I love you, man!!

It's a strange phenomena that women no longer suspect their husbands like they used to. I'm not saying the bond has become one of deep trust. All that am saying is women don't fear their own sex anymore but feel a kind of paranoia when their husbands/boyfriends display a little more than usual affection for their own kind i.e men.

Few days back past midnight when my husband and me were preparing to call it a day and had just slipped inside the cosy blanket... his cell phone beeped. I pounced on his phone and read the message. It was from a 'guy' named sayan(have never heard of him) and the text read 'goodnight'! I immediately started bludgeoning him with questions, as to who he is, why is he smsing so late at night and why on earth is he saying goodnight. My husband tried to laugh it off saying he must have messaged by mistake, it was meant for Sayan's girlfriend. Somehow i wasn't convinced i asked him to message back and ask why the guy messaged in the first place. To which the next text was more deadly, it read, 'dilam chumu jao ghumu' (give you a kiss, now go off to sleep) I simply sat up in bed by that time having lost all traces of sleepiness. And made my husband call him up finally. Then we were all laughing together at our insecurities... but the truth remains that in today's world even in jest women fear losing their husbands more to men rather than women. But then the time's are strange!

high tea

Getting off work early is something so rare in advertising... so the day i did, i marvelled at the world outside. I have almost forgotten what the streets look like at 5 30 pm. What the colour of the sky is on working days. How many people travel homeward on park street, how the cafes welcome dusk, how lovers/college goers cozy up with cups of coffee, how the demand for puchka rises, how the hoardings light up and the city goes into a different mode altogether.

anyway, i had to do my weekly grocery so i stepped into Spencer's and couldn't for the life of me find a certain variety of 'saag' and out of sheer embarrassment couldn't ask anyone! a married woman can't identify vegetables. what could be worse. SO i bought the rest of the stuff on my list and walked home balancing two heavy bags.

But this feeling of incompetence changed once i stepped inside, i dropped my keys off where they belonged, shoved the veggies in the fridge and settle down on my favourite spot with a steaming cup of Castleton tea and a chocolate pastry from flurry's. Completely at leisure i felt good about life. I for once tasted independence and it felt great. I was sitting in my apartment, i pay for it too, enjoying things I've bought with my own money and watching the TV that i purchased with my salary. I never felt like this when i stayed with mom, there though everything was mine but i had done nothing to earn it. There was a strange sense of satisfaction here, the little i have made out of life with sheer hard work made me feel so proud. From a girl with a completely sheltered life i have come a long way. And having felt good i lapsed lazily back into my musings as the aromatic taste of the perfectly blended tea worked like an elixir on me. So raising a toast to independence and married life, i said to myself...'what a wonderful world!'

As i have turned 27 few days back i just wanna run through a mental checklist of things I've been able to achieve in the past growing up year.

1. make a slave outa my husband. check
2. nurture my evil side. check check
3. do something outa character like 'be nice'. check
4. Practice subtle sarcasm people don't get. check
5. laugh in the face of fear, getting married that is. check check
6. make my husband feel guilty enough to manipulate him. check
7. visit and exotic holiday destination. check
8. not pay for it. check

Now am feeling a lot better about being so much older!!

let my country awake

It doesn't take an Independence Day to remind you how much you love your country. every time i hear a patriotic tune my eyes go moist. in a multiplex when we rise for the national anthem i feel my vision blurr. when in 'Roja' the hero puts out the flaming Indian flag by rolling over it, i cried like a baby. the lilting notes of 'bande mataram' melt my heart till date. The shehnai in 'swades' makes me weep for my country deep inside.

this Independence Day as i lay in my couch wondering about life (my fave pass time) i realised i have hardly done a thing for my country except living off her everyday. i am safe today because of her. i have clothes, shelter and as a woman i enjoy every freedom. yet i curse the roads, the political situation, the corruption and say its going to the dogs.

today i feel apologetic for all that i have said because after a bit of soul searching i know for sure that i haven't meant any of it. i love my country so completely and dearly and this sense of patriotic pride is so deep seated in me that i never want to live anywhere else i guess. i too long to see the world, long to travel far and wide but my land, my country is a place so special that no job, no opportunity, no amount of greed seems bigger than my country. Her history fills me with pride, her struggles make me cry, her future is mine too.

as India evolves today our destinies remain entwined forever. like a child never finds a better place than her mother's lap, i too find peace in this land. with its congested cities, traffic jams, pollution, bribe-taking-police, forever dug-up roads, continual protests at the drop of a hat, parasitic politicians and little things made difficult, i accept her for who she is, as i too am a part of her. if we can't change, how will she? if we keep blaming one another we will never get out of our third world mode and more people will leave her and settle abroad serving other countries but not their mother-land. all of us feel what can i a significant being do? can we not plant trees? not litter the streets? follow traffic rules? don't give or take bribes? pay taxes? help one another? support a cause? these little things lead to a revolution. to bring about one you don't need to parade the roads and go on hunger strike. as actions speak better than words, if each of us contribute a wee little bit, we will make our nation a much better place. remember you can leave India but the India within you will never leave you.

i feel the tricolour smeared allover me, my soul is dipped in it. it runs in my veins and makes me want to make a difference. i want to wake up in the India of my dreams. don't you?

