you solutions to your problems much to your frustration, will get bored with the chick lit and point out the illogical bits in the movie just when it got really mushy or ask for the thousand-th time why girls think/behave like that and discourage bitching or worse still ask you to go and clear the air with person about whom you were bitching  or more horrible call you an emotional fool...okay we were discussing the positives, lets be + guys)
*Sometimes he will be the perfect sweetheart and pay you compliments, get you gifts or flowers or both (happy days), give you surprises, take you out to dinner, organize superb holidays or basically do something really nice and kind and sweet [before you get too excited-- like all married women know these are really occasional (read far apart) incidents *sigh*]
* Hopefully you have found a best friend for life...but hey you still need your girl friends same as ever
Now for the negative ones--
* The snores (they can turn you deaf or mad or both), taking up way too much space in the bed [forget all those romantic cuddles, at that point all you want to do is push him off the bed]

* The mess in the house--however much you clean up the house, he goes around messing it right back...I know, I know some men are not like this, but sadly ladies most men are...continuing in the same vein every time he cooks, the mess he makes in the kitchen is simply unimaginable and the funniest thing is he thinks he is really neat...poor dear
*The tendency to skip baths, wearing the same tee shirt for seven days in a row[God has deprived them of half a sense-- smell of their own sweat], same jeans for a year[Conversation: Wife: You know you need to wash your jeans, you have been wearing them non stop for months without even washing  once! Husband: Really? But I just bought it last year. I wore my last jeans for three years and then it got really tattered (with a surprise in his voice) I had to throw it out and buy this one. So do not worry this will last me for two more years. We men do not need to shop like you women do (with a snigger). Also you know what washing is not good for jeans. Ha Ha Ha! Okay have your laugh. Just for records we women smell much better than you men, thank God and yes jeans can be washed too]
*We all know the manly characteristic of being glued to the television set for matches, news and other boring stuff and addiction to most juvenile video games (yawn) won't do an in-depth on those...

Some marriages come with expiry tags-- Yes sad but true...some partners choose to finish it formally/legally and some emotionally while continuing to coexist.  I know this goes against all the Yash Raj/Meg Ryan/ Julia Roberts movies you saw or the M&Bs you read. What makes it harder to accept this is that marriages come with 'in life and death, in sickness and health' tag and not 'going to expire by so and so year' tag. And looking at the smiles on the faces of brides and grooms in their wedding photos you would not guess that they want to end it in sometime, maybe except for Rani Mukherjee's teary expression in that extra-marital movie of Karan Johar's. Best thing to do is enter a marriage with an open mind and give it your best shot without tearing your heart into bits and pieces and get out in case it is not working.

Marriages is one big package of romance +friendship+ companionship-- Okay, okay do not throw stones at me. It is merely an idea worth thinking about. I know you all married men and women do not agree. Do not take me wrong ladies, but 'some' of you almost take a perverse kind of pride in telling the world how inane your marriage has become. To be fair to the men, they actually do not publicly bad mouth their wives. Come on lets lavish compliments where it is due. Tell you what ladies this view of marriage as some kind of boxing match is rather passe. Lets move from this clichéd perception and create this evergreen image of marriage where you enjoy spending time with your partner, even if not so much as your dating days, there is still some romance in your lives and you are happy being with him. And before you start thinking that 'let this novice spend 5 more years with her husband and then we shall hear her talk'...I am talking on the basis of some couples who have been together for more than thirty years. There something to ruminate over.

The list can go on and on, but time I stopped.

P.S. All the images are taken from the ever ready supply of google image search.
Disclaimer: Husband dear I love you very much, really I do!

A step ahead....

Remember the movie 'Catch Me If You Can' where  Frank Abagnale Jr. played by Leonardo DiCaprio was conning people of millions of dollars and was always a step ahead of the FBI?

My life is a bit like that, always a step or two ahead of me, going her own merry way, craving her own destiny. Sometimes she seems fit to fall in with my plans and dreams and at other times, she goes her own way without a thought or consideration to my plans or convenience. The idea that I am in control of my life is but a mere illusion and the very idea of being powerless completely freaks me out. My ego demands me to think that I am the sole pilot of my life. But at the risk of hurting my ego and diminishing my vanity, more and more I feel like there is a power, much greater than me who is running my life.

