The thirty first of March. How fast time flies…Day after day tripping by… and isn’t it funny how it goes by so fast even while you moan and groan about the long week ahead on Monday morning?
Time is such a contradiction that way…. Funny how events, bits of conversation, a particular sideways glance, a smile of someone who once mattered float to the top of your head one particular moment and even as you gasp at the suddenness of it all, the kaleidoscope turns and you are left feeling that it all happened a very, very long while ago and was it really you to whom it all happened?? And all the evidence of that punch in the stomach is that disoriented feeling that remains with you the rest of the day, gnawing relentlessly somewhere deep down in the recesses of you.

I remember yesterday and the day before and the year before…even 10 years ago ever so clearly. I remember all the incidents surrounding a particular picture and I cling on desperately. I don’t want time to move forward. I want this moment to freeze. Hold this second forever, not just in my head and heart, but in my hands.

I don’t want to lose. I don’t want to lose people…memories…moments…And I don’t wanna lose bits of conversation…old letters…old loves…old books…old music….I want it all. If I could, I’d take it all to the grave with me.

Deep down where your memories are, there are no nights and there are no days. But seen through the haze of timelessness, every single moment feels preserved, sanctified, precious. And the thing about memories is that even the happy ones somehow manage to bring a lump to your throat. And I want it all… I want it all back.

Isn’t it funny how you leave a piece of you behind in every nook and corner you’ve ever visited and every person you’ve ever encountered? Or is it the other way round?? Do you take pieces with you so that you are left with a giant jigsaw puzzle, with zillions of pieces and you don’t know where to fit in what??

It’s a funny mood…watching the dusty road roll by and allowing your soul the full liberty to drift in and out of all your lifetimes. Exploring all the half-remembered, half-forgotten dreams and memories… realizing that sometimes, you can’t really tell the difference. And you hear that distant music of days to come, of days gone by.

And it fills you with a yearning and sadness so deep… so deep that you flounder and fight to get out of the vortex though you were the one who ventured there in the first place. Distant music always has that effect on one. Distant music washes you over with the lure of possibilities and the agony of impossibilities.

And suddenly it hits you like never before, just how tiny you are. Suddenly, you realize that your world with all its hopes, dreams, frustrations, agonies and petty little achievements…is nothing when you think of just how vast eternity is. It’s not a feeling of “Who am I in this huge wide world,” but “Who am I in eternity?”And the longing throbs even as you smile wryly to yourself and mutter the words of the wise man- “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”

Home!!!I am going HOME!!

Remembering the old, old house with the big black gate and the magenta bougainvilleas tumbling all over it. Remembering how Appa used to lock the gate after he drove me out to school with a stick… while I bawled at the injustice of it all…my first encounter with harsh reality ;-)

Remembering the ‘rice balls’ Appa made…how he invented birds and convinced me that each rice ball was really the egg of an exotic bird. And how I’d forget all the fuss I’d just made at eating and gulp down the ‘eggs’ greedily. First instance of stupidity!:-D

Remembering the sprawling land and my walks there with Appama. My first best friend…

Remembering the bright red shoeflowers…how I picked one and put one away in Acchacha’s draw thinking I could have it with me forever. And then, how the next day I came to have a look at it…remembering how I sobbed until I choked when I saw it had withered. My first inkling of the ravages of time!:-

Remembering how Appa gave Akka and me whisky at their wedding anniversary. I was three and Akka six…and we were so drunk we did a strip-tease dance for the guests and Amma was hopping mad!!!! First encounter with parental differences of opinion’!! : ))

Remembering how I always managed to learn Akka’s lessons much before she did!! The birth of a prodigy :-D (I just got stunted somewhere along the way :- )

Remembering playing with cousin N….so many, many games….how we stumbled accidentally on the ‘difference’ between being ‘I am a boy’ and ‘I am a girl’. Remembering how we exchanged copious notes in the dining hall till Kochamma scolded us. Remembering how we never really UNDERSTOOD the difference but understood that this was taboo. First consciousness of gender differences! :-

Remembering coveting the golden cup with the blue ribbon that the person who recited best would get. Remembering how I got the loudest claps and yet how the Principal’s granddaughter with her cute toy T.V. (she was from ‘foreign’ and had a funny accent that the rest of us didnt understand and she was unbelievably cute to boot)won the prize. My first scrape with injustice. (Ugh!!I still HATE THAT GIRL!!!) X-(

