Looking Young

This picture was taken in Kodaikanal in 2009 on my 32^nd birthday.

A response on Facebook was “you look young” Now readers, since the past two whole weeks I had been scratching my head vigorously, trying to come up with something to write on, & nothing, absolutely nothing, had struck me. (My last post was on Apr 10^th). The infamous writer’s block had bitten me again. And this time it was such an excruciating dry spell that, when I got that comment on FB, I thought why not write on this? So bear with me!

Is there a downside to looking younger? I’m not talking of “being young” but only “looking” young, younger than your calendar age. Trust me - there is!

The times I hate the “you look young” stare is during interviews. It gives me a completely unnecessary 2 minutes of initial hurdle to cross. The famous ‘First impression is the best impression’ goes for a toss when your prospective employer doesn’t take you seriously, at first glance, because he thinks, you look too young for the role/position applied for. And in my mind, I catch myself venting my anger, “I HAVE worked for 9 years Sir. I’ve slogged my ass off all these years & you won’t believe me?” The incredulous look on their faces rattles me. Before they open their mouths & ask, “Do you really have that much experience?” I go into an overdrive, explaining all the great things (supposedly) I’ve accomplished, in the past decade, starting with my auspicious birth in 1977 (no, actually, not that!!) to the post-graduation in 2000 & my momentous work life saga from then onwards. It is another story that they are convinced within the next couple of minutes & in my mind I’m back to heaving a sigh of relief & feeling good about not looking 40 when I’m still 35! I make it a point to wear saris for interviews with my hair rolled into a bun, to add a few “mature” years to my appearance. And I’m thankful, as I walk out, for the money spent on hording all those crisp, starched cotton saris.

During meetings, in office /college/seminars/conferences/wherever, no one initially takes me seriously. They don’t even look/glance in my direction. I am left to listen in while the whole room is busy shouting & drowning out each other’s highly knowledgeable opinions. And then l decide “Enough is enough”, drop a few quotable quotes & force them to sit up & take notice.

During my daily evening visits to the neighborhood park, none of the other mothers/aunties involve me in their all-important Child Behavior Analysis sessions, always assuming & looking at me, as if asking, “What can she possibly know?” And thinking, at best, I must be my daughter’s much younger maternal aunt, or at worst, her much older sibling. A couple of them actually asked me to my face, ‘Where is her mother?’ And I am like, ‘Excuse me? I AM her mother’ Till about 3 years back, a question like that would infuriate me no end. At the time I was still very high-strung with all the single parenting I was doing. It’s only now that I don’t take it to heart so much.

In buses, no one offers me a seat even though I’ve officially been an aunty for the past so many years. I’m getting older by the day & though people think I look young, I’m not getting any younger. Can you even begin to imagine my paranoia that I’m getting closer to the dreaded 40?

But hey, there is an up-side (obviously) to the story too. The best thing is even though I’m older than Sathya by a few years (ok, by exactly 3 years 9 months) NO ONE has, till date, been able to tell the age difference between us. Thanks to his build, I’m the petite, young wife to an older, taller, heftier giant of a man! Until & unless we expressly tell them & even when we do, they look at us with disbelief. According to them, it is just not possible that Sathya is younger than me. And no prizes for guessing who is having the last laugh!

A Milestone

10^th April 2010 was when my first post was published. ‘Conversations’ has turned 2 today & this is my 100^th post! Happy? You bet! I’m glad I gave blogging a shot. But I also couldn’t help worrying, “It took me 24 months to write just 100 posts!! Why couldn't I write more?”

This milestone is a big deal for me as I’m not a gifted or a ‘natural’ writer. I take so much time to write a single post, barely managing to write 4 posts in 30 days! I know many who can literally type their mind out on a weekly, daily, & hourly basis. I can’t. Even if I did, I don’t think there is a post yet that I’ve published just right off the head. I keep chewing on it, pondering over it endlessly. Then, once I’m done typing out all the thoughts, I sit & bring down the 2 pages of that initial draft to just a page. To chop off sentences from your article is not easy. We tend to cling to them. As K.R Narayanan said, ‘it takes a lot of heartlessness to “murder your darlings.” I’m beginning to think I’m a very good murderer - an average writer with above average editing skills.

Blogging has been the precious pair of attentive ears that I’ve always wanted. Other than what it has done to my mind, I think the great thing about it is the people I "met." I’m lucky (touchwood!) that most of my readers are really nice & decent. I’ve heard of the creepy-crawlies that plague the blogs of women & considering that I write a lot of personal stuff, it’s a relief not to be hounded by such seedy characters.

I owe my wonderful readership to Indiblogger which I joined in July’11 & until which time I only had 2 readers - Suzaan & Suraj!! Then Prashanth came to & through him came Sahana who was the one who got me to join Indi. Thank you Prashanth for discovering my blog. Thank you Sahana for being my blog angel, & for guiding me on many aspects of blogging. Thank you Hemant & Murali for your valuable critique of my blog on Indi. It was Hemant’s feedback that made me think hard on having a blog name & switch from ‘Sujatha Sathya’ (ya…eeks!!) to ‘Conversations’! It was a time when I didn’t even know that there was a thing called blog name! Yup, I was pretty dumb!

What I learnt in the 2 years of blogging:

One must appreciate a reader’s time & effort when he reads/responds to a post. I don’t understand those that say, “More people should read me. I’m good” & accuse readers of being on this give & take system of reading a blog. I ask: why not? You want me to read you & you won’t read me?!!? Why boss? You think you are Shakespeare?

