Facing Life, Death, Reality, et. al.- Between X and Me.

I gaze outside the window and see the Peepal tree dropping yellow leaves. I m reminded of the story Last Leaf by O Henry. I see the mortality of living beings, plants are living beings I was taught, though they do not walk around. Hail Professor Jagdish Chandra Bose, we know plants feel.

I think of my end. I wonder how it would be- one to be remembered, one which would be forgotten, one which will be lamented, or one which would relieve people. I have my life (and here i mean the life as opposed to death) in my hands, I at times think if I could make my non-living more worth-while if I self immolate and die for a cause, not reservation of course. There are better things to die for.

I think of my parents, my loved ones. Their presence, their absence. And their permanent and invevitable and permanent absense, which I know is somehting I might be/ will be accosted with someday.

I rethink. Is thinking of death, my loved one's death, an objectionable/undesirable/unnecessary enterprise? 

X:  YES, because it causes you pain yourself even before the cause of pain arises. Why subject yourself to that? Why can't you just live in present and rejoice!!

Me: But you can't escape certain truths, X. These are truths of life and death. And living in their cognizance is a better way to live than to live in the complacence that certain unpleasant things will never ever happen, merely because they are unpleasant.

X: Are you talking of preparedness to face them? See there is certain inevitablity attached to certain things, these things. But why need to think of them now, when may be you don't really want to get prepared. You dont want to lose the concrete present bliss at hand to some nebulous thought process, which you also know is a passing one, till it actually manifests. So why waste even a tiny time in the pondering over the probability/certainity of something unpleasant happening when that requires you to compromie on is a happy/peaceful present?

Me: Preparedness is certainly an issue. It includes physical preparedness (wills, etc :P) and emotional preparedness. While the former is very very materialistic and does not need explanation, the latter is inexplicable! Its like knowledge, that yes, at some point I might become an orphan, a widow, and then I should not be shattered to death. The cognizance I feel makes you better equipped to face the reality when it comes, even if the present joy might be a little compromised. 

X: Yuck, you are talking of wills and all! Its so economic and feeling-less an argument! And I m sure you want similar cognizance of not only death but other unpleasant realities of life, isn't it?

Me: Yes, it is in fact a dirty economic an argument, as I already said, too materialistic. But then, by challenging this what you are questioning is the entire regime of law (YES I m a lawyer-to-be I am allowed to give law arguments!) which talks of wills, insurance, inheritance etc. Somewhere it is legally recognized that thoughts of death and prior to even evident probability of death in near future is somethign which is at some level even desirable. You can't just bask in the sun of present glee! 

Also, yes the need for cognizance is for other unpleasant things as well! If a mother can knit (read prepares) for her coming child (pleasant things) with there not being zero chance of still birth or unconcious aborption, why can one not have preparedness for unpleasant things. Other unpleasant things, say break up, loss of job, ruining of business. It just leaves you less shocked and ruined when it actually happens. I remember having wept long before my sister'sbidaai thinking of it. But that way I wept lesser when she left, because reality had set in. I guess its mature way to live then being an escapist.

X: So terminally ill Y on death bed should think of how he is gonna die soon? Let the reality set in?

Me: Honey, here it is a different sort of reality. The underlying thing is that setting of reality at some time in future should make acceptance of an unpleasant thing easier, but in this case, what is actually happening is the life, what is left for Y, is getting diffuclt if he is constantly reminded of the impending reality- his coming death! Obviously this is an exception and he should not be doing that.!. Otherwise too, I m not suggesting that you constantly engage with the idea of having to live without someone special, how will it be etc etc. But do not let is escape the back of your mind. 

X: _________.

I run short of arguments to put in from X's side, may be because  I m so convinced with what ME says. Its an incomplete blog, with writer inclined to certain ideology. But this thought, needed mention. Somewhere. Here.

I still continue looking outside the window. Seeing more yellow leaves fall. Its not just botany and plant hormones, its more than that.

PS: Rajen Bali. Just that. Happy?

Kasav's Girl. Michelle's Barrack.

Do not know if women from within burqas are permitted to join fidayeen movements.
Probably she was never passionate enough to show her detestation against Western World and make India learn a lesson like he was. She might have known, that siyasi taluqqat with India are strained, but would she have been happy with his justification of being a freedom fighter?

