10 Commandments for travelling in Mumbai trains

These are unsaid, unwritten laws, practiced in silence and never broken. Once you start to travel, you shall know what I speak of; use it as a code of parley, because when you enter a 09.04am train, you are in dangerous territory.  

1.    Boarding a train:  Lets’ image a situation.  You are boarding an empty Churchgate bound train from Borivali.  Your options are: wait for the specialists to jump in, let the herd of cows scramble in and then you board with the near-to-retirement aunties and pray to find some space to stand, comfortably. 

You could be a specialist and grab a window seat, but you have to risk falling inside or outside the compartment, getting bruised, breaking your bones and sometimes dying. However, watching an expert jumper is pure pleasure, an art you must watch.

2.   Bags and Kids Not Allowed: There is no space during the rush hours for your duffel bag.  Just in case you were contemplating dragging in your trolley bag, ‘out’ is safer than 'in’.  Once you enter, clutch your bag to your chest, lest it hit someone, even by mistake.  If you are carrying a backpack, laptop, multiple bags, lunch bags in addition to your workbag, it is only polite that you request the lady standing by the window to keep your bag on the shelf.  It would be better if you did it yourself in a less crowded train, as some may object to you making them work free.

Leave your child at home, use common sense.  A crying baby/toddler in a crowded compartment full of stressed women on a single agenda is like throwing a puppy in a pond of piranhas. Well, not that ugly but why would you want your child and you to be cursed first thing in the morning or evening or anytime?

3.   The Right to Alight:  The sign on the compartment walls, if you look carefully says, ‘let passengers alight first’.  However, the rules of the game have changed.  There are queues, if you are in a Western track train, then Andheri is the dominant bully, the women form a line on the left side of the door and everyone else is expected to alight and board from the right side.  Why?  Try asking when you are in a foul mood and up for a fight.

 If you have to alight at, say Bandra, it is your duty to get up once the train leaves Santacruz station.  Khar comes next and it will give you enough time to maneuver through the crowd without rushing and pushing anyone.  In a relatively less crowded train, you could get up one station before from your destination.

 It is common for passengers standing behind you to tap on your shoulder or back and ask ‘Bandra?’ or ‘Andheri?’  They have not misunderstood your name; they are asking whether you are getting off on that station, if not, you make space for them to go ahead.

4.  Single and Multiple Seat Reservations: Yes, you can book seats and for free! If you wish to find yourself a seat in a crowded train, all you have to do is, ask. Usually, you need to point a forefinger at the woman sitting near the window, and take the row from there.  They know the look and will tell you the station they’d alight, reserve the seat that is will ensure you seat earliest. Just in case you have a seat at Malad but there is a fourth seat at Andheri, on a train bound to Borivali.  Reserve both, you get a seat at Andheri and when the Malad is near, you move to a more comfortable one. All you need is a nod, and the deal is sealed.

5.    What is mine is yours too: Newspapers, magazines, candy, books, food, music players, iPads, laptops, knowledge bases and everything else possible is public property on a train. Once you are done with your Midday, someone will ask for it. If you are reading a book, be rest assured someone will make a comment on it, or simply smile with affirmation or frown on your taste in books.  There will be communication, your chips packet will be stared at, the chocolate will bring up conversations on how good or bad it is on the weighing scale. 

This is how most people have found a fool proof diet plan or gym buddies or geek sisters. Make full use of this knowledge base!

6.    Hair Care:  Tying your hair in a bun will be made mandatory in the near future. For now, why would you want your hair flying in someone’s face? Why do you want someone’s hair flying into your face? Have some civic sense, use a hair band. Women often politely tell you (not ask) to take your hair forward, so that they poke and itch  you, in case you suffer from dry hair, dandruff and split ends.

7.    Guidelines to Standing: standing is an art, especially during a peak hour when you have no space to move. Balancing is the key, it is important to hold on to something (the bar on the side or the handle bar above) and stand on one foot, and keep swapping feet. There are too many feet that are climbing on to your foot and in time, your foot will be the one landing on someone else’s foot. Also move with your feet, your body gets pushed, but there’s always some space at the foot. This will take care of your moving forward.    

8.   Guidelines to Sitting: If you are seated, you are lucky, if you are not, you are luckier.  Everyone who is seated has arses in their face. The rest is left to your imagination. When you are seated on the fourth seat, it is only polite to sit at the edge of the seat, where there is more space and everyone is comfortable.  Every time someone on your seat gets up, ask your neighbor to move, politely.  Thereby making a fourth seat available for another standing person.  Many women oblige other women by giving them their seat and seating in turns, for example: you sit from X’ station to Y’ and let the standing woman sit from Y’ to Z'. It is common courtesy to accommodate and help.

9.   Creating the illusion of space: This one was invented by a genius psychologist, or maybe an MBA in Human Resource. When seated near the window or the third seat, and a lady asks you to ‘shift’, meaning create space for her, when there may be none. You wriggle in your position creating a picture of moving or shifting but not really moving anywhere. It’s like running on a treadmill, you are running, but you aren't going anywhere. The point is, it works! Your wriggle is bought and miraculously the lady now has enough space to rest her butt.  

   10.  Dressing for a train travel: If you have a wedding to attend, beg borrow, steal a car, and leave three hours in advance, but do not get into the train.  In the least in the morning or evening.  Refrain from tying dupattas/stoles around your neck, unless you want to be strangled.  It is best that you stuff them in your bag, with your loose watch, bracelet, anklet, and everything else, which can fall off, during your journey.  You are allowed headphones, the music should be loud enough only for you though. 

  

       Wear the most comfortable shoes, heels are a bad idea just in case you are travelling far and may have to stand. Also in a crowded train, when feet climb atop one another, your heel will make co-passengers bleed. And their heels will make you scream. Flats, floaters, keds, even sport shoes can be tolerated, but not heels, even kitten heels! Be pragmatic, carry your stilettos in your bag and wear them at work.

Mumbai trains are the best teachers; they teach you empathy, courage, sacrifice, cunning, and gratitude.  Thank you Mumbai, for trains and much.      

Friends with Benefits

Come to think of it, I feel like a conservative. Sex on my mind, my previous post was received quite well. Contrary to reader's opinions of my ability and clarity, I had claimed my fox-hole, was prepared for eye rolls and acute dismissals of my moral standards. None of it has happened. I am still receiving mails and many of them are from women, who are bang-on to the point of what they like in the post, what they disapprove and how they'd go about their sex lives.

A kind lady insisted that I write on the lines of sex and the city; problem is, I am quite inept at that. I do not fully understand, though have a grasp of it, as to how we are evolving as socio-sexual beings. Plus, I have to yet give up on the opposite sex; my only reason not to (give up on them) is because they are my friends. And my friends are nearly everything I need, admire and love in my life. The men in my life are dear to me; and the fact that at some point we chose each other, gives me hope that my choice in the 'partner of my life' won't be sucky.
 
But why not choose from them, if I believe that they have it all? Well, the girl in a poncho asked this question. My reply was simple, I love them as people but I have no desire to get to know their 'lover' side. Why? Its incomprehensible. Psychological digging got me to unearth my friends, when I was a kid. Mostly boys, and how my mum never really made any differentiation btw the genders. She'd be inviting and chatty without any inhibitions, she never made me realize that all the people that came for my birthdays or I fought with or played with were boys. She would gladly tell people that 'oh, he's been my daughter's friend since she was eight!' Point is, their gender was a matter-of-fact, so when I first told my mum about 'the boy i like', she wasn't surprised that he was not from the gang.