If you want to show your appreciation of my writing, don’t tell me I’m a good writer. I won’t believe you anyways! Just read me. This applies to ANY blogger. You like him, read him. Simple! Those that I like or built a rapport with, I’ve even gone backwards & read their older, initial posts. There are blogs that I’ve read COMPLETELY! That’s my way of saying: ‘I like that you make the time to read me regularly. Thank you would be too small a word to express myself. I read you because you write well, I connect to it, keep writing’.

For a long time (3 full months!), I obsessed about the number of followers/comments/page-views/statistics/ranks etc And then one day, realized I was running in the opposite direction. The disappointment over my own obsession with the number thing was so much that I became detached from it. Pretty early I must say. And eventually it stopped mattering so much. I learnt to distinguish a real reader from a passer-by & that the reason to blog cannot be the numbers game.

Ugadi of 2012

This is a Ugadi special post - the festival that fell on the 23rd of March. Maharashtrians call it Gudi Padwa, Sindhis - Cheti Chand, Manipuris - Sajibu Cheiraoba & Punjabis - Baisakhi. Hindus believe that Brahma started creation on this day.

"Yuga Adi” means 'the beginning of a new age'. This has been a beginning of sorts - for me at least. In the South, the first Ugadi immediately after marriage is a very important one. Ours came after 6 long years!

Here’s a snapshot of our celebration. Whoever has read ‘A Regret’ would know why I am writing this post. This is a promise kept!

The day began with oil bath. We decorated the entrance of the house with mango leaves (traditionally, it signifies good crop & prosperity) These leaves are strewn together to make a garland and tied to the main door of the house

& immediately after that I set off on my mission to draw the first ever rangoli of my life!

This is me, mid-way during the design, sweating it out in the scorching morning heat with aching hands & legs doing something which looks very simple on the face of it

Here's the final cut - the fruit, err, design of my labour: Tanvi proud of her mother's once-in-a-lifetime burst of creativity!!

Followed by prayers at the nearby temple

and then at home in my mother-in-law's pooja room:

and eating of Bevu-Bella (ಬೇವು-ಬೆಲ್ಲ – neem-jaggery). The mixture has:

1. Neem – bitterness (taste) - Sadness (significance)

2. Jaggery – sweetness (taste) - Happiness (significance)

3. Green Chilli – hot - Anger

4. Salt – saltiness - Fear

5. Tamarind Juice – sourness - Disgust

6. Raw Mango – tang - Surprise

Why do we eat that? To show that life is a blend of different experiences & all of it must be accepted with the same grace throughout the New Year. I have to mention here that up until this point of eating the Bevu-Bella at around 11 a.m, I had eaten nothing since the time i woke up which is again a FIRST for me!!

Then my mother-in-law & I got busy with preparing the feast – Obbattu (puran poli/holige), obbattsaaru, maavinakai chitranna (a rice dish made from grated raw mangoes) & kosambri (salad). On the first day ONLY VEG! But that's ok. All I wanted to eat was the Holige & I held the record for eating the maximum number of holiges in one day which was THREE!

For those interested in knowing how to make it, here's an illustration!!

The second day is when we binged on non-veg & it is called Hosadadku.

Oh before i forget here's me with the bangles and the flowers!

And then here's are some pictures of the two temples that we visited

1. Armugam Temple with the panchmukhi Subramanya

2. Jyotirlinga Temple which houses replicas of the 12 lingas from all over the country

Arrest My Husband

‘Arrest my husband’ – a shocking demand, isn’t it? What if it wasn’t a figment of my imagination but the truth? What if that is what, a once (deceptively) dutiful wife, wants? What if now, with revenge on her mind, she goes all out to ‘prove’ to the powers that be, that her husband & his parents, siblings/friends are all fiends & deserve a jail term, no less? What if such demands are increasing by the day? What if the law, the police, the twisted judicial system are all favoring her? Sounds out of a movie? It is not. This is what has happened in the life of a very close one in my husband’s family.

These cases are referred to as 498A meaning all dowry harassment related cases. I was not even aware of it until it hit SO close to home. And then we were all in shock! 3 years into the marriage, the woman turns around & slaps a 498 against her husband & family. Caught unawares, & still not believing what just happened, they are at first in denial until their son is roughed up by the police & they are asked to file for anticipatory bail. And this is happening by the dozen everyday (at least here in Bangalore).

Also read The Week – March 2012 Issue, page 43, the Nisha Sharma case – the girl who misused the 498 to stall her arranged marriage as she was already secretly married to her boyfriend!! And Bikram’s post here.

The 498 allows a wife to write a complaint of dowry harassment. The accused mentioned in the complaint can be immediately arrested without sufficient investigation (!!!) & put behind bars on a non-bail able terms. Even if the complaint is false (which is repeatedly accepted by High Courts & Supreme Court), you shall be presumed guilty until you prove that you’re innocent. !!! It is understood by all that this is a blackmail attempt by the woman when the marriage has failed. Most 498a cases end with a big demand for money to settle the case out of the court. (This has already happened in our case. They have thrown an obscene figure on our face.) As one lawyer states, “The moment she files a 498A against you, the balance of power shifts decisively in her favor. She is no longer a “weak” woman, an “Abala Nari”, but an avenging angel who has various corrupt branches of the government working on her side.” Many legal experts accept that it is an extortion racket.

The most important thing that all women must remember is what Madhu Kishwar, women’s rights activist says, “False 498A cases hurt the woman in the long run. She will be treated like radioactive material. Re-marriage would be a distant dream. Marriage of her siblings too would be in jeopardy. Who would want to marry off their girl into a house where a woman has terrorized her husband’s family? If it is filed at the instigation of close relatives, once the relatives get what they want, they will abandon the woman. The beneficiaries are the lawyers only.”