Remembering Timmy…the only pet I’ve ever had… a black and white mongrel named after Timmy from Doordarshan’s ‘Famous Five’ series…remembering how he went for a romp in the fields got bitten by a rabid dog and how I never saw him again…remembering how Appa-Amma lied that he’d run away…remembering how for the next two years, I called every black and white mongrel ‘Timmy’ certain that it was him cos I didn’t think that my parents could lie!!First instance of parental let-down! : (

Remembering the 25 paise coin I cheerfully swallowed making believe that it was pepper-mint. My first night in a hospital! :-D

Remembering falling off a forbidden cupboard while pretending to be a monkey and breaking about 3 bones, but being so petrified of telling my parents that I suffered in silent agony for two whole days until my mother realized I was walking rather strangely!! :p First instance of having to pay for eating forbidden fruit!!

Remembering how we went for A’s wedding and everybody telling Amma how pretty Akka was. The first time I realised I was the ugly duckling of my swan family. (Shan't tell if I turned out to be a swan like the duckling did in the fairy tale)

Remembering losing my first tooth biting a ‘champanga’ (still donno what it's called in English!) LOL! My first lost tooth! See, see, see? :D

Remembering Amma reading us nursery rhymes and fairy tales, if we ate enough food. Remembering being petrified of Wee Willie Winkie and refusing to sleep alone in the dark…. (still am. Still don’t :- )

And soon, very soon, I’ll be back there. To my ‘home’, a home I haven’t visited in the last 18 years…so many memories… Leaving a lump in my throat and stinging my eyes. Through the haze of bittersweet nostalgia, they have an edge that cuts almost as much as it heals. Oh God, I do wish I didn’t have to grow up….and grow old.

I have three gray hairs as opposed to the two last year. I'd like to think that it's all cos I am 'wise beyond my years'. But deep down, I do know the truth. I am growing ancient. Soon, very soon, I'll be the dead aunty whose picture will be hanging in my niece/nephews oldest and most unused cupboard.

:-

I want....

Work in progress

The authors of this blog are undergoing repair.

LIFE, THY NAME IS WOMAN!

Yesterday, I went to 'Health and Glow' to pick up a nail polish remover. And then, I thought about how unfair it really was.... I mean, does a man get his eyebrows and mouschie plucked? Does a man have to get waxed? Bother about split ends? Bother about feet that look like they belong rightfully to a reptile? We suckers would love them ANYWAY!!!!

S, the flying man, once told me that it never ceased to amaze him the stuff his sister did to herself. “Like what,” I asked. “Oh I don’t know what she does. But she sometimes spends a whole day in a parlour!! Do you do that too?”

“Well, not a whole day….”

“Bbut why bother," says he. "We men are not as superficial as you women seem to imagine. I mean, I don’t think I’d even notice if a girl was clean shaven or waxed or not.”

J, who was part of the conversation butted in at this point. “Yeah right, ”she said. “But you would never get ATTRACTED to a hairy woman, I bet.”

S, in his Forrest Gump manner considered this for a very long while before he said, “Yeah, probably not.”

Hmpf! So much for depth.

But then again, I don’t know if it’s the thought of men that makes women do the things they do. …I mean, I don’t think the presence or absence of a man makes the least bit of difference…. I think women are more eager to look good around other women than around men. How else would you explain the fact that girls in girl schools are so much more anxious about their appearance than girls in co-eds? And, I am quite sure it has nothing to do with women adopting the ‘male gaze’ among themselves.

I think it’s a kind of…self… I donno…self thing, you know? I mean, even if there were nobody else in the world but me, I’d feel terrible if I woke up to find myself hairy, with dry hair and scaly feet, and unclipped nails. Even if NOBODY else looked at me, even if there were no mirrors around, I’d feel horrible if I saw that my hands and legs were hairy…eeeks...*shivers in horror*

But boy, oh boy, being a woman is so much more exciting. So much more…more....more....sensual!! I’d hate to have been born as a man in any generation. I think men always live only a half-life, unless they are as warped as Howard Hughes. Or are gay. Or have some other debilitating disorder.