The terror called maid-servant

our very existence depends on our household helps! i have realised this long back. we are really at their mercy, one day they don't turn up, all hell breaks loose. we resort to home deliveries and end up with heaps of unwashed clothes, piles of dirty dishes in the sink etc etc. At least my house looks like its having a really rough time when my maid takes an off or doesn't show up.

i admit here (just like the 'Sach Ka Samna' contestants) that am absolutely no good as a householder. The roles of the ideal wife/daughter-in-law continue to elude me. I can't even move my ass to get a glass of water. Thanks to my obesity, constant exhaustion, stressful life I've turned into a good for nothing married woman who is completely incapable of managing her own home.

Shame-faced as i was pottering around my house early this morning trying to put together a low-fat tiffin for lunch, she threateningly asked me why she has not been given her salary and it's the 4th of the month already, i make excuses mustering enough courage. As she left slamming the door uttering a sarcastic remark and as my home shook with the after effects i thought to myself that does she almost run my life now? she is in charge of everything and am just a submissive by stander. I always 'request' her to do work that i pay her for, sometimes I'm so scared i clean the bathroom myself, lest she get angry, lest she abandons us, so on so forth and wonder are we all afraid of our maid servants?

I keep thinking 'Mimi be a man er correction woman!! stand up against this oppression!' but then i look down at my obese body and it gets the better of me...aaahhh what's the bloody point anyway....and sink back into lethargy. i have better things to worry about and as my mind does permutation combination with her body and Hitler/Stalin/Napoleon's heads i quietly chuckle and close the door after her.

A lone

when we are young we are desperate to grow older and enjoy the liberties that come with age. but as we grow old don't we lose way too many things?? for instance the freedom of childhood are ones you can never replace, for eg, boy kid-girl kid same bathroom, a boy pecking you on your cheeks in prep school everyday, the nonchalance about earning a livelihood or exam pressure and most importantly so many friends who you would meet everyday.

as we grow older, do we become more lonely with time? with age, with the ups n downs of life we are everyday a little more alienated from others. lunch groups dwindle, shopping buddies drift apart, cafe groups disintegrate, childhood friends go long distant, its just loss, loss n loss n more loss. we gain experience none the less from all this.

with emails, mobiles, every other modern communication device at our disposal we have lesser people to call or contact. with better jobs, better pay packages we have lesser time to have fun or lesser people to go out with. in search of a better career we don't think twice but leave behind everything and leave for a foreign land. in this wide world why do we do with full consciousness, every possible thing that makes us more lonely?

Nostalgia

the other day i chanced upon some stranger's album on face book. what i gathered was this girl studies in JU and had taken 5 or 6 of her classmates for a short trip to shantiniketan. they were staying in one of those beautifully creeper adorned quaint looking cottage type houses in prantik. It even had stained glass windows. i knew nothing about this girl but the shots were lovely. some taken at dusk, some taken while they were walking aimlessly, some at the banks of kovai. the shadows, the landscape, the expressions frozen in time and the fun that these guys were having really touched me somewhere deep. it opened up chambers in my mind which have been closed for quite a while. it was an experience going through that album. soon i was lost in my JU days, remembering our trip to Shantiniketan and our dangerous cycle rides. one could never imagine that cycles could be so unsafe...if u have morons at the helm, accidents happen. Sad bit is i don't have a single photograph to share. But the thing is it wasn't half as fun as it could have been. we wasted so much time mostly in handling emotional turmoils and resolving disputes. Getting drunk and smoking like chimneys. We had fun but we didn't have a huge group. I didn't make so many friends. I still dunno why. Today at this juncture i feel a little bit of regret...a little bit of remorse for perhaps not living it up in my college days. and now I'm physically unfit to even live a normal life. Life is over it seems and so many things still left undone. i don't know which way am headed and what the future holds, but the opportunities i have missed are lost forever in time. :)

ZZZZZZZZZZZZNescafe....

i feel like a blob, sitting at my desk and pretending to work...I've kept my eyes open through sheer will power. I feel energetic at the fag end of the day and i feel sleepy throughout my time in office! Why is my body clock so bizarre? Is it coz i hate office so much that my system shuts down or is it that I'm basically not interested? But how can that be...last time i remember i was a very go-getting creative person.

it's an art i have mastered over past 1 year. Here are some tips in case anyone ever needs to try.