Friends with benefits are great! And sometimes it is an amazing way of discovering another person; but it is an each-to-his-own decision. I need to see the man in a different light, and I know my friends too well - we may just crack up; call it a bad idea and go for a beer... laughing all the way at us being so desperate. Nonetheless, that is I, it may work for you; so do not let my judgement color yours. Also, I believe in the old adage, that 'sex changes everything'. When it comes to the people you love, know, discuss your plans with, consult, cuss and will call in all emergencies - it changes everything. In the least, for me.

That apart, we are different people as friends and different as partners or lovers. Mixing the two is quite a lethal combination - may work or make just kill the whole thing. Am sure you have many stories of lovers gone sour? I too have my tales of friends becoming lovers and lovers going sour - what you will be left with is an emotional drainage. It's a risk that you will have to judge for yourself and take.

However, the catch is to make it work. If you can - fantaboulous. I do not have that kind of intelligence. So when it comes to me, the only benefit I have with a friend is that he/she is my friend.

Sex on my Mind

Instead of starting off my late Nov’ post with a series on Beautiful People, I decided to address a question that has plagued me ever since I discovered sex. I keep counting on my parent's good brahmin upbringing that has till date helped them ignore my blog. This may just be the tipping point; but then again...

I am going to be nice and give you a disclaimer: If you are mentally above the age of 25 then you could read this at your own risk. If you still laugh at 'men and mice' or genital jokes or are a prude by any definition - this blog has better things that you can read. The Internet, I assure you has a lot more!

Sex is something that we do not talk or write about on a public forum in a way that we should. Now, what way is that? Okay, with my limited interaction with the world I can tell you that women either giggle, brag, frown or are dispassionate on this topic. Men are not too different, except that when they hear a woman talk about it, they like it; in a perverted, cheezy kind of way. It makes them feel that if a woman is free of thought, she must also be free of cost!

We like closet sluts, those pretentiously ‘nice’ girls, 'good' women, who as Fabulous puts it in her shudh hindi 'ki unme kut kut ke kapat bhara hai' (that they are filled to the brim with treachery). I cannot agree or disagree. But I know that kind, and I find them incredibly wise. Drama King, Best Man, Chameleon, Style Icon... to name a few have fallen for them. I do not sympathize, as life equates itself constantly.


I know, I know…. I am going to circumvent my need to digress and get to the point.
Why do we feel the need to legitimize sex, validate it, give it a purpose, make it a journey rather than a destination? Why do we need to tag adages to it? Oh, I love him/her; oh, I am waiting for the right one! oh, I want an emotional connect, oh, I want to marry him/her!
Why should a woman feel disrespectful when she has sex for gratification alone. Why should a man feel like a jerk, when he does the same? Why degrade sex by bribing and corrupting it? 
Why can you not go up to a person and say, 'I'd like to eat your skin like a whole almond?' Why not, when you can gladly hummm ‘Pee loon’, or ‘labo se chuum lo’, or 'aati kya khandala', or khol tere dil ki pyaar wali khidi' or 'tu gandi aachi lagti hai'??????
What dissociative genius is at work in that brain of yours that makes you do extremely contradictory things! I am beat. My small truncated brain cannot dissect this harmony of chaos.
We also enjoy a certain prude impotency to the act. (And I call it an 'act'. like eating is an act, so is writing.) 
We may be the only civilization in this world who overvalue inexperience in this domain, and mind you, irrespective of age. A 35 year old virgin commands more than a 19 year old without half-an-inch of skin (in case of a woman). Why? It is so stupid. why would you not want another person to go through the learning grind and then meet you at a game, that could be one hell of a tournament! It's like hoping to play a great set of tennis with a person who calls a tennis racket a bat.

What people want is a crappy novice with no inkling to better her/himself... and all in the name of prudence and culture. I am short of saying, Get a life! Okay, said it.
And all this while, we enjoy a heavy doze of porn, (the industry is booming- someone must be watching!). Why would you watch porn, when the real thing is so much better? And what pleasure are you going to receive by watching two people wrapped in ecstasy when you are left high and dry? The underground sex toy market in Mumbai is so prosperous that I now have to mention it in my work. People are doing it - and what shit, they are doing it to themselves. Are they crazy? Why won't they go up to nice people and say, 'hey, I'd like to go out with you' without the fear of being judged, or you’d rather moan over their pictures on FB? But then again, I have never claimed to understand people. I don't want to sound like Samantha in 'Sex and the City', but there are too many people who are horrendous in that department. I have hairy, gory, 'thandi kakdi' (cold cucumber) stories to tell; which I won't.   
  
Me being myself spoke to my close circle: 
The theory of 'first hand and second hand'
Childmom is a prude of the most ancient kind. Why would anyone want to drive a second hand car? was the question she asked me. I did not understand the connection. So she gently explains, 'See, we all like FOB (fresh off the boat) things. No one likes a handed down garment or thing or person.' That is when it hit me - and I wanted to hit her. How could someone equate a human to an object? How can a human being become second hand? She ignored, stating, 'I waited for that one man, whom I'd be physically bonded with in pleasure and love. Unlike your kind who would 'go dancing with boys and never bring them home' (that elaborate rubbish is her way of saying sex).
I feel insulted. But that is not a point here - so I ask her my most genuine question that she (the chef) would fathom. 'How do you know a plate of lasagna is best suited to your palette, unless you have tasted different preparations?' 'How can a vegetarian say meat tastes horrible, unless he has tasted it?' She, now visibly insulted and angry barked rhetorically, 'How can you equate sex to lasagna?' My reply was obvious, 'Just as you can equate people to second hand cars'.
 
A man with a begging bowl
When on this topic with Drama King, we of course spoke of the 'cat woman', the only goddess he ever had in his life, and has her no more! He was more forthcoming than usual, "Arrre, every time someone talks of love-making, I cry, and then run away." Gone are the days of youth when pleasure was respectful and admirable. Now is a time for cheap foppery and a bent back. For him, at least. His 'ladli lady' has been calling the 'shots', since the last time they spoke of any ‘action’. But we won't go there.
When I told him that there is something called 'Pure sex', he turned to acknowledge that people have forgotten the goodness of sex without strings. “Now I have to ask after weeks and weeks of hinting. And now I am tired even of the thought of asking. How can a man worth any salt ask his woman? What do I say, ‘will you do me a favor of going down on me? Will you please shave?’ It used to be so subtle and smooth sailing - with no words, no gestures, no bribing, no fights, no 'terms and conditions'. A look would be enough. Why cannot all women be like that?”
In my defense, I tell him that he chooses weird women and weird women have weird problems!
My point is that here is a man who knows the art of love and is willing to share it with equal zest with his beautiful ‘ladli’; but when she starts to treat it as a job, the job is done.
The genius
The only man in sync with me on men is the Metro-sexual genius who does acknowledge that men get emotional and impotent with lightening speed. Even in their 30’s they want to own your body. He too like me is living his life in joy and willing to wait for someone equivalent to his caliber. The genius is in waiting, as he puts it. Play the game, and play it long and play it well. When you find a partner, it would be a gift for him or her to see you as the panther.

Love and I have never been friends.

Some like it  nice, some like it toasted, some like it pretty. Some like to whisper, some like to own, some like to caress, some like to gnaw; me being me like it pure and like it raw.