Pants. Pants. Jeans. Pants. Jeans. Shorts. Three fourths. Pants. See what I mean??

Of course, Indian men have stuff like jubbas and lungis and dhotis but naturally not many urban men would choose to be caught dead in that. Oh oh. Something just occurred to me. What if I have a boy baby after I get pregnant after I get married after I find the boy to get married to??:-O

Methinks, I'll put it up for adoption :-O But I know that's not a very nice thing to do Hmmm...maybe I can ask the nurse to discreetly steal somebody else's girl child!!!! But what if that mother has the same views as me on the issue?? Still not a very nice thing to do.Hmmm...maybe,I'll keep the boy and adopt a gal :) And dress her up in adorable spaghetti straps and halter necks.

My aunt adopted a baby girl and she always walks around in bikinis!! Or atleast she did, two years ago when she was one...Awwwwwwwwwwwwww.......!!!! *drool at memories*

FYI, that's the kinda clothes that come out for baby girls these days. I know cos I always check out their clothes. Strappy, chic, and awwwwwww so cute. Boys naturally wear only nappies. I think marketers KNOW that no mother would wanna dress up a boy-creature anyways. Apart from the fact that they dont LOOK very nice, there's something very putting off about boy babies!

Am so glad I was born a girl baby. Am SO glad am a woman! YAAAAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!

P.S. Happy women's day, girlies!!

You know I’ve been thinking about this thing called peer pressure. Isn’t it funny how people talk of it almost as though it’s something that happens to those floooby floosy itsy bitsy teenyboppers? But come to think of it, peer pressure is as constant as life and death.

The need to belong. The need to conform. And it’s funny….the things it makes you do….a friend’s parents are forcing her into a marriage with someone she might never grow to like. Their excuse? Everybody else’s daughters’ are.

And then, there are people who won’t do what the rest of them are doing just cos the rest of them are doing it. You know, like the rebel without a cause? I was lathat in college. But that’s peer pressure too. Inversely.

I did everything that the rest of my nice Tam Brahm friends (good gals from good families, they said) never did. Drank like a fish, smoked like a chimney, did ecstasy and agony and whatever not. And my friends clucked and wondered when I’d get straight.

Boyfriends disapproved of their girlfriends keeping me company. There I was dating people who were old enough to belong to 3 generations ago instead of having a nice crush on a nice boy. Corrs nobody realized I was just a kid bored with college life. Strangely enough, nobody thought I was ‘bad girl’ though…. hmmm….they just thought I was good girl in bad company of bad old men. Which was partly true, come to think of it. Hmmm….

Anyways, all that preoccupation with being the rebel without a cause or a pause, was, in hindsight, childish. Flouting rules simply cos they were there. That was the trip. But then, during my P.G. something changed. There were all of us hostelites, away from home. A whole new city, mine for the asking. And suddenly, I didn’t wanna do that stuff anymore.

“Come, come, let’s do hash,” said Tam Brahm good girl from good family. “This is so much fun!!” And they went to Koyla every Saturday to figure out how to use a chillum while I sat there feeling terribly outta place and weird cos I’d been there, done that and was bored outta my wits.

Smoking in hostel was s’posed to be the high point of playing dare devil. Sister Jo would be on her rounds sniffing around like a mastiff on heat! And she always found me curled up in bed, reading, while the rest of them got caught.

Naturally, she loved me. And naturally, there were hushed whispers of why I was never around and one of them even insinuated that I might have sneaked. Bah! Kiddos! Dontcha get it, I wanted to yell. I don’t care for your stupid parties and your daredevil acts. I’ve done a lot worse, and got away with it. Now, won’t you please leave me alone and allow me to enjoy my old age.

So while everybody else was busy learning to roll joints, I went for long solitary walks and cleaned my room and wondered once again about the purpose of my existence. Tried to figure out what was really the truth, what would really add meaning.

Two years ago, in the first flush of existential angst, I’d given up on clichés like ‘depth’ and ‘truth’ and ‘meaning’. I’d nodded my head sagely and agreed that there were no absolutes. That. Everything. Was. In. A. State. Of. Flux.

But now, I wanted to find answers. Answers that worked for me. Answers that I could live with for the rest of my life. Answers that I could look back to on my death-bed and say, “ I don’t regret.”

