We all love to talk about it, don't we? The same old question - If we go back to India for good, which city would we pick? There's the immediate answer that software engineers normally give, "Bangalore, of course!" but then I have been hearing increasingly disturbing comments on life at B'lore from friends (including IBH's post)...unmanageable traffic, maximum population of two-wheelers(!), pollution problems et.al. So, then we discuss Delhi and Poona briefly and decide one is too north and the other also too far away from home, then I greedily eye our own Singara Chennai, hoping a late but powerful entry would do the trick but the ignorant claim it's too hot! I mean come on, what's a little heat compared to living in Chennai? (well, not exactly little but still...)
And so the conversation goes, the question often is not whether we will shift to India and when we will do it but always the place just because it's more fun to fight over our preferences on where to live I guess. Bus (yes, that's his Bitsian name!) finally put an end to this conversation by deciding that we will live where our career takes us, the better the job satisfaction and the job and ofcourse the $$$ (or Rs.Rs.Rs...), the better the place...well, that's one way of looking at it, but for now, it's just more fun to point at a city in India and wonder how life there would be...our kids going to dance class together at KalaKshetra in Madras or all of us eating pizzas on a Saturday at Infy, B'lore, taking a crowded sweaty train in Mumbai (shudder...this reminds me of what one of my friends said about Bombay - if you are really rich, I mean reaaallly rich in Bombay and say buy a sea facing 2500 sq.ft house with a nice little garden - I hear this is impossible - and a mercedes there, in all probability you will get a call the next morning from some underworld Don! Bombay is a no-no for me because of this scary little story!...which also reminds me, I asked one of my friends what was so great about Bombay and he replied, "Well, we can have all the chats we want from the road side bhaiyas, even with distilled water if you so wish and then we have the queen's necklace" - well, now, why didn't he tell me that earlier? :))
...yes, I know it's highly improbable that all of us here will settle down at the same place in India or will send our kids to the same dance school (I guess we send the boys to the Karate class? Maybe just some early IIT coaching classes :))?) but it's my imagination and I can take it wherever I want :)
August 03, 2005
July 29, 2005
A little bit of everything :)
The air conditioner in our office conked out today morning and I couldn't be happier about it. Without the constant hum of the AC, everything seems more...real, believe it or not. I almost feel like I am a bank employee working in Madras - I hear all the familiar sounds associated with it - table fans, people talking, a sultry feel all around me, the clickity clacks of keyboards, I hear everything more clearly and somehow, I feel better about it all :)
For those not able to keep up with my n blog updates, here's a gist - am writing a non-short story, well, not exactly a mega serial type story but a long one nevertheless...I wish I could write like Shobha Narayanan or Amulya Maladi, the way they weave food, spices and smells into their novels without breaking the flow of their narration, oh well, if wishes were horses...!
I saw b & p's marriage video recently and it was a pleasant experience. You should see the genuine smiles and the almost palpable, childlike excitement that adorns the faces of the maamis and mamas who come to bless the newly wedded couple...whether it is singing during the oonjal ceremony or watching the kasi yatra or wishing them during the reception, it's obvious that they are present fully, if you know what I mean, they are not thinking of the stinging smoke, the elaborate rituals, the never-ending queue assembled to wish the couple, the confused and loud mantrams, squeals of laughter, loud chatter that make it difficult for one to even hear one's own voice and every other inconvenience that completes the beautiful picture of a wedding...they are there because they care and that's what matters to them...and to us!
For those not able to keep up with my n blog updates, here's a gist - am writing a non-short story, well, not exactly a mega serial type story but a long one nevertheless...I wish I could write like Shobha Narayanan or Amulya Maladi, the way they weave food, spices and smells into their novels without breaking the flow of their narration, oh well, if wishes were horses...!
I saw b & p's marriage video recently and it was a pleasant experience. You should see the genuine smiles and the almost palpable, childlike excitement that adorns the faces of the maamis and mamas who come to bless the newly wedded couple...whether it is singing during the oonjal ceremony or watching the kasi yatra or wishing them during the reception, it's obvious that they are present fully, if you know what I mean, they are not thinking of the stinging smoke, the elaborate rituals, the never-ending queue assembled to wish the couple, the confused and loud mantrams, squeals of laughter, loud chatter that make it difficult for one to even hear one's own voice and every other inconvenience that completes the beautiful picture of a wedding...they are there because they care and that's what matters to them...and to us!
July 25, 2005
Myriad Colors of Silk!
For some reason today, I thought of DAV ("My" erstwhile School); actually it's a pretty winding trail of thoughts and hence this random post. Out of the blue, I thought of Jyothika and Surya, probably because my mom recently told me about Jyothika's wedding saree, alleged to have 54000 computer generated colors worth an exorbitant* amount to match that claim. Apparently, the salesman at RMKV silks (the latest big silk saree store in Madras, to the best of my limited knowledge) tried to sell this saree to my mom :) So anyway, my thoughts then wandered on to a scene from Khaka Khaka where there's this School going girl being teased by rowdy guys from the corner liquor store and this girl for reasons best known to her (and the director) is wearing a white skirt, part of her School uniform that would have probably fit her correctly three years earlier! Anyway, the white skirt then reminded me of my DAV School uniform on Saturdays, white shirt and white (long) skirt and several unrelated thoughts which incidentally is not the subject of this post (am beginning to wonder if there is one)! But I have uploaded these nice little pictures, so let me say something related :)
There's something to be said about silk sarees - gaudy or trendy, monotoned or double shaded, with thick golden borders or delicate single-lined borders, parrot green and shocking orange or all the shades of the panjavarna kili...they all dazzle and glimmer, sparkle and shimmer, add a touch of glamour and familiarity to marriages made in heaven :)
July 21, 2005
Affairs and Accidents, in blurry pictures...
Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, an affair to remember...I loved the book and now I am positively depressed that I need to cease existing in the mystical, magical, mysterious (adjectives do little justice to Potter's magic) Hogwarts castle and I find myself back in the muggle world. 2 long years for the 7th book and until then, well, atleast I have the movie to look forward to in November...
Keeping track of this many families sagas is difficult enough for the reader, I wonder how the writer (Vikram Seth) managed it with such ease and eloquence - history, poetry, romance, religion, law, music, politics - you name it and it will weave its way into A Suitable Boy, the longest published English novel. I am still struggling with a family tree for this novel...another of those books that leave behind a strange tugging of the heart that one cannot ignore (I couldn't)...just wait for it to dim away with time...
Cyrano De Bergerac, played at the Lexington Shakespeare Festival left behind tender feelings and rosy romanticism...the picture I have here is from Roxanne, a modern and well made Steve Martin movie adaptated from the play.
As you like it that we watched a week earlier was a treat too, more fun and songs and a little less romance but delightful all the same :) The disaster of a photo by the side was an impulse on my part to capture the moment!
Finally, this picture taken just after a near miss accident! Am not sure if I can blame the rain or the slightly old tires or the fact that we forgot to turn on the anti skid mechanism...we were merging on a ramp and we skidded all the way to a railing on the right and in an attempt to correct this, we skidded all the way to the left, the nose of our car jutting well into the freeway...A waffle and two coffees later, we stopped trembling enough to drive! This picture just because I have an inkling that He (sitting happily here) had given us a hand, somehow...Amen.
July 19, 2005
Love, as dictated by my pen.
Ah, the joy of putting pen on paper - it's like running into an old friend unexpectedly, the conversation often turns out to be pleasant and ...unpredictable! And, so it is with this experiment, I command not what my hand decides to scribble, it is the pen I hold that dictates what my thoughts are to be, coloring them as it paints a picture, mere wisps of outlines seen only to the discerning eye to begin with but more defined as the ink begins to dry...
Trailing epithets that demand to be associated with the lazy eyes - dreamy, beguiling... :)
From my archives, more for relevance than anything spectacular - A slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, an almost imperceptible smoothening of the crinkles of the forehead, perhaps a dimple that winks at us from one cheek…a small wave rising from the lips, touching upon every feature of the face, gently coaxing the eyes to speak, to evoke, creating magic for the one who receives it…a smile.
My surrender complete.
July 18, 2005
Loud and Clear, unpopularly yours.
Baby steps towards Audioblogging, thanks to the blogger folks and lazy geek :)
Yes, I know, but that's my voice and I have made peace with that fact!
* * *
It's official, confirmed, stamped and sealed. My theory of ordinality (as defined by me) along with P~'s theory of the unpopulars leads me to believe that I shall remain an insignificant speck in this universe from now on, with no hope of recovery :)
A short summary of P's theory would be the popularity scale in decreasing order shown here:
Well, atleast am not the married guy :))
Yes, I know, but that's my voice and I have made peace with that fact!
It's official, confirmed, stamped and sealed. My theory of ordinality (as defined by me) along with P~'s theory of the unpopulars leads me to believe that I shall remain an insignificant speck in this universe from now on, with no hope of recovery :)
A short summary of P's theory would be the popularity scale in decreasing order shown here:
- Single girl
- Married girl ~ Single guy
- Married guy
Well, atleast am not the married guy :))
July 14, 2005
Brace yourself for this one!
A cavitron, India, a farm house in Texas & a wedding - what do they have in common? Nothing. A visit to the dentist and you get all of this and more!
I stared at the ominous looking dark clouds and the angry showers that fell in quick, sharp bursts and I knew they were trying to warn me before I stepped into the clinic - proud in the knowledge that I had successfully postponed my dental appointment by a full six months(!) and a bit apprehensive all the same.
"Reema?"
Close enough, better than the battering my last name is subjected to, anyway.
I stood up and smiled, hoping my freshly brushed and flossed teeth would gleam away any doubts that the hygienist would have about them. I had spent a full five minutes at work, brushing and flossing carefully before driving over to the clinic. So what if I missed a few flosses here and there, the past few weeks, months? A good final brush and floss and my teeth ought to be as good as new, or so I thought.
"Tsk, tsk...I do see a lot of tartar deposits here and here and..."
I stared at the small masked face of the hygienist and wished she would stop tsking.
"Do you floss daily?"
I was used to this trick question by now. I nodded enthusiastically.
"Hmm...well, maybe a year is a long time and you just need to come sooner for your cleaning. Well, you do have a lot of tissue and that perhaps makes flossing harder...."
Ah, there it was, an escape route and I jumped on it with an appropriately forlorn expression, "Yes, the hygienist who saw me earlier seemed to think the same"
"Really? Well, let's see for ourselves..."
And before I could object (not that I would have anyway), she produced a floss kit out of thin air and proceeded to floss on my teeth, "Hmm, I see no problem at all...unless you floss daily, you will have these periodontal problems and ..."
I listened to the familiar lecture and tried to smile as she plodded thoughtfully, some more inside my mouth.
"Now, the cavitron...you know what it is"
She almost giggled an evil giggle and I joined her, well knowing what I was getting myself into. The cavitron - an apparatus from hell, it attacks all your senses at once, making you almost wish that you had flossed everyday! At this juncture, let me mention that I have a bone to pick with Indian dentists - they did not ask me to floss, just brush, brush everyday and I did, being the obedient girl I was and now, there is this sudden intrusion, a three hundred second daily intrusion on my time to floss, floss, floss and I object! Well, in any case, we moved on to non-dental issues - the usual "Where do you work?", "Oh, Masters in Computer Science? Really?" among others questions whose responses were greeted with more than necessary enthusiasm and surprise.
"Oh, you are from India...you know, my brother had to stay there for 6 weeks for an assignment"
I noticed the usage of "had to" and said, "Oh, that must have driven him crazy!"
"Yeah, you know what shocked him the most? The punishments given for stealing..."
"huh?"
"yeah, you cut both hands right? Isnt that your punishment for stealing?"
"huh? huh? huh?"
You see, that was the best I could do considering that I had the wretched cavitron and another nasty tube in my mouth. I did however manage to convey my incredulity with raised eyebrows.
She continued, "Oh, that's not what you do? Maybe it was not India, let's see..."
She named a few places and then laughed and said "Oh, trust me to spread these silly rumours!"
Yes, trust you to do that.
Noticing that I was not very pleased with the whole cutting hands business, she continued, "My brother has a farm house in Texas with cows and all..."
I wasn't sure how to react to this revelation and I just gave my now familiar, raised eyebrows expression. Our conversation went on to other things and she asked me about my single status and was thrilled (once again!) to note that there was a wedding in the near future, and in India (believe it or not!).
I stammered whatever came to my mind, numb and strangely soporific partly due to my smarting gums and partly because of the annoying hiss of the cavitron and my goosepimples! I just gave her a tired smile in response to her many questions. After our refreshing conversation, it was time for the dentist to see me.
"Hmm...did you wear braces?"
"Yes, many years ago? When I was 16..."
He smiled, "Many years? And what are you now? 19, 20?"
And even before I could grin stupidly and blush and say thanks, he said, "You will need a full periodontal examination though and you should consider wearing braces again, you know, your teeth seems to be growing at all angles..."
and 
:(
I stared at the ominous looking dark clouds and the angry showers that fell in quick, sharp bursts and I knew they were trying to warn me before I stepped into the clinic - proud in the knowledge that I had successfully postponed my dental appointment by a full six months(!) and a bit apprehensive all the same.