MOI

Truths always set me free. 

They hurt me, but I guess, that pain is the premise of all success.

Gloria Steinem

"Writing is the only thing that, when I do it, I don't feel I should be doing something else."


It is I, who also lives in the mental discomfort of words, ideas and dreams. 

Marry me; Marry me; No, Marry me!

Five conversations and my I have found the reason of my fight/ flight from the M-word. 


04: 15pm over beer. 
A: You know, I would not really mind getting married to you. You are pretty okay.
K: (laughing, shell shocked), I know, Am way better than OKAY.
A: Well, you will still need a man. You should settle, now that I have given you an offer. No one wants to marry a 30-year-old woman. You know the cycle and rest of the problems of being an old mom.
K: Sure, But I do not want to marry someone who thinks that way. Then again you got to decide what is right for you.
A: You are so wrong all the time.

08:00pm over coffee
J: You know, I love you.
K: So say a dozen other men.
J: Seriously. How long are you going to play this carrot and donkey game?
K: What do you mean? You overestimate my wit.
J: Shut up. We all love you. and you treat us like options. toy with us when you are bored and then go find someone else to join your brood.
K: Awww.... you sound upset. You know I do not do that! How is it my fault if you are in love with me? Did I give any of you ideas that I was in love, or needed love?
J: (a sigh of resignation) It's not your fault. You have always been a tease and runaway...

10: 45pm over the phone
C: Am barely waking up with the sun, and the first thing I do is call you.
K: how sweet. so how does ur day look?
C: Hmmm.... lot of regular stuff.
K: Hmmmm... sounds interesting!
C: ya, how was ur day?
K: (goes on for 20 minutes about all the fun she had on a regular Wednesday and narrates anecdotes). Truly fun!
C: (cackling) you girls are mad. Minty was asking about you last night.
K:  ohhh yaa, how was the party?
C: Nothing much, we drank, played poker, chatted and head home.
K: Wowo, you have perfect conversational skills.
C: Ya, you like to talk. I like to listen. It'll work perfect for us after we get married.
K: Wowowowo.... Marriage? where did that come from?
C: Come on K, you know am the best guy around to marry you. either the better ones are married or there are ugly bastards like A, whom you'd never marry, even out of pity.
K: what makes u think you are not from A's category?
C: You indeed are a cruel woman.

Day two


07: 45am
( Fabulous is in town for Diwali. Her first in two years. A post on her will follow soon.)
Fabulous: Coffee or brunch?
K: Brunch. I need to talk.
Fabulous: About your writing?
K: No.
Fabulous:  Men is it, then.
K: (a sign and a drag... ) Yaaaa...
Fabulous: Why do you even bother yourself with these dick heads?
K: I am confused and I need solutions, not sermons.
Fabulous: Yayayayaya....

11:20 am over Brunch

After a long narration of the 'Marry me' saga. Fabulous in her contained frustration responds.
Fabulous: Let me list your faults with all the men in your life.
1)Your biggest fault is that you just treat men too well. - it's cardinal sin. that makes them think you are not generic nice but nice to 'them'.
2) You never insult a man. Insulating his ego; you proclaim that you are a cow!
3) You are generous and caring. Never spend so much time on a man. he will become a buddy if-and-when he has to. A man only understands gifts as sexual favors. Using a man in many other ways is most important.
4) You don't show a man his true place. soft cushioning makes them think they have better value than their actual price tag.

I have a glazed look, thinking of how my chain of life slipped since she left the country. How she had anchored it with high heels and kick arse attitude, of how everything disrespectful actually belonged in the trash can. She shakes me up, almost screaming, "Do you get me? Or have u become a retard, and need me to write it for you?"

In a sudden bout of emotion, I get up and hug her, whispering a 'thank you'. She dumps the fork in one hand (deciding against her wish to stab me) and says: 'I love you bitch. Remember who you are! You are not a settler, never have been one - and as long as I am alive; you will never be one.'

7:10pm In conversation with Mom. 
Mom: "Oyster seeker called to wish Diwali. The boy loves you and is still obsessed with the idea of marriage. He still calls me 'Ma saaheb'. Are you sure we should never think of him in 'that' way.' (the words 'your husband' are forbidden. the consequences dire.)
K: ( I wink and  peck her) Yesssss, MOM!
Mom: Did you like the Pilot boy?
K: No. He told me a lot of things I could not live with.
Mom: Is there Nothing good in a any man any more? Why won't you like anyone, beta?
K: Mom, I have become the man I wanted to marry; unfortunately, the men have become the women I'd never marry.

Two Tin cans and a String....

I throw up. I grew up with the Princess Diana syndrome - it's just not restricted to bulimia. there is so much more to it, I'd like to quantify it someday. I know too many women who throw up, so I would not call it odd. Sometimes, I throw up in my mind. It's quite real, for that time. Like dying in a dream.  

I keep fumbling on my laptop and hurt my nails, spoil my manicure and wonder whoever reads on whatever?
Since the invention of E-mail, at my puberty; the most mails I have received, are from shoppers providing discounts - on everything inclusive of a penis, which I thankfully do not have!
Sometimes I think, how traumatic, to be born a man! How irrationally judgmental and demanding.

I often simply stare, never looking directly in the eye. I have learnt the coy glance without throwing the obvious coy look. My mother taught me that one, unconsciously, I suppose; she worked that look when my father's rich friends visited. I can not communicate, men have extreme reactions to a beautiful woman talking - either they are mesmerized or they are disgusted.

Women have the same reaction to a more beautiful women eating. It's offensive, you know. I often eat prior to leaving the house + all the alcohol keeps you full. I talk as little to the men around as I can - the fear of sounding too smart or too dumb rests on my shoulders.

I often act impressive, and impassive to their achievements.You know, all men, and I mean ALL men feel that women are dumb, in some way or the other. Be it your father, friend, brother, lover, pimp... they all talk in that annoying, 'don't strain your brain, darling' tone. They find it adorable that their knowledge supersedes a woman's ignorance on 'Kung Fu - grasshopper or a trojan in a lap top or the bonnet of a sedan'.

I communicate with people like I used to with my neighbor, through our tin telephones. We said and heard all we needed to hear and were happy. Es ist it. With all the Facebook, Twitter and Shittier crap.... people are on islands far away and on mind-lofts that are further distanced.

"I keep screaming into a void and till my words gather moss, rot and start to disintegrate.
I worry for all the unsaid, unheard things.
I now call thoughts things.
It's a kind of frightening cruelty that I seek to evade.
Eons ago, I read some soothing words somewhere, I search for that book endlessly.
I am an actress living my film in an aside. I talk to me too much now, in my head are debates, chaotic conversations and even accusing fights - sometimes a destinarian resignation that only comes form feeling physical pain.
I fear I may lose it, then I fear that I may not. That I may have to live with partial madness of a cynic and that of a drugged optimist.
I rewrite my story from memory, to fill the endless blank pages of my life with something sensational - to not let it seem mundane and a stupid waste."

Men are my subject of interest and exploitation. I am the USED. small gifts in return of bigger bargains. "it's a bad deal, Q, a very bad deal." "But I need a car, a chauffeur, a wallet, a hand around my arm, a pair of lips to talk about the world, bottles of alcohol, lines of coke. I have needs too!" I stumble and my throat swells in a overwhelming feeling to cry, instead I throw up.