The sad part is if these false cases keep rising at the rate at which they already are, then that day won’t be too far away when even genuine complaints would be looked at with great suspicion & they may not get the full advantage of a law that was drafted to protect their interests & give them legal relief. Maybe that day has already come.

(The 498 Case Survival Kit:

http://ipc498a.files.wordpress.com/2008/04/a-guide-to-surviving-ipc-498a-apr-2008ci.pdf)

I am a flirt

"I am a flirt" is a declaration you won’t hear too often, at least not from the womenfolk, definitely not publicly, & yet it remains one of the eternal truths of the workplaces I’ve been in; a willing & completely amused witness to the whimsical play of hormones. It doesn’t matter if we are single or not; most of us would’ve indulged in some form of positive flirting at least once in our lifetime.

Research says, “Healthy flirting helps workers remain happy & increases camaraderie”. The playful chuckle, the ‘I find you attractive’ vibe, the cubicle visits, the private jokes, the delirious giggle, the impish movement of the eye, things said/understood without words exchanged, the witty remarks – are, by & large, harmless & does happen in every office. It acts as a welcome break in a rather frenzied & stressful work environment. People even make efforts to look their best & don’t grudge getting ready for the ordeal called office.

However, the right attraction leading to just a light-hearted banter is a rarity. Some spread themselves too thin & abuse this relatively harmless office distraction. It turns distasteful when used in exchange for official favors; when you flirt with someone in a position of authority, and use your sexuality as your weapon to get what you want. Doing it over-the-top & with hidden agendas is what makes it tacky. “Some women flirt more with what they say, & some with what they do” said Anna Held. Once the physicality takes center stage, the flirtation takes on an altogether different hue.

Men openly & proudly wear the badge of a Casanova. They flirt to show off their masculinity, the ‘I am so-cool-I-can-chat-up-any-girl-I-want’ assertion, to confirm that their “market” is still alive. As for women:

“All women are flirts, but some are restrained by shyness & others by sense”.

Having seen the way some women have mastered the art, & indulge in it with consummate class, it makes me think it must indeed be a special skill, not easily given to everyone, & those that lack, are the ones who crib & turn moral police or don the role of the custodians of social decorum. At the other end of the spectrum, even the “sati savitri” type aunties flirt - during family functions, parties, marriages, in shopping centers & vegetable markets. What irks me is when they crucify only the young girls. You like it, you do it; why raise eyebrows when someone younger than you does it?

“No matter how happily a woman may be married, it always pleases her to know that, there is a nice man who wishes, that she were not” - Henry Louis

Someone finds you attractive, pays you some attention – take it lightly, don’t take it to heart; don’t take it home either! The line between light flirtation & coming on too strong is very thin & it’s sometimes better to steer clear of disaster than playing with fire. One way to know if it has crossed any limits is to see if it makes you uncomfortable. If yes, be vocal about it to the person, through words & gestures & discourage it altogether to save yourself from unnecessary headaches in the future! Someone said it well:

“Flirting is the art of keeping intimacy at a safe distance”.

It makes one feel attractive, lends positivity but it takes two very mature individuals to set the boundaries & not cross the line.

The BOY-Friend

It’s time for the 4th guest post on my blog: ‘The BOY-friend’ by Sunita Kurup of “I See, I Feel, I Say” fame. It’s one of the few blogs I got ‘addicted’ to pretty early & I only want to say this: her blog ROCKS. Read this for a taste of her delightful sense of humor.

Over to her now: The “BOY-friend”

I was never in the category of ‘good girls’. Going into kitchen was only to steal goodies, dad’s tummy no matter how big I grew happens to be my pillow always, 95% of my friends are ‘boys’, 5% of the girls who were friends with me were only because they wanted to get closer to the guys I knew: D :D. Yes and parents of these 5% girls told them to stay away from me because I would ‘spoil’ them. But I was always my dad’s princess and my mom’s headache. One night something happened which not only changed my mom's thoughts (I think so) but also made me feel good, feel much secured & stronger. One of my friend's mom (from the 5%) found out that she was going around with some guy from the same school. This friend of mine was a very quiet person. Even in 11th grade her mom packed orange juice for her in a bottle, she spoke so softly that anyone could hardly hear her. I was always compared to her in my house, when it came to behaving like a 'good girl'. Anyways, so the night her mom discovered what her daughter was doing in college besides studying, she thought it was her moral right to barge into our house and question me O_O. ”It is Pinky who is spoiling my daughter; she is the one who always roams around with boys ". And she went on and on about my 'reputation' just because I had too many male friends. All this while my bro was looking at me at his wicked best, trying to tell me “tera to aaj band bajne wala hai". My mom listened for a while and then said, " my daughter has a lot of friends who are boys, she also goes to their houses, but my daughter is at home as of now studying, she topped her semester exams, and yesterday when she bunked college with all her friends she had told her father about it in advance, I have nothing to worry, you should worry because it’s your gal who has not returned home yet. Instead of standing here and talking crap about my gal you should go and look out for your daughter ". I was zapped and my bro's face became like " aarey yeh kahani mein twist kaha se aa gaya"

No one brought up the topic again and my mom did not discuss it with me. But that was not all about it in my life. I have always been questioned about having more of guy friends then gals. Aare it’s my choice yaar, nobody ever questioned me why I was closer to my dad than my mom or to my bro than my sis, then why about friends. Every male friend that I have had has been looked upon as my 'Boyfriend'. Why?? Well the friend is a 'boy' so technically yes a 'boyfriend' but I certainly will not end up into a 'dil ka connection' with all my male friends. These were my thoughts all through my teenage.