"Reema?"
Close enough, better than the battering my last name is subjected to, anyway.
I stood up and smiled, hoping my freshly brushed and flossed teeth would gleam away any doubts that the hygienist would have about them. I had spent a full five minutes at work, brushing and flossing carefully before driving over to the clinic. So what if I missed a few flosses here and there, the past few weeks, months? A good final brush and floss and my teeth ought to be as good as new, or so I thought.
"Tsk, tsk...I do see a lot of tartar deposits here and here and..."
I stared at the small masked face of the hygienist and wished she would stop tsking.
"Do you floss daily?"
I was used to this trick question by now. I nodded enthusiastically.
"Hmm...well, maybe a year is a long time and you just need to come sooner for your cleaning. Well, you do have a lot of tissue and that perhaps makes flossing harder...."
Ah, there it was, an escape route and I jumped on it with an appropriately forlorn expression, "Yes, the hygienist who saw me earlier seemed to think the same"
"Really? Well, let's see for ourselves..."
And before I could object (not that I would have anyway), she produced a floss kit out of thin air and proceeded to floss on my teeth, "Hmm, I see no problem at all...unless you floss daily, you will have these periodontal problems and ..."
I listened to the familiar lecture and tried to smile as she plodded thoughtfully, some more inside my mouth.
"Now, the cavitron...you know what it is"
She almost giggled an evil giggle and I joined her, well knowing what I was getting myself into. The cavitron - an apparatus from hell, it attacks all your senses at once, making you almost wish that you had flossed everyday! At this juncture, let me mention that I have a bone to pick with Indian dentists - they did not ask me to floss, just brush, brush everyday and I did, being the obedient girl I was and now, there is this sudden intrusion, a three hundred second daily intrusion on my time to floss, floss, floss and I object! Well, in any case, we moved on to non-dental issues - the usual "Where do you work?", "Oh, Masters in Computer Science? Really?" among others questions whose responses were greeted with more than necessary enthusiasm and surprise.
"Oh, you are from India...you know, my brother had to stay there for 6 weeks for an assignment"
I noticed the usage of "had to" and said, "Oh, that must have driven him crazy!"
"Yeah, you know what shocked him the most? The punishments given for stealing..."
"huh?"
"yeah, you cut both hands right? Isnt that your punishment for stealing?"
"huh? huh? huh?"
You see, that was the best I could do considering that I had the wretched cavitron and another nasty tube in my mouth. I did however manage to convey my incredulity with raised eyebrows.
She continued, "Oh, that's not what you do? Maybe it was not India, let's see..."
She named a few places and then laughed and said "Oh, trust me to spread these silly rumours!"
Yes, trust you to do that.
Noticing that I was not very pleased with the whole cutting hands business, she continued, "My brother has a farm house in Texas with cows and all..."
I wasn't sure how to react to this revelation and I just gave my now familiar, raised eyebrows expression. Our conversation went on to other things and she asked me about my single status and was thrilled (once again!) to note that there was a wedding in the near future, and in India (believe it or not!).
I stammered whatever came to my mind, numb and strangely soporific partly due to my smarting gums and partly because of the annoying hiss of the cavitron and my goosepimples! I just gave her a tired smile in response to her many questions. After our refreshing conversation, it was time for the dentist to see me.
"Hmm...did you wear braces?"
"Yes, many years ago? When I was 16..."
He smiled, "Many years? And what are you now? 19, 20?"
And even before I could grin stupidly and blush and say thanks, he said, "You will need a full periodontal examination though and you should consider wearing braces again, you know, your teeth seems to be growing at all angles..."
and 
:(
July 13, 2005
Meera Bhawan, Gatecalls...and a lot of nonsense.
Sagnik's post reminded me of Meera Bhawan (girls hostel at Bits) and in particular the gates of MB that closed exactly at 11 PM. We had to be in before that or we had to write our names down along with the names of the other culprits in a small book just outside the gates...somehow, I felt the need to talk more than anything else exactly at 10.50 PM and several animated conversations would begin exactly at 11 PM and the chouki would start closing the gates and we would run inside the gates just before they closed...if only I could go back to being a silly teenager rushing back to MB gates, fighting over who would sit next to the cute guy during Apogee movies, wondering if x~ would give me a gatecall or would he give a gatecall to the girl whose shade of nailpolish I hated even more than her and other such mind boggling trivialities and eventualities.
Gatecalls refer to the silly business of guys having to stand outside MB (they were not allowed inside MB, ofcourse) and asking the chouki to announce the name of the girl they wanted to visit - the chouki mostly mis-pronounced the names and the speaker made the remaining part of the name indistinct with the result that a bunch of girls with similar sounding names would quickly touch up their makeup, change into something "not so fancy" and would come running outside and all but one lucky girl would walk back in disappointed and swearing never to give the guy she thought was giving her a gatecall, a gatecall!
Well...I cannot be a teenager but I can be silly still and I can certainly write silly stuff, so here goes...
An ode to you, O hallowed gates of Meera Bhawan!
you welcomed me with open arms as I walked in with hesitant steps,
you demanded my presence well before the strike of midnight, everynight,
you hid me away from cruel boys giving gate calls to all others but me,
you consoled me when heartless girls talked outside, endlessly on lonely nights,
you greeted me with a smile as I walked into your arms smiling some days,
precious minutes and hours wasted carefully in idle talk about adolescent fancies,
Ah, for the gates of Meera Bhawab, I yearn, for my sweet haven, I yearn...
And to end this misery, I yearn :))
Seriously, did you actually spend time reading this nonsense? :)
Gatecalls refer to the silly business of guys having to stand outside MB (they were not allowed inside MB, ofcourse) and asking the chouki to announce the name of the girl they wanted to visit - the chouki mostly mis-pronounced the names and the speaker made the remaining part of the name indistinct with the result that a bunch of girls with similar sounding names would quickly touch up their makeup, change into something "not so fancy" and would come running outside and all but one lucky girl would walk back in disappointed and swearing never to give the guy she thought was giving her a gatecall, a gatecall!
Well...I cannot be a teenager but I can be silly still and I can certainly write silly stuff, so here goes...
An ode to you, O hallowed gates of Meera Bhawan!
you welcomed me with open arms as I walked in with hesitant steps,
you demanded my presence well before the strike of midnight, everynight,
you hid me away from cruel boys giving gate calls to all others but me,
you consoled me when heartless girls talked outside, endlessly on lonely nights,
you greeted me with a smile as I walked into your arms smiling some days,
precious minutes and hours wasted carefully in idle talk about adolescent fancies,
Ah, for the gates of Meera Bhawab, I yearn, for my sweet haven, I yearn...
And to end this misery, I yearn :))
Seriously, did you actually spend time reading this nonsense? :)
July 11, 2005
Philosophy reflected by The Mirror of Erised.
Harry sits forlornly, staring at the reflection of his parents and himself, in the Mirror of Erised and Dumbledore's voice of wisdom explains, "Ah, I see you have found the Mirror of Erised...in this mirror, you will see your deepest desires, the one thing that will make you the happiest...the man who looks at this mirror and sees himself as he is, is perhaps the happiest man there is..."
Or something to that effect. And for a few moments, I disengaged myself from the bewitching world of Harry Potter and wondered what I would see, were I to be standing in front of the Mirror of Erised.
A hundred fleeting images, a blur of quickly concocted happily-ever-afters and deeply pondered over desires and yearning surge forth and I strain to identify a clear image. I see none, the sad fact being that I do not know what will make me as happy as I can ever hope to be.
My mom tells me sometimes we make the mistake of praying for some things for us - a particular life, a particular soul mate, a number of very particular somethings, and sometimes the strength of our prayers or perhaps some unseen consciousness, some unseen power grants us those wishes and then we wonder if we could have asked for something different, something better? She tells me He knows what is best for us and perhaps when we pray, we just let him decide what is best for us...the fickle mind that I have, I find it hard to follow this little bit of advice.
Still curious though, will the Mirror of Erised show me what will make me happiest when I myself am unaware of what will make me so? Perhaps, we don't need mirrors to teach us about happiness, perhaps we look deeper within ourselves and the answers will dawn on us someday...
Or something to that effect. And for a few moments, I disengaged myself from the bewitching world of Harry Potter and wondered what I would see, were I to be standing in front of the Mirror of Erised.
A hundred fleeting images, a blur of quickly concocted happily-ever-afters and deeply pondered over desires and yearning surge forth and I strain to identify a clear image. I see none, the sad fact being that I do not know what will make me as happy as I can ever hope to be.
My mom tells me sometimes we make the mistake of praying for some things for us - a particular life, a particular soul mate, a number of very particular somethings, and sometimes the strength of our prayers or perhaps some unseen consciousness, some unseen power grants us those wishes and then we wonder if we could have asked for something different, something better? She tells me He knows what is best for us and perhaps when we pray, we just let him decide what is best for us...the fickle mind that I have, I find it hard to follow this little bit of advice.
Still curious though, will the Mirror of Erised show me what will make me happiest when I myself am unaware of what will make me so? Perhaps, we don't need mirrors to teach us about happiness, perhaps we look deeper within ourselves and the answers will dawn on us someday...
July 08, 2005
Little somethings.
So many little lessons to learn and so little time...life's like that!
A couple of kids came to visit us today at work and kind of made our day. They were all shy and smiling, genuinely happy to see us and glowing in all their innocence. I couldn't help smiling back and feeling the warmth that they seemed to surround themselves with. I just can't place my finger on it, it's the same with some people - then enter a room all happy and smiling and suddenly everything around you seems to be smiling back at you, a certain happiness flows all around and you feel...well, happy :)
***
As if this were not enough, I have started to steal now! Been planning to for a long time anyway :) My apologies for spelling mistakes and translation mistakes, those I can claim to be my own. Remember those moments on the silver screen that you always carry with you? Those few lines in the novel that you can quote in the middle of the night? The lyrics of that one song that you can't stop humming, that means something special to you? It's just about all these things that have become a part of me - stolen (from movies and novels and poems) impressions :) (trust me to make it sound all dramatic and go overboard!)
***
Am on page 952 in The Suitable Boy; I wondered if I would ever cross a 500 and if I would remember all the parallel yet related stories that Vikram Seth traces in his novel but now I suspect I shall feel sad when I finish the book, that Latha, Mrs.Rupa Mehra and Pran among all the others will no longer be my side when I want them to be :( Maybe, I will draw a family tree and post it here!
***
I swear I heard whispers near the fountain yesterday at work, and I thought of Moaning Myrtle! Harry Potter has begun to cast his spell on me much before July 16th, I see...
***
I am really looking forward to As you like it, this Saturday. If you are in Lexington, you really ought to be here - open air, friendly crowd, lovely weather, fennel cakes, delightful theatre, bonhomie and all that kinda thing - can you ask for more?
***
An excerpt from this week's India Abroad newspaper (don't you just love reading newspapers, not online for a change?): "...The United Hindu Dharma and Vedic Identity, and Hindu, Bindu and Sindhu: Issues in Global Hindu Dharma."
Huh?
***
OK, they are all not little lessons but they certainly are little somethings that mean a lot to me.
A couple of kids came to visit us today at work and kind of made our day. They were all shy and smiling, genuinely happy to see us and glowing in all their innocence. I couldn't help smiling back and feeling the warmth that they seemed to surround themselves with. I just can't place my finger on it, it's the same with some people - then enter a room all happy and smiling and suddenly everything around you seems to be smiling back at you, a certain happiness flows all around and you feel...well, happy :)
As if this were not enough, I have started to steal now! Been planning to for a long time anyway :) My apologies for spelling mistakes and translation mistakes, those I can claim to be my own. Remember those moments on the silver screen that you always carry with you? Those few lines in the novel that you can quote in the middle of the night? The lyrics of that one song that you can't stop humming, that means something special to you? It's just about all these things that have become a part of me - stolen (from movies and novels and poems) impressions :) (trust me to make it sound all dramatic and go overboard!)
Am on page 952 in The Suitable Boy; I wondered if I would ever cross a 500 and if I would remember all the parallel yet related stories that Vikram Seth traces in his novel but now I suspect I shall feel sad when I finish the book, that Latha, Mrs.Rupa Mehra and Pran among all the others will no longer be my side when I want them to be :( Maybe, I will draw a family tree and post it here!
I swear I heard whispers near the fountain yesterday at work, and I thought of Moaning Myrtle! Harry Potter has begun to cast his spell on me much before July 16th, I see...
I am really looking forward to As you like it, this Saturday. If you are in Lexington, you really ought to be here - open air, friendly crowd, lovely weather, fennel cakes, delightful theatre, bonhomie and all that kinda thing - can you ask for more?
An excerpt from this week's India Abroad newspaper (don't you just love reading newspapers, not online for a change?): "...The United Hindu Dharma and Vedic Identity, and Hindu, Bindu and Sindhu: Issues in Global Hindu Dharma."
Huh?
OK, they are all not little lessons but they certainly are little somethings that mean a lot to me.
July 06, 2005
The concept of comfort zones and men.