May be. Women like to see in their men, the patriotic stint, even if with unfounded roots. And of course, discreetness comes as a part of any patriotic mission. "I shall, see a better Pakistan, inshallah. And then, my Azmal felicitated."

The clippings show on NDTV. One circled in red.
"Freedom fighters at a place shall always be viewed as terrorists otherwise. Isn't it? But, why are they calling him Kasav. Another secret he had kept, of being renamed? Do i know him even?"

"Azmal Kasav said he wanted to live, the only terrorist caught alive." The black sheep. Kala Bhed. Not man enough. Seemingly looks of approval of family members no longer last. Each drag of hukka with each repeat of the news telecast, made eyes redder veins more popping out.

Then the polygraph test. Compromised bloated face pictures. Denial by Pakistan of any links. "Where is my Hero? Wasn't he a revolutionary? Was he never in fact was one?"

____________________________________________________________________

Beaming with pride, with Sasha and Maliya on side, she holds for him the Lincoln's Bible. And smiles at her 47 year old kid as he fumbles in repeating the oath. She is the First Lady. But more importantly, Mrs. Michelle Obama.

The smiles, the kids, the wardrobe, THE husband, the media, the speeches, the support, the public displays of affection, the rallies, the midnight brief (only possible!) talks with Barrack, the interviews. The planned course of action towards being the Lady of the House (White House.)

"Does it need a less ambitious woman to be happy for one's husband's American Presidential Victory?"

As on Swearing in ceremony, Barrack gets emotional at the traditional Kenyan Singer's piece, unshowingly of course (I could never read his expressions and have always found just one word to describe it: composed) she siting from behind, places her olive green gloved hand on his shoulder. She is his wall.

Her wedding gown design, Hawaian honeymoon destination, her fashion designer, are sought after. I always have wanted a Chocolate Icecream tasting kiss after i knew her, about her.

____________________________________________________________________

The two women who have strcuk me in the recent times. One hypothetically possible and one could not have been more real. But placing myself in their shoes, i felt the oppositeish.

Well, there has to be an end to every long blog.
At the end of it, its just intriguing and the more i emphathize, the more i get fascinated.

The pride, the knowledge of Your man causing pride, the cognizant lasting pride and the ephemeral confused one, followed by dark shame. The issue of the woman being instrumental in the man's journey to fame, whether concluded or unfinished.

I could be them. Either.

Living In, Wearing Out

The bed is nicely done, sheets are in Persian silk.
But the side table does not have nappies, nor lukewarm bottles of milk.

The drapes are bright red, the cushions the perfect green.
Only a pair of moving morning shadows, not nothingness, its serene.

A wall for our family photos, the showy umbilical bit.
Frozen smiles, captured at a time, while they were still at it.

I love my cane rocking chair, he does not like it much.
We don't have Grand-dads and Grannies, fighting for it as such.

Cooking is always a cake walk, Pasta, Pizza and all.
But it took a Sunday and Sanjeev Kapoor, to teach me Ma ki dal

Dissents are not perennial, but if we ever have a strife;
I get to end it easily - 'Don't shout, I'm not your wife'.

I am happy in my autonomy, my issues, i do decide.
I practically have a husband, always by my side!

We tailor-made matrimony, to keep 'bliss' sans the vows.
No liability, least accountability, as each other we espouse.

A life of chosen conveniences and i m glad I remain a 'Miss.'
Yet as Life in living is perfect, somethings are amiss.

Everyone who has his head held high is not necessarily proud without reason. He could have spondylitis. And proud spondylitis patients manage never to close their eyelids.

First times.

There is pride attached to certain 'first times'(first-timers too!), shame to others and indifference to rest.

Ease.

And my commode-phobic Amma always constipated when she made early morning efforts on the raised toilet seat. Not surprisingly, she thought she suffered from Diarrohea whenever she used the Indian counterpart!

How many lives have you saved/taken?

I have enough unread mails in my mailbox to take part in some contest for the same. Part of it is indolence. The other part, is the fear of facing a mail which requires you to forward it to a certain number of people, if i wanted, for example:

1. A bright love life or

2. Lot of money within the next 24 Hrs (sum usually mentioned)

or if i wanted to avoid,

1. Extreme bad-luck for ages or

2. the death of someone which is almost certain unless i forward the mail to all those on my address list to contribute in the mail-chain-money-pool-in drive.

