Fair Enough

The post titled ‘Men in My Life’ was written straight from the heart. A response I recently received for it was “is it comfortable revealing personal details on a public forum like a blog?”

Yes, a blog is a public forum, I am aware. But when I write, I am not too conscious of either the medium or the content. The pen rolls, the ink flows, the words take life. The medium isn’t restrictive. As for the content, the writings are left to the readers’ interpretations. Different people react differently. Fair enough.

As for ‘revealing’ myself to the public, who is this public anyways? Either of two people: those that I know very closely & those that I don’t know at all; a motley crowd of close friends & complete strangers. Friends know me well; at least, I should hope so, by now. So it doesn’t matter how they take what I write. Simply because I know they take it in the right spirit, they understand me & where I come from. As for strangers, they are just that – strangers. So how does it matter what they think? They don’t know me & if they get me wrong, fine.

My blog is an expression of things I have felt & experienced; my life, my moments. Hence, it can only be true & honest (as brutally honest as I can muster courage for at this point in time) & without fear of what people might think. Waise bhi,

Kuch toh log kahenge
Logo ka kaam hai kehna
Chodo bekaar ki baton mein
Beet na jaaye reina

I’m sure my classmates from school & college, my former colleagues, my students & the others who I met along life’s journey & who now may sometimes read my blog, might snigger & say, “Ahh…see there…I told you…” or preen, “I knew it!”. But it’s ok. 33 is a good age to be honest with one self; forum or no forum, public space or private.

Blogging is essentially laying bare one’s life. If it unsettles some people, so be it. Like I said, people who matter understand; those who don’t understand don’t matter!

Opposites Attract

Do they, really? Yes, they do. Do they last? Not really. Not always.

Opposites make great romances. For marriage, there has to be a number of things in common for the couple to make it work & to live happily ever after.

During courtship, being with a different (as in, different from you) person, keeps the tempo high. The relationship is alive & kicking, as every day, you discover new facets to one another hitherto unknown & hence very appealing. Your tastes in music, movies, leisure, food, & fashion are vastly different & that gives an opportunity for you to explore the other side of the road.

In a marriage, however, not being able to enjoy the same things means trouble; at least in the long run. Imagine a husband who loves the movies & late nights & impromptu get-togethers while the wife’s idea of entertainment is shopping in Big Bazaar. It spells trouble to me. Or if the wife loves partying, window-shopping, eating in fancy restaurants & the hubby dear is averse to it. All he wants to do is come back from work & snooze during the week. And during the weekends, snooze some more. Trouble again; more so, if one of the partners, especially the wife, is particularly aggressive of her needs & wants.

If she is docile & subservient & always jhukoas her head & says ‘haanji’ to every command that drips out of her pati parmeshwar’s lips, all is well. But we all know how many of this particular species of women are left in the world today!

I, for one, can’t bear to sit aside & watch life go by. Would detest a life of ‘happy domesticity’, which correctly translated means, being confined to the four walls of the kitchen, to cook & clean, & to obey the mostly nonsensical diktats of the husband. To hell with it! I’d rather go solo, any day, than live in such servitude.

Luckily for me, my pati dev & I do share a lot in common. We both get bored by the eleventh minute of an hour. And so we’re always up to something.

Differences…there are a few. Money & childcare are two major things we, ok I, fight about. He is pathetic with both money & a child. His mindless spending was a danger sign I should’ve heeded to before marriage. He believes in “Aaj ka ab, kal ka kal dekhenge” and sermonizes to me saying, “Worry not, my sweet child. If God takes care of the little sparrow, how much more will he take care of me”. He hasn’t ever read the Bible.

As for raising a child, don’t even get me started.

But we live on. And move on.

Strangely, I would rather be with him than anyone else. Because at the end of it all, he is the only one who can make me laugh, right through my tears, & melt, in the middle of a volcanic burst of anger.

Cliché’s

I mean – hello –what’s with people? Can’t you ever wake up to the possibility that a daughter can be her mother’s pet? Does it always have to be “oh she is a papa’s girl”? I know many real-life cases of mama’s girl & papa’s boy. Yet, why are people hell bent on the infuriating cliché – daddy’s girl? It’s easy to retort, “But why do you even care about what people say? They don’t know you”. Yeah right, exactly. They don’t know me. THAT is why.

They don’t know the countless days & nights &, all the minutes in between, spent caring for a child - right from the 1st moment of her inception in your womb to Today. All those waking hours, the many sleepless nights, the infant’s dirty diapers, the toddler’s tantrums driving you nuts, the baby’s constant demand for attention, the no time whatsoever for oneself, the endless feeding & cleaning, the toilet training, the patient hours spent teaching the toddler to turn, see, walk, sleep, talk, listen, obey!