I will go the traditional way and call this power God. Assuming that God is running my life is a double edged sword, on one hand it absolves me of all responsibility, but on the other it renders me completely powerless.

I am wandering. Today my intention was not to talk about God but my life.  Taking a step away from myself, being an observer, I have realised that my life has her curious meandering path which she follows and I just fall in step with her. At times I am happy to oblige and at times, I get angry, I rebel, I protest and try to cling on. But very rarely did things go my way, follow my plans or my dreams. I am not saying that my dreams have never come true. On the contrary in most cases they have, but never at the time I wanted them to or the way I imagined. There had always been slight or significant changes, almost like someone mockingly saying that She can plan and run my life better than me.

I feel like I am a car set in a race track, I have been given certain advantages and some other disadvantages which brings of the illusion of being powerful. But someone has the remote control which has the power to keep me on the course or throw me off. Each car in the race is similarly controlled and we each follow our own course, we know the beginning and the end, we know the pitfalls and the soaring peaks. But we do not know when we are going to hit the pitfalls or reach a soaring peak. We are all driving like crazy, each of  trying to reach the maximum number of peaks and avoid all the pitfalls. But here we are rendered powerless, someone makes us fall into those deadly pitfalls and equally someone makes us reach those peaks. The idea is to keep faith in that someone that She would guide us through the pitfalls and has the peaks ready for us to climb and keep going. After all since we have been made the drivers of our cars means that we are special.

at this moment....

sitting in front of my computer, trying to finish a job application. yes i am back in the job market. the carnival i worked for, is over and wrapped up for the year...so time for a new job. as usual do not feel like doing this application (God I HATE job applications). instead thinking about all things good...mmm  at this moment if i had to wish for something, what would that be...

first one is super easy-- job, a long term, to stay in forever job with fab money and lots of travel...so that i do not have to make another job application for the coming 5 years...or better still ever...

flowers...lots of flowers...so many that our whole house fills up...

some nice candles....vanilla ones...they are so my favourites...

money to go on a long holiday...maybe to scottish highlands...

a day of shopping with as much as i can spend...i am thinking handicrafts...fairtrade...silver jewelery...some nice clothes...yes shoes...some home-ware...

a second holiday maybe in morocco or turkey...

a trip to india...with lots of time...to visit all my family and friends spread all over...do the goa trip with cousins...

to own a great camera and become a great photographer...

to...

okay i know it is just a little evening dream...so should not dream for way too much...but as they say unless you dream...:)

Feeling blue...

It is glorious outside, the sun is shinning, Oxford looks pretty as a picture and is inundated with tourists and foreign language students. End of June university term ends and students leave Oxford only to be replaced by swirling mass of international students who have come to join summer schools. Everyone seems tanned and in great mood, everyone except me, that is. The carnival I was organising just finished, was great fun and tremendous success. But now suddenly there is a vacum in its wake and I am at a loose end, do not know what to do with life. I am still feeling very tired, but my mind is alert and needs next project  to keep it busy. Obviously the practical thing to do is to look for another job. But there are so many ifs and buts right now and job hunting is such a slow and excruciating process that it is making me feel quiet blue. It is so bright outside that my blue is light and faded, a bit like the sky blue, but just cos it is faded does not mean that it is not a blue. It is a blue indeed and I am stuck in its grips. Sadly.

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...

Clumsiness....

My husband says that he suffers from 'composed clumsiness'. He can be really composed yet be very clumsy. I too have my fair share of clumsiness.

Here is a clumsy list....

I think the first one would be trying to eat without dropping food on your clothes. And if you are wearing white or light coloured clothes, then it is the birth right of the food to be dropped onto your clothes before reaching your mouth. Remember those occasions while having lunch when a blob of gravy, rich in haldi would fall on your shirt, just when you have an important meeting soon after and you spend your lunchtime trying to rub that stain off and failing miserably???? Or when during a formal evening you drop gravy on your mom's favourite sari and then try dabbling at it with a napkin and the paper napkin instead of wiping the gravy, just dissolves into the sari leaving  paper pieces and adding onto the mess? Those are the times I so wish that I could eat wearing a bib and an apron!