Based on recent observations, I have come to (yet another) a conclusion about guys - to those of you who conform to the generalization, I will not say, "Hah! See, I toldya!" and to those who don't, I will not say, "Surely you jest!" Having established ground rules, here we go. Guys, especially those in a relationship, are comfortable within established comfort zones. By comfortable, I mean mentally undisturbed, at peace, like when they watch the nth rerun of a test match between India and England and they know that India will lose. By established, I mean established by them with, dare I say, limited information! Let's look at a few examples that will impress upon you what I divined a few days back.
Ms: "Duh, I don't know how to get to Tates Creek Road, can you navigate please?"
(First, let me firmly state that I do know how to go to Tates Creek Road and I do not go "Duh" for anything!)
Mr: "Sure honey, ofcourse I am here to help you."
The Mr as you can see is complacent and secretly pleased that his services are essential and he is even more thrilled that her direction-sense is non-existent. All is well in his little world.
This little example explains the relatively simple concept of comfort zones. Every guy builds up a safe little comfort zone around him, based on his assessment of the girl in question. There are certain areas where he is comfortable if the girl is more proficient than him and these areas commonly are a subset of what I represent in the little comfort-zone-ellipsis on the right. The area outside the ellipsis is usually a subset of what the guy assumes he knows better than the girl at all points in time and space. For example, in my 26 years of pretty unsignificant existence, I have not come across a guy who can admit that his girl friend, wife, any girl for that matter, drives better than him - please refer to diagram once again (I sense seemingly logical explanations being mulled over now before being thrown at me - "That's coz girls are just bad drivers!" and similarly worded mis-conceptions to which I will not say, "Yeah, right!").
As you can see, driving, cars and directions are subjects that we (women) should not dream of excelling in. Oh, but we can be great at responding to flowery pink greeting cards with appropriate thank you notes hand written in cursive writing. Also, we can be famous for knitting, stitching, interior design and cooking and our men would hold their head high in pride. But, start sneaking into the x-box, PS2 arena and they become all jittery and nervous :)
Anyway, a few days back, one such guy, let's call him k, who conforms to the comfort zone principle, and I were having a good conversation and I, unthinkingly suggested, "Why don't you call 411 directory assistance? You can get xyz's phone number from them".
Big pause. k looked blankly at me as if I had just said the unthinkable.
"411 huh? really? that thing works? I was thinking about it anyway, might as well give it a try..."
And several other indications that would convey one the impression that he definitely knew about directory assistance ever since the birth of directory and of assistance, short of suggesting that he had actually coined the two words.
RS rests her case :-)
Ms: "Duh, I don't know how to get to Tates Creek Road, can you navigate please?"
(First, let me firmly state that I do know how to go to Tates Creek Road and I do not go "Duh" for anything!)
Mr: "Sure honey, ofcourse I am here to help you."
The Mr as you can see is complacent and secretly pleased that his services are essential and he is even more thrilled that her direction-sense is non-existent. All is well in his little world.
This little example explains the relatively simple concept of comfort zones. Every guy builds up a safe little comfort zone around him, based on his assessment of the girl in question. There are certain areas where he is comfortable if the girl is more proficient than him and these areas commonly are a subset of what I represent in the little comfort-zone-ellipsis on the right. The area outside the ellipsis is usually a subset of what the guy assumes he knows better than the girl at all points in time and space. For example, in my 26 years of pretty unsignificant existence, I have not come across a guy who can admit that his girl friend, wife, any girl for that matter, drives better than him - please refer to diagram once again (I sense seemingly logical explanations being mulled over now before being thrown at me - "That's coz girls are just bad drivers!" and similarly worded mis-conceptions to which I will not say, "Yeah, right!").
As you can see, driving, cars and directions are subjects that we (women) should not dream of excelling in. Oh, but we can be great at responding to flowery pink greeting cards with appropriate thank you notes hand written in cursive writing. Also, we can be famous for knitting, stitching, interior design and cooking and our men would hold their head high in pride. But, start sneaking into the x-box, PS2 arena and they become all jittery and nervous :)
Anyway, a few days back, one such guy, let's call him k, who conforms to the comfort zone principle, and I were having a good conversation and I, unthinkingly suggested, "Why don't you call 411 directory assistance? You can get xyz's phone number from them".
Big pause. k looked blankly at me as if I had just said the unthinkable.
"411 huh? really? that thing works? I was thinking about it anyway, might as well give it a try..."
And several other indications that would convey one the impression that he definitely knew about directory assistance ever since the birth of directory and of assistance, short of suggesting that he had actually coined the two words.
RS rests her case :-)
July 03, 2005
The timeless magic of thachi mammam (curd rice)!
It’s high time I put this post up. There are certain non-believers-who-shall-not-be-named and their understudies who ought to read this post and change their dogmatic assertions that go against my theory, the veracity of which has been established several times.
My theory states: All shall eat thayir sadam and all that do not realize or want to realize the panacean effects of thayir sadam shall be made to do so and shall rot in a thayir-sadam-less hell :-)
Imagine - A marriage hall, elai sapadu, splashes of glimmering pattu jarigai on sarees and the glint of jewellery, the good-natured hustle of long lines of relatives and friends towards, and the fragrance wafting from, the dining hall – the delicious aroma of vengaya sambhar, punctuated by touches of urulai kizhangu curry and kaara rasam, creamy avial inviting us with lemony kootu and crispy apalams and just when you think you can indulge your senses no more and feast no more, along marches the stainless steel bucket of thayir sadam carrying with it a smell so delectable your palate begs you for an encore, after which you can smack your lips in pleasure and slowly roll out of the dining hall.
Thayir sadam is a fussy girl – she wants it all – not only does she demand to taste almost sinfully heavenly, she insists on looking good enough to eat! Complexion like a fair damsel, purple grapes for eyes curiously looking at you, itsy bitsy green chillies adding a shocking taste to her conversation and a tangy flavour - her witty sense of humour and one similarity you cannot miss – both are characteristically unpredictable!
Rain or shine, any time is good enough for thayir sadam for me. You know how you (atleast some of you and me) cannot dream of having bread instead of rice for dinner or tea instead of coffee in the mornings? Well, hand me a plate of thayir sadam and oorgai any time and I promise to eat it with relish, for what I revel in is not just the thayir sadam but the feeling of home it carries with it.
My theory states: All shall eat thayir sadam and all that do not realize or want to realize the panacean effects of thayir sadam shall be made to do so and shall rot in a thayir-sadam-less hell :-)
Imagine - A marriage hall, elai sapadu, splashes of glimmering pattu jarigai on sarees and the glint of jewellery, the good-natured hustle of long lines of relatives and friends towards, and the fragrance wafting from, the dining hall – the delicious aroma of vengaya sambhar, punctuated by touches of urulai kizhangu curry and kaara rasam, creamy avial inviting us with lemony kootu and crispy apalams and just when you think you can indulge your senses no more and feast no more, along marches the stainless steel bucket of thayir sadam carrying with it a smell so delectable your palate begs you for an encore, after which you can smack your lips in pleasure and slowly roll out of the dining hall.
Thayir sadam is a fussy girl – she wants it all – not only does she demand to taste almost sinfully heavenly, she insists on looking good enough to eat! Complexion like a fair damsel, purple grapes for eyes curiously looking at you, itsy bitsy green chillies adding a shocking taste to her conversation and a tangy flavour - her witty sense of humour and one similarity you cannot miss – both are characteristically unpredictable!
Rain or shine, any time is good enough for thayir sadam for me. You know how you (atleast some of you and me) cannot dream of having bread instead of rice for dinner or tea instead of coffee in the mornings? Well, hand me a plate of thayir sadam and oorgai any time and I promise to eat it with relish, for what I revel in is not just the thayir sadam but the feeling of home it carries with it.
June 30, 2005
Invisible boundaries.
A boy and a girl.
Pristine and precious. That's all there is to the relationship. Right?
In the midst of all the teasing and the giggles, buried somewhere between a snicker and a lazily pointed finger, peeping from a curtain of rumours and insinuations, a little doubt is born. Not a doubt that the relationship is anything other than what it is but just small questions, random thoughts that seem to appear and ask if what we are going to say, what we are going to do can in some way be (mis)construed as out of the ordinary, maybe leaving room for more talk, more assumptions and more conclusions - a touch of artificiality makes its appearance in the relationship and soon begins to mark boundaries within which we are expected to interact. Society now dictates what is appropriate and what is not in the relationship and somewhere along the line, the untainted magic of the bonding fades away.
OK, I really need a long weekend to write some sensible stuff already!
Pristine and precious. That's all there is to the relationship. Right?
In the midst of all the teasing and the giggles, buried somewhere between a snicker and a lazily pointed finger, peeping from a curtain of rumours and insinuations, a little doubt is born. Not a doubt that the relationship is anything other than what it is but just small questions, random thoughts that seem to appear and ask if what we are going to say, what we are going to do can in some way be (mis)construed as out of the ordinary, maybe leaving room for more talk, more assumptions and more conclusions - a touch of artificiality makes its appearance in the relationship and soon begins to mark boundaries within which we are expected to interact. Society now dictates what is appropriate and what is not in the relationship and somewhere along the line, the untainted magic of the bonding fades away.
OK, I really need a long weekend to write some sensible stuff already!
Arinthum Ariyamalum - Aanandam!
And once in a while, along comes a Tamil movie like a whiff of fresh air...The plot twists and turns unexpectedly, the comedy scenes, for a change, not loud and crass, the music delightful and for once, the bad guys are left alone and not killed or arrested in unbelievable circumstances, just to fit into the good-guy-always-wins formula!
The so called bad guys, Prakash Raj and Arya, walk away with all the attention, they change expressions, gestures and even their intonation and dialogue delivery styles based on the mood. Arya especially is realistic as the bad man's hot tempered son, lost when suddenly introduced to his chocolate-faced younger brother, Navneet.
The background music is pleasing and catchy, especially the scenes with Navneet and Samiksha and the funny encounters of Prakash Raj and Arya with Navneet. Yuvan Shankar Raja kalakirkaan! The scene where the father-son duo watch Navneet sleep cracked me up! Krishna (of five-star-fame) as Navneet's friend terrified of the don-duo is funny! A fresh, lively and enjoyable movie by Vishnuvardhan.
So, as the sun TV guy in lion dates top ten says, "Arinthum Ariyamalam - Aanandam!" :)
June 29, 2005
Unrelated recollections - blame it on the telephone conference!
Me is falling asleep even in this uncomfortable supposedly-ergonomic chair. 20 faces staring into 20 thinkpads - a 2 hour telephone conference, I know am not going to make much sense in this post but the air is conditioned just right and the drone from the telephone is beginning to sound more and more like gentle murmers to me...it definitely would be embarassing if I fall asleep here, so here goes a post about random thoughts of a sleepy mind.
Bits-pilani bhawan's night (the guys get to invite us for dinner and party to their bhawan, too sleepy to explain further) - I was in a whiny mood and was talking for God-knows-how-long about how I did not know to dance (to my credit, I did learn Bharathanatyam for four years when I was little), sing, play an instrument and so on, when my unfortunate host said, "Hey! You know something? It's great to be ordinary!" Now, I am not really quoting him because he said something that caused an epiphany yada yada, I say it because I just remember him saying that, no reason. So, this little paragraph here is dedicated to all those ordinary people out there and out here :)
***
My mom is learning Hindi, which I think is pretty cool. About time I learnt a new language! My office colleagues tell me that a child that is taught many languages as it grows up develops better mental faculties, understanding - the works!
*** I hate shrugs.
"Hey, would you like to go out for a cuppa coffee? Huh? Huh? Huh?!", all jumpy and excited.
"Sure, I guess", accompanied by a shrug.
"Well, you have fun at the coffee shop, am afraid I just cannot come!"
***
All girls (atleast most girls, well, atleast a few girls and me) like their boy friends, husbands to have led a life that consists of : cutting classes, unruly hair, cycle chains twirled in contempt and even as a dare, even a few cigarettes, torn jeans and dirty tshirts, non-conformity, disobedience, basically an I-don't-care-a-damn cool jerk of sorts (somewhat like Karthik in Mouna Ragam). And just make up a list of the opposites for what a girl expects after the I dos :)
***
Don't you hate an alltime-solution-giver (really, I swear I would have come up with a better name on another day!)?
"You know what happened at work today? a~ said bla bla and then c~ agreed with her..."
and so on and so forth, you get the drift? And enter, the ASG (more like ASS),
"You know what you should have done? You should have said..."
"Go, fly a kite!"
***
Ah, the sweet ring tone of the telephone (and that reminds me - do you get annoyed at the way the telephone receiver's wire connecting it to the instrument gets all twirled up? And then someone calls and you pick up the receiver and the whole instrument kind of falls apart and you pant a "Hello..." with a loud clang and the other person asks, "Hey, Were you waiting for my call?!".
Anyay, the conference ended and so does my silly excuse for a post!
Bits-pilani bhawan's night (the guys get to invite us for dinner and party to their bhawan, too sleepy to explain further) - I was in a whiny mood and was talking for God-knows-how-long about how I did not know to dance (to my credit, I did learn Bharathanatyam for four years when I was little), sing, play an instrument and so on, when my unfortunate host said, "Hey! You know something? It's great to be ordinary!" Now, I am not really quoting him because he said something that caused an epiphany yada yada, I say it because I just remember him saying that, no reason. So, this little paragraph here is dedicated to all those ordinary people out there and out here :)
My mom is learning Hindi, which I think is pretty cool. About time I learnt a new language! My office colleagues tell me that a child that is taught many languages as it grows up develops better mental faculties, understanding - the works!
