Yesterday, I had an encounter with a rabid dog. Was about to go out and was just about to step out of my lift when I saw a dog barking its head off at me and foaming at the mouth. I quickly ran back to the lift and went back up. I ventured again after five minutes hoping it was only a figment of my imagination, but it wasn’t.

I yelled out for the watchman who was happily sleeping outside. He came and then ran away and stood on top of the wall. So, I went back up and tried to remember whom to call. I shot off an SMS and soon half a dozen people messaged back with numbers. Tried all the organizations in turn but they said they didn’t work on Sundays.

Blue Cross said they’d come but they were a good one hour off. Surely, there must be some place where they picked up a Sunday rabid dog?? At last, it occurred to me that I could ask my other flat members for help and soon a huge party armed with sticks made their way down the lift and barked back at the dog with the stick.

Finally, they beat it out and ten minutes later, Blue Cross stopped by. So that was that. I feel bad for the poor doggie though. It must be dead by now…

That was the highlight of my extended weekend. The whole incident took almost three hours and by the time we were done, I was pooped.

The ‘extended’ weekend really hasn’t done anything nice for me, where work’s concerned. I feel most loathe to do anything today. But otherwise, it has helped my skin improve cos I’ve been breathing fresh air instead of air-conditioned, recirculated, stale air. I’ve also been eating a lot simply to while away my time and it’s beginning to show.

L remarked today that I was fattening up. I was very concerned but S assures me that I am beginning to look normal and can still do with an extra kilo.

No net over the weekend meant that I finally got in touch with half a dozen people whom I’ve been intending to get in touch with. I do love the fact that I have free messaging!!
Also spent a lot of time smiling at myself in the mirror cos I read in ‘Good Housekeeping’ that it helps you get over a foul mood. And I’ve been in a foul mood for the last few days.

On Wednesday night, I messaged ‘Shine’ telling him I wanted to die. I really did at that point but he convinced me to live. No wait, he didn’t. He seemed so unconcerned about my death wish that it pissed me off cos he didn’t know how I felt and it pissed me off at how glib people were when it came to giving platitudes, and in thinking angry thoughts about humanity in general and men in particular, I forgot I wanted to die.

Also spent a lot of time composing songs that I can never sing and sang in front of the mirror, pretending that I was a famous singer. The result of all those make-believe games is that it has inspired me to go join the guitar classes for real.

Also, am making a start with re-learning my French. It’s been years since I’ve tried speaking in French and it seems like I’ve forgotten it all. So, I’ve subscribed to online tuitions (which I cant access due to no net connection) and am also brushing it up at home.

This morning I started off feeling quite cheerful but then Su pissed me off and that kinda spoilt my morning for me. S says that I sweat the small stuff and maybe I do. But I do hate it when I have to depend on someone and then they go and make other plans. I HATE IT!!

That said, I’ve been extremely touchy these last few days and I’ve been crying for the silliest of things. Hormones, it’s all the bluddy hormones. Up-down, left-right they’ve been screaming and I’ve been blindly obeying.

Mom says to go to a gyno and get it all checked out. I started crying when she spoke sharply so she got very worried. She is convinced that it’s low thyroxine levels that are getting me down...it’s happened to me before…so maybe, she is right.

But starting today, I dictate to my hormones and not the other way round! I CAN AND WILL DO IT!! Like D says, it’s a wrong pattern of thinking that results in low whatever levels than the other way around…and even if I don’t believe my mom, I believe him cos he’s been a counselor for years.

Oh dear. I had almost forgotten I was depressed but now I am low all over again. I doubt blogging is a great mood-elevator.

Am I jobless or am I jobless?

The flood in Chennai has walked away with my net connection. So here I am in a Net Centre. Wanted to take one of those Planet kinda cubicles, it looked so cool...but oh well.

About the flood....It was scary. It really was. For the last one month, it's been raining on and off and each morning everybody at work teases me.

"Hey, you didn't get washed away?"

"Hey, you are still here R."

"So you ARE more than two feet! You didn't get washed away."

I've learnt to laugh at the jokes. But yesterday morning, when I woke up, I knew I really would be washed away if I ventured out. It looked like a river. I've never seen so much water in my life.