How many of these things have really been ‘shared’ by the man? He should be doing these for his “daddy’s girl” on his own but doing them without being told would be asking for too much from a man. An occasional hour or two of, “I’ll take care of the baby, you go take bath (coz you stink like a skunk with a disease!)” or “I’ll feed the baby, you go eat (or you’ll drop dead any minute now!)” doesn’t count as raising a child. It’s lip-service. And to think that this lip-service warrants the exultations from the neighbors who go weak in the knees & exclaim, “Oh she looks just like her daddy” or “She’s so smart like her father”. Aaarrrrgggghhhh.

My OMG Moments

Here’s a recollection of all the moments when I felt either great happiness or unbearable pain; an inexplicable fear or extreme disbelief or even the times of complete shock & horror. In short, my “Oh My God” moments or the “I Can’t Believe It” moments.

When we sighted a majestic tiger near a watering hole in a forest reserve near
Mysore. When we almost ran into a mother elephant & her cub en-route to Hunsur.

When I sat on a camel for the 1st time & felt the huge lifts in the air throughout the rocking ride. When I learnt that I had got the 1st rank in M.A

When the nurse held my just-born baby in her hands & showed me a glimpse of her face.

When I read in Grazia (May’10) that women in Ghana die in childbirth for lack of money & hospitals & doctors. Urine samples are kept in hand gloves. Such abject poverty makes your heart pray, ‘God please help them’.

When I was air-borne on my maiden flight from Hyderabad. The memory of your 1st take-off stays with you. When my letters were published in Femina(7 Apr'10) & Grazia(Mar'10) & won the gift hampers.

When I read Mills & Boon for the 1st time in high school. When I visited Akshardham in Delhi.
When I watched the horrific scene in Bandit Queen where she is gang-raped. I had gone to watch the film, ALONE, to Diana theatre in Udupi. No one would come with me to see the highly controversial ‘bad’ film & as usual, I of course, had to see it. There were only 3 girls. 2 medical students from Manipal had dared to come too. We sat huddled together in the hall. When i felt the movement of my baby in my womb for the first time.

When I looked up (quite literally) at Sathya during the wedding rite where we offer prayers to the sun god & I was barefoot & I turned to see him & realized I was really craning my neck. His head seemed out there in the sky. He is so tall!! (he is 6'3) I remember saying it in my head. Something I hadn’t noticed in the 3 months of our courtship; probably because I was always in heels then.

When Tan, who was around 1 ½ years at the time, saw me crying & wiped my eyes. I felt so loved. When, on my 1st flight landing in Bombay, the sight of the slums, just meters below, ripped my heart apart. The plane almost touches the roofs of the ramshackle houses & if you’d put your hands out of the window, I bet you’d even touch the walls. The irony is, in our cities, while there are men who earn a meager Rs 100 after an endless day’s back-breaking labor, a single radial tyre of Amitabh Bachchan’s Lexus costs Rs 2.5 lakhs. In India, utter poverty & consummate luxury live together; a string of jhopad pattis right in the backyard of a high-rise building.
When Tan was 2 1/2 months old & around 2:00 in the middle of the deep, dark night, minutes after I’d fed her, I saw milk oozing out of her nose. I didn’t know what was happening to my baby.

When I visited Vivekananda Rock Memorial in Kanyakumari for the 1st time while still in school & felt the ocean breeze against my skin. It felt like heaven on earth. I haven’t seen Kashmir, so I don’t know any better.

Sathya - My One & Only Husband

I met him when I was 28. We were colleagues – for a short time. He joined UTL (in Whitefield) in March & in June (of the same year) we were man & wife!! My life now revolves around him, the father of my child.

From Sathya, I’ve learned to be selfish. It’s the single most important lesson of my life. He has also taught me to be supremely self-confident. I’ve suffered from bouts of low self-esteem for the longest time in my life. And this, in spite of having a truly blessed life, with many academic & professional achievements.

Patience is another thing. He can wait for things to happen - for as long as it takes. For me, the time lag between thought & action is not more than 5 seconds or 5 minutes depending on what the task is. I am programmed with only 2 commands: think – do. For him, it’s think, think, think, do. I am hyper, very impulsive. He is calm & collected. He may be a 1000 times more excited than me but you couldn’t know from his face.

I am my face. His face is just the tip of the iceberg.