Wise capitalist once told me, 'the value of a woman is noted by the amount of men she can attract and not sleep with.' I am d kind of woman wise men repel, and successful desperate empty hasty men want to admire.
And marry.
that is the worst! Marry, why in god's name would you want to marry me? Why?
"I do want to marry, sometime. but i don't want to marry you. For now, just learn to bang right. I'm quite tired of giving you instructions."
Between, did you not fall in love with me instantly because I was not the kind to nag you with the "M" word?
MEN ARE SUCH FOOLS. They always want what they can not have.
Wise capitalist once told me, ' women are most attractive, when they won't give a man what he wants.'

I would like men who are uncommon, ugly or carelessly rich. But which other woman won't? I hate cheap-stakes, talking about gifts always in future tense. Fabulous says, 'it's an ugly man's way of retaining a beautiful woman.... the carrot at the end of a string.'

Maybe, like her, I should get myself a job. something fabulous. like a writer, or a photographer or a museum curator - they all use such fancy words to beehive men. Something that makes men believe that their lives have a meaning, a purpose, a goal. Something that they can show off... " I am dating Y... who is the Director of Jamboreejumpings" or something as irrelevant on those lines...

Men, like women, want to marry a designation, a place, a skin color, a figure, a wardrobe, a kind of 'taste' in all things popularly good. Men pretend, just as commonly as women pout.

It's been a year since I have had decent sex. It's been a life time since I've had great sex... I may never have mind-boggling sex... Indian men can not have sex (leaving a handful whom I have not had sex with); with their, limping little poodle penises. And we live in the land of Kamasutra! Seriously. And they fucking blame a woman for faking an orgasm. what do u want us to do... get bored and go off to sleep over your sasquatch egos?    

Maybe I should jump over the fence, get a pussy.
Maybe this living life business is just not my thing.
Maybe, I need to get a job, get a vibrator and get my own pair of happiness.
Maybe another Xanax will help me think clearer.
Maybe, I should go on weed or shrooms instead. Be a part of the 'green revolution'.

I am thinking and talking constantly. I am thinking woman. I am disturbed by the banal that people ignore. I too cry over Ethiopian children, I even buy Ethiopian cigarettes to help their economy.
Maybe, I should become a social worker.
Maybe make a trip to America wearing a saree. Europe has no money left.
I need to make a living; maybe get a man?

I read the depth in the 1,040 words above and I want to romaticize my illness as a psychosis. Maybe, I should write a book on the superficial genius of the charades within our deeply intellectual and financially opulent society.
Maybe I can title it - 'Society is dead.' And talk like a corpse, dancing in mirth.
Maybe I should consult a psychologist before hand.
Maybe retain the madness to elevate the bizarreness of the book.

Sigh* Smile*
I think I'm going to throw up again.

Conversations

While ordering a round of drinks.

Him: Only a certain kind of women like Bloody Mary.
K: Then, I am that certain kind of woman.

Why not? I'm asking, why not?

People should celebrate a single woman's madness. 
Just the way they glorify the superficiality of a marriage posed in pictures or the emotional poverty of a successful man.

Surviving through the dark night.

My Knight was asleep, I knocked at this mind, but the labor of daylight, rests his body and sooths his mind into REM. K in bated breath, battled her mind and shot two arrows with a comfort that they would reach and be felt when the time was right.

~ Sleep wont arrive anywhere close to me. A little breeze slips through the curtains and feeds it secretly. I lay awake, silent, starving for warmth and slumber. And you, my dear, lie in peace, dreaming quaint dreams in borrowed cold air. While I shiver in woolen socks. Tis is not fair.

~ The hours are passing slower than the minutes I spend with you. I look out of my window, into a lonely street, now at peace, in remains of cracker wrappers for bed cover. In some waters nearby; the elephant headed, pot bellied god with his rat are gratefully dissolving. Here, I stand, filled with thoughts to my gray brim, yet parched. The WorldWideWeb offers many strangers with familiar faces, alas none that I can share my insomnia with. Their clamor resonates a loud song of daylight. And I have a wooden cuckoo for company, she peeks out at intervals, reminding me that I too exist. Time travels unfairly putting parts of the world to sleep and the rest wide awake.

The Cat Race

I wrote this one long time ago. There is something I am miserable at - my personal and official relationships with people. I'm an emotional, over indulgent fool. The following was an article written for a reputed magazine - I've held on to it, only to re-read and remind myself that if I bloody well know all of this, then why can't I F*ing follow it? Then again...

The Dos and Don't's for the Have and Have-Nots' in a growing competitive work environment.

Every crisply dressed working woman will tell you that corporate competition is not only about delivering more than you promise, or beating your deadlines or maintaining a perfect code of conduct. All of the above is mandatory, and be sure your competitor is already doing all this and more. Here are some brisk pointers to your way on top.  

# Be professional. Professionals are honest to the act (work) and not the person behind the act. Do not confuse people with their decisions. To achieve that – build your own level of clarity within your personality.

# Do not judge. Use the oldest and the wisest trick in the book – ‘Watch and learn’. You’ll go farther than you desire.

# Do not forgive nastiness from any point. Do not encourage others to do what you would think twice about. Do not make scapegoats of others. You won’t climb higher if you are habituated to pulling people down.

# Do not compare and contrast. You may take longer initially to rise, but use the time to build the ladder. Identify people who can influence decisions in the company. Identify their and your areas of interests and strengths. Work on them!

# Reserve your opinions and suggestions for friends and family. Everyone seeks an alternative opinion – only to reconfirm theirs. However do not ignore a genuine need.

# Appeal to the mind and not just the heart, ‘a bad decision made for a good cause is still a bad decision’. Logic goes a long way.

# Do not shoulder responsibilities or a colleague’s crisis. Listen and pat the back – do not empathize. Do not let their ‘words’ color your mind and outlook.  

 

# Colleagues can be friends, and friends can become foes. Start by treating your colleagues with silent respect. Let time decide your friendship.

# Stay away from a gossiping colleague. And farther away from a ‘friendly’ colleague who warns you against others. And farthest from ‘the teams’ at your place of work.    

# Irrespective of how you feel towards the organization – put your interests forth. Personal growth fosters professional growth. If you go disillusioned to work, your skill will suffer, and you may never deliver your best.

# Switch Off post work. Treat it like a part of your life. Not your life. This works as a deadline – it will help you effectively manage time.

# Set realistic goals, and leave a margin for mistakes. Remember you are only human! Do not let anyone else forget that either.  

# Do not push people, and do not let people push you. Deadlines are excellent to out-perform other colleagues but they are catalysts in burning you out.   

# Inspire your colleagues, do not belittle or under play their efforts in a joint project.

# Appreciate every person for the good qualities they have. Harness those and build your work related to them. Your colleagues will not only respond to you as a person on priority but also their overall performance will be better. 

# Restrict criticism, instead start ‘critically appreciating’ your and others work.

# Know your job well, but also the periphery. Multitasking is the key today, but do not let it be your habit. This will tempt you to interfere in your colleague's task, also you will become a bait for all the work someone else did not turn-up to do! Have the knowledge, apply it only during crises. 

 

# Choose and decide your ‘character’ when at work and stick to it! If the ‘silent, demure kind’ works better for you than the ‘friendly, chirpy kind’ then work at ameliorating it. Often a fluctuating persona confuse people, retain honesty in your role.    

