http://www.giveindia.org/give/images_giveindia/banner5.gif

I woke up from my dream shivering and my body in kind of a spasm. In the dream, I was on a snow covered mountain peak with my sister and another person I do not remember. My sister was frantically digging into the snow to hide our rings; I very vividly recollect one of them was the tiny emerald stone ring I wear on my little finger. We were hiding the rings from Voldemort. Yes! The Dark Lord himself. He was coming for us. That’s when I woke up shivering as if I was in the Himalayas.

Although I had woken up my body was still on the snow covered mountain and wouldn’t stop trembling. I had to tell myself loudly that Voldemort is dead and I am safe and warm in my house, in my bed. After sometime the trembling stopped and I drifted off into a dreamless sleep. Something tells me I am missing magic and fighting the evil.

I always fancied that some man write poetry for me. Not a poetry but somebody wrote an ad copy for me. Saw it yesterday in HT Cafe

"My middle has started whispering my age.
But the little voices inside my head are screaming.
Telling me, run.
Leave lethargy far behind.
...


Beep Beep! Red Alert! Beep Beep!

Loving it

It is raining as if it is the beginning of monsoon. I was about to get out of the house when it started raining. So I thought I will wait it out, but after about 15 minutes and no sign of the rain stopping, armed with my legendary, green umbrella I ventured out into the pouring rain. After all the adventure in finding a rick, sharing it with 2 other girls, and paying more than I should have reached office 9 minutes late. I shouldn’t forget to add that I am wearing white today. So I had very good reason to avoid the rain, but as I am now coming to acknowledge Nature is quite devious when it comes to playing pranks with pretty women in white.

But no matter white clothes turning brown, mud in my toenails, reaching late to meetings, getting wet from head to toe and then freezing in the office, I love rains. And as I do not go by the name Dim or Rascal, I do not wear socks, and since I do not wear socks they don’t get wet in rains, and I don’t have to go around with soggy socks on. But soggy socks or not I would and still love rain.

With the AC turned off and the window open, I am sitting by the window watching the rain and the trees. Not a single soul around. They seem to have abandoned the office.

This is bliss! Nice to occupy the window seat.

but she makes good egg curry

I don’t know what to think of it. How after knowing someone for years you start thinking that you know all the facets of a person’s insanity, but suddenly, out of the blue the person shows a new streak of madness and you are left to come to terms with this massive paradigm shift.

That’s what Ganju did to me yesterday, she ruffled me, just like a bird’s feathers are ruffled when it gives itself a good shake after getting drenched in rain, or, while we are into analogies, like the surface of still water is ruffled when a stone lands on it. She called me yesterday, when I was making last minute changes in my work of the day and thinking about the Motta curry I was going to make once home, incidentally the recipe was given to me by Ganju. Hmm, I see a karmic connection here.

So she called and she asked, ‘Have you seen Shekhar Suman?’

Me: what do you mean?
I mean, isn’t he looking gorgeous, what with 6 pack abs (hope I got that right) and all that, not to forget his new hairstyle.
Me (Concern creeping into my voice): Ganju, are you alright, is something disturbing you?
She just ignored what I said and went on, Gosh! He looks so great yaar. Must have worked out really hard to build all that talle shalle (hope I got that right too).
Hey! May be he took steroids.
Once again my words were ignored or may be they got lost in the air waves or whatever waves that carry telephonic conversations; and she continued.
What talent! He sings so heavenly yaar, she crooned. ‘I thought his first song was mind-blowing, but after listening to his second song I am lost for words.’
For God’s sake Ganju, new research on his singing has found that if subjected to his songs for prolonged period, can cause death, a slow, excruciating death. His audio CDs come with the symbol of a skull and a precautionary note, CAUTION!Handle with Care. Only for severe punishment purposes, accidental exposure should be treated with extensive therapy.
Ganju must have finally paid attention to my words, because she said (with a quivering voice), ‘You are so mean Bhagya, I wish I had never told you about Shekhar Suman’ and she hung up.

I didn’t call her back. I didn’t have the courage to endure few more minutes of discussing Shekhar Suman. But I couldn’t get Ganju out of mind, not when I was buying Mottas on my way home, not while cooking; not even seeing my ma after a week or listening to the accounts of her trip could rid me of the guilt I felt. May be if I had called and spoken to Ganju more often and kept a general track of her, this wouldn’t have happened. Or at least I would have seen some signs of her growing attraction to Shekhar Suman and could have done something before it was too late.

Is there a Shekhar Sumanic anonymous or something like that, where people like Ganju are cured without their knowledge. If there is such a group, I would like to know about it. By helping to cure her of this mania I can redeem myself from the paap of having neglected her all this while.