"Hey, would you like to go out for a cuppa coffee? Huh? Huh? Huh?!", all jumpy and excited.
"Sure, I guess", accompanied by a shrug.
"Well, you have fun at the coffee shop, am afraid I just cannot come!"
All girls (atleast most girls, well, atleast a few girls and me) like their boy friends, husbands to have led a life that consists of : cutting classes, unruly hair, cycle chains twirled in contempt and even as a dare, even a few cigarettes, torn jeans and dirty tshirts, non-conformity, disobedience, basically an I-don't-care-a-damn cool jerk of sorts (somewhat like Karthik in Mouna Ragam). And just make up a list of the opposites for what a girl expects after the I dos :)
Don't you hate an alltime-solution-giver (really, I swear I would have come up with a better name on another day!)?
"You know what happened at work today? a~ said bla bla and then c~ agreed with her..."
and so on and so forth, you get the drift? And enter, the ASG (more like ASS),
"You know what you should have done? You should have said..."
"Go, fly a kite!"
Ah, the sweet ring tone of the telephone (and that reminds me - do you get annoyed at the way the telephone receiver's wire connecting it to the instrument gets all twirled up? And then someone calls and you pick up the receiver and the whole instrument kind of falls apart and you pant a "Hello..." with a loud clang and the other person asks, "Hey, Were you waiting for my call?!".
Anyay, the conference ended and so does my silly excuse for a post!
June 28, 2005
In all my selfish glory...
 | "ரம்யா, செரியா பாரு, அந்த leftல இருக்கர photoல அந்த அப்பா மூஞ்சி cleara இருக்கா?" (Ramya, look carefully, is the dad's face clear in the photo on the left?) "இருக்கு மா, இத எத்தனை தரவ கேப்ப?" (Yes ma, how many times will you ask?) |
"இல்ல, அந்த card கடை கொஞ்சம் தள்ளி இருக்கு, வெய்யில்ல திருப்பி போக வேண்டாமேன்னு பார்த்தேன்..." (The card shop is a bit far, I did not want to go out in the sweltering heat one more time...)
After I hung up, I did not immediately pick up a book or start switching channels on TV. I did not want the distractions of convenience interfere or in anyway diminish the cloud of guilt that surrounded me.
I did not particularly fancy the border used for the wedding invitation card, I got annoyed when asked a third time if I liked the card, I insisted that my name not be written in capital letters on the card - all the little imperfections, Oh yes, I caught them immediately!
And still, I missed the one thing that was staring at me all along - my selfishness!
June 25, 2005
A whole lot of nothing.
You know what makes living in India special?
Not living in India.
That's the easy answer. Am still thinking of the right answer...
About five years back, when I was still a FOB (Fresh-off-the-board as my cousin called me, quite unflatteringly), I used to wonder what the big deal was about Fridays. TGIF? I mean come on! There are many other things to thank God for than Fridays :) Now, every Thursday, I wake up with a little more hope, I walk with a little spring in my step, I smile a lot more because I know Friday is just a day away! The monotony of the week somehow gets to me, every week! And then I come home bubbling with good will and enthusiasm because it's the much hyped about Friday night and sometimes it just turns out to be a damp squib. A friend who recently started working, shook his head in despair and claimed, "Ramya, inga weekend naale kadi...thaan" (Weekends are a bore here).
And that got me thinking. I don't recall feeling listless and bored on weekends back home...when I was at Bits, weekends meant visits to Annapurna restaurant, Pappu's milk shakes, conversations with boys about their girls, with girl friends about boys, about life and philosophy, about books and romance, assignments and movies...I don't recall asking myself, "OK, what shall I do today?" I just did not have the time for that question. In Madras, it was a similar story, waking up late, bed coffee, long phone calls, Ranganathan street visits in the sweltering heat, Nilgiris icecream and chitchat, fighting and laughing with mom and dad and L, listening to stories from Thatha...time, as they say, just flew.
Don't get me wrong, am not complaining - I have travelled a lot more in the US, gone on wild amusement park rides - if that counts!, experimented with skiing, ice-skating, painting, interior design, tubing, canoeing, rafting, dancing and driving! But sometimes none of these can stop the small voice within me that makes demands that I cannot fulfil...
 |  |  |
OK, that's a whole lot of rambling about a whole lot of nothings -
Of sun-kissed earth and capricious rains, samosas and chai shared with mirth and chatter; Of the aroma of hot filter-coffee and pungent spices; Of sacred kumkum and colorful sarees; Of strangers who don't smile and a land of no strangers; Of the bliss of familiarity and the melody of ringing temple bells; Of curious enquiries and unsubtle questions; Of the comfort of family and the hum of old ceiling fans; Of home and love.
Note: I clicked none of these pics, thanks to whoever did!
June 23, 2005
The NBA playoffs!
Hah! If you think I am going to write about basketball here, guess again! This post like similar ones in the past - here and here (I should stop repeating myself and start thinking some blog-worthy thoughts! Also, please don't feel compelled to read all those posts, unless you want to because it's Friday and anything is more interesting than staring at code on the computer screen :) Also, answers to the treasure hunt clues here! I like the highlighting-funda! I should stop interrupting the topic with non sequiturs like this, so, I will end my parenthesis here - do you know the British call parentheses, brackets? ), inspired by the NBA playoffs and a certain strange variety of human beings (otherwise called men) that women should never attempt to understand in the following contexts - games, food, games and did I mention games?
"What's for dinner?"
"Whatever you cook!"
The charming grin fools me not. I look blankly at him
"How about pasta? You cook awesome pasta!"
Huh, is that all you can muster buddy? Am not falling for that trap. But then, am hungry too and pasta sounds good. Plus, he is being cute and giving me a lot of attention :)
"OK, pasta I guess."
"Yay! Pasta it is!"
My, my, a whoop of joy? Nice to be appreciated for a change.
I cut tomatoes into little pieces,
I cut green chillies and garlic,
I cut lemons into little cubes,
and I realize something is annoying me. TV, of course, loud commentaries, especially for basketball games always annoy me. More annoying than that are the advertisements where the salesmen manage to shout louder than the commentators.
"Can you help me umm...keep rice too?"
Anything to get you unglued from the TV.
"Yes, yes."
That was easy. I start boiling water for the pasta and turn back to see him sitting in the same position in front of the TV, a few inches short of sitting inside it.
"You said you would keep rice."
"Yes, yes."
"I am not cooking pasta"
The Toyota salesman screams, "Buy now, buy now...", just in time and I am the center of his attention again.
"What did you say? Pasta smells great..."
"I haven't started cooking it yet."
"Ha ha, of course, I was kidding, I meant it will smell great in a few minutes..."
"Of course."
"Can I help you cook there?"
The NBA play off is back on. I decide to fight now.
"I asked if you would keep rice..."
"Yes, yes."
"I am fainting and will fall dead in two minutes..."
"Yes, yes.
Sigh.
"What's for dinner?"
"Whatever you cook!"
The charming grin fools me not. I look blankly at him
"How about pasta? You cook awesome pasta!"
Huh, is that all you can muster buddy? Am not falling for that trap. But then, am hungry too and pasta sounds good. Plus, he is being cute and giving me a lot of attention :)
"OK, pasta I guess."
"Yay! Pasta it is!"
My, my, a whoop of joy? Nice to be appreciated for a change.
I cut tomatoes into little pieces,
I cut green chillies and garlic,
I cut lemons into little cubes,
and I realize something is annoying me. TV, of course, loud commentaries, especially for basketball games always annoy me. More annoying than that are the advertisements where the salesmen manage to shout louder than the commentators.
"Can you help me umm...keep rice too?"
Anything to get you unglued from the TV.
"Yes, yes."
That was easy. I start boiling water for the pasta and turn back to see him sitting in the same position in front of the TV, a few inches short of sitting inside it.
"You said you would keep rice."
"Yes, yes."
"I am not cooking pasta"
The Toyota salesman screams, "Buy now, buy now...", just in time and I am the center of his attention again.
"What did you say? Pasta smells great..."
"I haven't started cooking it yet."
"Ha ha, of course, I was kidding, I meant it will smell great in a few minutes..."
"Of course."
"Can I help you cook there?"
The NBA play off is back on. I decide to fight now.
"I asked if you would keep rice..."
"Yes, yes."
"I am fainting and will fall dead in two minutes..."
"Yes, yes.
Sigh.
June 20, 2005
Scribble, scribble.
Hardly pearls of wisdom on a beautiful necklace, more like flawed bits that were discarded but still linger around, sometimes catching the eye with their glint, sometimes just ignored because they are far from perfect - thoughts from a confused mind.
I get angry sometimes when a well meaning someone points out exactly those faults in me that I do not want to acknowledge myself. The more accurate the observations, the more I deny it and the more annoyed I become. Maybe, it's just another bit of imperfection added to a growing pile that I don't want showcased to a world that has so many almost perfect people.
* * *
Ever wonder how we (I mean the variety of us human beings that tend to get more emotionally affected) have honed the art of mis-communication to perfection? I mean, two rational human beings, capable of logical thoughts and conclusions somehow lead themselves so far down the path of mis-understandings and mis-communications, I wonder how we manage to do that so often?
* * *
Why does my ego present its nasty head just when I don't want it to? I start to say what's on my mind, I intend to praise, to compliment, to speak my heart out and then suddenly I am not really saying what I wanted to say. The words changed during the course of their little journeys from my heart to my mouth.
* * *
Ever notice how the simplest things are the hardest to articulate?
I will miss you
I love you
I do
But then again, the most precious moments are made up of things left unsaid.
So, why do I say things that I just don't mean? Why does a resounding, resolute No escape me when I mean to say Yes ? And then there are times when it's so maddeningly hard to say no when no is all I want to say.
* * *
I feel the more I get to know a person, the more I like him. There's always something interesting, novel about an individual that fascinates me - talent, humour, insight, innocence, intelligence. I also feel every little step I take in getting closer to a person takes me on an unpredictable journey, one of delightful surprises, pleasing interactions, enlightening points of view, disconcerting arguments and the one thing that scares me - expectations. At this point in my journey, a little let-down, a small expectation that is not met and I assume I am falling all the way down, to the bottom. It takes me a while to realize I am not nearly as close to the top as I thought I was and now, I am not at the bottom as I fear I am. I am just hovering somewhere in between, hoping I will climb at a steady pace. After all, every relationship can go two ways and if you are not going up, it means you are going the other way. Maybe I can decide to be satisfied with the comfortable connection that I have established and remain where I am, maybe not.
* * *
I thrive on compliments, well maybe not thrive, but atleast I am thrilled by compliments. But, it's kind of an ungrateful and unsatiable master. Each sincere word of praise is like a pleasure bolt through me and then I sit expecting more, sometimes when there is little reason to expect more.
Oh, well!
* * * And on a totally different note, it is exactly six months since I started blogging :)
I get angry sometimes when a well meaning someone points out exactly those faults in me that I do not want to acknowledge myself. The more accurate the observations, the more I deny it and the more annoyed I become. Maybe, it's just another bit of imperfection added to a growing pile that I don't want showcased to a world that has so many almost perfect people.
Ever wonder how we (I mean the variety of us human beings that tend to get more emotionally affected) have honed the art of mis-communication to perfection? I mean, two rational human beings, capable of logical thoughts and conclusions somehow lead themselves so far down the path of mis-understandings and mis-communications, I wonder how we manage to do that so often?
Why does my ego present its nasty head just when I don't want it to? I start to say what's on my mind, I intend to praise, to compliment, to speak my heart out and then suddenly I am not really saying what I wanted to say. The words changed during the course of their little journeys from my heart to my mouth.
Ever notice how the simplest things are the hardest to articulate?
I will miss you
I love you
I do
But then again, the most precious moments are made up of things left unsaid.
So, why do I say things that I just don't mean? Why does a resounding, resolute No escape me when I mean to say Yes ? And then there are times when it's so maddeningly hard to say no when no is all I want to say.
I feel the more I get to know a person, the more I like him. There's always something interesting, novel about an individual that fascinates me - talent, humour, insight, innocence, intelligence. I also feel every little step I take in getting closer to a person takes me on an unpredictable journey, one of delightful surprises, pleasing interactions, enlightening points of view, disconcerting arguments and the one thing that scares me - expectations. At this point in my journey, a little let-down, a small expectation that is not met and I assume I am falling all the way down, to the bottom. It takes me a while to realize I am not nearly as close to the top as I thought I was and now, I am not at the bottom as I fear I am. I am just hovering somewhere in between, hoping I will climb at a steady pace. After all, every relationship can go two ways and if you are not going up, it means you are going the other way. Maybe I can decide to be satisfied with the comfortable connection that I have established and remain where I am, maybe not.
I thrive on compliments, well maybe not thrive, but atleast I am thrilled by compliments. But, it's kind of an ungrateful and unsatiable master. Each sincere word of praise is like a pleasure bolt through me and then I sit expecting more, sometimes when there is little reason to expect more.