Janam janam ka saath – saath janmo tak?? Oh No! No way! I tell him, "Iss janam mein bahut seh liya tumhe. Ab at least in the next janam, let me be with a new, interesting, super rich, industrialist with a private yacht, & island!"

He wants Lara Dutta!!

Humour has kept our marriage alive. I would rather be with a poor, funny man than with a rich, boring man.

The Men in My Life

Raju Gopal Shetty: My Father

He was a complete foodie. Even in places of worship, he’d invariably be busy searching for good non-veg hotels. My love for non-veg food, short-temper & impatience comes from him. He pampered & spoilt me silly.

I was beaten the least. As a child, I used to do ‘susu’ at the very sight of the cane. The red lines on the legs & hands, on the rare occasions that I was beaten, used to last for days. The physical pain seemed to increase with all our combined howling. Lateron, the sisak sisak ke rona. I wanted to grow up as fast as I could to escape the corporal punishment.

He passed away on 11th Jan ’97. I didn’t cry or mourn or miss him that much, at least not as much as I was expected to! But I missed him a lot when I got married. Later, when my mother-in-law hurt me, I missed him some more. I wanted him to beat her black & blue! Had he been alive, he would’ve scared the day lights out of her.

I live in hope Pappa. Hope you’ll “deal” with her in hell.

Santosh: My Virgo Brother

My one & only brother. Younger than me by 3 years & older than Sathya by 2 months!! Very reserved & polite. He can do no harm to anyone. Minds his own business. Has few friends; all of them life-long friends. Extremely sensitive. Especially to what others say. Many times, I’d say something completely harmless & he’d be hurt & stop speaking to me for weeks & months! And I wouldn’t even know what hurt him in the 1st place! My mother always mediated.

Now that she is no more, & he has stopped talking again, I’m waiting for a miracle to break the ice between us.

Binu: My Taurean First Love

I met him in ‘95. I was 18. He was exactly 2 years, 2 months, 2 days older than me! We were class-mates in college, degree. We fell in love & stayed committed to one another for almost 8 years. Till 2005!! The year I married Sathya. I don’t regret it.

I only feel very sad, even now, when I think of the immense hurt I caused his parents. Chachan & ammachi loved me like their daughter, not (future) daughter-in-law. I hurt them a lot by my decision. They gave me lots of love. I gave them pain. I am very sorry.

I’ve already suffered for that – thanks to my mother-in-law. Maine apne karmo ke phal isi janam mein bhugat liye. Ab naye janam mein nayi kahani – happy wali kahani :) . Hopefully!

Kishore: My Virgo Friend

We met in Mangalore University. He was my senior from the Journalism department. He had feelings for me & wanted to marry me but I just couldn’t reciprocate. He was extremely hard-working, persevering & honest. To this day, I respect him a lot & hold dear the sincerity of his affections for me.

After passing out, he mostly corresponded through letters. I used to read & reread his letters because they were all written in impeccable Kannada. Each letter was a masterpiece. I used to also gape at his handwriting. It was so amazing you’ll marvel at its beauty. Sadly, I was forced to cut off all contacts with him. Last I heard, he had reported for his first posting as a Sub-Inspector of Police.

Shivaraj: My Aries Friend

He was my friend’s boyfriend’s friend. We met in Bangalore in April. I was in 2nd year degree. He was in sales with Johnson & Johnson. I met his wife & daughter years later in their home in Shimoga.

There are relationships that don’t lend themselves to any labels or names. I consider him my soul mate. He could decode my slightest gesture, a twitch, a movement of the eye. We’d instinctively understand one another. I am happy to have known him. We lost contact over the years.

Sathya: My Scorpio Husband

A separate blog post for him.

Shaadi ke 5 saal baad bhi thoda chaplusi karna padtha hai. Kya Karen? :))

If you mess up ...

My mother brought me up quite differently. She never lectured. Neither did she ever bombard me with a long list of NO’s.

No, don’t do that!
No, don’t go there!
No, don’t touch that!
No, don’t eat that!
No, don’t try that!
No, don’t talk to him!
No … this! No … that! The endless NO’s of a parent.

But she did make one thing very clear. And that was: If you mess up, it’s your responsibility.

I’ve never neglected my studies or lied to gain something. I’ve never taken a casual approach to my job nor have i ever squandered my hard-earned money. I’ve never drunk, smoked or done drugs (in spite of the opportunity & temptation)– EVER - till date.

I have lived life my way. I’ve done some so-called strange things; taken some bad decisions; been to some bad places; befriended some bad people. And yet, I remain me. Uncorrupted. Completely aware & in control of my life.

That’s the thing with freedom. When you are free to do things, you become responsible! You choose wisely.