The road never ends

I followed my off day routine and started the day with the newspapers. Freedom, independence, 60 years, these terms seem to be predominantly spread across pages, across newspapers. That day of the year, to voice opinions about this republic, its current state, to bask in its conceived glory and criticize its many shortcomings which for some reason are somebody else’s doings.

And on this day I do not have an opinion or feel anything for the country or its independence or impending super power status or the still continuing caste atrocities and female feticides. That’s a far cry from the younger person I used to be. Now at exactly half the age of this independent country I seem to have reached a state of absolute disconnect from the world that I once inhabited. Consumed completely by a world conjured up by my mind, with no place for anything beyond me. This freedom that is so much talked about is something I have always had but never recognized it until I was much grown up and couldn’t understand women who accepted not having it.

I had a friend in my childhood, named Zeenat by her father but the name was traded off for a more Hindu sounding name. Zeenat was born a day before me or maybe just half a day before me. I was born sometime after midnight and that’s how our birth dates happened to be different, although our mothers had gone into labour on the same day. She stayed with her maternal grandparents and an assortment of uncles and aunts, her mother’s sibling. Her parents chose to keep her younger brother with them but not her because the locality they stayed in was not conducive for girls or their house was quite small or I think a combination of those two reasons.

Zeenat did not have any of the liberties that I enjoyed. She was not allowed to play at any hour of the day; she was not allowed to watch late night movies screened on cloth screens on the roads during Ganesh Chaturthi; we were both notorious for not doing our homework and skipping studies, as compensation she had to do lessons even in the summer holidays while I got the entire two months off.

But Zeenat had a way to turn all the restrictions into nothing and have fun. She stole pickles from right under her grandma’s nose with me standing guard at the kitchen door; she stored the lunch she didn’t want to eat in the part of her dress that was held with elastic at the waist and dispose it off when she went to throw the litter from her house in the afternoon. She had great skill for stealing and under her patronage I too got to hone my embezzling skills. She swore, lied, stole, danced, devised plans to eliminate or at least cause a lil harm to her brother, with me party to it except for the swearing and lying, she did everything that her family if they had known would have punished her for. In spite of all the restrictions, Zeenat lived up every moment at least those years when we were together and never took her rebellion too far or too seriously.

Our lives have turned out quite differently. We had lost touch when my family moved out of that building. But somehow we got in touch in our teen ages, back then for her the obvious thing to do was to find a guy and get hitched, while I thought it best to find my bearings first. She did exactly what she had set out to do and I, well, am still walking the path.

Lately, and I would say unfortunately, I am coming across too many people, especially women who seem to think they have a right to mould me in their (right) ways, as if I am a wayward lock that can be set back in its place with lots of oil and persistent combing. So friendly advices about how it is high time I get married have been steadily coming my way. But it’s not the right catch I am looking for (somehow it seems to be the most difficult thing for all and sundry to grasp). If anything, I am looking to quiet this growing discontent. This discontent, which has always been a part of me but would pop its head out only once in a while and most of the time allow me to live in my bubble. But it has grown now and reached its crescendo and will leave me only when it is sure I understand the reason behind its presence.

There is this other persistent noise (that’s growing with my age) not part of me that keeps trying to win over my inner voice, that discontent that keeps me going. It is the voice of this collective conventional idea of a woman. The idea, which has nothing much in common with me. That’s why I think even my closest men friends sometimes tell me, ‘but you are not a woman, you are a man’, they are of course joking and want to irritate me. But come to think of it we do not joke about something repeatedly unless somewhere we agree with the concept. But I had never wanted to be a man, cause I figured I could do whatever I wanted to by being a woman. But that’s not how I believe it is for other women, as my colleague said to me the other day, “I wouldn’t think of getting married if I was a man, but! I am a woman.” I didn’t say anything in response. I am just glad I figured out I can be a woman and be free to make and live my destiny.

An anecdote from the tooth decay experts diary

I had an appointment with a dentist today to start with a root canal treatment. After the preliminary testing to check if the nerve is alive or the tooth is dead, he asked if I was in pain. I replied in affirmative, but he wouldn’t believe me. He said no you don’t seem to understand what you feeling it is not pain, cause it is not possible that a patient won’t scream when a needle touches the nerve. I said I have had two root canals before and I didn’t scream on either instance. He hurried inside and after few long seconds of painful wonderment and holding back of tears he came back with a cylinder shaped ice and touched it to my tooth. I said there is sensation. To which he said your symptoms are not matching you don’t have pain but feel sensation with ice. Your teeth can either be dead or alive.