# God is definitely in the details, but never compromise on the bigger picture for the details. No one appreciates the skill of a knit picker – Not even you! It affects in the long run – do not be persnickety.   

#  Finally, assess your goals like the company asses the KRA. Are you heading in the right direction? If not, return, revisit your challenges and restructure your approach.

# Your aim should always be you, then the firm and then the clients and then the work force. That way, you will always be in the ‘game’.

The first thing to do starting now is to create a table of ‘retain, remove, resolve’

Retain the qualities you have.

Remove the one that you believe may hamper your growth.

Resolve to incorporate the ones you aspire.

See the list every day and figure where you are at the end of every week!       

 Btw... this shit works wonders! I have tried it.... time to try it again!

Men are dumb. Women are dreamy

It is an undisputed fact. Said by many, experienced by millions.

here some of it goes :

"Woman: Why didn't you do 'xyzee'? 
Man: I forgot.
Woman: How can you forget?
Man: Because I am dumb.
Woman: You have never forgotten to do 'abcee' ever, and you forgot the only thing i asked you to do! You are a very cunning, twisted man."

"Woman1: (sobbing) My life sucks.
Woman2: What? No. what happened?
Woman1: He popped the question.
Woman2: (screeches) WOW, Finally (now jumps all over the place) I'm so happy for you. Congratulations!
Woman1: No, it feels shitty. No ring, no candle light dinner, no music, no flowers, no romance, no getting down n his knees, no making me feel that the world has stopped. [no, it did feel that the world has stopped, and I'm doomed.] Is this too much to expect... what do i ask for anyway? (sobbing, profusely)
Woman2: Crappy, what a numb skull! He should have at least gotten a bottle of wine! Am so sorry babes, but look at the bright side... He finally had the balls to propose marriage to you! I know he's been rehearsing for a while.
Woman1: (sarcastic) Oh, ya, you know what he said?, 'So when can we have dinner with my parents?' He was rehearsing to say this, then seriously, I am the dumbest woman on this planet to fall in love with a guy with an EQ of -10! What am I going to tell my kids, when they ask, 'how did dad propose to you?, 'I'd say he said let's eat with your to-be-in-laws!' How unromantic and crappy and crass is that?
Woman2: Ya, but you know... we could make him re-do the whole thing!"


 

Conversation

Antiques Trader : I am most afraid of you intelligent people. You all become so unproductive so soon. Like going on a strike. I'm offering you a job, it maybe mundane, but show some kind of respect to that offer. You respond with 'I don't do charity!'
K: You are right. We are on strike, in a more self-destructive, 'I shall deprive you the pleasure of making me suffer' way. Most of the work is not what we seek, and we are now refusing to take out someone's trash. I'd rather not do anything, than write empty letters...

The politics of Writing

I received many emails from a new set of blog-readers. Some were nice, some curt, some sexist, some thought my writing was thought provoking, some thought it was mundane dross - what most of the mails did not skip was : 'that I was K, a single woman, looking for a man, with a seriously contorted sense of love, and someone who unabashedly writes about her affections for the 'pen-named' people in her life' (I shall visit this point again). That apart one interesting email, spoke of two different posts regarding 'my parents' (I shall visit this one, too), and the e-mailer's response to my flow of emotions, was I would say, aaaah.... touchy  

A flurry of thoughts passed my head .... with much zapping of electricity. Surprisingly, it was not out of anger but out of a deep understanding. Like finding something very precious when, randomly cleaning your wardrobe. I found it - I found what fellow blog readers wanted me to be - they wanted me to write my life, my identity as a single, as a woman, as a worker, as a blogger.

It was like a funny thing, I studied in geometry - circles intersecting circles - and there is often that one circle that nearly overlaps all of them...

It is time to bust the myth of writing, mine, in the least.

I believe that I come from the tradition of story tellers. Not writers, per say. I come from a long lineage of myth makers and liars and experience thieves.

{I am that child in your school who, made up stories about her damaged ligament because she was too bored to do Karate, or the one that coughed up and pretended to have a heart congestion, only because the Hindi period was too boring to suffer. I was that kid.}


A Mixed Bag is not about anything, least of all, me. It is about a zapping mind, it is about feelings collected and vomited, it is about making love happen, and the wrath of loss. It is a MIXED BAG for heaven sakes, and it is a not the, like thousand other mixed bags with timeless treasures.

There is little solace, and much danger in believing that you can write only about yourself, or from your experiences... It is a myth maker's duty to create, to build on, to go beyond - to make tress walk, and frogs talk, and Ogres weep... And it is a story teller's duty to never over adorn the fabric of the story, to never let the essence (read: fragrance) over power the essential.

Finally, every post is a story, it is a stand alone. It may have a part of 'me', but that is only because, it is comes from me. It is not me. I am not A Mixed Bag. As the ancients say, "it is a liar's first trick; 'Never lie, but never tell the whole truth'."

Now, I visit them!
~ I have left out a lot of intimate sexual detail, that somewhere lies on a word file called 'junk mind'. The dammed thing is so good, it elates me to know that some one's going to jack off/flick the bean on it!
~ The parental posts may not be about my parents, may not be about me, at all. Just in case, my parents read it, they may not know what the hell I am talking about!

Think, dear reader, think... all is not what it seems; there are many holes punched in, many may's to combat. The uncertainty of distinguishing, makes for the magic; and the magic is provided by the Muse. I take no credit for it.

Code decode

There is something overbearing about writing in ALL CAPS. Something very boisterous, like a Siberian Husky before a street dog.

That said, there is something insignificant about  writing in small non hyphenated words. Something very timid, like a street dog before a Siberian Husky.

If you look close enough, you will be amazed at how, the way you write, can convey the way you want your writing to be read.

Just like that...

Barbad Hone Ke liye bhi awkat lagti hai...

You need to have a certain caliber, even to be destroyed.

Polish your Silver

A talent is a gift. Albeit, you must brush it up regularly.
[This one is more a reminder to me, than anyone else.]

To Flee or to Fly is the Question.

Yanna Maria, help me, please help me. By now, you know, I'm not the begging sort. Nope, Nah, Nalla, Nicht, Naahi! As Oyster Seeker puts it - I have an ego, a huge one; reflecting his, of course. For the earthly realm and mere mortals, I agree. Acceptance is the first stage to blahblahshit...

But then, read again....now between the lines, in the curves of every word, the beat of every post...

There are some people who only serve the Gods/the Muses/the Gurus/the soul/the cosmos.... from Tansen to Sunshine to K; we are trivial, timid, obliging, servile, obedient, docile, obsequious, live-in laborers to that force. I, for heaven sakes, am a pitiful servant, who is dying to sign-up for a lifetime of slavery! 

However, fortitude is fortuitous in nature.

For a king, it was a spider; for a blind man, it was a vision. What will it be for me? Kay Sera Sera...

religions and ways of living

Christianity, Zoroastrian and Islam are religions amongst others. Hinduism like the Greek mythological chronicles is not a religion. It is an account of many thinkers' philosophies; a guide to ways of living and understanding what life is all about. Be it a daily task of whether to bathe before eating or after; to weather we have a soul or a consciousness.

Stop making Hinduism hindutva, it is a humble request.

Aazaadi

Jab yaar ki soach ek tarfi hoya ye,
toh use yaar nahi rakhte;
kyunki soach ka koi illaj nahi hota.