The first three rather being pleasantly and futuristically speculative (money and true love) or hypothetically intagible (Bad luck), its the forwards under the fourth heading which botehr me the most. I have certain issues with this.

Some say its spam, some say even if it is, are u heartless enough to give in to someone's death just cause you are reluctant to click a few times? I don't know. I feel tormented when i see babies with feeding tubes in their oral and nasal opening. Really. But i still am not inclined to forward them. Almost never. Why but? I do not know. May be too fake to be true. Just to think how many times one recieves mails saying that a certain person has been saved owing to the money raised by yahoo/gmail forwards! Something strangely fishy and sympathetically-unevoking is there about such mails, but nevertheless, as soon as i click on 'delete mail' or 'return to inbox', a little something in me dies thinking of a white ghost whispering 'i died because you never forwarded that mail to your friends.'

Spatial Courtrooms.

Yesterday when i had a choice of letting someone sit on my coveted and cleverly acquired metro seat long before my stop came, i looked at people as they got on different stations, and i put my conscience to work:

"The tall guy in shades and jeans definitely does not deserve this seat, the lady in suit might just, she looks weak, but so am i after a days work! The gentleman in kurta looks aged but he definitely is not a senior citizen ...ah yes then i find my source of gratitude, a woman with a few months old baby with her. She is the ONE i would leave my seat for."

I stood up and ensured i guarded the seat till she walked up till there seeing it having got empty and then realizing i had voluntarily emptied it long before my stop was even near, she shared a look of acknowledgment! Its funny how in everyday life inadvertently we assume role of judges, that too mostly in our own contextual causes. Be it giving money to a beggar, or buying something at the traffic signal becuase you feel the person genuinely, and thats genuinely to us, needs money. This judgmentalism, i don't say is objectionable. But how fair are we being when we assume the position of such moral judges will sheep-earlike wigs over our heads. Its just a thought, needs watering, manures and pruning. But then they all start as saplings...

Marasmus and Photography.

At work. With all the prime-time indulgence websites having been blocked, i googled up my all time favourite National Geographic Photography Contest. The entries sumbitting time is long over. Sadly so. But then its just an observation i made while voting in for the top thirty photos. Poverty appeals much more than affluence. Is it planned? Is a malnourished dying Ethiopian essentially a better (read Winnable!) subject than a pot-bellied marwadi. I was falling for the trap, i was planning how i would click such 'appealing' pics and ensure that my computer doesn't crash enxt time!

Its weird. Poverty never ceases, but people win just from depiction of the status quo!

Sector 13.

The feeling is not novel. Racing against time. Its now or later, of course not 'never'. You sit all through the exam expecting to remember the answer, that one word, that one thing missing in the formula, was it sin or cos, just wishing divya -budhhi to dawn on you for a while when u just get it! And then its the end, you are tying answersheets, hearing threat calls of examiner leaving hall without your answersheets and suddenly someone from behind whispers, "its cos". You turn back saying 'hai na' with the 'i knew it, i felt the same' look and turn back to finish the exam.You finish it and are contnent to end an otherwise awsome paper which would have been left incomplete without that 'cos', that one word, one reminder.

The same feeling. Nearly same. One shared longing. One idea. One memorable day. and it all happens on sector 13. Its unfair to those who read this and cannot make any sense out of this. An incomplete but probably a well introduced story.A potential movie script? Whatever! Where the hell are the parallals between the exam thingie and sector 13, but then do not i owe something exclusive for my regular reader(s)? Exclusive to their understanding...

I could have written a mail, scrapped, smsed, but i want to write for him here, coz even as this remains something of which memories lies between us, the understanding of which remains dually exclusive, i want to shout out about the happening of the same, and yet discreetly, and still i m being open, but how can i not be? don't you tell people when you decide to get married, but this is not close to it.Most definitely, not as yet! or is it not?

Period. I'm confused.

Let me unwind. Untwirl. Untangle.

It should suffice to know, that my contentment arrived newer levels at sector 13. When i say now that i do not care for interpretations, giggles, chuckles, sighs that might follow from those who have a tiny knowledge of my personal life, i mean it. End.