Oh, well!
June 18, 2005
5 AM, 4 thieves, 3 cakes, 2 games and 1 helluva night!
5 AM - The final foosball game ended accompanied by whoops of joy from one team (k~ & kp~) contrasting with several resounding but defeated thumps and pained expressions from the opposing team (s~ and r~). To be fair, the last game was tied till the last point and was touch and go till the last second!
I know one thing for sure, I picked the right gift...now, wait a minute, I have this presentimental unease that I am going to have to play second fiddle to a football game for many many years, starting now!
4 thieves - Balderdash, a board game that's all about goofing around with weird-sounding names, abbreviations and laws, and trying to impose what we misconstrue to be creativity to mask our own ignorance! The game by its very nature is hilarious, add v~ to the equation and you have just signed up for laughter-galore! Again, to be fair, Jose Ramon Del Cuet does(do) sound like the name(s) of 4 thieves...No, I swear I am not laughing when I say this! Not sure which was funnier - the interpretation of the name(s) or v~'s reaction when he realized everyone else had figured out that it was the name of one person! Even the creators of this game would not have imagined that people would guess Jose~ to be, A spanish conquerer who cannot spell his own name!
Delightful Deja vu - Georgetown Kite Festival and Loaded Questions!
3 cakes & 2 games - 2 birthday cakes and 1 wedding cake spread over Thursday night and Friday night; the highlight of the Thursday party was the treasure hunt and yesterday...well, yesterday was a smorgasbord of a successfully implemented surprise-party, dumb charades in a pseudo-camp setting, foosball & balderdash, thoughtful gifts & lovely cards, idlis & vadas, pots of ahem...expertly brewed gourmet coffee, a whole bunch of sillies and funnies in a rose-tinted decor :)
9.30 PM - 5 AM? - you bet your bustle, it was 1 helluva night!
And now...I just have a little bit of cleaning left to do :)
June 15, 2005
Treasure hunts, Joseph-Beth, Another life & RS.
Not that I am diverting traffic but here is an ahem...interesting post: baby k grows old - with considerable efforts put in by Pradnya and me for the clues :)
I sit on the most comfortable looking barcalounger. It has little satin pillows on it that I arrange all around me. In front of me is the finest looking coffee table with books piled all over it. Fireplace on my right, complete with an aristocratic mantel and a lifelike painting of horses and jockeys. Dim lighting, the kind found in over-expensive restaurants, unrecognizable music floating at just the right volume, interspersed with the pleasant murmer of conversations. A slight aroma of coffee and muffins tickle the senses and The Namesake is just interesting enough for me to read it and still indulge myself in the world around me, the world of Joseph-Beth.
A day at Joseph-Beth would top my list of weekend fun-things-to-do. There's something about being by myself at the book store, something about running my fingers over rows of books, picking one that captures my fancy, burying my nose in it, sniffing for the distinctive "new book smell" and settling down with it - something delightful, calming. I am alone yet around me are people just like me, searching for a book to inspire them, to indulge them, to make them laugh and cry, to create a world for them to forget reality, an alternate life of sorts.
And a blog that I read today reminded me of the very same concept - an alternate life. I wonder at times, if I had taken a slightly different decision than the ones that I have already taken, would my life be more as I want it to be, or less perhaps? I still have the chance to create the alternate life that I sometimes dream about - I mean who would not want to live the challenging life of a journalist, a writer...(read that as I would :)); for that matter, I think I would really enjoy being a primary school teacher or closer to home, how different would my life be if I were a software professional back in Madras? Would work be a daily dose of fun and chatter, movie-talk and chai, deadlines and late-night pizza...just things that are familiar and comfortable?
Sometimes, the people working at the check-out counters at the post-office at Nandino Blvd remind me of countless bank clerks and officers back in India, my mom's friends who greet me everytime I visit them and I wonder, how different would my life be if I were to be doing what they did? Slightly dusty fans working as slowly as the people at the bank, ever-silver tumblers of coffee leaving little rings on the tables, mamas with dark-brown rimmed spectacles and mamis in sarees and big kumkum pottus looking at ledgers, and people conversing in Tamil...mellifluous, comforting, pleasing Tamil...in one other word, home. Or as wiser men have sung before :), of course without the spelling mistakes!
சொர்க்கமே என்றாலும் அது நம் ஊர போல வருமா?
அட என்னாடு என்றாலும், அது நம் நாட்டுக்கீடாகுமா?
பல தேசம் முழுதும் பேசும் மொழிகள் தமிழ் போல் இனித்திடுமா?
Maybe it is paradise, but does it feel like our own town?
Be it any country, will it equal our own?
A myriad languages spoken in several nations - but none as sweet to us as our own*?
* The original lyrics say Tamil but I take it more to mean our mother tongue :)
I am not sure what am trying to say here, am not even sure I know what I am trying to convey to myself...(shaking head) RS and her silly ruminations :)
I sit on the most comfortable looking barcalounger. It has little satin pillows on it that I arrange all around me. In front of me is the finest looking coffee table with books piled all over it. Fireplace on my right, complete with an aristocratic mantel and a lifelike painting of horses and jockeys. Dim lighting, the kind found in over-expensive restaurants, unrecognizable music floating at just the right volume, interspersed with the pleasant murmer of conversations. A slight aroma of coffee and muffins tickle the senses and The Namesake is just interesting enough for me to read it and still indulge myself in the world around me, the world of Joseph-Beth.
A day at Joseph-Beth would top my list of weekend fun-things-to-do. There's something about being by myself at the book store, something about running my fingers over rows of books, picking one that captures my fancy, burying my nose in it, sniffing for the distinctive "new book smell" and settling down with it - something delightful, calming. I am alone yet around me are people just like me, searching for a book to inspire them, to indulge them, to make them laugh and cry, to create a world for them to forget reality, an alternate life of sorts.
And a blog that I read today reminded me of the very same concept - an alternate life. I wonder at times, if I had taken a slightly different decision than the ones that I have already taken, would my life be more as I want it to be, or less perhaps? I still have the chance to create the alternate life that I sometimes dream about - I mean who would not want to live the challenging life of a journalist, a writer...(read that as I would :)); for that matter, I think I would really enjoy being a primary school teacher or closer to home, how different would my life be if I were a software professional back in Madras? Would work be a daily dose of fun and chatter, movie-talk and chai, deadlines and late-night pizza...just things that are familiar and comfortable?
Sometimes, the people working at the check-out counters at the post-office at Nandino Blvd remind me of countless bank clerks and officers back in India, my mom's friends who greet me everytime I visit them and I wonder, how different would my life be if I were to be doing what they did? Slightly dusty fans working as slowly as the people at the bank, ever-silver tumblers of coffee leaving little rings on the tables, mamas with dark-brown rimmed spectacles and mamis in sarees and big kumkum pottus looking at ledgers, and people conversing in Tamil...mellifluous, comforting, pleasing Tamil...in one other word, home. Or as wiser men have sung before :), of course without the spelling mistakes!
சொர்க்கமே என்றாலும் அது நம் ஊர போல வருமா?
அட என்னாடு என்றாலும், அது நம் நாட்டுக்கீடாகுமா?
பல தேசம் முழுதும் பேசும் மொழிகள் தமிழ் போல் இனித்திடுமா?
Maybe it is paradise, but does it feel like our own town?
Be it any country, will it equal our own?
A myriad languages spoken in several nations - but none as sweet to us as our own*?
* The original lyrics say Tamil but I take it more to mean our mother tongue :)
I am not sure what am trying to say here, am not even sure I know what I am trying to convey to myself...(shaking head) RS and her silly ruminations :)
June 13, 2005
B.L.A.C.K & Bachan, Bibliomanics & Books!
"The first letters I learned were not A.B.C.D.E but B.L.A.C.K..." - the screen turns black - "Imagine the life of someone who had to live in this darkness for forty years..."
The opening lines of BLACK. The title of the movie would probably lead you to believe that it's a thriller, maybe an action movie with gangsters and racy lyrics and a predictable signature - hero-kills-villain-saves-fair-maiden. Far from it, BLACK is a movie that plays on our senses powerfully, emphatically - the sounds, the scenes, the pathos create a compelling impression. Sanjay Leela Bhansali could not have chosen a more complex, a more profound, a more unpredictable motif for a Bollywood movie, especially one featuring names as prominent as Amitabh Bachan and Rani Mukherji.
The setting, the cinematography and the filters, the music (Mychael Danna) beautifully complement the overall theme - stark, almost brutal at times - the travails that a child born deaf and blind would have to face, the devastated parents over-indulging the child, turning a blind eye to the fact that their child is growing up in an almost-inhuman fashion, because their sympathy and pity blur even the most obvious facts and enter The Teacher, a teacher who sees through the eyes of his blind children, a teacher who lives his life, vicariously through his children's darkness.
Subtlety has never been a strong point in Bollywood movies but the scene where the Teacher, Debraj Sahai is introduced, his conversations with Mrs.Nair depict his genius-bordering-madness as no amount of emotional surfeit could have.
Rani Mukherji as Michelle McNally evokes alarm, pity, awe among the viewers. The duck-like gait, the unseeing eyes that yearn to see, the emotions of a young woman, deprived of things often taken for granted, her short bursts of futility mixed anger, disappointment when her Teacher forgets her, her resolve...brilliant!
Some scenes just linger behind...when Michelle calls home to convey yet another failure with barely understandable sounds and gestures, her hands held out to feel the first few snow flakes, the first word she learns - water, the final moments when the roles are reversed, tears of recognition streaming down their cheeks - the lump in my throat and my tear-stained eyes stand testimony to the painful magic of this dark world, one that uprooted my frivolous existence for a while and reminded me of things that cannot be said, only felt - BLACK.
***
And the biblio-tag continues, tagged by k (a little bird told me he will tag me tonight:)), Prabu Karthik and FieryBlaster: Most of my recently read books and favourite books are already listed on the right hand side of this blog. The predictable list (easier for me to mention authors rather than books) - Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, Alistair MacLean, J.K.Rowling, P.G.Wodehouse (Jeeves' series), Michael Crichton, Henry Denker, Douglas Adams, R.K.Narayanan, Isaac Asimov...always ready for The Archie!
New favourites include: Shobha Narayanan and Nigel Watts. Also, enjoyed reading Confessions of a shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella , almost finished the series! And there are some books that impressed me no end when I read them, but that was so long back and I really wish I had the time to read them again - Fountain Head (Ayn Rand), I, Robot (Isaac Asimov), Ice Station Zebra (Alistair MacLean), If tomorrow comes (Sidney Sheldon), One (Richard Bach)...
I tag,
You all are it!
The opening lines of BLACK. The title of the movie would probably lead you to believe that it's a thriller, maybe an action movie with gangsters and racy lyrics and a predictable signature - hero-kills-villain-saves-fair-maiden. Far from it, BLACK is a movie that plays on our senses powerfully, emphatically - the sounds, the scenes, the pathos create a compelling impression. Sanjay Leela Bhansali could not have chosen a more complex, a more profound, a more unpredictable motif for a Bollywood movie, especially one featuring names as prominent as Amitabh Bachan and Rani Mukherji.
The setting, the cinematography and the filters, the music (Mychael Danna) beautifully complement the overall theme - stark, almost brutal at times - the travails that a child born deaf and blind would have to face, the devastated parents over-indulging the child, turning a blind eye to the fact that their child is growing up in an almost-inhuman fashion, because their sympathy and pity blur even the most obvious facts and enter The Teacher, a teacher who sees through the eyes of his blind children, a teacher who lives his life, vicariously through his children's darkness.
Subtlety has never been a strong point in Bollywood movies but the scene where the Teacher, Debraj Sahai is introduced, his conversations with Mrs.Nair depict his genius-bordering-madness as no amount of emotional surfeit could have.
Rani Mukherji as Michelle McNally evokes alarm, pity, awe among the viewers. The duck-like gait, the unseeing eyes that yearn to see, the emotions of a young woman, deprived of things often taken for granted, her short bursts of futility mixed anger, disappointment when her Teacher forgets her, her resolve...brilliant!
Some scenes just linger behind...when Michelle calls home to convey yet another failure with barely understandable sounds and gestures, her hands held out to feel the first few snow flakes, the first word she learns - water, the final moments when the roles are reversed, tears of recognition streaming down their cheeks - the lump in my throat and my tear-stained eyes stand testimony to the painful magic of this dark world, one that uprooted my frivolous existence for a while and reminded me of things that cannot be said, only felt - BLACK.
And the biblio-tag continues, tagged by k (a little bird told me he will tag me tonight:)), Prabu Karthik and FieryBlaster: Most of my recently read books and favourite books are already listed on the right hand side of this blog. The predictable list (easier for me to mention authors rather than books) - Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, Alistair MacLean, J.K.Rowling, P.G.Wodehouse (Jeeves' series), Michael Crichton, Henry Denker, Douglas Adams, R.K.Narayanan, Isaac Asimov...always ready for The Archie!