And I don’t. Nothing. Not even the deepest wound. Not even the one that won’t ever have a scab. I am glad for it all.

For the rebellious phase and the going beyond cos now I KNOW why.

For the drunken driving cos now I know for sure that’s one way I won’t ever die.
For the Lolita syndrome cos it’s helped me appreciate the beauty of what can be grasped.
For warped minds cos it’s taught me how not to be.
For the hurting cos it’s made me more sensitive to those that hurt.
For the death of a life-time cos it helped me find new life.
For the death of old love cos I can give the best of me to somebody worthwhile.

To new life and healing touches. To people who’ll always try to ‘figure’ me out (and fail). To people who think that what you see is what there is. To all who’ll never understand. * cheers*

Post-weekend reflections!

Cool cucumber slices. Mash and add to chill, spiced curd. A packet of Lays. Why didn’t anybody tell me this was an absolutely yummylicious combo??

I have to tone up. The realization struck me this morning as I stood braying in the shower. I don’t wanna look unsightly and ungainly on THE day. Ok, it’s not MY day, but it’s still THE day.

And just cos it’s THE day, I have given myself the license to go overboard and indulge myself. Yesterday, I got myself a cool mint oil massage. Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm……………mmmmmmmmmmmm………..mmmmmmmmm…….. it was…..* drool* ok, certain words are not mentionable at work place.

I tell you I was born in the wrong era as the wrong person. I shoulda been born in those days when princesses with upturned noses ruled. Ok, I don’t have an upturned nose, but if I had been born then, my nose woulda been in vogue too.

Anyways the massage was --------=--. Next week, me will get myself a manicure and pedicure. Now, if you are thinking what a worldly creature I am, guess what? I am. But then, there’s no rule that tells me that I should not be.

Did I know that in the Bible days queens and princesses bathed in milk? I wonder what the experience would have been like…? *makes a mental note to try this out some day * I also happen to know that aloes and cassia and cinnamon and stuff and honey found its way in a bath. The best I’ve had is tepid beer on my hair. And eggs.

Was supposed to make it softer and all, and me being the sucker I am, actually put myself through the torture only to find that my hair stank for miles. Bah! Things do have a way of SOUNDING good until its put into action. The sole purpose of all marketing is to make suckers out of suckers.

Hmpf! Well, what else??

Ooooooooooooooooooh yes! Hot rice. Pork with fat. I had. After a long, long while. Lean pork does not taste half as good as pork floating in fat. I woulda had a lot more except that I was scared of getting pimples before THE day. I’m telling you it’s not easy to be a girl.

But more on that...later!

Eli, Eli Lama Sabacthani

On my knees. Waiting. Wondering. Questioning. I was reminded of a story I heard long, long ago. Remember that I was asked. And yes, I did. Ever so clearly. Every detail. And it makes all those cries of “Eli eli lama sabachthani” so worth it. I know now. Everything will work together for good. I AM JOY!!

Once upon a time, many, many years ago there were three young trees on a hill. And as young little people will do, they were discussing their hopes and dreams.

Said the first tree, “When I grow up, I want to be a treasure chest in a palace. I want to be the city’s treasury. I will be filled with gold, silver and precious gems. I will be the most magnificent treasure chest in the world!"

Said the second tree, "Someday, I will be a mighty ship. I will take kings and queens across the waters and sail to the corners of the world. Everyone will feel safe in me because of the strength of my hull."

Finally the third tree said, "I am happy to be here. But when I grow up I want to be the tallest and straightest tree in the forest. People will see me on top of the hill and look up to my branches, and think of the heavens and God and how close to them I am reaching. I will be the greatest tree of all time and people will always remember me."

After a few years of praying that their dreams would come true, a group of woodsmen came upon the trees. When one came to the first tree he said, "This looks like a strong tree. I think I should be able to sell the wood to a carpenter." And he began cutting it down. The tree was ecstatic. At last after all these years of waiting, his dreams were coming true. He just KNEW that the carpenter was going to make him into a treasure chest.

At the second tree a woodsman said, "This looks like a strong tree, I should be able to sell it to the shipyard." The second tree was happy because he knew he was on his way to becoming a mighty ship. Now he would be able to see the world at last!!