Thank You proofreader.

"Dwarka Sector 13 Station. Please mind the gap."

Yet again.

At times a problem-free life starts to appear problematic. God just eased that problem giving me something gravely bothering. Yes, normalcy has varying forms. Thank You God. But really i would still value victories equally even without these obstacles. Really. For once. Let me have it easy.

I empathize. Its me.

My sister got married the year i joined the law school. I was one semester old then, and having started with family law i used to threaten my brother-in-law, how i would book him for dowry demands and domestic violence if he does not yield to my sister's wishes (primarily being ice cream, chocolates and likes) Never having however worked with an NGO working for women in such oppressive relationships, and having a rather submissive and docile brother-in-law i have never known how it is in such a relationship. I m facing currently a lack of words to express this and a lack of courage to admit whats coming next may be.

I am yet to see, know a woman personally who has come up against her husband saying he was violent, cruel demands dowry etc. I agree i have read cases and loads. But as even my heart wept for them i wondered why all the aunties i know who are in such strained relationships and those thriving only because of their high tolerance and may be physical endurance, haven't yet raised their voices.

As i pondered, i realized how even i might not open my mouth in such a case- shoving all the knowledge, 'feministy', right-awareness learned in the college in to drain. Somewhere we as women, have to agree that we cannot see our husbands, boyfriends being accountable in public for something close to wrong which they did, and just to think its a wrong against oneself that he might be requried to answer, just forces one to believe that everything shall be fine. What i m saying might not be a cause novel to the domestic world and which in fact might be the reason operating for many who grin and bear, but i emphathize with them. Its true i would not keep quiet as my husband drives me out of house at midnight, but may be i would if he shows mildest of repentance or eagerness to save the realtionship, even for a second. In fact knwoing myself, i would try to save the relationship may be, initiating even, if there isn't any repentance . It is more than non-impulsiveness, its more than saving 'his' face, its more than kids, if any. The reason is more i think, somewhere, in the acceptance of the fact of one's being a woman. I don't expect being hit by my husband, but i would not be taken aback if i already knew when i got married that he was an angry man. Its revolting, disgusting. Its sad yet true for me to admit that i will continue in such a relationship, may be this is because the surety of the fact that if i am with the person i am currently with, such a situation which pits my self respect against my being as a woman would always remain hypothetical. For reasons more than one, and for reasons which remain inexplicable, i m sure i shall endure for long. And real long before i claim my rights.

PS: I really don't know why i placed this picture here, may be because she too might never claim her 'rights' to an unbashing husband, like me. Yes yes, i m being stereotypical, deciding on looks, but please let me be this one time.

Uninhabited Home.

I had started building it early.
In my 13th summer, had felt the wetness
Cursing self I had sighed.
My second was X, not Y
Lagging behind by an alphabet to cost me five life-worthy days a month
Beginning of survival with cognizance of periodic blood loss
Nevertheless called for celebrations somehow
I roared at the social imbecility and eternal function crave

Still wondered at the Divine mechanisms
Till the complexity was taught –
That my within was tortuously confusing,
Dormant fertility had awakened that day, I reckoned
Motherhood in me curled its lips in to a smile
If sewing teddy could cost a droplet of the red
My baby could of course ask for all
I sang odes to the aching lowers, embarrassing laundries and otherwise inactivity
A final one to the second X.
My baby’s first abode, I painted imaginatively
Repainted once more

Reconstructions of the haven continued
As my fertility got legitimized
So were celebrations in my eyes
Marital joys ancillary as they seemed
I was eager to barter a pain for another
For the life shall be caused meanwhile
At least so I thought

I kept renovating, priding my femininity
Without a reason I discovered
As my own complexity jibed at me:
The barter is not that simple
You thought ‘blood-money’ was all
One sixth of lifetime seemed painfully futile
The thoughts in rest, laughable
I still keep living, painting and re-painting,
A part of me which could only be
An uninhabited home.

(PS: A word of thanks to Daddy who doubly assured that lines in a poem need not always rhyme.)

At(tempt) to Define Temptation.