Things started changing as I moved on in life with studies, career and relationships. The most common scenario is you befriend a guy, obviously because you are comfortable with him. Here you have no intention of getting any closer than being good friends, but because you are with that friend all the time, even your other friends start questioning your relationship status with him. Not to blame the world but really can a girl & a guy ever be 'just good friends’?? Why not? I ask...I would like to sit and get drunk with a guy friend and collapse in the same room, but then bloody hell the 'sexual tension' takes place or atleast there is a fear of 'that thing' happening. You feel emotional and want a shoulder to cry, if it is a female shoulder then its fine, but if it is a male shoulder then you will never know when the face turns to you and you get a kiss or smooch on your lips and next day you are going around with that 'good friend' of yours. And then suddenly this 'good friend' bans you from being friends with other good friends. Why?? Because he fears the same story might happen again.

Even if you and your friend have a nice friendly relation, the world will want to put a name to it or atleast your respective partners will. I have this very close friend and I was shocked when during a coffee session his wife referred to me as his sister!! I almost slipped the coffee and told her that her husband was not my brother nor do I have any such brotherly feelings for him. He is a good friend that’s it. I have never ever in my entire life called a guy my brother just to escape eyes of the world, and I will try never to do it in future either. I am proud of my friends and my relationships with them but it does not change the fact that I got married to my best friend. We decided to take our relationship beyond friendship when we realised that we would like to spend our lives together as husband and wife. So then does that mean that I am contradicting my own thoughts??? Why exactly is it so difficult (not impossible) to have a friendly relationship (not brotherly) with a handsome successful hunk?? Is sex the only reason?? I cannot answer, I do not know. Maybe when I grow older, with experience I might have an answer but as of now I have no idea why all the ruckus and hulla gulla about the ‘Boyfriend’!!!

My Blood

A story in Femina (25 Jan’12): A poor farmer’s wife tried to conceive. She failed time & again, so she even got her sister married to her husband so they could’ve a waaris (heir). But that didn’t work either. Finally, at the age of 70, she went for IVF procedure & delivered a baby! The cost of the IVF was Rs 2 lakh. They sold off 2 acres of land, 1 bullock & a cart they owned, took an agriculture loan of Rs 50,000/-, & now, every 6 months they pay Rs 3000/- as bank interest. Their financial & medical struggles to have a baby, was not the only thing that caught my attention, rather what she said at the end of the interview did. She said, “Why didn’t we adopt? Is that a question to ask? If we had adopted a child, he’d have thrown us out of the house. Who would’ve given us food? And why should we adopt & give all our property to a stranger?”

Why did she fear that he’d throw them out? Why are we paranoid that adopted children will turn out ungrateful? Don’t our own biological children treat us similarly or even worse? Why are we almost sure that the adopted ones will shame us in some way? I understand that the fear “What if the child turns out evil/badly behaved?” or “What if his parents were criminals or anti-social?” is a very real one. And it brings me to the eternal debate of which is the superseding force - nature or nurture? What triumphs ultimately - our genes or the way we are raised?

What I don’t understand, however, is the concept of ‘my blood’ or ‘pure blood.’ What is so pure about it? I’m a Hindu, so I’ll be burnt when I die. And my so-called pure blood along with my pure bones & flesh would turn into obnoxious air. The pure blood notion is deeply ingrained in our psyche & closely linked to inheritance & the sharing of wealth & the reason why we reproduce &/or not adopt. We do not easily accept adoption as a solution to infertility or as an answer to an accompanying desire for an offspring. Traditionally, even if some did adopt, it’d be a sibling’s kid; not a stranger picked up from some orphanage or hospital.

In college, I remember reading stories of couples who had adopted & thinking “I’ll adopt a child, not an infant or a toddler, but a slightly older child.” I wondered where they got their strength from because to adopt, one needs a big heart full of warmth & a great deal of sensitivity. We think that we are changing the child’s life but the truth is, he is making a difference to our lives. When I got married & discussed this with Sathya, the answer was a firm no. I was sensible enough to know that, if he is strongly against the thought of adoption, I couldn’t go ahead with it. I must let go of it altogether, or wait till he comes around on his own, because the resulting negative environment wouldn’t be conducive to the child or for the others in the family. A child can easily sense traces of indifference. This HAD to be a joint decision. And the discussion ended there. But, if I outlive Sathya, then, one day, I’ll do it.

The decision to adopt cannot be an emotional one. One must have a reasonably well-paying job. The adoption procedures itself can be harrowing & so long-drawn that it’s enough to put off any well-meaning couples off it. One must think both from the heart & the brain; be emotional & practical in equal measure for something as momentous as this. I don’t know how long it’ll take us to open our hearts to it. All I know is, if we - the ones who ‘need’ to or ‘want’ to, ever get around to doing it, more than the child, it is our lives that is going to be enriched.

Love without Expectations

Can you? I can’t. Love without expectations is saintly love & I’m no saint; nor intend to be one. I’m human. Love is a need. I expect. If this isn’t true love, then I’ve not been in true love because I’ve always expected & I know that the other person has expected too.

When I love someone, I look forward to certain things; a love in return to begin with. Doesn’t love start with the hope that the person loves you back; that he sees you, notices your existence, likes you just one bit at a time? Later, when you realize he loves you too, you move on to level 2 – hope he does this, hope he does that. And when that is done, a new list springs up! There really is no end to it. The question is should there be? Yes, Buddha said expectations are the cause of all suffering. But then, does that knowledge stop us? When I pray, I expect God to take care of me, be there when I’m drowning in a sea of tears, & give me strength. Even with God, the relationship is of wanting & needing, toh insaan kya cheez hai!