New favourites include: Shobha Narayanan and Nigel Watts. Also, enjoyed reading Confessions of a shopaholic - Sophie Kinsella , almost finished the series! And there are some books that impressed me no end when I read them, but that was so long back and I really wish I had the time to read them again - Fountain Head (Ayn Rand), I, Robot (Isaac Asimov), Ice Station Zebra (Alistair MacLean), If tomorrow comes (Sidney Sheldon), One (Richard Bach)...
I tag,
- Bus - I know you have quite a few interesting novels lined up in your "have recently read" pile!
- Rathish - I expect to be surprised by the variety that you are going to come up with :)
- A no nymous (ANM) - I vaguely remember you mentioning horror being your preferred genre, did you get a chance to read The Mango Season?
- L - I know you like some books that I absolutely don't but expect you to come up with some interesting picks :)
- VV - Since you won't start a blog, how about starting with a list of books to show us shades of the real you :) ?
You all are it!
June 08, 2005
Emotions of Nature.
This post, initiated by a conversation with d, inspired by R~K's blog about rain. Does nature reflect what we feel or do we emote what nature dons? A few faces of nature, a few faces of us...
A slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, an almost imperceptible smoothening of the crinkles of the forehead, perhaps a dimple that winks at us from one cheek…a small wave rising from the lips, touching upon every feature of the face, gently coaxing the eyes to speak, to evoke, creating magic for the one who receives it…a smile.
Mirth dancing to the sound of tinkling anklets; worries escape - a mere wisp, not the dense clouds they threatened to be; anger dissolves - pale shadows now, not clinging darkness that they posed to be; frowns curve upwards, forgetting their reasons; happy abandon embraces the self, rays of the rising sun brightening souls in slumber...laughter.
Rumbling thunder, angry flashes of lightning, ominous shades of grey that portend approaching storms - unpredictable, wrathful, destructive - anger!
Delicious raindrops on parched feelings, a surge of relief flooding anxious eyes; sometimes a torrent, a deluge of anxiety and sorrow, unstoppable, unconsolable; and at other times, an outpour of happiness that words cannot express - tears.
Sudden gusts of wind, sweeping us off our feet, unanticipated flurry of emotions that overpower when we come face to face with the quirky twists and turns of our lives - surprise.
We spin in vicious cycles, trapped in the tornado, circling endlessly in a seemingly endless misery; hurt, torn, alone for what seems like an eternity and then reason prevails, calmness descends and we emerge from our sorrow.
A myriad patterns, a paradise resplendent in white - snowflakes that gently caress and we tingle, blush, yearn; time interferes, fate intervenes and we stand numbed by its coldness, unable to understand the frigidity...sometimes, it melts and we swim in puddles of passion...and sometimes we just watch hiding behind the curtain, enthralled by the vision in white but scared to venture...and then there is christmas, perfect and white and we know we are where we are meant to be - Love.
A slight lifting of the corners of the mouth, an almost imperceptible smoothening of the crinkles of the forehead, perhaps a dimple that winks at us from one cheek…a small wave rising from the lips, touching upon every feature of the face, gently coaxing the eyes to speak, to evoke, creating magic for the one who receives it…a smile.
Mirth dancing to the sound of tinkling anklets; worries escape - a mere wisp, not the dense clouds they threatened to be; anger dissolves - pale shadows now, not clinging darkness that they posed to be; frowns curve upwards, forgetting their reasons; happy abandon embraces the self, rays of the rising sun brightening souls in slumber...laughter.
Rumbling thunder, angry flashes of lightning, ominous shades of grey that portend approaching storms - unpredictable, wrathful, destructive - anger!
Delicious raindrops on parched feelings, a surge of relief flooding anxious eyes; sometimes a torrent, a deluge of anxiety and sorrow, unstoppable, unconsolable; and at other times, an outpour of happiness that words cannot express - tears.
Sudden gusts of wind, sweeping us off our feet, unanticipated flurry of emotions that overpower when we come face to face with the quirky twists and turns of our lives - surprise.
We spin in vicious cycles, trapped in the tornado, circling endlessly in a seemingly endless misery; hurt, torn, alone for what seems like an eternity and then reason prevails, calmness descends and we emerge from our sorrow.
A myriad patterns, a paradise resplendent in white - snowflakes that gently caress and we tingle, blush, yearn; time interferes, fate intervenes and we stand numbed by its coldness, unable to understand the frigidity...sometimes, it melts and we swim in puddles of passion...and sometimes we just watch hiding behind the curtain, enthralled by the vision in white but scared to venture...and then there is christmas, perfect and white and we know we are where we are meant to be - Love.
June 06, 2005
Art, Innocence, Exuberance, the Silver Screen & Carbona...captured!
OK, I really meant to say feeble (but enthusiastic) attempts at pottery painting, a baby shower, a trip to King's Island, Monster-in-law and Kaadhal, but just felt an inclination towards grandiosity today and I indulged my whim, as always :)
If you want to relax for a couple of hours and pretend to be an artist, Pots on Fire is the place to go; Seen above - snapshots of artistic outpouring :)
Gatherings that will definitely not bore me - baby showers! Seen above - a whole bunch of babies :)
This Sunday, instead of Sunday Samayal on Sun TV, it was girl talk, Congo Falls, The Great Barrier Reef, Adventure Express, some rides that are just great for you to pose in front of and not actually "ride" - Face off, Beast, Son of Beast and finally, a tattoo (notice the small pink swan on my arm above?)! Also displayed is a small memento-rock that k picked up on our trip to Smokey Mountains last weekend :)
Ah...what would we do in life if movies were not to be...Monster-in-law and Kaadhal, talk about contrast! MIL - just my kind of chick-flick, Kaadhal - powerful, stark - wish I had cried after watching it just for closure...the scenes keeps popping up in my head...
And Carbona is what you need to carry with you at all times, especially when you go to IChing and people decide to get adventurous and pour red sauce all over your cream pants! Or you can always drive over to Meijers and walk to aisle 15 in your now cream and red pants and then buy it :)
That's the last few weeks in black-and-white, actually in brown-and-pink and in colors :)
If you want to relax for a couple of hours and pretend to be an artist, Pots on Fire is the place to go; Seen above - snapshots of artistic outpouring :)
Gatherings that will definitely not bore me - baby showers! Seen above - a whole bunch of babies :)
This Sunday, instead of Sunday Samayal on Sun TV, it was girl talk, Congo Falls, The Great Barrier Reef, Adventure Express, some rides that are just great for you to pose in front of and not actually "ride" - Face off, Beast, Son of Beast and finally, a tattoo (notice the small pink swan on my arm above?)! Also displayed is a small memento-rock that k picked up on our trip to Smokey Mountains last weekend :)
Ah...what would we do in life if movies were not to be...Monster-in-law and Kaadhal, talk about contrast! MIL - just my kind of chick-flick, Kaadhal - powerful, stark - wish I had cried after watching it just for closure...the scenes keeps popping up in my head...
And Carbona is what you need to carry with you at all times, especially when you go to IChing and people decide to get adventurous and pour red sauce all over your cream pants! Or you can always drive over to Meijers and walk to aisle 15 in your now cream and red pants and then buy it :)
That's the last few weeks in black-and-white, actually in brown-and-pink and in colors :)
June 01, 2005
Swinging along the pendulum, Life...
A pendulum, swinging along, gently at times, violently, to extremes at times, swinging all the time, searching all the time, to find the center, the essence...I cling to the pendulum as it takes me on its tumultuous journeys, my life a kaleidoscope of choices, of courses of action that I had taken in the past, of diverging paths that I need to discard or make my own today, of decisions hiding in the dark recesses of my mind that will haunt me in the future, of those that are merely dew drops on roses, gentle but frivolous caresses? Maybe they are decisions that will whisper pleasantly in my ear many years from now, gentle reminders of a wise judgement? I do not know, today, I just swing along with the pendulum...
Decisions...life is just one decision after another. I mull over the pros and cons, dwell on my preconceptions and prejudices, seek words of wisdom and helpful counsel and I swing with the pendulum, on yet another journey, to unknown thoughts and undiscovered feelings, buried within me, ebbing to the surface, sometimes with shocking revelations, sometimes with unexpected answers...I sway, undecided, each time, one moment convinced of a decision and at another, convinced that it's not right for me; my fickle mind hesitates, changes course and I mutely follow, hoping that it takes me to a destination that I shall find peace in.
Each time, the decision entwines itself inextricably with my self and I struggle to retain an identity that is not the decision itself; I worry about it, live in it and let myself be swallowed by it; each time, the decision becomes the panacea or the Pandora's box of my life, depending on which direction the pendulum swings, and the journey completed, I look back and see that it was neither - my imagination was playing tricks on me as it always has, enticing me to believe that the decision will mark, a triumph, a victory in my life or maybe mark my doom - all it was, was a small decision, a small stepping stone in a path filled with more such stones and many boulders, within and outside.
Perhaps, today, at this moment, the decision seems momentous and all-consuming to me, perhaps tomorrow, it will just be yet another triviality that I had over-indulged, yet another journey on the pendulum that had seemed the ultimate journey then but was just a simple swing; the vagaries of life will unveil more such journeys...maybe each journey will make the next one easier, wiser, a little less dramatic?...journeys that join hands to lend meaning to the one word - Life!
Decisions...life is just one decision after another. I mull over the pros and cons, dwell on my preconceptions and prejudices, seek words of wisdom and helpful counsel and I swing with the pendulum, on yet another journey, to unknown thoughts and undiscovered feelings, buried within me, ebbing to the surface, sometimes with shocking revelations, sometimes with unexpected answers...I sway, undecided, each time, one moment convinced of a decision and at another, convinced that it's not right for me; my fickle mind hesitates, changes course and I mutely follow, hoping that it takes me to a destination that I shall find peace in.
Each time, the decision entwines itself inextricably with my self and I struggle to retain an identity that is not the decision itself; I worry about it, live in it and let myself be swallowed by it; each time, the decision becomes the panacea or the Pandora's box of my life, depending on which direction the pendulum swings, and the journey completed, I look back and see that it was neither - my imagination was playing tricks on me as it always has, enticing me to believe that the decision will mark, a triumph, a victory in my life or maybe mark my doom - all it was, was a small decision, a small stepping stone in a path filled with more such stones and many boulders, within and outside.
Perhaps, today, at this moment, the decision seems momentous and all-consuming to me, perhaps tomorrow, it will just be yet another triviality that I had over-indulged, yet another journey on the pendulum that had seemed the ultimate journey then but was just a simple swing; the vagaries of life will unveil more such journeys...maybe each journey will make the next one easier, wiser, a little less dramatic?...journeys that join hands to lend meaning to the one word - Life!
May 30, 2005
Lazy Me on a Hazy Trip...
Was planning to post something about my trip to hazy Smoky Mountains, but me being as lazy as me is, take a peek here:
Deepa's account
Mel Kris's account
k's account
S'long!
Deepa's account
Mel Kris's account
k's account
S'long!
May 24, 2005
The Jigsaw Puzzle.
Bits and pieces of the confusion, otherwise termed my mind; sometimes a jumble of pieces of a jigsaw puzzle and sometimes, the complete picture - depending on which piece I try to fit in first. Sometimes two pieces just clamp on to one another, a perfect fit, sometimes, I bite my lips in concentration, mulling over the colors and shapes of the two pieces, trying to discern a connection, fragile at best, but a connection all the same; my attempt to associate thin wisps of logic and sanity to the seemingly meaningless conundrums that my imagination, my mind mercilessly mocks me with...I scatter a few discarded pieces of the jigsaw puzzle here...
- I was sitting in a meeting yesterday, a brainstorming session that looked as if it was going to be highly productive. My attention, which usually has a mind of its own, was doing a surprisingly good job of staying focused, until someone in the meeting started playing around with a marker. He opened the marker with a pop, closed it with a pop and finding the act highly conducive to his complete concentration perhaps(?), he continued to play with the marker, pop, pop, pop...and all I could hear was the annoying little rhythm, not the ideas, not the flowchart on the whiteboard, just pop, pop, pop...
- A quote that won't leave me today:
Every person takes the limits of their own field of vision for the limits of the world. - Arthur Schopenhauer - Ever had one of those days when you come home exhausted, weary of your work and of your life and you unload your woes on a loved one, a friend hoping that he would grasp your struggling hands and pull you out of your mental quicksand? And suddenly you realize that no one has grasped your hands to pull you out? When all you want him to say is "Yes, you are obviously right, people are cruel and you have had such a rough day", with a sympathetic pat on your head, a pat declaring unconstrained and completely biased support for you at - least for those few moments - and what you get is an irrefutably and infuriatingly annoying and logical response, explaining calmly to you why it was your fault and everyone else was correct...and then all you want to do is to not so gently shake that person, rid him of his practicality and objectivity and add generous doses of bias and subjectivity to him to make him more human!
- And then there are times when I hear or read things that people say about a person whose identity is kept intentionally vague and after sometime I start wondering if that person is me! After some more time (assuming the feelings expressed are interesting enough and nice (flattering? gracious?) enough to hold one's attention), I almost begin to wish that that person be me...Is it just me?