When your lover's vision is jaundiced,
you must let go off that lover;
because you can not cure a man of his thoughts.

Am I screwed in the head?

I am currently reading Milan Kundera's the Unbearable Lightness of Being. I'm partially in love with Kundera coz he echoes my mind on the unstructured expressions of spiritualism (My ex-boss would call this description 'spiritualism my arse, k', and would have asked me to rewrite it in a way that would not annoy sane people.) Digressions apart, I asked the Best man, from his collection, to get me Steven Pressfield's The Virtues of War, which I hear is a brilliant account on Alexander.

His reaction was, "Kya, since when did you start reading stuff like this? Were you not reading Kundera? Kundera and Pressfield do not go in the same sentence! Tera dimag hai ki Sybil Isabel Dorsett ki aatma? 


Seriously, what is so incorrect about reading Kundera and Pressfield, Swift and  de Beauvoir, Dawkins and Coelho, Sheldon and Shakespeare simulteneously or subsequently? Can't Archie and Camus earn equal respect on my bookshelf?

gyaan

A night of partying, with the R, Best Man and Mini Me in tow, K realized that it is harder to be kind than to be smart. Come backs and comical punches are easier to throw, than the warmth of pat-on-the-back of someone on whom the joke has not dawned, after the moment has passed. 

(That said, K believes that sarcasm requires high levels of IQ; a quicker and nastier comeback, higher levels of IQ.) R and K have always excelled at being bitchy. And as they say, Bitches are like chillies, they give the edge to an otherwise bland palette.

Harbor line thought - 
maybe, just maybe, that is one reason why we know so many brilliant/skilled/able people have no character/manners/goodness at all.

writing

Jab tak ek kahani khatam nahi hoti,
tab tak doosri ki manzil tay karna jalbaazi hoti hai....

( Until one story has ended,
It is hasty to conclude the ending of the second one.)

I hate men, do I?

With multiple posts stating my 'low' opinion of men, in general. I found many of my blog readers acknowledge that I sound like a man eater/man hater. It all started when '2 weeks of freedom' (a post on him will follow soon), said MG sounded like a dike blog. Now, that was an insult beyond comprehension for someone who studied sexuality. My only rescue was I DON'T .

After a chat with Sunshine, I introspected, then realized that I do write my mind, and my mind has some really strong opinions. The second conclusion is that people who read my blog do not read it properly, either the glance through the words or they dissect it syllable by syllable.

Another aspect is from the first point of contention - I'm surrounded by men, they have been a vital part of my life they are my dad, brothers, brothers-in-law, friends, the loves of my life and et al. My women friends are my soul, but when women meet, they talk about the most vital aspects of their life - which are MEN.

Coming back to do I hate men. I don't think so... here's something that I like about men :
~ They have the innate ability to come to your rescue at any hour, any situation.
~ They can hold a decent conversation about almost anything - from technology to movies.
~ Their levels of patience and determination are enviable. Be it a pet project or a woman; they simply go for it.
~ Most of my friends can be gender neutral and courteous at the same time.
~ They do not have deadlines and will drop you at any hour any where you want.
~ They listen.
~ They have solutions.... which is a big PLUS.
~ If they are your friends, they will not be your enemies.
~ They are great at bitching, pulling leg, and cutting friends to size without being remotely offensive.
~ They are amazing shopping companions. They help you focus, and save time.
~ They are the best beer pals to have.
~ They are very sporty and very accommodating bowling partners.
~ They don't care if you are dressed for the occasion, they are just happy that you turned up!   

The Metrosexual man carries a Lip balm, a Nail file and a hand sanitizer with him all the time; mind you he is stick straight, and looks like a stuffed baboon. He is, by far, the cleanest man I know.

The Best man and I scout for interesting food joints across the city. And he's willing to sit at an Irani joint in his business clothes.

The Drama King is a my best escort into anything, be it a long chats, a drive, be it wine, be it dinner, be it gymning. He's had me screaming at him, clawing him into getting my way and being very accommodating with his - 'Mademoiselle, we should go there, we should do this....' Btw, the man is a walking gift store; and ranks high amongst the most generous men in my life.

The Oyster Seeker is a phenomenal friend, and an ever evolving man. With 'men don't shave' machismo, the man has gone on to get this torso and arms waxed - only to acknowledge; K, it feels great! He also has the finest table manners, I seek for in a man.


The Capricorn Rook is also amongst the 3 men I know, apart from hajaar women who, check the Loo of the place, before taking it up.

The Chameleon who is a lost puppy in a Mall or a salon. He's most vulnerable during a clean-up, and most confident during a fight.   

Do I hate men, I do, parts of them, and their conditioning of masculinity. But there is so much I love about them too.

The Weekend Marriage

With most of my married friends now balancing their lives simultaneously by being professional thisandthat and professional husband and wife. I unsurfaced a new kind of marriage (apart from the long distance one) - the weekend one! I found it incredibly fascinating - so here is a brief account for some weekend hubby-wifey.

Pudgy Fingers and his wife are both high fliers; about three years into their marriage they decided to take weekends off, irrespective of a world crises. So they fly, travel, party, work 16 hours a day for 5 days a week, and bond over the 48 hours that the weekend gives them. As Pudgy Fingers puts it, " It's our out time. We are free to gravely insult each other or passionately work-out together or just drive out of the city or laze in bed for two whole days. We set the rules that we'd be ourselves for the weekend and weekend alone. This gives me a week with myself and my life, with her on the periphery! There are too many plus points to not having your partner in your face."


Childmom claims that she clearly does not do any kind of bonding with her lesser half through out the week." It's not possible to talk to each other without landing into an argument or harboring an ill feeling. We both are strained with our work and our over-achiever attitudes. We fell in love because that was the driving force of our togetherness, now it's going to swallow us. We realized it soon and stopped playing the 'my tush is redder than your tush game' game. So we are our bosses from Monday to Friday with schedules stuck on the pin board, come Saturday and we yearn to be with each other. Now even a grocery shopping is an experience, not a chore. Also the weekend schedule allows us to be more accommodating and sharing, and it's great for our marriage." 

R who had the most out-of-the-box wedding is now shuttling between the city of work and the city her husband works. However, it does not infuriate her in the least, " He is a lazy bum, I knew that way before we got married. I like to unwind by dancing my head off and he likes to be a couch potato with the TV remote as an attached limb. I moved continents for him, and then he moved cities for better prospects. I get that, it's freaking annoying but i get it. It is better that we spend the weekend together than 5 days a week cribbing about why we are not spending quality time together, why he is not dining with my friends or why I'm not watching the movie with him. So, I travel Friday night or Saturday spend a good day with him and return Sunday afternoon. I get my time, he gets his, and we have our time. Its a win-win situation."

Mini me has a more pragmatic tale of love with her beau working in the same industry as they are extremely competitive (enough to get each other sacked). "We both are very rude professionals, we have at many points cut each other short for our gain; but that was before we fell in love. With marriage, we became worse, we'd get the work home and take the home to work. So we both decided to be flat-mates for week and husband-wife for the weekend. Many of our new colleagues do not know that we are married, we are that professional. The weekly rules are clear, he does everything for himself, by himself and at his schedule. I do not touch any of his gadgets and vice verse. The weekend comes with its rules too, we do not discuss work or any thing related to it. If we are out and are spotted by our colleagues, we ignore them. The weekend is for us, and us alone, through the week we make time for our dinners and hang outs - weekends are for close friends, family, and our future plans, and over time, we have become very thrifty with that space."

