Supermen

Dear Men,

( The ones in my family...and yeah all those who relate to it or personally feel this post might ; in some way be a revelation of the sordid truth of their masculinity.)

PS : ( Disclaimer: It is in no way to hurt your towering male egos. No matter what you shall be indispensable :P...And so this is dearly dedicated to all those guys,chauvinists.(pigs??!!) )

I am putting up a very brave front...ahem...I am putting forth in detail whatever I may have muttered under my breath in the history of my 22 years of existence. As much as my fingers ache to type this down as a ubiquitous truth ; I shall only point out my personal observations.

I come from a patriarchal family.My grandfather,a strict disciplinarian also nurtured a huge male ego which of course passed down to his seven sons.For all the men in my relation everything they did and still continue to do; surpass excellence !( and the female species are surely inefficient ).Whether they cook-"God save you! you children will definitely chew your fingers off ! Just wait till you taste my sambhar." followed by the apparent- "your mum doesn't know how to cook... worse.. I taught her how to :P "

OK??!!! so men( ahem... in my family... I don't want to be badgered by the entire male species. I do know of some really wonderful ones outside my own clan :P ) do know how to cook and so goes for cleaning the house , washing the clothes , shopping wisely , operating the banks."Oh here we are - The supermen.Its our forte' ."

" Stock markets; well you won't understand. Why bother?"

"Rock and metal- definitely not for you.Why don't you go and listen to Hillary Duff."

" Die Hard- ahem.. we guys are going out for it.(read: "Excluding you, because of the simple rule-u're a girl ")

" WWE- Whoa no way, its not for dainty ones like you. Even watching it might just chip your nails. "

"Cricket- Please don't ruin my moment of solitude with the television with your lingering feminity."

[ A special mention about my bro Gautam-

PSP and Gameboy: Dude!! you cant learn it..you still happen to be a girl." (Hah!! I dismiss it for teenage turbulent period :P )]

And last but not the least chauvinism unleashed during the act of driving. If the car goes slowly-it's a woman.If the car doesn't pick up at green-it's a woman.If the car doesn't give way- it's a woman.If the car coughs and stops in between- whoa, it's confirmed,it's a woman because men think that women just can't drive as well as them.

And as my dad is confronted about this he dismisses it and comments on how much we woman criticize , crib and gossip( though I hate to admit it albeit it's true when he says " Women,that's your forte' ."Ahaan..there I snigger away to myself... Men, ye know not but ye practice the subtle art of it :D)


PS again : This has been a part of my drafts during my early workings with the blog. It was and still is dedicated to my Mum, my aunt, and my sister who have endured :P. No! , this , in no way means we are complaining. We are just amused at how amusingly amusing you are. To the most important men in our lives ( Sridhar, Vinod, Gautam and Aditya). We love you.

Yours Sincerely,

Not a feminist-"yet if need arises to protest against male-ism mental atrocities" enthusiast.

Chaos

....and they are in constant battle of wills. Its like a funny bumby ride. It makes you a little apprehensive but also gives you the thrill. There is a constant rebellion,something that wages a war on the inside but dreadfully placid on the outside. However the one who resides within is timorous and the other blithe. Its a bedlam out there...and in the din it is heard..

Alterego : Have you seen yourself? Dude!!!.... you are lame...

M : No Dude!! I am bored...

Alterego : Exactly my point!! Ok lets see what are the things that can do you some good.

M : Hah!! you saying that to me? You are a bore...in constant anguish. Oh!! to think of it what makes you fret so much?

Alterego : You man!! you!! I dont understand what is there to grin about all the time? I dont like your smile. Its like painted on your face!! makes me sick..

M : ...and you make me sick with the ravage you create inside most of the time. You are one who doesn't let me be. You, with that lost fuzzy look upon your face, with those distant dark pupils like a fathomless pit, for your eyes. What is it that you keep agonising about ?