- It was one of those moments, late into the night on a weekend, I was feeling silly and happy and mellow, and laughing crazily at everything, just floating along lazily, accepting everything that people had to say...and I found another such quirky person to connect with that night; we laughed at the same not-so-funny comments, we giggled like a couple of teenage girls at nothing and at-least people looked at both of us like we had had too much to drink...and I was not alone in my craziness, I had a crazy partner with me and that made the craziness worth its while :)
May 22, 2005
Together, forever...
"...and I give you my hand, my life and my love."
Serene, romantic, blissful - a fairytale wedding. Two little girls, dressed in shocking pink gowns, with colorful ribbons tied around their waists twirl round and round to show off their dresses. Bridesmaids in blue satin dresses stand close to the little girls, watching the ceremony, smiling, crying, celebrating; soothing melody from the harp mingle with the sounds of nature...the sounds and the colors titillate the senses. The princess in the fairytale walks demurely towards her prince; eyes forget the kaleidoscope of colors, smitten now by the vision in white, by the love, the delicate anxiety mixed with happiness, by the finality of each step drawing her closer to her destiny.
"...from this day forward...as long as we both shall live."
An altar stands in the midst of the green landscape, an entrance to a world of happiness and companionship, an entrance marking the union of two souls, daring to dream together...the breeze caresses the colorful ribbons tied around the altar, pink, orange and red - the colors of love, roses wherever the eyes travel...love, is in the air.
She smiles, crying, as she whispers "I do", he cannot hide the glow of pride on his cheeks as he gently slips the ring around her fingers.
"You may now kiss the bride."
They kiss and the touch of their lips seal their vows and proclaim their union to the world.
...and yet another short story, inspired by this wedding :)
May 19, 2005
Shades of her.
- Yellow, in the turmeric-stained face, imperfect, yet with blemishless wisdom;
- Vermillion, the shade of her anger, the sindoor smudged on her forehead;
- Blue, in her forlorn eyes, in the flurry of her unpredictable moods;
- Green, her dance of envy, her harmony, my tuneless life finds melody in;
- Pink, in her acceptance, in contentment that I yearn for;
- Orange, the vigour of her passion, the fire of my soul;
- Violet, her sorrow, her struggles, the turmoil of my emotions in her every teardrop;
- Gray, her hesitation, her loneliness, her detachment – I writhe;
- White, purity – her thoughts, her emotions, her naiveté, her self;
- Black, my fear, my pain, my self, without her...
May 16, 2005
Everybody loves...
Raymond!
And once again, I bid farewell to a long time companion; my tears have hardly dried from an earlier heart-wrenching separation and here I go again...
The 210th episode of Everybody loves Raymond aired today and after nine years of Ray's antics, Debra's wifely am-going-to-kill-you look, Marie's meddlesome interruptions, Frank's laugh-out-loud comments and a nonchalance that women should never attempt to understand, Robert's quirks...and much more, they said goodbye and I lost yet another Old Faithful. I remember when the final episode of Friends aired on TV, I actually cried with them! Eleven years of Ross-loves-Rachael/Rachael-does-not-love-Ross and for eleven years, I continued to fall more in love with them!
Funny how attached one (read I) can grow to some of these sitcoms...call me crazy but I will miss them like I miss a friend, a funny friend who can make me laugh whenever I am with him and make me forget my boring excuse-for-a-life and its associated trivialities! Can't believe am actually writing this, I remind myself of many of those mamis back in India who would watch Chithiii on TV, eyes glued to the screen, tears streaming down their face and feeling what chithi feels and for those few moments, their concept of reality is what they see and not what they actually are!
As an aside - Ray Romano said "For nine years, I have spent every ounce of my creative energy on this and now...there is a void in my life" or something to that effect; I can imagine...
May 14, 2005
The Unattainability factor.
Several bits and pieces of conversations and scenes have contributed to the generalization that I am about to make now.
I don't remember the season, but here is a monologue from Friends that adds more credibility to what I have to say. Phoebe's Russian Scientist-guy, David says, "You know, when you don't see someone for a long time, a-a-and you kind of build them up in your head and you start thinking about: Come on, don't be crazy. Nobody is that beautiful, but... well, you are."
What I am attempting to touch upon here is that there is a certain charm to being unattainable, something that makes us want, even yearn for the very thing that we know we cannot attain (mostly pertaining to relationships but the generalization permits itself to be extrapolated to other things as well).
I mean, consider the number of instances where a girl has acquiesced to a guy's proposal after he has moved out of the town, state, country or her life! She might have noticed several attractive qualities in him but just not sufficient for her to take the leap and say yes; keep him away from her and the leap is taken. This happens so often (or so I hear) that I wonder if the seemingly out-of-sight factor is just (mis)used as a ruse to get her to say yes :)
Anyway, yet another strange characteristic of love itself that begs to be highlighted now is the sheer power of emotions drawn out of us as a result of love or the very lack of it. Love is a strong emotion, noble and powerful, inexplicable and painfully strong. I am tempted to say it is an all-encompassing emotion to be exceeded in intensity by a few emotions only, but, consider the lonely soul yearning for love rather than being in love; consider the suffering lover who has had the bad fortune of being classified as an example in people's conversations - tch, the poor guy - for unrequited love. Think of his plight. Does he not feel something much more powerful, much more painful, much more consuming than love itself?
Let's assume, lady luck decided to grace the very same person with a smile and he is now blissfully in love with his lady love, who is also very much in love with him. Now, I am willing to bet a small portion of my fortune to claim that what he feels is a fraction of what he had felt earlier.
Much as I try to explain this incongruity, I cannot, except by concluding that there is a magic in absence, a touch of mystery and charm that our imagination adds to the person whom we cannot see in front of our eyes, that makes him seem that much more precious, that much more perfect in our mind's eye. It's almost like we create an effective haze in front of our eyes and we can only see that person through the haze and the more we squint to see him clearly, the more endearing qualities we associate with him unconsciously and the higher the pedestal he sits on rises...
Well, what can I say? Blame it all on the unattainability factor!
I don't remember the season, but here is a monologue from Friends that adds more credibility to what I have to say. Phoebe's Russian Scientist-guy, David says, "You know, when you don't see someone for a long time, a-a-and you kind of build them up in your head and you start thinking about: Come on, don't be crazy. Nobody is that beautiful, but... well, you are."
What I am attempting to touch upon here is that there is a certain charm to being unattainable, something that makes us want, even yearn for the very thing that we know we cannot attain (mostly pertaining to relationships but the generalization permits itself to be extrapolated to other things as well).
I mean, consider the number of instances where a girl has acquiesced to a guy's proposal after he has moved out of the town, state, country or her life! She might have noticed several attractive qualities in him but just not sufficient for her to take the leap and say yes; keep him away from her and the leap is taken. This happens so often (or so I hear) that I wonder if the seemingly out-of-sight factor is just (mis)used as a ruse to get her to say yes :)
Anyway, yet another strange characteristic of love itself that begs to be highlighted now is the sheer power of emotions drawn out of us as a result of love or the very lack of it. Love is a strong emotion, noble and powerful, inexplicable and painfully strong. I am tempted to say it is an all-encompassing emotion to be exceeded in intensity by a few emotions only, but, consider the lonely soul yearning for love rather than being in love; consider the suffering lover who has had the bad fortune of being classified as an example in people's conversations - tch, the poor guy - for unrequited love. Think of his plight. Does he not feel something much more powerful, much more painful, much more consuming than love itself?
Let's assume, lady luck decided to grace the very same person with a smile and he is now blissfully in love with his lady love, who is also very much in love with him. Now, I am willing to bet a small portion of my fortune to claim that what he feels is a fraction of what he had felt earlier.
Much as I try to explain this incongruity, I cannot, except by concluding that there is a magic in absence, a touch of mystery and charm that our imagination adds to the person whom we cannot see in front of our eyes, that makes him seem that much more precious, that much more perfect in our mind's eye. It's almost like we create an effective haze in front of our eyes and we can only see that person through the haze and the more we squint to see him clearly, the more endearing qualities we associate with him unconsciously and the higher the pedestal he sits on rises...
Well, what can I say? Blame it all on the unattainability factor!
May 10, 2005
Love.
At 16, she looked at the tawny note with a barely legible scrawl on it that read “Your eyes are like the moon, I can stare into them all day long…” and thought that was love.
At 18, she ran into him by chance at the bookstore and in the few extra moments that his eyes lingered on hers, her heart raced and she thought that was love.
At 20, their hands touched for a second, as they walked and talked about nothing and everything and she thought she was in love.
At 22, she cradled her phone on her neck and discussed life and relationships with him in her small dorm room well into the night and much later when she fell asleep, she dreamt that they were in love.
At 24, he was her friend and then her confidant. She shared with him her aspirations and ambitions, fears and dejections, her past and present and she knew in her anchor, she had found love.
At 26, they made bright plans for life; they saw the future as two pairs of eyes belonging to the same soul and brick by brick built their home and their love.
At 28, they worriedly counted 10 small fingers and 10 small toes and in the relieved tears that glistened on their cheeks, love shone like a beacon...
To word or not to word.
Today, I experienced one of those whachamacallits, those so-called magical moments of realization, one of those weird epiphany-things. I was talking to D and having yet another lets-(not)agree-to-disagree-conversation (seriously, it can’t all be me, can it?!), when this epiphany struck me. I recently wrote a blog about one of my friends that I am no longer in touch with and I had the sweetest things to say about him, things I did not even dream of telling him when we were in touch. Now, why didn’t I think of telling him what I felt? I mean we both would have just felt better, right?
Of late, I have been doing that a lot, saying things that should not wait to be written in a blog, 22 years later, when neither person feels what he or she felt ages back! Coming back to my point, maybe it’s time we start giving people the credit they deserve. Now comes the troublesome part. If we do end up talking like this to each other all the time, we swing all the way to the other end of the pendulum and end up sounding overly sentimental and corny. I mean imagine a world where people get up to greet each other with phrases like:
“I do love you and cannot live without you even for a day, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Me too”
“Me too”
or
“You are my best friend in the whole world, you mean the world to me. I would be lost without you.”
“Me too”
“Me too”
Seriously, yuck! So, what we need is a balance, the pendulum’s center of mass, if you will. Maybe Mother’s day, Father’s day, Ex-girlfriend’s-day and so on do have a point. Maybe on that day you are allowed to act as emotionally demented as you want in order to convey what you exactly feel and people will not look at you like you have had one drink too many.
My silly side now having made her point, enter a whole other side with a totally different point to make. While I may lose myself in my daily life, feigning normality and a sense of peace with myself, uninvited guests drop in to my head to remind me of things left unsaid. Words that failed to take the journey to my mouth, words that almost escaped but were carried off by the turmoil of my own uncertainity, words that I could not utter because I was scared of rejection and of ridicule…words that now lie buried within me, shelved forever. Perhaps, they were silly, thoughts...better left unsaid and perhaps, they were thoughts that could have changed two lives…and now, I will never know.
Of late, I have been doing that a lot, saying things that should not wait to be written in a blog, 22 years later, when neither person feels what he or she felt ages back! Coming back to my point, maybe it’s time we start giving people the credit they deserve. Now comes the troublesome part. If we do end up talking like this to each other all the time, we swing all the way to the other end of the pendulum and end up sounding overly sentimental and corny. I mean imagine a world where people get up to greet each other with phrases like:
“I do love you and cannot live without you even for a day, you do know that, don’t you?”
“Me too”
“Me too”
or
“You are my best friend in the whole world, you mean the world to me. I would be lost without you.”
“Me too”
“Me too”
Seriously, yuck! So, what we need is a balance, the pendulum’s center of mass, if you will. Maybe Mother’s day, Father’s day, Ex-girlfriend’s-day and so on do have a point. Maybe on that day you are allowed to act as emotionally demented as you want in order to convey what you exactly feel and people will not look at you like you have had one drink too many.
My silly side now having made her point, enter a whole other side with a totally different point to make. While I may lose myself in my daily life, feigning normality and a sense of peace with myself, uninvited guests drop in to my head to remind me of things left unsaid. Words that failed to take the journey to my mouth, words that almost escaped but were carried off by the turmoil of my own uncertainity, words that I could not utter because I was scared of rejection and of ridicule…words that now lie buried within me, shelved forever. Perhaps, they were silly, thoughts...better left unsaid and perhaps, they were thoughts that could have changed two lives…and now, I will never know.
May 07, 2005
...and what if the shoes are too big?
I have tried hard, atleast in recent times. I have consciously made an effort and I confess, I am not good at it. But, I will still try. If you have not already guessed (really! you haven't?), I am talking about the over-publicized concept of putting yourself in someone else's shoes. I have a bone to pick with established proponents of this theory. This theory has several flaws that I categorize below.
Jokes aside, I understand empathy, more than I want to :). It's just that sometimes, the whole consequence of thinking in someone else's shoes weighs so heavily on me, I wonder why I am doing it.
- What if the shoes just don't fit?
We are all individuals. We are all allowed to have a healthy difference of opinion. The problem appears when we try to think alike. The fact that we think differently - isn't that what makes us individuals? Individual tastes, individual opinions, individual likes and dislikes? Even individual sense of right and wrong? If we try to align these, even with a close friend, aren't we asking for disaster? - What if your feet kill you once you are in someone else's shoes?