The second would be trying to sip and instead of your mouth the beverage would hit your shirt. Coffee, tea, orange juice, wine, coke-- all the stains are equally bad. Not only is a huge stain left, you are covered in foam and sugar and it feels really yucky. It is horrible whenever it happens but usually it is worse when it happens first thing in the morning. It specially happens to me when I grab a coffee on the go and try drinking it while walking. I do not know how millions of people manage it just so expertly, I never could. I buy a cup of coffee to wake myself up and before I know it the hot coffee is all over me and I have to do serious damage control. By the time I can wipe the stain off, the coffee had gone stone cold and my day has started horribly.  My experience has been so frustrating that I have stopped trying to have drinks on the go.

After this I think would come trying to pour drinks, especially hot beverage onto wobbly styrofoam cups. In my experience, either the beverage gets poured just outside the cup, or the cup topples just when the beverage starts being poured and starts tickling down the table top. This has happened many times with me, but now thankfully I have perfected the art. Oh well almost!

Hey how do you fare when you try to carry way too many things? In order to save work, I always try and carry way too much, piling things up till they become wobbly and hope against hope that they would just dangeously wobble and not fall down. But no such luck, invariably they all crash and then my work usually doubles picking them up. If they are clothes, after picking them I have to refold them. I hate it the most when the cds I carry fall, invariably the jackets have to fly open into two parts, the cds have to pop out and roll under the bed or equally inaccessible place and then I go searching for them. I have had bad experiences carrying almost everything. The trick to avoid this is to accept that I am not an expert juggler and be realistic in the load I can carry.

Hey what about kitchen clumsiness? I am great at various kitchen mishaps due to clumsiness. Pouring oil onto the stove instead of the pan, plates slipping out of hands, spoons flying to the moon or rather hitting the wall and splattering the wall with whatever was there in that spoon, gravy all over the kitchen wall, sauces falling on the floor etc etc etc.

The last one is the most heartbreaking for me. It is me trying to walk in high heels. I know many women march past in stilletos (Not only in Sex and the City, I see women in real life too). I am so clumsy when I try walking in high heels. I sway from side to side, sprain my left ankle and them my right, by then whoever I am walking with gets really irritated and impatient, by then my feet start killing me and another wasted attempt trying to look tall and garious. I know some people are just not meant to do some things. This is what I console myself with!

Ok enough about me, what about your list of clumsiness? Do share. Come on now....

Enjoy the rains....

Right now I feel like Stephane Meyer's Twilight series hero Edward and his family. No no am not in the mood to suck blood. Another reason. Ask me why. Well Edward was a dracula and his family obviously consisted of father, mother and sibling draculas and whenever it rained they would play basketball. Well am at all into basketball but I sure love the rain. And man it is raining in such a sexy way in Kolkata right now.

I have been in a meeting continously today and the yesterday. By the time I was done today my brain was saturated, head was buzzing ( could literally hear the sound), temples were throbbing and for some reason I was famished. Went out to get a snack, it was all cloudy. While coming back it started to rain. Lovely. Though I didnt get the chance to get wet, the cool breeze, the cloudy sky and the fat rain drops refreshed my mind, cleared my head and filled me with a disproportionate sense of well being. I am happy to be alive and sitting here in front of my computer, the window is open and I can see and hear the rain. I so love this.

Yesterday Indranil was telling me that whenever it rains I write a blog post on it. Maybe I do-- I love the rains and find it a very soul cleasening and life giving process. The sounds remain long after the actual rain has stopped, trees look refreshed and green, earth becomes soft and the weather is so much more better.

Monday Morning Share of Woes...

Monday morning I woke up with an uneasy feeling. I could feel that some body part of me was not alright. Slowly as I opened my eyes into another bright, hot and sunny Monday morning (damn every Sunday night I go to bed with the hope that it rains so much during the night, that the good old streets of Kolkata could be relied upon to be water logged which will make it impossible for me to go to office, horses being wishes and all that...) I realise that my neck and back are stiff and an experimental shrug triggered a shot of pain. So I technically begin my Monday with a wince. How nice for the whole week stretched ahead in front of me. Wincing I get up and set about finishing my morning chores. Had a brainwave that after bath I would apply some pain relief ointment. Since the human backside is hardly accessible for self application, had to prise away the maid from her work. Now our maid, God bless her, is an over enthusiastic individual who does not believe in doing things half way. I gave her a Voleni and asked her to apply a little since it is pretty strong. She thought that half a tube is less enough and smeared as much as she could, saving the other half for another day of torture. As soon as half a tube of Voleni was spread over my back, I felt like I was being ripped apart or rather my back was. I hollered like mad, jumping around. Man what a way to start a week!