Alterego : let you be? you seem to revel in things which are so mundane..to sum it up you seem like a perky, bubbly kid who pursues and craves for all the banal things in life. I am just trying to make you see light.I don't agonise. I am just a lot deeper than you think.

M : Don't talk about enlightening me when you are the one who stays in the dark!!... in gloomy places where you brood all day long. You ponder, you think. No one likes you. Call yourself deep? You are a shadow following me. It gives me a headache.

Alterego : Sigh!! think again man! It shall become extremely difficult for me to reside alongside this. There...There you go again...that's the problem with you. You think with your heart, I with my mind.

M : Don't try to reason with me. You just don't know how to live your life. C'mon!! chill dude!! Live it up . Ok , a li'l bit of this drink now, I am sure that will loosen you up bit.

Alterego : To what? to waste away my life. Do you know what gets me high?? Its the passion to live my life like I want to. To do the things I want to.

M : I am fed up!! That's not true. This is not what you are...this is me!! I am the one who lives my life like I want to!!

Alterego : Ahaan?? correction: you live a shallower version of what you call life. With this cackle of yours whom are you trying to impress? Not yourself for sure. I wonder where you are trying to fit ?

M : NOOOOO!!! just shut it out.. I dont want to hear you anymore.....

The din becomes louder; the hum turning into a chant . The voices getting louder...M was heard...

There was a man who had a face,
It looked a lot like me,
I saw him in the mirror and I fought him in the streets,
Then when he turned away I shot him in the head,
Then I came to realize I had killed myself.


It was foggy around , the lights were dimming.
hazy as it became, a slow rythm resounded in the voice of Alterego.

And I know I’m dead on the surface

But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down
And all around, no
It’s no cause for concern.

2wards 2orpidity?

4.am

I am lazy (Oh yes! and probably my mum might excitedly add in a few more unpleasant adjectives to it.) but for a start I gave my blog a makeover ( with possibly a hundred delays while surfing randomly through the net and darn!! why on earth does facebook exist? ) and so while I sit down to write( after a very very long time), stifling a yawn ; I contemplate switching off the lights,snuggle into the blankets and procastinate this post for a week( I told you I am ,lets take a better sounding word: nonchalant).

Well this post was planned up for July just after a pretty vapid birthday.

What I expected was far too different from what I got.

A peck on the cheek probably suffices on such occassions according to family elders . The younger brother thinks of it as any ordinary day and broods around in corners with the 'whats the big deal with wanting the whole affair to be so much "wheeee".' ( Ahh!! I am willing to sideline it as teenage problems.)

So as the year comes to an end; I end up thinking how vastly things have changed.

The year has been satisfying on a whole. It started in a great city and might probably end up in a great one too. Both have seen me as different people.

That jump around animated brat is more reticent, demure and as my mother cheerfully puts it, sober. From the 'pack my bags and run off' to the 'laze around in the weekends' sort of a person.

I have had to 'settle' at home again.

Yes the latter part of the year saw me more prudent and probably wiser of the decisions I took in the former and as I sit and muse, all the vivid pictures flash, of another time which was so fast paced that probably I savour it now with all the ruminations.

22? call it torpid. I laugh at myself for turning a lot older in a matter of months. For the better or not is something I cannot fathom but at the moment,the only thing that brings a smile is the awaiting Sunday morning hot oil bath and yapping in the eve with my mum over a bowl of sweet corn soup.