Lets assume, I have managed to convincingly hide myself from my feelings and I now perceive the world at large as someone else. In this process, although, I have shut myself in a little cell and promised myself I would not give myself a second glance, I do subconsciously realize that I am suffocating myself. In other words, I have managed to fit into someone else's shoes and the person getting hurt in this process is me more than anyone else. - What if you shouldn't be trying to fit into someone else's shoes to begin with?
Sometimes, it's just not worth the effort. Maybe the someone whose shoes you are trying to step into, does not care about anything else but the perspective as he stands, in his own shoes. Maybe, we just need not make ourselves go through the rigmarole of preparing ourselves to step out of our cosy shoes and step into their shoes!
Jokes aside, I understand empathy, more than I want to :). It's just that sometimes, the whole consequence of thinking in someone else's shoes weighs so heavily on me, I wonder why I am doing it.
May 05, 2005
Kadai solren, kelu!
The whimsical raconteur has a story to tell you.
http://whimsicalraconteur.blogspot.com
Kind of related to this post.
http://whimsicalraconteur.blogspot.com
Kind of related to this post.
May 04, 2005
Is Life...
- a gradual fading of one memory to be replaced by another?
- a progression of stages in man’s life? From tiny footsteps that pitter-patter to a doddering gait?
- a kaleidoscope of precious moments and epiphanies?
- a calculated risk to aspire, aim and achieve?
- a series of events linked together, a Gordian knot of sorts, weaved by divine hands?
- a manifestation of trivialities entwined inextricably around the ultimate truth?
- a feeble attempt by man to solve one conundrum after another, playfully dispersed to him by Him?
- just you and me?
- a motley web of passion, angst, love, sorrow and all that can be felt not seen?
- one entity, lost in a sea of entities, revolving around and reacting to a few other such entities?
- in soulful eyes that you drown in,
broken hearts that break yours,
charming gestures that draw you,
skilful hands that entrance you,
dimpled cheeks that make you smile,
pursed lips that make you wonder,
contenances that captivate you,
souls that are so like yours?
Sorry about the cloying douse there, got carried away...on a lighter vein,
Or…is life just one blogging entry after another :) ?
May 03, 2005
Marriage.
I stand musing on this side of the ocean, listening to the secrets that the waves whisper to me. One wave after another, they all have something to tell me, stories from the world on the other side of the ocean. I see just a silhouette and a few shadows and the waves tell me tales that I otherwise would not know. Lilting melodies, soothing hymns, disturbing turbulences and discordant noise, I hear them all…I ponder that there will come a time when these waves will take me over to the other side, delicately, so that I would not lose my grip or myself in the journey…and then I would be in a different world, hopefully not as a different person.
The other side of the ocean, which until now was a symphony of sounds that I little understood, vague melodies that I overheard with mild curiosity, will now be my sanctum and I shall become the shadow on the other side of the ocean and the waves will carry my voice to yet another soul tentatively preparing herself for her journey to the other side of the ocean.
The other side of the ocean, which until now was a symphony of sounds that I little understood, vague melodies that I overheard with mild curiosity, will now be my sanctum and I shall become the shadow on the other side of the ocean and the waves will carry my voice to yet another soul tentatively preparing herself for her journey to the other side of the ocean.
May 02, 2005
You shall hereby be known as...
I started writing something totally different and ended up writing this. I guess I just opted to focus on my silly instead of sane self. Ever noticed how there are some phrases, words that are conceived and concocted and passed on from one filial ear to another until it becomes established enough to transcend generations? I mean words that would mean nada to a stranger would evoke tear-filled laughter, pleasant memories and invite hours of conversation, all springing from this one silly phrase which inturn made its appearance into this world by the quick thinking of a witty mind. I pick a few choice phrases coined by my family at opportune moments, which we still inflict upon unsuspecting relatives and friends before bursting out into bouts of laughter, leaving everyone except a few enlightened souls bewildered...
Did not mean to inflict such a length post on everyone, but as P put it, jotting down notes for posterity, since I don't completely trust my memory!
- கழுத்துல (read kazhuthula) powder: I vividly recall this aunty coming home to talk endlessly with my mom on matters of varying importance - the color of the saree that her sister-in-law wore to her neighbour's wedding reception, how her mother-in-law always added more sugar to her husband's coffee than her's, how our maid servant was infinitely better than her maid servant and how enchanting her new navaratna necklace looked on her! Anyway, that's besides the point, what made her stand out in a crowd was the fact that she always had clumps of talcum powder glistening in her sweaty neck all around the heavy necklaces she wore! As a kid, it was quite amusing for me to stare at her white neck in direct contrast to her dark complexion. It so happened that a few of my family members found this funny too and the fact that she touched her face often with her handkerchief and then fanned herself all the time but completely avoided the powder patches on her neck amused them as much as it delighted us! The poor lady remains "கழுத்துல powder" till today!
- Blue Shirt: One of my dad's closest friends since childhood, he is a soft-spoken, shy but very resourceful person. Many years back, when my mom and dad were nothing but friends :), Mani mama would often hang out with both of them, sharing amusing stories, eating icecreams or just talking, my mom noticed that he always wore a blue shirt to all their get-togethers. She was just getting to know my dad's friends and would often forget their names, and it seemed convenient for her to refer to Mani mama as "Blue Shirt". The name amused my dad and he began to refer to Mani mama as "Blue Shirt" and to this day, Mani mama makes appearances in my parents' conversations as "Blue Shirt"!
- Ramani: All of us at sometimes in our lives have dreaded visits from people who fall into the category of "Onnu vitta onnu vitta...vague-relation". One such unfortunate visitor to our house was Ramani mama. What was slightly irksome for a foppish teenager like me was the fact that he would never wear a shirt ever and he was not old enough to be categorized as a product of the previous generation, but he behaved like one. During our family get-togethers, he would eat with everyone else and would not bat an eyelid before leaving his plate as is and settling down to gossip with a few like-minded men, a bunch of vethalai, sunambu and pakku spread around him. I found it annoying that he would be laughing uproariously, sprinkling betel juice upon everyone, his flabby paunch moving up and down while the women-folk cleaned up after him. Somehow, the mildly disgusting scene stood in my head and today, any male member of the family who shows shades of Ramani mama is said to be a "Ramani" for us! The word actually became an adjective for us!
- மொந்தம் பழம் (read mondam pazham): I have no idea what this word means, just that its a fruit of some sort, quite unappealing, I would assume. Many years back, when my dad still worked for his old Company (he has changed jobs thrice since and I can boldly reveal this info!), he had an annoying, worthless boss who would take credit for every little thing that my dad achieved. I don't recall the series of events that led to this name but it does have a nice ring to it, "மொந்தம் பழம்"! but that's what we now call all bosses in general who give us a hard time!
- கோம்ப (read kombai) Krishnan, Gate, சகலகலா வள்ளி (read sakalakala valli), Wounded Soldiers are some of the more innovative ones, though one might wonder what faux pas these colorful people must have committed to be christened with these amusing appellations.
Did not mean to inflict such a length post on everyone, but as P put it, jotting down notes for posterity, since I don't completely trust my memory!
May 01, 2005
S and the Rainbow Principle.
He told me about the rainbow principle while munching on a McDonald's sandwich and balancing his cellphone cradled between his ear and neck, or so I presume. We always underwent a role reversal when we had one of these long telephonic conversations; he talked and I listened. For once, I was talking to someone who had things to say that kept me so engrossed that I did not interrupt him with my non-sequiturs.
"Ramya, its like this, you can go on thinking about the little things that annoy you, or you can learn to let go because its just not worth the amount of time you are investing on it..." and he would break off to answer a call on his other cell phone (he had one for his work and one for personal calls) or to tune his guitar. In that way, he was distracted, but inspite of the numerous breaks, the train of thoughts that he was attempting to impress upon me, was never interrupted. We would talk for hours together, late into the night, on lazy afternoons, early mornings...time was not a factor that played a role in our conversations.
I received a phone call one Saturday morning and all I could hear was A.R.Rehman's music in the background, studio-effect, and then it stopped and I was pleasantly surprised to hear him sing "Minnale, Nee Vandadenadi" almost as melodiously as the original song was rendered. I was happy that he had taken the time to make me smile that particular day; he had rememberd my favourite song. He had an amazing voice, we both knew that. He had once told me his sister thought that he could sing as well as UnniKrishnan and what was surprising was that the revelation did not have a touch of vanity about it and I did not find any reason to contradict what he told me. He often talked about his concerts. To me it was a life, fascinatingly different from mine; sometimes I imagined myself watching his concerts, proud that he is my friend, at other times, I imagined being on his troupe, travelling to places, vicariously living the life that he lived and gradually he donned the role of a protective, philosopher-friend for me.
"I thought you were quite arrogant, the day I first spoke to you on the phone...", he said. I frowned, but was amused, "You know? The bossy kind?" he added for clarification. He finished by saying "...but you turned out to be very different from what I thought that day..." We both chucked delightedly...for our own reasons.
"The world around us is a rainbow", he would say, surprising me by jumping into a philosophical discussion, from a vantage point that I did not have the privilege to observe from. We were in the middle of a conversation revolving around how he expects to feel about his imaginary significant other when he plunged into this disconnected line of thought. "We should place people we know in different concentric semicircles of the rainbow" , he continued pensively. "For instance, casual acquaintances and colleagues fall in the semicircle farthest away from the center, my next-door neighbour falls into the adjoining closer semicircle...finally, my closest friends, wife, parents fall into the semicircle nearest the center, my heart."
I pondered about this for a few moments, when he continued "How we react to what people say should be determined by where they fall in this rainbow. If a driver on the road, screamed at me for cutting him off and if I am dwelling on his enraged, uncivilized words more than the few moments that it deserved, I am wasting my time."
I opened my mouth to interrupt, maybe disagree, when I realized I did not. I had wasted many an anxious moment, replaying casual but hurtful words thrown my way by people who would hardly cross my path again and much as I tried to distract myself, I could not.
He broke into my thoughts saying "Now, if your best friend said something to you that hurt, its still worth thinking about it, same holds true for compliments and praise...". I smiled. Profound, yet obvious. I just did not think of explaining it to myself, as he did.
S and I are now busy with our lives and do not have the time to talk, as we did...but, as moments progress to minutes and minutes to hours, interspersed with the clicking of my wall clock, I hear the voice that taught me another of life's simple lesson.
"Ramya, its like this, you can go on thinking about the little things that annoy you, or you can learn to let go because its just not worth the amount of time you are investing on it..." and he would break off to answer a call on his other cell phone (he had one for his work and one for personal calls) or to tune his guitar. In that way, he was distracted, but inspite of the numerous breaks, the train of thoughts that he was attempting to impress upon me, was never interrupted. We would talk for hours together, late into the night, on lazy afternoons, early mornings...time was not a factor that played a role in our conversations.
I received a phone call one Saturday morning and all I could hear was A.R.Rehman's music in the background, studio-effect, and then it stopped and I was pleasantly surprised to hear him sing "Minnale, Nee Vandadenadi" almost as melodiously as the original song was rendered. I was happy that he had taken the time to make me smile that particular day; he had rememberd my favourite song. He had an amazing voice, we both knew that. He had once told me his sister thought that he could sing as well as UnniKrishnan and what was surprising was that the revelation did not have a touch of vanity about it and I did not find any reason to contradict what he told me. He often talked about his concerts. To me it was a life, fascinatingly different from mine; sometimes I imagined myself watching his concerts, proud that he is my friend, at other times, I imagined being on his troupe, travelling to places, vicariously living the life that he lived and gradually he donned the role of a protective, philosopher-friend for me.
"I thought you were quite arrogant, the day I first spoke to you on the phone...", he said. I frowned, but was amused, "You know? The bossy kind?" he added for clarification. He finished by saying "...but you turned out to be very different from what I thought that day..." We both chucked delightedly...for our own reasons.
"The world around us is a rainbow", he would say, surprising me by jumping into a philosophical discussion, from a vantage point that I did not have the privilege to observe from. We were in the middle of a conversation revolving around how he expects to feel about his imaginary significant other when he plunged into this disconnected line of thought. "We should place people we know in different concentric semicircles of the rainbow" , he continued pensively. "For instance, casual acquaintances and colleagues fall in the semicircle farthest away from the center, my next-door neighbour falls into the adjoining closer semicircle...finally, my closest friends, wife, parents fall into the semicircle nearest the center, my heart."
I pondered about this for a few moments, when he continued "How we react to what people say should be determined by where they fall in this rainbow. If a driver on the road, screamed at me for cutting him off and if I am dwelling on his enraged, uncivilized words more than the few moments that it deserved, I am wasting my time."
I opened my mouth to interrupt, maybe disagree, when I realized I did not. I had wasted many an anxious moment, replaying casual but hurtful words thrown my way by people who would hardly cross my path again and much as I tried to distract myself, I could not.
He broke into my thoughts saying "Now, if your best friend said something to you that hurt, its still worth thinking about it, same holds true for compliments and praise...". I smiled. Profound, yet obvious. I just did not think of explaining it to myself, as he did.
S and I are now busy with our lives and do not have the time to talk, as we did...but, as moments progress to minutes and minutes to hours, interspersed with the clicking of my wall clock, I hear the voice that taught me another of life's simple lesson.
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