Just Around the Corner....(Bride Series 1)

Remember the phrase "just around the corner" being taught in school? Somehow I have always found this phrase very interesting and of immense possibilities. The shop is just around the corner, exams are just around the corner, durga pujo is just around the corner, spring is just around the corner....to my young mind the anticipation of wait coming to an end used to loom large. In my imagination I could almost trace the journey of whoever was around the corner, slowly coming to my side of the world and then walking up to my house and knocking. Sometimes I would connect the phrase 'is on us' or 'knocking on us' with this and would literally visualise exams knocking on my mind demanding that I prove what all I have studied so far. Funny how your young mind conjours up certain images and they refuse to budge or reform however old you grow.

Well the important event which is just round the corner (for which I gave this whole background) is my marriage. I am getting married in August and my life right now is revolving around discussing my upcoming marriage, preparing for it, dissecting it, bissecting it, tearing it apart and putting it all back together. I was talking to a friend and a fellow blogger about it yesterday and she suggested that I write about it. Funny now that I think about it, i am really surprised that I have not written about this before considering that now a days all my energy goes into it. Sometimes I confuse whether the marriage is for me or I am for the marriage? The marriage is for me right? The marriage is happening cos I want it to happen. But these marriages have an innate knack of seeping in and overtaking much more space than we are ready to give them. I am not even married just preparing for one and already I feel 'taken over' and all the married ones I am talking to are not really encouraging. For an individualistic space freak like me, marriage being the hugely social and traditional event that it is in India,
is quiet something to digest and accept. Dont get me wrong, I am in love with the guy I am getting married to. My problem lies entirely with the role of the bride. You can think then why I am doing it? Simple reason being it is not my marriage, it is my parents duty, my family's expectation and the same applies for the groom's side.

Frankly I never thought that the very idea of being a bride would be so taxing! But it is and it is stressing me out no end. And by now I have bored most of my friends with all imagined and non imagined troubles, potential pitfalls, clash with my beliefs and politics. I have taken innumerable pledges to take all of it with a pinch of salt and a big bucket of humour. But somehow I go back to having a long face and head swarming with marriage mines. This is making me feel guilty too. Especially since Indranil is so happy about getting married to me. But like I keep telling him that I am not worked up about marrying him, it is the traditional role that I am expected to fit in as a bride which is driving me up the wall.

All my life whatever I have experienced or read, brides are supposed to feel in a certain way-- they are supposed to be happy, coy, shy, eager, enthusiastic etc etc etc, that is if they are getting married to the partner of their choice. Why dont I feel any of it? Somehow I dont feel of any of these things. To me a traditional Indian/Bengali marriage is a collosal waste of money, resouce and time and however much I try to tweak my mental sate it doesnt help. I dont feel happy shopping, planning the menu, drawing the invitation list....all i feel is guilt....guilt of blowing my father's hard money. Guilt of being a traditional girl suddenly after all these years of being a free bird and a radical to boot. Oh well my Libra soul is in a severe spree of indecision and since this is going to for sometime....it is exhausting and stressing me no end, while the clock ticks on and marriage rounds the conner and looms large, fingers lifted about to rap on my door.

This last line reminds me of the poem 'The Listeners' by Walter De la Mare. I am getting literary in confusion :)

Not worth it....

I sit and stare, pretending to be busy...
But I am not,
I cannot work for the life of me...
All I want to do is sleep, sleep and sleep some more...
Wake up and eat...
And then back to sleep...
I need motivation to get back to normal life...
But I dont want motivation to get back to dreadgery...
I dont want inspiration...
I just want to sleep and not even dream...
I am not sad,
Just a little lost...
Impatience with myself does not help...
Not having friends around does not help...
Talking does not help...
Everything seems too much of an effort...
Nothing seems worth it...

................................................

Hey guys, you all must be wondering where have I vanished? I was here only but too busy/tired/preoccupied/bored to write....the following list you give you a sneak peak into my mind's state or state of mind......

• I am so tired that I cannot type my password correctly...keep typing the wrong alphabets and GMail keeps showing error in red....grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr..........
• Even though my eyes are paining and I can feel a headache start at the temples, I feel to lazy to put on my specs....vanity, huh?