Mumbai Chronicles I - The confessions

After some soul writing, back to the old days ( I wonder why this irresistable urge to write only when exams are round the corner?? As they say an idle mind is a devil's workshop but I feel its utopian, full of those random lucid thoughts...and just then, that circuit diagram floating in front of you reminds you to get back to reality...yes the very reality that makes you curse for the sh*t you got into..yes I would have loved to be a thinker if there is any such occupation) Oops for the digression. For those who think that my posts are just centered around me and probably not a single word on the raging world issues ( as if we dont have enough of the media debates on them the whole day ) I would like to share the little intricacies of life..which maybe becomes quite a mundane affair for most of us.
For the past six months this has been stored in my drafts. I was collecting my observations and I knew I would have more things to add on to it.
I am a little ashamed to pronounce myself as a Delhite. Four years ago this very statement would have earned me proud smiles and a pat on the back by my fellow compatriots, those very ,who initially showed sympathy at my moving out of my home town for my graduation. But as the years trundled along, it saw me admiring a lot of the culture in which I settled in. Yes, Pune was a wonderful experience. I can write a novella on all my exploits there. Its probably shaped me into a different, hopefully better me.
But in my last two years I have had the taste of one of the most enigmatic cities I have come across( Bombay lovers are going to embrace me on this..I expect a few sloppy kisses too ).
I had my apprehensions albeit the fact that there was something about the city that pulled me towards it time and again. It mysteriously romanced me.
As they say " Jo Bombay aata hai.. woh bas yahin ka reh jaata hai "
I dont know how true that holds for me. I am still soul searching it.
It has it all. Among the starry blitz; the common man or the fast paced work culture and yet a calm which is tenacious. Maybe as a child I never got to see the real Delhi but as an adult I got to feel a city so enthralling.
The air which smells of the salt and fish .The first thing that you become aware of are the beads of sweat on your brow and still you look on at that fervent energy around you,trying to infuse yourself with it.
As my days in Pune-Bombay are numbered and before I go back to "rediscovering" the Delhi I left behind , I want to chronicle it. So keep visiting all Mumbaikars...
Till then (from the hit '78 movie, Don) " Yeh hai Bambai nagariya..tu dekh babbua."

With Or Without You

She stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes stinged and they trickled,hot tears, blurring her sight.Dazed,she looked around at the sea of faces around her. She saw no escape and yet she found her solace in it. Those very faces looked quizzically at her but knew nothing to judge her. She wanted to defy them and so justify to them. Those emotions in which there was a reason to rejoice as well as wallow. She wanted to keep feeling it, desperately trying to hold on to the threads of joy...but why and for whom did she want to engulf in sadness and let it go?
She felt warm and sublime, his eyes on her and yet she made herself cold and indifferent to it. Those doe shaped eyes, wide open or shut saw her, for darkness could not take away the light of her face, her smile which wrinkled her nose. They stole glances at her but wandered off when caught. Those eyes wanted her to know, yet hesitated.
Everytime their elbows grazed, she made it linger for seconds till she jerked it away. She wished time would halt as she felt his shallow breathing on her neck,yet prayed for it to slip away quickly. The more she sidled away, the more she was drawn towards him to drown herself into his arms.
He wanted her arms around his neck, her lips on his, their souls conjoined but found himself distancing away.
He saw those empty faces around him, those questions,but did he care? His pain was sweet but could he take it anymore?
They walked as one,in the milling crowd and yet away from it. Both were afraid to catch the hum in the air and yet a chord struck in their hearts, a harmony so intertwined that they felt blessed and cursed.
So was the dichotomy of love.....