When the range of chocolates named Temptations came in to the market, I thought now they have captured the human feeling and named the product most appropriate to be so named, but then now i feel there are situations better exemplifying how it feels to be tempted~

Say when you are late waiting for a bus and an auto walah without breaking the eye-contact with you goes around the place in a periodic motion.

Or may be when you wake up in the morning with a pleasantly painful pimple having a yellow head and your index finger's and thumb's fingertips almost impatient to squeeze the fluid out of it.

Or may be when you see a really senile man with a pagdi on his head and multiple wrinkles on his face in a city bus and you feel the camera from your backpack pressing against you and you are wondering if the man could raise a hue and cry on being clicked or may be is independent enough to use his lathi against you.

Or say when it gets itchy at wrong place and wrong timings!

Or when you just stop yourself from calling a friend-turn-foe cousin of yours an 'asshole' before your parents!

Sigh, there are so many temptations that go unnoticed and all that comes to mind is an erotic (and now chocolaty) connotation of temptation (or may be it is me only, the pervert me who thought like that till today!) -unless companies like Cadbury forcibly capture 'temptedness' in a chocolate bar may be. May be we as humans will appreciate the tiny temptations more when Mahindra launches autos called Temptation, or we have a pimple cream/ itch cream named temptation, or Nikon's new camera model is named Temptation....

Beer and The Fairer Sex.

I m an alcohol virgin, not out of ideology may be but because of lack of chance i have never even had a taste of it, however, that's not something i portray as a virtue! In spite of having a medico in my family i m pro-alcohol when it is in moderation and am comfortable with the notion of social drinking. What i detest is however the hypocrisy of men regarding female drinking which is why i intended to write this piece.

We are all now broad minded. Drinking does not raise eyebrows anymore. I have friends and cousins who drink and its NOT a taboo to me, but when my brothers, guy friends and boyfriend still holding the beer can preach me that i should not be drinking, a part of me wants to turn a liquor baron that instant (as if liquor barons are the one who drink their guts out, but just wanted to use something that sounded extreme!) or may be Devdas... This prescription of non-alcoholism for women you are connected with is the meanest form of duality! You want their shoulders when u are in ur alcoholic worst (read HIGH) but want to keep them devoid of the pleasure: be it of drinking, of socializing over drink or of the subsequent high feeling and the feeling of being taken care of when high! And why so, coz drinking women are taboo? No u did not care when ur office colleague (a woman) drank to nose in the party..coz she wasn't ur girlfriend, ur best friend, ur wife, ur mother ur sister? right? Women in relations, consanguinous or conjugal or semi conjugal should not drink. Period.

That still being comparatively a problem closer to home, the behaviour you get having ordered for beer is even more ridiculous. Wearing a bindi you are not supposed to order for beer. I don't have too many personal experiences to share, but reaction of the pan wallahs when my best friend, who happens to smoke, asks for cigarette is just too corroborative. Raised eyebrows, contempt-filled eyes, disbelief at how someone in kurti and jeans, so homely looking, over-clad in a duppatta ask for a cigarette! 'Let my sales dip (not really) but i wish she wasn't smoking' kind of look which i have seen often actually forces me to believe that men in general also are still uptight when it comes to tolerate a cigarette between the fingers of a female being or may be a beer glass in her hands....We are the nurturers, the care-takers, the situation sambhalo ones. Hence booze is not our cup of tea!

More than breaking my alcohol virginity for the sake of 'lets try it once' it is this hypocrisy which propels me to have in my life at least a few socially embarrassing moments of extreme drunkardness.....to give the 'concerned' men in my life a little jolt!

How I Wish I Should Never Be Needed To Talk About My Kevin!

They store the umbilical cord tissues in glass jars in what can be called human banks (i m sure they cal it by someother name which i am unable to recollect!).

If my baby develops any disease then he may be miraculously cured as the frozen tissue stays safe in the bank at a pecuniary cost.
Thats technology. Thats science. As a lawyer-to-be I can only marvel at the thought of it. But what about the uncurable things? Will that umblical cord extract my child brighter, 'taller, stronger and sharper'?

Being a woman (context forces me to use this term in stead of girl) and that too a cancerian, maternity flows in my blood. There is a favourite memory i share with my best friend from school, at 12 she used to say i want a puppy being a dog lover and i used to say i want a baby! That being so, now that i am, very practically viewing, less than a decade away from marriage and maternity, i often get fascinated about how my kids will be and how they shall grow up to be.