When the woodsmen came upon the third tree, the tree was frightened because he knew that if they cut him down his dreams would not come true. Every fell of the axe meant pure misery. “Why me,” he cried. Why me?” But he was only a tree, and there was nothing he could do…

When the first tree arrived at the carpenters, he was made into a feed box for animals. He was then placed in a barn and filled with hay. Now, this was not at all what he had prayed for and he was broken hearted. “Is this what came of all my praying?” he wondered. “This really wasn’t who I wanted to be.”

The second tree was cut and made into a small fishing boat. His dreams of being a mighty ship and carrying kings had come to an end. Day after day, the stench of fish, and the storms on the sea frightened him. Battered by the storms, wet and miserable all day long, he wept at his condition.

The third tree was cut into large pieces and left alone in the dark.

The years went by, and the trees forgot about their dreams. Then one day, a man and woman came to the barn where the first tree was placed. The woman was pregnant and she gave birth to a lovely boy child. And they placed the baby in the hay in the feed box that was made from the first tree. The man wished that he could have made a crib for the baby, but this manger would have to do.

At that moment, on that silent night, the tree could feel the importance of this event. The night was a marvelous one and three kings placed in it gold, frankincense and myrrh. But the greatest treasure it held was the baby itself. He knew that wherever the story was told, the manger that the baby was born in would find a place in it. And so it did.

Years later, as the boat went out fishing, a huge storm came up. He had never seen such a storm in all his years on the sea. As he was mentally preparing to sink, he told himself “So much for my life.” The other men seemed to share his distress, for they were crying in fear.

Finally, one of them started waking up a man who had been sleeping, and who the boat had not noticed until then. He woke up and he stood and said "Peace" and the storm stopped. At this time, the tree knew that it had carried the King of Kings and that wherever this man’s story was told, he’d play a part in it too. And he does!

The third tree had long forgotten his dreams of glory. Lying all alone in the dark, he had given up questioning his purposeless existence. But one day, someone came and got the third tree. It was carried through the streets as the people mocked the man who was carrying it. “Great,” thought he. “I am finally out of that place and I am being made to walk amidst these catcalls.” When they came to a stop, the man was nailed to the tree and raised in the air to die at the top of a hill.

People flocked around him…some of them were weeping, and the man He was praying. And when the man died, the sun went into darkness, and there was a huge earthquake. The tree then knew that it had witnessed an extraordinary event, that the man who carried him was extraordinary. And that wherever the story of this man Jesus was told, the cross he died on, would play a central role. And that just as he had dreamed, the people of the world would flock around him, to marvel…

The moral of this story is that when things don't seem to be going your way, always know and remember that God has a plan for you. And that his plan is beyond your wildest dream or expectation. You were born with a Purpose.

Each of the trees got what they wanted, just not in the way they had imagined. We don't always know what God's plans are for us. We just know that His ways are not our ways, but His ways are always best.

Upside Down. Inside Out.

"Whether you turn to the right or to the left, you will hear a voice behind you saying, "This is the way, walk in it."

This morning, as I sat down I taunted God with that. Really, God? How come I can't hear that voice? And you say you always "honour" your word. Why am I always doing? Why is it that you are never pleased?

And as I came to work, my mind was in a turmoil. Where are the answers?? I remembered how in my toddler days as a believer, I got my answers JLT! I only had to pray and there it was! I only had to step out and my answers were waiting for me.

And it simply wasn't like that anymore...I simply didn't seem to be getting things right....had my faith dwindled? I didn't think so. Had I erred and was this silence punishment? And I kept searching in my mind for possible areas that I might have gone wrong in cos I couldn't FEEL God's presence near me anymore.

But the more I searched for answers, the more frustrated I felt. Isn't it amazing though how God speaks to you....always, always in the strangest of ways? I've heard of people who converse with God like they would with anybody else. And I've always wished it'd be like that for me. But somehow, that's not how chooses to speak with me.

Strangely enough, he speaks to me, the anti-people person through people!! This morning I wrestled with God, much maybe like Jacob did. Saying, "I am not getting up from here, until you answer."