• Waiting for over 2 hours just to get my pedicure done....it is so boring....I can never figure out quiet what to say to the girls in the beauty saloon...wish I had a book with me...isssshhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh........


• Similar communication problem in aerobics class....for someone who thinks of herself as quiet friendly and approachable, I not doing too good a job in communicating...but the point is do I even want to talk to these women who are way better at aerobics than I am?....psssssttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt..................


• Was I a member of the dark night in my last incarnation? If not then why cant I sleep at night when all others are snoring away......................shittttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttttt..............................
• Sleepless nights are followed by sleepy days when all I want to do is curl up and go to sleep with a good book. How I wish......................


• If I am part of one more meeting, I am going to start screaming....no not politely but at the top of my voice with all my impatience/irritation flowing out naturally........ I would love to see people's faces when I am done screaming..........hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe.........
• I cannot deal with work related emails going round and round and seeking endless clarifications and explanations......after a couple of rounds these emails seem like stale coffee with lipstick in the rim of its cup.................urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh..........................
• Someone drones on and on, something Very Important is being discussed.....but concentration eludes me.... words fade, faces blur, sleep comes to envelop me in its kind embrace...for a second or two I drift away....mmmm....suddenly from far way I feel the monotonous drone stop, eyes turn....shit they are all on me.....I struggle to wake up....trying to keep my face looking suitably businesslike and blank....errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr did they ask me a question.........errrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr........................
• Old songs makes me feel nostalgic and then I don't know quiet what to do with my nostalgia....call up friends, and talk about it? Or take a trip down the memory lanes on my own? Or just plain avoid it and carry on with the work I was doing..........Hmmmmmmmm.....................Pondering: Do I enjoy bits and parts of my life more in nostalgia, in posthumously and when they actually happen to me??????.....

Some likes and dislikes reinforced--

• I hate being nagged...


• I hate disruptions when I am concentrating....


• I hate people preaching me patience when I am impatient to the extreme....


• I do not take kindly to two friends being giggly and silly when I am not being able to do so.....

I know this is me, me and me, but what the hell this is my blog....hence the me factor with an oooooooooooooooooooommmmmmmmmmmmmmmppppppppppppppphhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

What if....

What if one day you do not want to conform to your self or to the world at large?

What harm can it cause if one day I wake up and just decide to be different?

What if I am rude and shocking and scandalising? Would my co workers still work with me?

What if I am bitchy and mean? Would my friends still love me?

What if I am immature and unreasonable? Would my partner still accept me?

I am asking all these rethorical questions because I suddenly feel that people we interact with, love, cherish and honour, we do all of that because something in that person, some quality we admire.

But what if the other person or for that matter me, have no qualities worth admiring or loving, would the people still be interested in being in some kind of relationship with me?

Ar'nt relationshops way too 'me' centric? How much do we actually think about the other person in a relationship?

What are the relationships we actually value so much, actually worth? Or are relationships matter of convinience like A loves B when it is convinient for him to do so and vice versa?

Just some random thoughts. What do you think?

The Holidays...

I saw this movie The Holidays onWednesday night at HBO. It was a lovely movie, and all the more special because after a really long time, I was comfy in front of our television set in home with my Jaipur quilt and a cup of green tea. It is a quintessential Christmasy feel-good movie and I simply loved it. I fell in love with some of the dailouges and must share them with you.

Iris: Because you're hoping you're wrong. And every time she does something that tells you she's no good, you ignore it. And every time she comes through and suprises you, she wins you over, and you lose that argument with yourself, that she's not for you.
Miles: Exactly, and on top of that there's the old standby, I can't believe a girl like that would actually be with a guy like me.

Arthur Abbott: Iris, in the movies we have leading ladies and we have the best friend. You, I can tell, are a leading lady, but for some reason you are behaving like the best friend.
Iris: You're so right. You're supposed to be the leading lady of your own life, for god's sake! Arthur, I've been going to a therapist for three years, and she's never explained things to me that well. That was brilliant. Brutal, but brilliant.