And one fine day i come across a book by Lionel Shriver named 'We Need to Talk About Kevin'. A fear seeped in to my joys of anticipatory maternity. The kid, Kevin, in the movie at 15 shoots a bunch of his schoolmates and a teacher and as he serves detention, his mother grieves and writes a series of emotional letters to her estranged husband. She recollects in them how Kevin was ruthless as a child and showed cruel intentions as he mauled insects. I managed to read several reviews for the book, although i m yet to read the book.

My love for kids definitely is much more than my longing to become a mother. I have a niche in my sympathy zone for all the kids, irrespective their delinquency or not. Kids are cute, no matter what. But this indifferent love for children vanishes somewhere, selfishly rather, when i think of my child being a delinquent. The thought of my son doing a classroom shootout is horrific. Not that I will start loving my child lesser, not that i will be ashamed of him, but is n't it like picking the best apples from the mart, just that we don't have kid marts and thankfully so. Its the same way like u r ok with homosexual relations but the minute your daughter tells u she has a girlfriend she would like to marry may be, you are all uncomfortable and furious. It might sound so irrational but i would not hate to admit that as my heart goes out to all the kids in the world- blacks white, brights dulls, creatives, geeks, delinquents, champs, i would pick up for my child a set of positives, an assorted virtue basket- smart, cute, genius, creative, obedient, lovable. Inconsistency, yes it is there. Duality too. But I m human n i don't feel ashamed to ask the best for myself, my child.

Sigh...I m already looking forward to become a proud mother at a parent teacher meeting! At times I wish i was not so ahead of age and behind times.....


PS: A special word of thanks to my proof reader. :)

Forging Connections. Thanking Connectors.

as



















Rather weird.
Surviving with the entire horizontal expansion of the widest possible India between yourselves, subjection to similar pain also brings in a sense of connectedness.

This is with special reference to the newly changed mess contractor. Who incidentally is the one serving him at the other end of India.

So i grow closer to him, each time i crib: breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Thank You Foodking.
Now i realize how the bond amongst the soldiers all lined up at the war front, each subject to similar fear (pain in this case) feels

PS: i cudn't get where to title my photo, but i reckon you get the link, Foodking, Crown Burger. Just a symbolic thing, as i felt putting up Foodking logo could have made this blog may be more sueable! Or could it not have? Watever...

Emptiness.

The last time i cried in to these, the paneer went salty. I will thence let emptiness prevail.

Early Morning Indulgences.

Rain drops in my tea.
Maroon umbrella yet dry.
Periodic motions of the slinging camera.
Humming a song I go by.
Stack of daily newspapers,
I pull out the lucky one.
Still tells me about the blasts.
Leaving me more waiting for the sun.
But world is still good,
And so are its men.
This however is not something,
I had intended to pen.
The faint smile of a rainy morning
Seldom fades with the day
The worldly woes i sip with tea
I so merry so gay!

A Paunchy Patriotic Independence Day!

No Prime Minisiter's politicized speech. No Tak Tak of the thal-jal-vayu sena jawans marching. Its just the Girl's hostel and Boy's hostel guards. Posing for the camera, baien muding!

A simple Independence Day, with the same patriotic songs playing in the same order as they had played on Republic day.

Same flag. Washed. Dried. Ironed.

61 years of freedom.

In all its reduced non virulent and non infectious form, Independence day still elicited from my within a surge of love for my country. As i clicked the paunchy guards early morning in my pajamas, I promised myself that i did need not yet another 100 years of foreign rule to get my Country freed and display my lowe for it.

I don't know what i would do. I dont want u to know what i would do, even if I do. I remember what Mr. Williams had said (for those who accidentally follow my blog!)

Sigh.

Yes India, i love you and though this seems an inappropriate place for such talks... i m proud to be an Indian, i shall prove to be a true Indian!

Jai Hind.


(P.S: Laugh. Its ok. At times you feel that you expressed ...in writing or though spoken words...somethign overridden with emotions at a particular point and u regret it subsequently. Sometimes you thanks yourself that u were so overridden for otherwise you wud have never said it....this is one of the later times and i m so glad bout it!)