I like and sound of it, the functioning seems a little crass but hey, if that saves your marriage from being a cliche one, its worth a shot.

An Island of Verse - Kamala Das (1934-2009)

Poems are not people, maybe about a poet, but not people. A verse can never totally be intravenously linked to the person who wrote it; if you do, it'd be your folly. A person must be free of his/her poetry to conduct his/ her own life.

Who are you to tell me how I should write? How I should live? Which ideology I must conform to?
I have a mind, I don't need to borrow yours.
~ Kamala Das/ Madhavikutty/ Amy/ Kamala Suraiya taught me this.

(It took me sometime to write this post. It felt odd to write about someone inspiring, now that they were physically dead. Although, I do not think her life mattered to me as much as her work.)

I started reading Kamala during college, like everyone else. My initial reactions were to hide away the anthology, lest someone read it and judged me for reading it. Reading it aloud felt like hot tarmac on my tongue. The very next year, I wrote an essay on her, was thankful that her work was a part of my study. She definitely was an intriguing, unconventional and a bold poet to study. Her unafraid expression of love, lust and loathing for social norms was very welcome.

For someone who read rhythmical, meter structured Frost, Tagore, Naidu, Brooks, Wordsworth, Browning - it was absurdly refreshing to read a woman who wrote about the follies of her heart, the desires of her body, and the not the Bazaars, or the lilies or the rainbow or the dammed nightingale. Kamala was human, alive, brutally honest and confidant as a woman poet. She lived like a woman, cooked like a woman, bore children like a woman.... then went on to become more than just a woman. Her work embodies it all - the chores, the duty, the loathing, the optimism, the need... all of it!

By the midst of my essay, I read that she was re-married to a man who followed Islam and would settle in the silence of a pardah. I was not surprised, some part of my mind, by then, was asking for a drastic decision; more professional though, like writing bhajans! Nevertheless, here she was, the wayward child of Indian English poetry, quitting the brashness of her 'writing of the body' and moving backstage, rejecting the furors from her fan clubs.

I read her verse off and on, only because it reminds me of my mind, it makes me shameless and subsequently fearless. She should be read, because, she brought Indian women writers out of their closet - had the same impact that French women had on women writers globally. 

I often like to remember Kamala by what expresses her mind the best - the very same that introduced her to the poetry circles within the country.


An Introduction
Kamala Das

I don’t know politics but I know the names
Of those in power, and can repeat them like
Days of week, or names of months, beginning with Nehru.
I am Indian, very brown, born in Malabar,
I speak three languages, write in
Two, dream in one.
Don’t write in English, they said, English is
Not your mother-tongue. Why not leave
Me alone, critics, friends, visiting cousins,
Every one of you? Why not let me speak in
Any language I like? The language I speak,
Becomes mine, its distortions, its queerness
All mine, mine alone.
It is half English, half-Indian, funny perhaps, but it is honest,
It is as human as I am human, don’t
You see? It voices my joys, my longings, my
Hopes, and it is useful to me as cawing
Is to crows or roaring to the lions, it
Is human speech, the speech of the mind that is
Here and not there, a mind that sees and hears and
Is aware. Not the deaf, blind speech
Of trees in storm or of monsoon clouds or of rain or the
Incoherent mutterings of the blazing
Funeral pyre.

I was child, and later they
Told me I grew, for I became tall, my limbs
Swelled and one or two places sprouted hair.
 When I asked for love, not knowing what else to ask
For, he drew a youth of sixteen into the
Bedroom and closed the door, He did not beat me
But my sad woman-body felt so beaten.
The weight of my breasts and womb crushed me.
I shrank Pitifully.
Then … I wore a shirt and my
Brother’s trousers, cut my hair short and ignored
My womanliness. Dress in sarees, be girl
Be wife, they said. Be embroiderer, be cook,
Be a quarreler with servants. Fit in. Oh,
Belong, cried the categorizers. Don’t sit
On walls or peep in through our lace-draped windows.
Be Amy, or be Kamala. Or, better
Still, be Madhavikutty. It is time to
Choose a name, a role. Don’t play pretending games.
Don’t play at schizophrenia or be a
Nympho. Don’t cry embarrassingly loud when
Jilted in love …
I met a man, loved him. Call
Him not by any name, he is every man
Who wants. a woman, just as I am every
Woman who seeks love. In him . . . the hungry haste
Of rivers, in me . . . the oceans’ tireless
Waiting. Who are you, I ask each and everyone,
The answer is, it is I. Anywhere and,
Everywhere, I see the one who calls himself I
In this world, he is tightly packed like the
Sword in its sheath. It is I who drink lonely
Drinks at twelve, midnight, in hotels of strange towns,
It is I who laugh, it is I who make love
And then, feel shame, it is I who lie dying
With a rattle in my throat. I am sinner,
I am saint. I am the beloved and the
Betrayed. I have no joys that are not yours, no
Aches which are not yours.I too call myself I.

Now some of my favorites - 

The Maggots (from The Descendants)
At sunset, on the river bank, Krishna
Loved her for the last time and left...
That night in her husband's arms, Radha felt
So dead that he asked, What is wrong,
Do you mind my kisses, love? And she said,
No, not at all, but thought, What is
It to the corpse if the maggots nip?

Love (From Summer in Calcutta)
Until I found you,
I wrote verse, drew pictures,
And, went out with friends
For walks…
Now that I love you,
Curled like an old mongrel
My life lies, content,
In you….

The Looking Glass

Getting a man to love you is easy

Only be honest about your wants as

Woman. Stand nude before the glass with him

So that he sees himself the stronger one

And believes it so, and you so much more

Softer, younger, lovelier. Admit your

Admiration. Notice the perfection

Of his limbs, his eyes reddening under

The shower, the shy walk across the bathroom floor,

Dropping towels, and the jerky way he

Urinates. All the fond details that make

Him male and your only man. Gift him all,

Gift him what makes you woman, the scent of

Long hair, the musk of sweat between the breasts,

The warm shock of menstrual blood, and all your

Endless female hungers. Oh yes, getting

A man to love is easy, but living

Without him afterwards may have to be

Faced. A living without life when you move

Around, meeting strangers, with your eyes that

Gave up their search, with ears that hear only

His last voice calling out your name and your

Body which once under his touch had gleamed

Like burnished brass, now drab and destitute.

   
The Stone Age (from The Old Playhouse and Other Poems)
Fond husband, ancient settler in the mind,
Old fat spider, weaving webs of bewilderment,
Be kind. You turn me into a bird of stone, a granite
Dove, you build round me a shabby room,
And stroke my pitted face absent-mindedly while
You read. With loud talk you bruise my pre-morning sleep,
You stick a finger into my dreaming eye. And
Yet, on daydreams, strong men cast their shadows, they sink
Like white suns in the swell of my Dravidian blood,
Secretly flow the drains beneath sacred cities.
When you leave, I drive my blue battered car
Along the bluer sea. I run up the forty
Noisy steps to knock at another's door.
Though peep-holes, the neighbours watch,
they watch me come
And go like rain. Ask me, everybody, ask me
What he sees in me, ask me why he is called a lion,
A libertine, ask me why his hand sways like a hooded snake
Before it clasps my pubis. Ask me why like
A great tree, felled, he slumps against my breasts,
And sleeps. Ask me why life is short and love is
Shorter still, ask me what is bliss and what its price....