When you’re growing up, your concerned, well-meaning parents & your not-so-concerned, plain-nosy relatives, have only one fear. That you’ll be corrupted, by others! So they guide you with their version of right & wrong. They protect you against every imaginable danger. They shield you against every possible physical or emotional pain. In short, they try to live your life for you.

I am glad my mother let me be; let me live my life on my own. With all the mistakes I made. With all the lessons I learnt. Some bitter, some sweet. All my own.

And to think that she never went to school!!

I guess, that’s why, deep down in my heart, I have scant regard for ‘formal’ education. I have two post-graduate degrees – M.A and M.B.A. But, I know, they are just 5 letters in sum total. Beyond a point, it hardly mattered. They didn’t make me. LIFE did.

I don’t know if Tan will grow up to be a double post-graduate like me. Do I care? All I want is for Tan to be able to L – I -- V -- E. And remember, if you mess up, it’s YOUR responsibility.

Can’t remember!

There have been so many times I have forgotten where I kept my key, money, documents & so on and expected my husband to remember it for me!! We’ve fought because of this. My logic is: he has great memory & being my significant other I can rightfully expect him to ‘complete’ me. He doesn’t think so. :(

On 5th May we had gone shopping for some furniture & returned home 3 hours later. When I was climbing the stairs, I suddenly noticed that our house door was half-open. I got the shock of my life! Someone had burgled our house! I ran in & searched the whole place. Nothing was missing. Then I realized, to my utter horror, I had not locked the house at all!!

Once I was in a hurry to go to work. Had to change 2 buses to reach NIAM in Jayanagar. I had to cook & eat breakfast, prepare Tan for school & get ready. I left home at 8 and at 1:00 p. m got an SMS from Sathya, “You forgot to switch off the gas. The sambar is completely burnt”. The gas was on from 8 to 11:00 a. m! I was in the bus & controlled my tears. I had prepared the sambar the previous night. He’d liked it so much that he’d said, “This reminds me of my mother’s cooking”!! I mocked him later, saying,” You took your mother’s name & the curry burnt.” That day’s wasted gas cost us dearly; our cylinder got over a month too soon!

As a student, I used to mug up for exams just a day before the D-Day. I’ve never prepared, like the other students, months/weeks in advance. Simply because i couldn’t have remembered a thing after a day!! So my best bet was to read the previous day. I used to literally stack up my brain with all that there was to & pour it all out in the examination hall the next day. There was one other problem. What I study at night, I can’t remember! I am a completely morning person in all matters of the heart, mind & body! I usually study the whole day & sleep soundly the whole night & pronto … there I am all set for any exam.

My problem is I can’t remember what happened in the recent past, like say, yesterday, last week, and last month. Strangely, I remember very well a lot of my childhood! The formative 10 - 12 years I spent growing up in Bombay & then the initial years of growing up in a village. I had a very happy childhood.

Carpe diem!!!

I had not watched a single film of Puneeth till I met Sathya. I have watched every film of Puneeth after I met Sathya. I know them both since the past 5 years!

Not withstanding “Prithvi” & his immense admiration for Puneeth, if Sathya becomes a politician, he would be the most corrupt politico that has ever lived on the face of this earth. And I would be the most travelled wife on the face of this earth!

Most people are corrupt because they are greedy for more money. They want more money because they want to prove their one-upmanship to the rest of their clan - bigger car, bigger land, bigger house, and an even bigger collection of jewelry. Their statement is: I have a bigger everything! I am better than you.

I would not like being the wife of a corrupt person. Who wants gold & diamonds & car & bungalow at the cost of work ethics, moral values& conscience? Not me. Never fancied or longed for any of these.

But what if Sathya, being Sathya (chalu, smart, smooth talker) says, “Here’s the deal. You can travel all you want, wherever you want, whenever you want with my hard-earned ‘ghooos’. I ask nothing of you but your ‘janam janam ka saath”. Hypothetically speaking, of course.
Would I still refuse? No … not the janam janam ka saath wala idea. But the moolah with which he could fund my travels? Would I still say NO to his haram ki kamai? Would he be able to buy my silence, my allegiance? Good question.

And here’s my super quick & easy answer: No! I would not refuse!

Just imagine: Going on a world trip, travelling around the globe, seeing every city ever printed on a map, draping every national costume, trying every cuisine, wild nights on a cruise, shuddering on snowy mountains, posing for the lens at exotic locales, dinner in Vegas and breakfast in Mexico, praying in Italy and romancing in Paris, river rafting in New Zealand and scuba diving in Lakshwadeep, shopping in Japan and sleeping in China, …………………………………..these are what my dreams are made of!! How can I let it pass? I could not let this go. Not in my sane mind. No never. Carpe diem!!!