The electricity went off early morning and we realised we had no candles at home and the water was way too high to venture out. My mobile conked off too so I was pretty jobless.

We managed to search around for Mom's old transistor and listened to AIR for most part of the day. Good old radio.

That's when we started getting calls from people asking us if we were ok. And that's when we realised that dry, drought-stricken, water-starved Chennai was actually making news for a flood!

Immediately, I called up office and was told that relief work had started and that 8,000 emergency relief kits had been distributed. I volunteered to help but was told that the scene was pretty rough and in some areas the water was as high as four feet, so yes, there would be a good chance that I really might get washed away and they didn't want to be rescuing me when there were other people who would really need that help. So that was that.

And that's when S called to say that someone my folks knew had died. He had tried to fiddle with the inverter and had been electrocuted. It still sounds a bit unreal...more so, cos today has been such a sunny day.

I still feel all of it jars. If we had been marooned today too, it might have made sense. But it was over before it really sank in....

When I woke up this morning, I realised that the rains had stopped. But I was certainly not prepared for the dry roads. I mean where did all that water vanish so fast??

But I am told that it's only the city that has cleared up so fast. There are other areas where people have been evacuated. As in any disaster, the homeless bear the brunt and we, we have been untouched. So, P can talk about how she caught up on much needed sleep and everybody can exult at how we made news.

Amidst it all, amidst the overwhelming sense of adventure, it's difficult to believe that lives have actually been lost. To talk about that would seem rather wet-blanketish too.

Isn't it strange how many calamities there are almost every other day?? Starting from September 11th, it hasn't stopped. The war, quakes, floods, the tsunami, cyclones, hurricanes. And like my family friend who was electrocuted proves, even if you are safe and secure in your house, when your time's up, it just is.

As I lie down to sleep, I am so aware of Your presence. When I am weak, then I am strong. Because when I am weak, I know. I know there is no one else BUT you. And when I am weak, you have the most use of me. Because Your glory is made most manifest in MY weakness.

There is glory in this alone-ness. Because You are with me. I am aware that I am not alone. Even if I don't FEEL Your presence, You are there. Cos You have said that You will NEVER leave me nor forsake me. And if You said it, I believe it.

And I am glad for the pain because it taught me to look at You. And I am glad for the pain cos it will teach me to empathise with others who suffer likewise. All my failures, all my shortcomings, You use all of it, You turn it all around for Your glory. Beauty for ashes, the oil of gladness for mourning....I always wondered what it meant. Today, I know.

All my life I've searched. All my life I prayed to an unknown God. I never went to Sunday school cos nobody took me there. I never went to church cos nobody in my house ever went there. But always, You've been with me, watching over a little girl... knowing her pain, her silent questions, her silent agony.

You knew my searching heart. And so, You always sent people who watched out for me. C in school, T in college....always, You were watching over me. Even though I didn't know You or Your name.And I wonder why You've been so good. Because I've done NOTHING to deserve this honour. Why me? Why choose me?

And now I know. Today, I know why. It's not my 'Christian' upbringing or family background that I have to be grateful for because I've had neither. It's only You. Nobody else but You deserves the glory and the praise. Where I've been weakest, there You have always been Strongest.

For Your strength is made perfect in my weakness.

I prefer my best friend Solitude
Who lets me be me--
Scream if I want
Dream if I want.

I just found that in my adolescent diary. I was in Class 7 and I wrote it after some silly tiff with my then best friend P. Class 7, I think, was when I became conscious of the differences. When I started acknowledging that behind the facade of model student, I was really empty. Seventh was when I realised that come to think of it, I didn't really have ANYTHING in common with any of my friends.

Mom blamed it all on the books I was reading. She thought I was becoming extremely precocious and a big-time intellectual snob. Looking back, I agree with her. Everybody was into Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys and there I was reading Somerset Maughm and Thomas Hardy.

Just reading all those books did something to me. It twisted me, I think. I soaked in the words and lived the lives I read of. Maybe, if I'd been older and thicker skinned from real experience, a bit wiser, a bit more aware of the fact that what I was reading was a story after all, maybe then, those vicarious experiences would have been put aside.

But not having lived life long enough, those experiences, vicarious though they were, and only imperfectly understood, became part of me. The more I read, the less I related with my peers.