Beautiful people : My Daddy Strongest!

http://www.youtube.com/watch#!v=8F0DkM76iq0&feature=related

We all have loved the advert. There was something more to it - something that every child has for her/ his father, for example - my dad and I smile infectiously. We look-up to our dad/ daddy/ baba/appa/ papa/ poppsy very subconsciously. Today I talk about him, the cool Mr. Bennett, in the background, who gets very little space in the fore front because he's ensuring a smooth running backstage.

Last night I made dad cancel his weekend work trip to meet a very pushy boy from 'boy watching'. I liked the boy (for a change). Dad heard me out with patience, looked at the guy's credentials and flatly refused. I, being as bull headed as my dad, insisted that he met the man in question and then make his judgment. Things did not go as planned and the boy in question decided that I was 'too much for his family and him to handle'. The whole dynamics of financial disparity and conservatism got to our throats.

So it was time to tell dad that the meeting would never happen. I expected him to be furious, irate at my hasty and over confidant decision. He quietly rescheduled his trip and left the house. Returned twenty minutes later with my favorite breakfast and a movie. We sat and all he asked was, "Tell me, what went wrong?" I did, for whole two hours. He did not flinch, did not take his calls - just sat and heard me out. Then he spoke, patting my hand. 

"I can not possibly tell you what happens to a man when, he knows he's borne a daughter. More so difficult when the man is me and the daughter, you. When he sees his daughter grow with a mind of her own, with mood swings, with boys as friends, with activism that will make him the answering machine to all the relatives and a shield for his daughter. For a father, his daughter is everything that he strives for. With a son, maybe I would have been more relaxed. However, the love of a daughter is unmatched. Every father struggles through it all to make it to the top, only because he wants to give his children a better life.

With us; you were different, even as a toddler. You once got nine puppies and hid them under the bed from your mom. Silly girl, did not realize that they would not possibly stay there. When we questioned you, you said, " they did not have a house, we have a big one, so I got them here." You also brought random people home for lunches, fought for what you thought was correct - even at the age of 11; when you threw the duster back at your class teacher and we were called to school. You were a little angry idiot who understood that people could have two nationalities and there were people living between borders with no nationalities. You did not know the terms  - 'migrants, no mans land, dual citizenship'. Your fool of a teacher hit you for her incompetence and your arrogance. I knew your school was killing your IQ, so I got you books. You devoured them.

You were going to be my 'teen' nightmare. I knew that the boys would hound you, so I had my defenses ready. But you turned out to be a very responsible - and a very aggressive one. Your college activities, Poetry awards, morchas, NGO's, the Eunuchs, and other-kind of friends worried me sick. I knew you were right, but such proud exhibition of individualistic thoughts was going to get eyebrows raised. I've blamed myself for getting you into the habit of reading and latter, writing. I did not expect you to read all the books I got you, and did not expect you to continue from the 'travelogue' writing days. Your mother often complains that my encouragement of your education has led you to become a free spirit that no one can marry. What she does not realize, is that it my proud moment. It is what every father wants, that their kids become more than an extension of their personality.

I am not afraid for your future, not even that you will choose a wrong man. I won't let you. You have held every pious aspect of this family, you are an annapurna in your mother's shadow, you have raised your niece, and seen more struggle than any 28-year-old I know. You have risen, time and again, with lesser flaws and a stronger will. As a father, I have done my best to get you everything your finger pointed to. I may have been indulgent, but it is because I never wanted you to grow up with a lack of anything. You were not much of a materialistic child, I remember gifting you your first Rushdie and you said you'd treasure it for your child. You were 19 then. That was a time when your sister was buying a new outfit everyday, your cousins were comparing bags. You were happy with Midnights Children.

I never forgot you were a girl, and that you'd catch up with them. You have your share of gold, diamonds, shoes, bags and clothes. However, you are more than them, and that is what I am thankful to god for. You my princess, are not cut out to be an ordinary wife, a nagging mother and an old woman haggling over grocery prices. I see you writing, lecturing and being more inspiring than your younger counterparts. I want a partner who would, like me, know your value and give all it takes to keep you happy. I will keep refusing, till I find that man for you. It is my duty as a father.

I want a better man for you, a man who'd be just as proud to be a part of your life, as I am. I refuse to share your love with someone less worthy."

so be it...

Transparency is a very expensive commodity today. K's very happy to have a bunch full of people who share it with her :)
Capricorn Rook, Best Man, Sunshine, Torch, Drama King, Androgene, Oyster Seeker, Monarch, Childmom, Wise Capitalist, the Monk.... I love you guys. Love you for accepting and loving the chaos that i am, Because it takes courage, so I have discovered. 

from... Kinky Boots

I lurve this film. It is amongst the most inspiring, well scripted, most inyourfuckingface beautiful films I know. I watch it time and again, especially for Lola.

"Red is the color of sex. And sex should not be comfortable." I've died telling that to the beaus and friends in my life.

Loves

I love him :
in a way that love should not be discussed.
in a way that love should not be allowed to be.

Some loves are like body art,
you just have to live with the fact that you have them;
partially a fantasy, partially a scar.

Sometimes the hapless romantic in K reins over her soul, leaving her mind petrified.

It is time. I must go.

It is true that excessivism leads to wisdom. I have failed too many times to fail again. Frankly, I've outdone myself this time. Love, as you know, is my sacred department of failure. When a relationship is 'called off', 'broken' or 'dies its own death'; it is a failure - of the time, emotion and energy spent on the relationship.

I have been assuaged by many, 'it was the correct decision to make'. Nonetheless, I feel a lack, a lack that comes from being a woman. For a long time, approximately 600 days, the woman in my head provided excuses for the loop-holes in my man. However, it is common knowledge that my sex is cursed with a mind that would make most people laugh. With a hope that would make most people cry. And with a need that would make most people call us pathetic. They do call us pathetic.

Now, this is no weep-wagon. The effect, of the death of my seriously flawed relationship on me, has amazed me. (I like discovering this new me.) It is painless and turmoil free. The moving-over is smooth, and laden with content knowledge. There are many pointers that I've learnt from the Oyster Seeker. He never let the mask fall. His words were pure honey. His silence, an absolute treat. The illusion, a beauty!

A woman once told me, 'the only way to be happy in this world is to observe men.' This time, I took time out and observed them, in retrospect. I wanted to slap myself crimson, and kiss myself purple. 

Guess, it is indeed never too late to stab that woman in my head.

Hmmm... frivilous and interesting

Oyster Seeker sent me a questionnaire to upload on his blog. it was a good peek into my own mind for a change.

I Love –Abundance

I Hate – Sadness, Poverty

I Crave for – Beauty

Love is – Everything

Beauty is– Pleasant, elegant, gracious

Men – are means to an end

Women- are stupid

Perfect Holiday - Beach, Pool, Casino

Walking in the rain – Divinity

Virginity - Half -n- inch of skin

Simplicity - is like Solitaires

Fidelity - is Overrated

Beer – is for Chilling

Make up is - Essential, Minimal

Live-in relationships are– like a Foreword to a story

Romance is - Bliss, it's the Zing that tingles and lingers.

Marriage – should be a profitable barter

Sex - is the purest pleasure principle

Touch - reveals the truth

Success/Riches - Success will bring riches

What is the sexiest single article of clothing a woman can wear - Lingerie, may be a Saree