The problem with expectations is that it’s not always expressed. Unless you say what you want, how will you ever get it? I’m not a mind-reader! The frustration builds up because we assume he MUST know & understand us very well without a single word exchanged just because he is married to us. The truth is we’ve to tell, suggest, communicate, express, say, hint. Otherwise, he might try all he can & yet not measure up to our ‘hidden’ expectations.

As for what I expect from my man, it’s the most important thing he can give me - his TIME. I can’t live with a man who is a workaholic, spends 15 hours in office, 5 hours sleeping, 1 hour eating, 1 hour in the bathroom & 10 minutes with me. Since I’m not in a race to create any jaaydad (ancestral wealth) for my progeny, I’d rather he earns a few thousands less, than over-working (or pretending to!!) & coming home only to bathe & sleep. I don’t need him to earn for me. That I can manage very well all by myself.

I’d love it if he’d make me laugh; make me chuckle through my sometimes nonsensical fits of anger, & my crazy bouts of stupidity & silliness.

I want my man to fight with me! Sometimes! I want little tiffs to dot our journey as man & wife because they lend an intensity & hunger to the relationship like none other. The kind of fights where, one moment, you want to kill each other & the next, can’t bear to stay apart! Perfect understanding? Naah! I don’t want to end up a boring old couple who don’t speak through words but only through telepathy even if they are sitting on chairs bang opposite each other!

I also expect my man to fix the fan/car/bike/washing machine/T.V/tube light &mixer when it breaks down! Well, at least the first level repair, the diagnosis of what’s wrong with the damn machine. Arey, if it weren’t for one of these smaller mercies of life, why would I need a man in the first place? A man & his muscles have many uses!! And while he is at it, I also expect him to stop bragging that my curry turned out super because of his three second ‘tadka’ magic!

A Regret

Whoever said regrets were bad? At times, they give you a sense of direction & help you realize what you missed. I always thought I had no regrets in life. But I do! Lately, I’ve begun to feel a vacuum in my heart for not being the traditional Indian woman, who knows all the festivals like the back of her hand & who actively initiates it in her home. Connie celebrated the Chinese New Year & my neighbors stayed up late to do an elaborate rangoli on Sankranthi. And here I’m who can’t even make a star!
Traditionally, festivals served as important markers of the passage of time. They were centered on farming & harvesting rituals - a time for celebrating the present & hoping for a better future. Nature was revered because rural livelihood was dependent on its whims & fancies. As we moved away from farming towards other, more modern ways of living, for sustenance, the reverence gradually took a beating & gave way to cynicism & questioning. The likes of me who moved away from the villages failed to understand & appreciate their significance in our cultural & social ethos. For instance, as I started earning in the city, buying clothes no longer meant waiting. Why wait for Diwali, Ugadi, Sankranthi for new clothes? I could now buy it every week & for no reason at all than that I wanted to & had the money for it. None of my clothes have a story. My mother’s saris did. Nothing beats the joy that comes from waiting for an occasion & shopping as a family.

Growing up, I didn’t take an interest in rituals. I loved the festivals, sure, but remained only an eager & enthusiastic observer. Though I enjoyed watching the proceedings, the hustle & bustle, the guests, the decorations, the new clothes, the sweets, I never joined my mother in carrying out the activities. Everyone seemed to scheme to make you do ‘weird’ things. I wish they had explained why I was supposed to do it. Even if they hadn’t, I now feel, I could’ve taken the trouble to find out. But I didn’t. As a teen, being forced to do things put me off them completely. The rebellion was misdirected. What would I have lost in following the customs? People like me spell doom & the end of all these lovely practices. The next generation would only read about them in books.

It’s gratifying that these beautiful traditions, by which we are known to the world, are still alive & vibrant in rural India & nicer still, to see that at least some in the cities are continuing them. Malleshwaram 8^th cross comes alive during festivals - the excitement on people’s faces, young & old, while they festival shop, the energy in the air, the goodwill, the streets lined with the colorful wares - is to be seen.

I know not, if Indian culture is ‘the best’ but I do know that we are beautifully different. The reverence has gone, should the enthusiasm go too? Let me make a conscious effort to learn & celebrate them. Come Ugadi this April, I’ll do all the poojas, make the sweets, fill my home with the fragrance of incense & do all the other things too – myself. I’ll wear a sari, jasmine flowers in my hair, & 1/2 a dozen bangles on both hands! Sathya had given up hope of ever seeing his wife say or do these things & I know he’ll do anything for one glimpse of seeing me so. If he ever reads this post, he is going to be one hell of a happy but shocked man. Hope it is not too late to start something I never did before. The little joys of a simple life!

Parallel Universe

How can you even begin to describe a person whose writing you admire immensely? I can’t. But what I CAN do is refer to 2 of my all time favorite posts on his blog: A Tragic Art and Mystic Meander to give you an idea of how beautifully he writes.

Presenting to you the third guest post on Conversations: Parallel Universe by Rajagopalan Ratnaraj whose blog name is A Beautiful Mind. Read on!

Almost every one of us has a thing for legacy! We dream of seeing our names in tabloids & billboards; our heart pulses up on every mention of our name. We all like to outlive our time in this world in some philosophical form unless your idea of mortality is to store a few of your skin cells in a Petri dish inside a robot programmed to live forever. But half way through our lives, we are smart (or foolish) enough to realize that greatness is destined to a select few who go on to change this world for good (or bad) & thrust their legacy into history books & their neighbors alike. Then we watch our favorite movie star who starts out as a son of a farmer, goes to the best college in the nation, romances the most beautiful girl, fights 20 baddies while smoking a cigarette, turns a millionaire in the course of a 5 minute song & lives happily ever after in the hearts of his people. And then we watch him do just about the same thing in his next movie: this time as a factory laborer’s son. I see one difference between him & me: he has me in his audience & I've me as my audience. Well, heck, who cares! A parallel universe is thus born!