I was angry with Him. With myself. It seemed that the harder I tried to please him, the harder I rushed about trying to imitate him, the harder I fell. And this morning I yelled saying, " You know what, you aren't fair! Here I am waiting and wanting to do your will and you don't even TELL me what you want me to do. You said you'd guide, you said you'd be "God with us" but actually you aren't. You are just God up there sitting up there and watching us run around making fools of ourselves. Discretion is ALL I'm asking for!! Some feedback is all I want."

This morning while we were having prayers GC said something pertinent. God is not a God of do's and dont's. Why am I trying so hard? In my effort to DO things for Him, have I forgotten to just bask in his total accepatance...? Am I being like Martha? Zealous to perform and in that zeal losing sight of the ACTUAL goal?

Or am I so preoccupied with his love that I fail to reflect it? Am I sponging it all in without giving anything back in return? Am I so busy "sacrificing" and "offering" that I'm just forgetting the simplest thing of all and the greatest commandment of all-love?

Above all, can I really afford to be an "anti-social"?? Transition phase. Again. And I am not even a year old!!!

Is this what they mean by being led from glory to glory? How much am I willing to let go of who I AM "basically" to the only man in all history who claimed to be "I AM"? Just how much am I willing to surrender?

Cos the REAL issue here isn't that I am not being led. The REAL issue is I am being asked to change SOME MORE. The REAL ISSUE is, I am being called in for a makeover.

Upside down. Inside out. You do it to me over and over again.

S has been wondering why I don’t update so much anymore….Fact is, there’s nothing much left to be said. And that is a good thing. It just means that the voices in my head are simply not that insistent anymore. I am not so obsessed with finding answers or thrashing out my thoughts, or analyzing the nuances of every feeling….

I remember when I first started blogging almost 15 months ago, I used to update my blog almost thrice a day!! Cos there was SO MUCH to be thought out, so much to be said. But then, I guess that comes with every transition phase. And then, after all that turmoil you reach the calm quiet place, where you are cocooned. Safe.

It’s like after having been in the storm, he decides that you’ve done your bit. Decides that you can take a rest. And so he gives you easy days. Days when you simply have to sit back and watch. Mull over. Learn from people. Observe… make mental notes for the new battle ahead.

A time….for everything…yes…

And there is that angst. Always that angst. But maybe, even that has a purpose. Cos it’s when the angst is greatest that you need him the most. It’s when you are most lonely, most angry, most frightened, most nauseated, most bitter, most overcome, most overwhelmed that you finally acknowledge that you need help.

Sometimes, no make that most times, I don’t understand what is really happening. Sometimes, I am so angry with him. Why, I mean why? Why taunt me? Why test me? Haven’t I faced enough already? Can’t you let me be for a while?

And it seems unfair. The lessons too hard. And I don’t wanna learn. I don’t wanna quit but then, I do wish he’d jus keep on babying me. Wish he wouldn’t keep challenging me to grow. Wish he'd just be nice and full of ‘grace’ and never make me have to work for anything.

Sometimes, I wish there was no ‘disciplining’ or ‘discipl-ing'.

This had better be worth the wait :(

uh oh

Virginia Woolf: Orlando. You are a challenge, for
outer events, the outside world, the time etc.
play no importance to you. Your focus is in
writing, in gender issues, and inside your own
head. Self-analysis and exploration of yourself
as well as the outer world hold great
importance to you.

Which literature classic are you?
brought to you by

Sometimes, the things you most need to talk about are the ones that you most can’t talk about.
Sometimes, you’ve said it all.
Sometimes, you’ve thought it all.
Sometimes, you’ve felt it all.

And all that remains at the end of the day is a dull, old throb. Not the sharp tang of fresh pain, but the jaded feel of frayed edges.

The past is weary. And so is the future. As for the present, it is suspended and you watch mutely while the pendulum swings on-back and forth, back and forth. Then you look around and find that it’s not just you.

It’s the world. It's all wrong...Everybody has fallen silent.

Laughter does not seem so much like mirth as a convulsion. Contrived, forced. And really, you are better fun on the inside than them on the outside. So, you go back... Wrap the blanket tight around you, make yourself some hot chocolate, get all cosy and snug, and spend the evening letting your thoughts whirl, swirl, eddy, rush madly and settle down like dust.

You’ve weighed it all. A million times before. But each time, you add with it the wisdom gleaned from that day. Just one more nugget hoarded for a rainy day.

Life.