I should commend myself for having maintained my composure. I said I felt pain when you touched the needle, throbbing pain that made me cry but I did not. He still dismissed my claims to pain and said he will anyways give me anaesthesia before starting the root cleanup. Mild anaesthesia for me is like empty threats, never works on me. The needle touches the nerve again, I still don’t scream but motion him to stop. He now realizes that I am not faking an Oscar winning performance of resilience, he will never get that scream out of me and injects something directly into the tooth which gives instant relief.

I am not a masochist; I do not enjoy pain, physical or otherwise. But then I don’t scream, I usually don’t react that extremely. Accidents, distress, root canals, disasters by tailors and hair dressers, horror movies (these make my insides shiver, but my face manages a calm composure, I don’t know how) nothing has ever made me scream in horror. But sometimes I guess you got to scream to be taken seriously. Monday got an appointment with the doc again. Tomorrow is Sunday, it will be a good thing to spend the day practicing screaming, who knows the practice, someday, might bring me an Oscar.

It is more than three months since you have passed away. With the passing days I miss you more. There are times when I wish I should have been able to do something, to cure you, like a miracle maybe, so that you could still be around. I don’t know what is it that I want you to be around for, maybe to see me get married, play with my kids, be proud of my achievements. But you were always proud of me. I counted you among my blessings and you topped the list.

You were so unlike other fathers. You gave us those rare things that so many kids don’t get, trust, respect and freedom. We were always allowed to make our decisions, whom to befriend, what to study, how late to stay out at night. You never tried to live our lives. We never had to ask for permission to go to movies or a picnic or see a guy. Having you for a father I could never understand the restrictions other girls had to face.

You could be so naïve at times. During college when R would come to drop me home in the night, once you had asked me to ask him inside for tea. I had told you nobody is getting invited at 11.30 in the night for tea. That was your gesture, hospitality for someone who had brought your daughter back home safely. I can never forget that incident; everything was so simple and uncomplicated for you.

There is so much to do and so much to live for. Hope you will always be there with me.

Hum kis gulley jaa rahein hain, apna koi theekana nahi

Viyer wanted to know how Spiderman 3 is. Told her it is a Hollywood meet Bollywood kind of a movie. She said yeah she had read reviews, only thing missing was running around trees. No worries they are trying to rectify that in the next part.

They are looking for Bollywood-based directors. Talks are on with Himes Bhai (music composer turned singer turned actor might turn into director), but they are not too happy about his insistence on replacing Tobey Maguire and adding a cap to spidermans’ ensemble. So they had also considered YashRaj Banner, but a problem here too, they (YashRaj) insist on writing a part for Uday Chopra as a side-kick to Spiderman. They want 4 songs to be picturised on Uday, while spiderman will be fighting crime, who of course will not get any footage.

They also checked out Karan Johar who is all willing to be part of the spiderman family, after all he loves New York, but his only clause is he wants to cast Shahrukh Khan. All SRK will do is woo MJ and in the end after few profound dialogues and expressions will get the girl. KJ has some novel idea about a party song too, to be composed by Shankar, Ehsaan, and Loy of course, with guest appearance by AB Sr. and Jr., Kajol, Rani, Saif, John, er did I miss out anyone.

With Rakesh Roshan having already made his own Super hero movie, he is not interested. So they have kind of run out of options what with other directors making watchable movies.

RECIPE FOR BHEJA FRY

INGREDIENTS

1 Bheja of a regular, logical, hardworking employee
1 project specially created for frying Bhejas
Few stupid ideas of a brainless (see the irony) boss
Some silly suggestions by the same brainless boss
Irrelevant feedback by…………………………….

METHOD OF PREPARATION

1. Marinate the Bheja in the project for a day, for better results keep it air-conditioned at about 16 degrees.
2. Next day approx. after 24 hrs, check on the Bheja, it should be numb.
3. Saute the numb bheja in the few stupid ideas and let it simmer on low flame for hours.
4. When the bheja turns golden brown and is ready to explode add some silly suggestions and let it cook for some more time, this time on high flame.
5. If not satisfied with the rate at which the bheja is getting fried, keep adding silly suggestions.
6. When the bheja is completely fried––u can make out by the crackling sound––then turn the flame off and serve it garnished with irrelevant feedback.

I was standing at the bus stop.

From the house across the street, two very old and frayed people came out.
A man and a woman. Holding hands, the woman clinging to the man.
They made to cross the road, but held back for the bus to pass.
Then with hurried steps they crossed the street.
The woman started walking in my direction.
With hurried steps the man crossed to the other side and went back into the house.
It took me few seconds to realise.
The old man had come out just to see the old woman safe across the street.
How beautiful!