Rain

Her hair came undone, the curls falling delicately over her shoulders. She looked all around her. Suffused in a pink glow. The white bark of the eucalyptus was radiant, chipping but with a shimmer of a fresh pearl. She felt the bark under her pink fingertips looking down at the long shadows being cast. The shadows swayed on the gravel pathway, dainty and ethereal. She looked up to those leaves that made them, gentle, swaying ,the branches bowing down to touch the ground. She sensed the sun peek in and out through the leaves, the stray srands of hair on her forehead glistening in the dusk lights. She stood enraptured at every sound, the rustle of the leaves, the wind entangling her locks, the cuckoo in her sweetest and of the voices around. The plants around her plush, green and vibrant whispered of hope. It stirred a music in her very being ; a thread of rhythm flowing through her veins. Overwhelmed was she, as every gamut of emotion struck a melody, a symphony known only to her; a harmony of all that she saw, heard and felt.
And then it fell, resting upon her long eyelashes, as clear as a crystal. She opened her palms to feel it. Wet and cold , flowing through her fingers onto the parched earth. The incense; that of the earth ,its thirst quenched. It sparkled,the colours bouncing off it as rays flitted across. The grey above with solar streaks left an orange tinge around.
It felt like life washed away;and yet it felt like being a being again...
She moved,like the wind,through every drop which touched her skin. She felt it on every niche in her being,every curve of her body, every corner of her soul; infused with the tones to which she danced.
" Raindrops keep falling on my head,
But that doesn't mean my eyes would soon be turning red,
Crying's not for me,
Cause I'm never gonna stop the rain by complainin'
Because I am free,
Nothing's worrying me"
Yes she saw it, heard it, and felt it.
and then on her lips, partook of it, brackish and fresh, tears and smiles, despair and joy.

Bad Hair Day...anyone?

This post was long due...for all those times that my mind seems not to be preoccupied with something or the other..these are the thoughts that usually fill in..
A little scratch through my wiry hair suffices enough to say that its the very "wiryness" I am pondering about.
PS : With due respect to those who muse over greying and thinning (:P)
I am one among you too...
So am I happy with my inheritance??... is what I am unable to decide most of the time.
This saga commenced 22 years ago..when there were gasps of 'oohs and aahs' by old kanjeevaram clad ladies who would do anything to slobber up your cute baby face with oodles of watery kisses and having done that would fondly twiddle their fingers around the tuft of hair on the head.. and with long sighs of happiness exclaim " oh so! The baby is going to be such a Rapunzel."
Yes there were standards set and pedestials to reach upto on which I shall elucidate, further on.
So the baby, innocent and unaware of the targets set before it..trundles on in daily life.
( The baby in particular was a cute cherubic thing with beady black eyes and curly black locks. Ahem!!! Am I sounding too full of myself *wink* ?? The aftermath is a part of the plight I have had to deal with till now and maybe all my life.. sniff )
So comes the age old Hindu ritual of tonsuring the baby's hair, with due respect to all the evil eyes they wanted removed and better future and luck they wanted to ensure( still wondering when they shall take effect). And so ended the dream of the beautiful "to be rapunzel" locks.
The child still unaware of the misery it was destined to live with was much too happy with a close crop( read: The delhi heat is too much to bear).
Mother decided in two years that now was the time to cultivate the scalp endowments.( It didnt really make much of a difference to the child who was much above these "hairy" issues then )and just when it was in process; there goes another "mundan" as it is called ( I really wonder when will all those rituals work in my favour).
I faced it...
I was three and was " Ganju Patel teri khopdi mein tel!!!!"
and so I sported a close crop almost all my childhood and teenage years. I loved it. I felt free (saves you the heat!! yes I was blessed with quite a thick endowment ). Never paid heed to the forlorn looks of my father who always wished that his daughter would be a well oiled two braided "ponnu" from a Tam Brahm family.
Instead my days were spent adjusting my hairlook to that of Diana or admiring Kiran Bedi. In my teens my obsession with Rowling's hero made me want to sport his style more(victim and that too of a grave " hairy" injustice).
Yes I have not inherited my mother's hair nor my father's. I have neither straight and silky like his nor wavy like hers. A long line of women in my family have had braids enough to draw gasps of admiration. I am the black sheep.
I merely have a shape shifter. Something that is wiry, frizzy,wild and difficult to tame, affected by water at every place but there are days when they are beautiful, curly locks or when they are straight and set, wavy and fall lucidly over my forehead. Time and again hairdressers give up. My scalp is a task. They work their way to make it look as presentable as they can.
I sport shoulder length hair now with red streaks..yes it looks wonderful somedays( guess my father thinks I am more of a taint now than ever).
But I just feel I have had too many bad hair days to last me for a life time.