Iris: Shush. You broke my heart. And you acted like somehow it was my fault, my misunderstanding, and I was too in love with you to ever be mad at you, so I just punished myself! For years! But you waltzing in here on my lovely Christmas holiday, and telling me that you don't want to lose me whilst you're about to get MARRIED, somehow newly entitles me to say, it's over. This - This twisted, toxic THING between us, is finally finished! I'm miraculously done being in love with you! Ha! I've got a life to start living. [Picks up Jasper's jacket, walking to the door]

Iris: I've found almost everything ever written about love to be true. Shakespeare said "Journeys end in lovers meeting." What an extraordinary thought. Personally, I have not experienced anything remotely close to that, but I am more than willing to believe Shakespeare had. I suppose I think about love more than anyone really should. I am constantly amazed by its sheer power to alter and define our lives. It was Shakespeare who also said "love is blind". Now that is something I know to be true. For some quite inexplicably, love fades; for others love is simply lost. But then of course love can also be found, even if just for the night. And then, there's another kind of love: the cruelest kind. The one that almost kills its victims. Its called unrequited love. Of that I am an expert. Most love stories are about people who fall in love with each other. But what about the rest of us? What about our stories, those of us who fall in love alone? We are the victims of the one sided affair. We are the cursed of the loved ones. We are the unloved ones, the walking wounded. The handicapped without the advantage of a great parking space! Yes, you are looking at one such individual. And I have willingly loved that man for over three miserable years! The absolute worst years of my life! The worst Christmas', the worst Birthday's, New Years Eve's brought in by tears and valium. These years that I have been in love have been the darkest days of my life. All because I've been cursed by being in love with a man who does not and will not love me back. Oh god, just the sight of him! Heart pounding! Throat thickening! Absolutely can't swallow! All the usual symptoms.


Iris: I understand feeling as small and as insignificant as humanly possible. And how it can actually ache in places you didn't know you had inside you. And it doesn't matter how many new haircuts you get, or gyms you join, or how many glasses of chardonnay you drink with your girlfriends... you still go to bed every night going over every detail and wonder what you did wrong or how you could have misunderstood. And how in the hell for that brief moment you could think that you were that happy. And sometimes you can even convince yourself that he'll see the light and show up at your door. And after all that, however long all that may be, you'll go somewhere new. And you'll meet people who make you feel worthwhile again. And little pieces of your soul will finally come back. And all that fuzzy stuff, those years of your life that you wasted, that will eventually begin to fade.

For all those friends who feel that they are the only ones who are lonely and sad during the festivities, remember we all do go through it at some point. Cheer up now.

Domestic Violence

Just beneath our terrace house lives a family. The husband is alcoholic, does not work and basically lives a parasitic life and is extremely violent, the wife still believes that her husband is some dashing knight or circumstances make her so deluded. There is also a mother-in-law who works in a gurudwara (sikh place of worship) and is the sole bread earner of the family. There are two children.

When we initially shifted, this man had come up one day with his baby and tried to chat with us. All three of us felt he is a slimy looking no-good fellow without even knowing his background. We cold shouldered him and later asked our landlord and got the full version. Our landlord seemed really fed up with the never ending marital crisis of his neighbours.

Ever since we hear sounds from downstairs on an on and off basis.

Yesterday night we went out for dinner, while climbing the stairs heard a huge commotion. The husband was roaring and he was hitting his wife so hard that we could hear her hit against the wall. The children were crying, muffled sounds of the mother-in-law could also be heard.

The neighbours were all quiet. We stood in our terrace and could see other heads peeping from houses but no one said anything. Anubha wanted to go and ring the bell. There is a campaign against domestic violence, whenever you heard violence happening just go ring the bell, that would put a stop to it at least temporarily.

Jayshree was not happy with the idea, neither was I. So on Jayshree's suggestion Anubha called the police. As usual there was jurisdiction problem. In India I think administration and police are more bothered about their jurisdiction than anything else. If only they put that much effort in their work. Anyways, about 15 minutes later a police man did turn up. But he could not locate the house. We did some mad and silent waving from our terrace to indicate the house. He climbed up and knocked. The man said it was his personal matter, in flats even if you make a little sound (banging your wife is making a little sound) it escaltes. The wife said her husband is a good man and has supported her through and through (by of course turning her into a pulp) and that she has no complaints against him. Only the mother-in-law said that she was a heart patient and that such episodes make her feel really sick. The police man then asked them to lower their sound and went off with a warning.

Thankfully after that, the sound from that house stopped coming.