We might or might not learn about the concept of a parallel universe in the inter-twined realms of physics and philosophy but we are certainly introduced to its more conceivable form by the various larger-than-life characters we see around us. Our parallel universe, when formed is a very crude one. It starts out as an inner world where we rehearse our future without the risk of failure. We start out longing to be someone famous, notorious, strong or intelligent. Our thoughts are someone else’s opinions and our passions are borrowed quotations. But slowly literature, science, philosophy, music: all make their way into our universe & we cease to be someone else’s shadow. We create a world that is magical & has the potential to create, give & most importantly make us truly immortal!

A parallel universe has no rules & no bounds. And certainly endless possibilities! A child might dream of being like his father one day while the father might be ready to give anything to be a child once again. Almost every one of us who read Ayn Rand in college would have dreamt of stopping the motor of this world, living out of the fantasy pages of Atlas Shrugged’s Objectivism. Columbus might have used a sextant to find his way through but could've dreamt of a GPS application on a cell-phone. Your mom might be buying a few nautical acres of land in the Indian Ocean to build a vacation home while you might be considering a skiing trip with penguins inAntarctica. Einstein could've travelled faster than the speed of light & thus achieved infinite mass. And all this could one day turn real!

But alas at some point, we are battered so much in our real lives that we resign & seek solace in our parallel world. It ceases to be that missile destined to launch you to glory & ends up as a luxury vehicle that takes you on an exotic holiday. It fuels your ambition no more; it just feeds your hurt ego. We come home, play the guitar, solve the Global Economic Crisis in an hour, write a book & get it published in the meantime. By the way, you do all this while you're partying in Hawaii. Then it is time to go to bed & wait until the next evening for another adventure. We give up reality & embrace an illusion. The parallel universe helps you live a hero’s life; it helps you dream about realizing your dreams without making any sacrifices; it is an effect without a cause. It helps you leave a legacy: at least (only) to yourself! It ends up as just a life within a life to make you feel that your life is actually good!

Parallel universe means different things to different people. It is eventually up to you to decide what you want to do with it. You can look at it as your book of enlightenment or as your evening entertainment channel. To me, it is an incredible philosophical paradox. If you work on it as a dream, it eventually becomes a reality. And if you imagine it as a reality, it stays as a dream. Well, If Beethoven could compose music without hearing; we can try to live a dream without dreaming!

Imagine you just painted your best work of art! You can sell it for a fortune. You can hang it above your bed & keep gazing at it for the rest of your life. You can gift it to the person you love the most. You can burn it down so that no one else ever has the single moment of ecstasy. The choice is yours. But don’t just imagine it: paint it! It would be a shame to imagine but not feel such a precious moment. Go ahead and create your own parallel universe. Who knows one day you might actually get to live in it! A parallel universe exists in the realms of every human mind. The question is: Do you want to be materialistic or not? Do you want it to work wonders for the world or just for yourself? The choice is yours!

My Own House

I don’t think I would ever save to either build or buy a house. What a shame! How’d I ever know, first hand, the joy, the pride & the sense of accomplishment that comes from saying, ‘This is MY house”? But the weirdo that I’m, I might as well own a hut or one of those (American) mobile homes than a house! I must have been a nomad in my last life. I don’t think I can ever get myself to stay put in one place for too long, least of all ‘forever’

Sure, it makes great financial sense to own a piece of realty. Investing in property & land is a smart decision. On the other hand, renting is like throwing your hard earned money down the drain. Might as well take a home loan & pay the EMIs. If I ever earned a lakh a month, then maybe I’d finally get around to saving for a house. But that’d be mostly as an investment option than for emotional reasons & because my tryst with insurance, gold, PPFs, RDs & mutual fund is over.

Growing up, I did dream of building my own home; of having a place modeled on one of the oriental dance gurukuls. Windows -big & wide, almost the size of a door, letting in sunshine & air. Walls-made of red bricks, no cement, no plastering. Curtains-in pastel colors fluttering in the air. Mango & jackfruit trees with low branches & circular mud mounds around them for sitting. A large courtyard lined by flowering plants.

As I grew, I realized the business of building a house is laborious: hiring the right contractors, architects, interior designers, shelling out money, overseeing the construction. The stress & strain involved in seeing your vision take the shape of an abode. Not my cup of tea. Not anymore. I just want to be free, especially of a commitment as deep as this one. Because when I do get involved with something, I get involved to the point of exclusion. I become an insomniac with maniacal attention to detail & an obsession to oversee everything myself, not resting until the task at hand is completed. The dedication would tie me down & completely exhaust me. I admire those that have seen their dream homes being built & now living happily in them. Hats off to all of them! Truly!

But why do I not want to? Maybe I’m scared of being rooted; a phobia unheard-of, strange –yes, but a real one for me. As a tenant, I can go to any area in the city. I change job locations, I change residence. No worries. But mostly, owning a house has never been one of the indicators of happiness for me. Maybe my mother’s death has something to do with it. It left an impact on me the extent of which I’m yet to fully understand. She passed away in far away Lucknow, amongst complete strangers, in an army quarters with no family beside her; just my brother who was posted there & with whom she had gone to live for a while, her first visit there. I would at least like to die in my own house, after all the struggles & sacrifices it takes to build one.