Hypothetical questions…DAMN YOU!

My First Job in Bangalore

I owe a lot of my professional confidence to Mr. Vivek Padubidri. He was my 1st boss in this big city. I had just wrapped up my work as a Lecturer in Mangalore University & had come to Bangalore in April of 2001 to meet him. And god willing, to work for 4C Learning Solutions as a Content Writer.

That was my first real interview, in a totally new, unfamiliar city. I was very nervous. He asked me to write an essay. I wrote on Women’s Liberation Movement. I still have that essay with me – 4 pages on A4 sheet- back to back!

Mr. Vivek had founded the organization that dealt with Computer/Web based training, also known as e-learning. It was a small set-up, just a handful of employees. Located in Jayanagar 4th T Block, right next to Carmel Convent, here began my initiation into Bangalore life. Roti Mandir, Cool Joint, Fire & Ice (was closed down a couple of years ago), Ganesh Fruit Juice, Paridhan, BDA complex became regular hang-out joints. I mostly went with my male colleagues or girls from the PG in BTM Layout where I was staying.

When I started work in this start-up, I didn’t even know how to shut down a computer. Every day, before leaving office, I used to switch off the main switch connecting the plug to the CPU. After about a month, my system crashed! That’s when someone explained to me how to turn off a computer. He said. “Go to Programs(the colorful button on the left hand side of the monitor), move to the red button, click on it, click on Turn Off, wait for the lights to go off, THEN switch off the main switch”. I diligently wrote down his instructions on my notepad. That was the level of my ignorance!!

If I am pretty tech-savvy now, it’s because, on the day when the system crashed, Mr. Vivek chose not to shout at me. Had he blasted me that day, I’d have taken the first bus back home! And that would have been The End of my corporate training work life that was to follow soon!

Poor me, fresh from a village! Though I was good at the work given to me, I was too naïve & there were far too many things I didn’t know. I spoke from my heart, without thinking of the consequences. I used to pack off my bag at sharp 6 p. m & was out of the door at 6.05!! I hardly ever stayed back late, unless I was “really” needed. I didn’t know that staying back was a sure-fire way to ‘impress’ your boss. I didn’t care!

Sometimes, I felt very stupid. Because I didn’t know the difference between a RAM & ROM, what is hardware & software, what is instructional designing, what is meant by operating system, the impact of e-learning, business models, return on investment, I didn’t even know anything about “search engines”!! I had never “googled” anything!! And to top it all, I never hesitated to admit that yes I don’t know all of these things that the others knew or at least pretended to know. I asked questions. I learnt everything from scratch. I didn’t mind being stupid.

My first year in Bangalore, in 4CL, was a learning experience, unlike any other. I was literally hand-held & taught & guided & encouraged, to learn & not be afraid of the unknown.

Mangoes

The smell of Odonil fills our city homes. At this time of the year, I remember vividly, our home in the village used to fill up with the heady smell of luscious, ripe mangoes. We didn’t have too many mango trees in our land then. The ones we had were still very small. So we used to ‘hire’ a tree for a month from our neighbor’s land. This was way back in the late 80’s and early 90’s. If my memory serves me right, it used to cost Rs 300. All the mangoes during that time were ours. We used to keep it in a big basket & eat nearly 5-6 in a single day, the juice flowing down our hands. Ummaa!! The little joys of life.

In South Canara, we make this spicy sweet thing from mangoes by mixing green chilies, salt and the mashed pulp of ripe, juicy mangoes. It tastes so yummy!! I used to savor my lunch on the days we had this special, ‘quick’ dish. It had no particular name. It was simply called “maavinannu gojju”.

I had a Gujarati friend, Nina, in Mangalore. I was working as a Lecturer in the University & I used to home tutor her for the languages. It was in their home that I tasted the famous Gujju “aam ras”, the sweet dish they make from mangoes & have for lunch. It’s so good!

When I see the fruit laden carts on the road, I feel nostalgic thinking about the trees in our village house – especially mango, jackfruit & perley(guava). I was very attached to these trees because on them I could climb, play, jump, eat, study, and hide! You couldn’t do all this on a coconut or tamarind tree. They were too straight & big for my little feet. I hated ‘gaali mara’(acasia tree). My father used to beat us with the thin branch of this tree. It was worse than ‘bettha’(stick used to beat).

I would have loved my daughter to grow up in a village. Like I did from class 4 right up to my post-graduation. Village life does something wonderful to your psyche.