Who is at fault here? The husband who beats his wife up or the wife who keeps supporting her husband and would till finally he injuries her so much that she will die. She must be dying a little everytime he is so violent. Why does she take it? Why do parents raise their daughters up to take such shit? When will we stop giving this crap about private matters being outside the jurisdiction of the public? Violence is violence, whether it is happening on the roads or inside houses, right? Why is such a simple thing so difficult to understand?

I know of women who have been in such violent situations and they have emerged out, though the process was long and draining. But women do come out with their family's support and lead healthy and normal life.

Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...........................

In the middle of a busy, busy day just when your brain feels that it cannot keep track of all the things that it needs to work on, the trick is to clear everything on your desk, put your head down, close your eyes and silently scream with all your pent up energy and frustration inside your head. Urghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Then get up, cos you are too agitated to lie down, and start writing. Writing is supposed to be theurapatic right? Right?

I just did the screaming and now onto the writing. Before that had a fight with someone who moves at the speed of 1 inch an hour. Boss I am meeting two deadlines, and do not want to know if the scan machine does not work or someone has picked it from your table and dumped it in the dustbin or broken your head with it or whatever, you are being asked to scan, just scan and fast. No response, only blank face. Watery blinking eyes peering at me like I am talking in Hebrew. Urghhhhh. Why cant people just understand that there are some days when the other person is in a hurry and not interested in your health or your entire family history. Just do the work and get on with it.

March to the admin head and demand that a scan machine and a faster scanner be provided. Admin head the nice man he is, calls the slow man who then launches into a sob story. Women are too aggressive and some other bullshit. My face is turning red, so admin head hurriedly keeps down the phone and tries to pacify me. Thanks for trying, but no thanks. No point, so I find a solution myself. Got hold of the sweet office boy. I dont know why I try to stick to procedures and rules on such days, should have bypassed watery eyes and gone directly to ever resourceful Vikrant, who conviniently found a scanner and scanned the document which has already reached it destination. Vikrant is an interesting character, 22/23 years old, one brother sells veggies, the other is studying computer engineering and Vikrant works in our office. Already in his spare time he has picked up typing and types tomes for lawyers when watery eyes waters his eyes. Mark my words that boy will go a long way and I am going to push to get him become a typist in this office and whatever else he wants to be. He is too good and talented to waste it.

Talking about Vikrant's talents, soothe me. So now reply an email and get back to work.

Breakfast...

Thanks to Anubha I have started eating proper breakfast now a days. Before this I have never been much of a breakfast person. I always start feeling hungry after noon. But Anubha gets hungry early on in the morning and makes something. So by default I eat with her or just bring the food to office and eat it while starting work. I am told it is a good habit, lets see how long this can go on.

We usually eat poha, sabu dana (this cooked with peanut masala or just crushed peanuts is my latest obsession, I think in my old age I am turning Maharastrian), parathas, egg, chicken saussages and bread (this is my contribution to the breakfast menu). Sometimes when I am feeling indulgent I walk to Janata Bakery and pick up their mushroom patty. In the winter Jayshree and me, we eat a lot of kachouris. These are not the bong kochuri. We have a favourite shop who serves them pipping hot with equally pipping sabji, mirchi and chatni.

When Anubha is not making the effort I generally stick to cereals with yogurt or my other usual-- papaya.

At home my mother refused/refuses to cook any breakfast, so whoever felt/feels hungry would toast a bread, maximum there would be cheese or peanut butter or marmalade during winters. Sundays were/are different, along with milk in the moring, kochuri with cholar dal and jilipi would come. Sunday Telegraph and this breakfast while Rangoli being broadcasted in DD1 was a great combo to start the day. I look forward to Sundays at home. I always used to get up at 7.30 a.m. eat, read the interesting bits of the paper and then go back to sleep. What bliss.

I remember the breakfasts we used to eat as kids in mamarbari-- kochuri, shingara and jilipis. This was before television had started broadcasting in the mornings. The radio would be on full blast, there would be mostly some Rabindrasangeet playing, and each page of the Sunday newspaper would be floating around among my four mamas/uncles. There would be inevitable tussle over the sports page, my eldest mama would be walking behind my didima/grandma reading her the football/cricket news, praising Mohunbagan and crusing East Bengal. While the other mamas would try to prise it away from him. Soon a huge discussion would start off, while Ma and me would sit and eat. This was even before my brother was born. Suddenly the entire scene from my childhood came back so vividly.