Or maybe I feel it is a huge effort. The years & the money it takes to own a decent house is astounding. Is it worth my endless toil? Is it worth setting aside my today for an unforeseen romantic future? Is it worth all the penny-pinching I’d do to afford it? A vacation would send me on a guilt trip. I’d constantly worry “arey kitna paisa barbaad ho raha hai”. Changing or quitting a job would not be an option (& neither would getting fired!) because the EMI ghost would haunt me. I couldn’t put life on hold just to live in my “own house”; particularly if it made me pay through my nose.

I left my parental own house in 2001. I’ve cooked in 8 different kitchens (of varying sizes) since I came to Bangalore, which means I’ve changed my residence almost every year!! In spite of this, I still haven’t developed a desire to buy a house! Assuming I would live for another ten years & will be as happy as I’m right now & was in the past 10 years, I see no reason why I should worry about my not worrying about saving for a house! “There is something wrong with her”, I hear you say. I agree. I think so too!

If I Met My Ex

I had no topic to write on. Over a year & a half into blogging, I finally suffered from a serious case of the infamous writer’s block. Then, I read this news bit in Femina: “When singer Taylor Swift ran into her ex, Twilight hunk Taylor Lautner, she chose to sit next to him. They were even laughing & making fun of each other through the evening”. And I thought to myself, I can totally see myself doing that. If ever! Of course, much to the discomfort of everyone else I’m sure; most particularly his wife Jenny, my ex’s that is.

I broke up with Binu but was still in touch with him for over a year or two after that. He had mailed me about his marriage & sent photos when his daughter was born. In spite of parting ways & marrying different people, 6 years on, the one truth that we can never deny is the fact we were each other’s first love. The other is that we were both self-made, came up in life the hard way, saw lots of ups & downs, in our careers & personal life, & through it all, saw each other grow & prosper.

So, if we ever run across each other, I know that I’d definitely talk to him. I don’t think I could hold myself back! I’d be more than happy to catch up on our lives. I’d ask him about his job, but mostly about Chachan & Ammachi. I’d wish him well with his family & his life, I’d ask him about the car we bought together which he kept (!), about what happened to my favorite bean bags which he refused to part with even though that was the only thing I wanted & almost begged for; which is funny because I had bought them & yet he never gave it to me (!). And most definitely, I’d chat & play with his lovely daughter. I’d be curious to know how he feels as a father. What has fatherhood meant to him knowing that he loves children so much? Sathya considers children a big nuisance, & if a kid ever makes contact with him, which would be by mistake or a majboori, he’ll ensure the kid leaves in a pool of tears. That is the extent to which he’d have harassed the poor chap by making some of his smart-ass comments. Oops, I digressed!

Speaking of Sathya, I’d love to meet his exes & watch his reactions & mannerisms around them now. He has this cutest smile whenever he remembers his interesting past & I want to see the kind of smile he has when he sees one of them. What will he talk to them about? What will he say? His first GF’s house is behind Cauvery theatre & when we were dating; he had pointed it out to me once. And after that, every single time we pass by, he never fails to steal a glance & I never fail to catch him in the act & we laugh about it. I tease him saying, “Haan! You are seeing if she is there?” And he’ll say, “Arey she is married I think by now. Anyways it was so long ago”. I like the sheepish grin he sports at those times. (As long as it is restricted to the grin, I’m fine. Nahi toh I will devour him alive!!)

But he is so good at camouflaging his emotions; it’d be pretty hard to get a “controversial” look from him. He is an expert at pretending that he is not excited or moved by what he is seeing. His heart may be doing multiple somersaults at accidentally spotting his old GF someplace but his face won’t betray a single ounce of the emotion. Me? I’d act like a lunatic & it’d easily take two people to tie me down & control my excitement. You should actually see me when I, by chance, meet someone after a long time especially someone I was fond of. I am a circus.

Wonder how it is for people to run across someone whom they once loved but separated on a bitter note & now to sit or see or face that same person after ages once again! It depends, I guess, on how you parted ways. If it was a betrayal of trust or a very violent & messy break-up, then obviously one can’t really cozy up to the person. Maybe some would most surely run for cover or in the opposite direction. And there might be those who would find any unexpected meeting with their ex the most excruciatingly painful of their days; like rubbing both salt & pepper on their still fresh wounds.

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Footnote: I had to put this footnote because i read the first set of the responses i received and realized I came out all wrong in this post! For the first time!

Please note that I'm not talking about having an affair or rekindling an earlier relationship AT ALL. All I'm saying is IF i ever happen to meet my ex, say in a restaurant, in a mall, on the road, in a theater,wherever, I'll not hide or run for cover. I'll talk, exchange pleasantries & move on. That's it.

God, I hope you guys don't think I'm thinking of going back to my ex. NO WAY! It's a closed chapter.

My Doctor My God

Earlier an expression of trust is now a statement of horror. Here’s why. When I read that post, I was choking. My throat was dry & my eyes had welled up.

I have a 5 year old daughter. It was a natural birth. I know the pain, happiness, trauma, expectation, anguish & the endless wait we go through to see the first glimpse of our baby & these bloody people discussing horoscopes & giggling & the mother isn’t even aware of what just happened!!! This is terrible. I was stunned to read about their insensitivity. For them it is just another "case" but for the mother & family it is LIFE! For god's sake! How horribly irresponsible to not check on the baby's breathing on time! A slip up in ‘a small procedural thing’ can cause such irrevocable physical/mental damage to the development of the child in the future & these people aren't even bothered!