Seventh was also the time when A and me had huge fights cos I preferred hanging out with her friends rather than mine...and most of all seventh was when I realised that the word for someone like me was 'misfit'. It was a hard, cold truth but in school and college one learns to live with those facts.

By the time I came to class 11, I pretended to be like everybody else. I did that for the next seven years of my life. And then, when I had finished studies, going to work was liberating! At last I was with people who had similar inclinations! I could be myself and there wouldn't be any peers against whom I'd constantly measure myself and ask--" Why can't I be happy and lively and...free like them? Why do I feel like everything is a pretense?"

Yes, I definitely prefer my work life to school or college. Thankfully, all my jobs have been with really nice people. But in spite of all that, sometimes, the silence gets so loud. Solitude is still my best friend.

Much Ado about...

I am having an outbreak of pimples and I have absolutely no clue why. Am I using a good face wash? A good toner? A good moisturizer that isn’t oil-based?

Ok, to be fair, it isn’t really an outbreak... but well, there are TWO right now. When these two disappear, it will be replaced by two more.

S suggests it’s the food. I am eating oily food, she says. But I’ve eaten this food all my life, so I don’t see why my body should choose to revolt NOW.

I think it’s my hair. My hair is now in that in-between stage when it really doesn’t know which side of the fence it belongs to…. straight or curly? Short or long? It can’t decide, so I now have wavy hair that flies all over the place and all over my face. It’s too short to be tied up and too long to be left loose and clipping it or using a ‘headband’ makes me look like I jumped out of kindergarten, so that’s ruled out too. My theory is that my face is allergic to my hair. But nobody else seems in favour of that view.

Mom has asked me to fix an appointment with the doc cos she’s sure that as soon as this goes another will magically pop out. And that the one that’s just gone will leave a scar! Ugh!!! Sis tells me it could be mosquito bites that progressively became pimples. Duh? Theory of evolution happening on my face?

Hitherto, I’ve been pretty clear-skinned. But this…. this is a disease! Oh dear. I can’t bear to look at my face. Wish God would just Photoshop my face like NOW! NOW! NOW!

Oh, S also thinks it could be stress. She’s not the only one in favour of that. Though what I am stressed about, I simply cannot imagine. The only stress in my life right now is that I’ll have to return the book I took from the library on the coming Thursday and I still have about 1000 pages more to go. Apart from that, absolutely no stress.

I think, maybe, my body is trying to tell me something, trying to get my attention. But what it’s trying to tell me is beyond me.

Anyways, today-- Monday, the 10th of October-- marks the beginning of my ‘de-tox’ plan. Muesli, fruits and coffee for breakfast, meat-less lunch and veggie soup at night will be my regimen for the remainder of the month. Also Safi. Also Multivitamin tabs. Also Nutralite.

For M

Hello there!

Seemed rather corny to offer advice and chin up comments when you were so obviously broken-hearted. It’s not in the least like me to offer advice on mail either except that what you say reminds me of something I’d blogged about nearly two years ago, when I was veering towards a break up.

Am not gonna offer you any suggestions/advice/self-help quips or think positive one liners. Nor am I gonna tell you that you should give her space and time, nor am I gonna tell you clichés like “When you love somebody let them go,” etc.etc.

Nor am I gonna tell you that if she doesn’t know you are it, she’s not worth it. Nor am I gonna tell you that if you love her, you must fight for her. But, one random, very, very random thing I will tell you… the minute you question love, it simply isn’t there.

And yes, I know I don’t have the legacy of a half dozen broken relationships to dare to offer you advice. I know you've seen a mot more...but dear M, I know enough to tell you that sometimes, with many people, it’s the lack of communication that breaks up a relationship. But some other times, it's too much communication and too much in(tro)spection. The most beautiful things in life don't stand up under scrutiny. Remember how poems we loved lost their beauty when we 'analysed' it?

The minute you question love.....it simply isn't there.

P.S: If you ask me what I’d do, you know my answer. If the other person is questioning us, we have no future. It will die…if not today, then tomorrow, it will die. So, I'll walk out and never ever venture anywhere close that side, for as long as I live.

M, it isn't worth it. Get up and get going, please. I hate seeing you like this.