Blame it on the shoes
Make it look like you have to tie your shoes.
Put your head on your desk and with both hands hold your shoe laces.

Cabinet
Choose a cabinet in the office that opens rarely. Move the content of it in one side - on the left or on the right. And creep into your private haven. This is very useful for longer breaks.

Ledgers
Put one big ledger underneath your chin.
Advantage: you can keep your regular working position and stay unobtrusive. Disadvantage: all your colleagues that you share the office with, must be in front of you with their backs to you.

Cool camouflage

Use some make up and draw eyes on your eye-lid.
First use some white colour and after that draw a pupil with an eyeliner and shadow.Fake hairs will simulate an open eye.

Coma in a toilet I
Sit on the toilet with your head on the toilet tank and relax.
Use a role of toilet paper like a holder for your head. Important: you have to hold a set of keys in your hand, which will drop on the floor and wake you up when you fall into a deep sleep.

Coma in a toilet II
Don't put your head back, but move it forward to the toilet door.To prevent making an unpleasant red circle on your forehead, put a role of a toilet paper between your head and the toilet door.

Go underground
If your working place can't be seen directly from the entering door, just lie down and relax under your desk.Before that, put your jacket on the chair to look like you are at the work but at that moment out of the office.

Copy machine
Get nervous in front of everyone because there is no more paper in the copy machine.Open the machine and put your head inside.Caution: carbonate dust causes cancer.

Absolute concentration
A perfect position for a nap: print some important documents and put your hand between your desk and your head, so the papers are in the area of your eyesight. Caution: every five minute turn another page.

And all this talk about sleep reminds me of a famous print ad for nescafe. it had a page full of Z's which towards the end turn to form the N of nescafe...what an idea sir ji!

virtual victories

When you are feeling low what would you generally do? Various people have myriad ways of dealing with depression. Some eat till they burst, comfort food it's called, some get manic about chores around the house, some just walk until they realise they've walked miles without noticing, some cook, some consume alcohol...for me....its leading a virtual life. When i feel everything has begun to fail i become an avid gamer! People play for entertainment, i play to win at least at something!! My life savior, my ipod touch, my world of new possibilities!

From brandishing my sword in 'Heroes of Sparta' i jump on a boat and am off fishing looking for the biggest catch, then conviniently i jump in behind the wheels and race across street in timed challenges. Sometimes at a battle of words, sometimes laying pipes as a plumber in 'toobz', there are so many roles you can play, swap lives, don new identities, create new levels of expertise. But what takes the cake, i guess is Sorority Life on facebook. It's about shopping, bitching, new glam, getting house members, taking up jobs for sustenance and being the most influential person ever! You can clad yourself in a cute short valentine's dress or a classy summer yukata, (without worrying about weight, as your prototype is perfectly in shape to flaunt all sorts of styles) and have the hottest rides, the newest prada accessories and all things your feminine heart craves for without spending a penny!! Change hair colours, cuts and get makeovers within seconds, it's pure indulgence for a woman.

Points and levels, being your claim to fame and brownie points your rewards, you can feel appreciated and wanted. Things that are non-existent in your work place. So here's to gaming which has been taken to new heights in the recent past. And here's to my second love my apple ipod - my portal to a world of excitement and glory. What would i ever do without you?

over the coffee break

blank notepad, alarm bells in the mind 'zero ideas! zero ideas!', have till now scoured every other website! but result nil! hence the occasional fall back option...a good strong cuppa coffee! if the election candidates knew i take their kind of stress everyday would they sympathise!? As my art partner makes armpit fart noises and the rest of the creative joins in, me (the only woman in my department) try to lose myself in my blog and take comfort in the bitter taste of coffee.

just think, had it not been for these coffee breaks where would we, the working class, be? all the gossip, all the grapevine, all the intellectual discussions, all the love, all the office affairs, all the big ideas...stem from a hot cup of coffee! it energizes the dosing inner intellect don't you think?

clinging to the thot 'a lot can happen over coffee' i wait for my ideas to happen over coffee but alas they elude me! with that sense of Deja Brew?(feeling like you've had a similar cup before) it's bottoms up for me and the inauguration of another blog! who knows after few more posts my inner eye might really jerk open!