I can’t bear thinking a life could be so handled. I kept thinking, “My God! Is this how it happens ‘sometimes’???” I had goose bumps on me realizing that this HAS happened & for all I know, might be happening in other places too. How can they be so callous? Those three people who handled the birth? What if it had happened in my case, what if it is happening right now, this very instant, in some part of the city? My heart aches for every child who may be deformed or suffers lifelong because of the coldness of some doctors; for mothers who bear their child in their womb for 9 months waiting every moment to see & hold a healthy baby in her hands & instead might have only a dead one thanks to the ‘small mistake’ by a medical staff. I wonder what else might be happening inside the labor wards. The mistakes committed by the docs which the families never come to know of & suffer lifelong & instead think that god was cruel or unkind to them or blame their "fate." My heart goes out to every family that has been wronged thus. What do we call this – carelessness, apathy, or disrespect for human life? No accountability at all? Negligence by the medical staff is unpardonable.

An article in The Week (13th Nov’11 issue) talked of how “infant deaths have become so common that they no longer shock the health authorities. Half the mothers give birth in the absence of skilled health personnel. In hospitals across the country posts for doctors are vacant. Lack of political will is responsible for poor state of health care in the country. “We buy equipment for one hospital & manpower for another – and both remain underutilized” – was what a former health minister said in an interview. UNICEF report states that of every four infants dying worldwide one is in India”.

If there are doctors reading this, I BEG you, help your staff understand the criticality of such negligence. Your small mistake may haunt us all our lives. Our lives are not so cheap nor our emotions so easily replicated. You may say this is just 1% of the cases, but Pls remember in that 1%, I am there too. Recall my face & my trust in your expertise, recall how I blindly believed your words & followed your instructions, remember you are no less than God for me at the instant when I'm trying to bring my baby into this world. I'm helpless. But pls don’t take advantage of my helplessness or my ignorance. I'm completely at your mercy. Yours is a profession unlike any other. Don’t treat it as joke. Don’t play with lives that are entrusted into your hands. Don’t kill a baby by giving it a life marred by disability. Don’t be so inhuman.

I don’t believe in New Year wishes. But today I just want to pray that let the coming year be a year where there is no birth riddled with such complications & carelessness. May the mother with money & the mother without money be treated the same way. May their deliveries be handled with care and compassion. May we not be another ‘case number” in your files.

A Wedding & A Bachelor

He has many avatars - 'chota chatri' on Twitter, 'the game returns' on Email, & 'maniac hunter' on Blog. The man in question, Madhav Mishra, is someone I’ve been reading since the past 4 months. His blog is aptly named ‘Simple Stories’ - the stories & the narrative style both are so simple, & yet endearing, that you can’t help but come away with a smile, when you close the browser window to his blog.

It’s been exactly a month, yes complete THIRTY days, since he sent this post that he wrote for me. He was the FIRST one to respond to my request for a GP. I’m guilty of sitting on his post for so long that, now, without any further delay, putting you on to him in

A Wedding & A Bachelor:

I recently attended a marriage in my community after 6-7 years & that too in Delhi. Since I’ve moved to Delhi from Bangalore, a lot of things have changed. For example, every 3^rd day, a new relative pops up, in some area somewhere in Delhi. So this mama of my dad came from thin air & turns out he has a son who is getting married which I had to attend. There was only 1 catch: contrary to their claim, I had not seen ANYONE from that part of my family. So I ‘SUITed UP’ & it took a good 1 & half hours along with a LOT of weird stares in metro to reach my destination.

The thing about attending marriage in my community is you will meet a lot of people who are related to you. So I did a lot of bending (read touching feet) before I found a place to sit between gents where I was grilled with questions like ‘what I do, where do I live, whether my cook is male or female & WHY AM I NOT MARRIED’ for some time. Before I knew it, the news spread like fire that I am NOT married. And I found out that my relatives work in ‘oh my god’ to ‘holy crap’ to ‘you ve got to be kidding me’ firms.

And when I was taken to the female den to meet them, they were already prepared with their set of questions. I couldn’t wait for the baraat to leave & reach the banquet hall. Finally, amidst a LOT of dhol sounds & really annoying music (it will be pure cruel to call it music, it is annoying to say the least). I didn’t know I hated so many songs. The band was voted useless because they asked for tea & could not play ‘chammak challo’.

Since a lot of my folks had come from native place (a place in Bihar which according to mythology, was ruled by King Janak), they were confused as to what a banquet actually is & why the bride’s side hasn’t set up a pandaal instead. The thing that makes my folks different from any person in the rest of India is, we like to eat & feed. Not your average eat but I-can’t-walk-after-eating eat. There is a saying in my region ‘if you don’t have a pot belly, your family doesn’t love you’

So the two major questions were ‘are we supposed to stand & eat?’ ‘Why are they giving packaged glasses?’ Since a lot of people could not find place to wash hands, the dustbins were overflowing in no time along with the ‘small’ plates. And the good thing about attending a wedding where not many people know you is, you can eat LIKE-A-PIG & still get away *BURRRP*

So, when the time for the dinner came, the bride’s father had to arrange for proper tables chairs for everybody to sit & eat because buffet system is for beggars & it’s insulting to ask for food. Ideally, the host should serve & force people to eat it (those of you frowning wait till you meet any of my folks at a party cribbing about the arrangements. Do yourself a favor & DON’T try to reason with them)

The wedding proceedings start after the dinner & go up till wee hours in the morning so the people eat, take a nap & still come for blessing the couple in the morning. God bless the guy who kept pestering the catering people to open up the coffee stall because it helped me watch the marriage ceremony till the morning. I still can’t understand how bride/groom sit with a straight face while speaking those stupid vows (I will share my body, WEALTH & soul with you.)