tata -ite!

Tata Manza

I think I am the only person in the world who actually vouches for Tata cars. Facing ridicule for driving a taxi, the bad engineering or sniggers from friends as they sit behind the wheel and commence driving my truck each of them are dutifully ignored by me as they are made to notice the immense head space, the powerful engine and the manner in which it pushes off almost all other small cars off the road.

As a tataite – I am the only one rooting for the Tata Manza to be added to the family for its next addition.

Friends have been groaning at my choice, the brother rolling his eyes and in general the south Indian nod has been following me.  Without fail each friend or acquaintance when asked to pick a favorite car, stuck to the Maruti’s, Hyundai, and the Fords. 

The dear Tata remained Cinderella that no one wanted to dance with.

Armed with this information, I test drove everything.

Started with the Hyundai  1-20 –

Decent interiors, limited power, and lots of jazz, heavier and more sluggish than the 1-10

Hyundai i-10

Hate where the gear is, though it is a zippy drive

The Ritz and Beat are ugly, the Figo did not come under my scanner and the Estillo looks like a child grew the dinky size to a whole new proportion. So that is that and then we came to the Tata cars

Punto

Zippy and how, Cozy and powerful it vroomed on the road like a cat purring after a good scratching session. The wipers and indicators were set the wrong way, but it felt smooth. Hmm only drawback it is a fiat! Who drives those things?

Vista

Yuck is what I yelled out at that one and wanted to step out immediately

Manza

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm… I loved it!!!

The power, the price, the steering, the space, the gears, the indicators worked, the everything made me feel rich and powerful. Like a man on the roads!! And then to add to it was the looks that were not crafted like a truck.

Almost everyone sniggers about the Tata cars. I feel protective about them like one would for an underdog. This emotional thinking for a car is the stupidest idea ever, but hey it seems to let me atleast consider a manufacturer that everyone else ignores.

So on my recent trip, I catapulted from the car the moment i saw a Manza on  the roads, charged towards the back and took a snap of the car, rapped my knuckles on the window of the not so amused Tamil driver, and gushed animatedly about how he was driving a MANZA!! a fact that he was yea.. well aware off. 

Such was my excitement, that i remained rooted to the spot with gibberish English foaming at my mouth at the Tamilian, and ultimately Excel Macroman had to come to the spot, stand a few inches behind me and indicate to the driver that i was insane. Retarded really, before gently leading me back to the oh so not a Manza zen!!

Sigh- Dad wants to buy an i-10. pity pity pity

hippie or newbie

If you set foot on two boats chances are that you shall not move too much from the shore. At some point of time you shall have to choose, which boat is the one you shall set sail on.

For me I am confused about which ship to set sail on. One seems immediately alluring the other the grown up choice of moving on it life. Where are all these ambiguous statements stemming from? From 2 intense yet diverse experiences that came back to back and have left me soaked in bewilderment. Of these which one is more a reflection of me and which one is just a passing whimsical fancy

Experience 1

The cohabitation with Belgian boy has somewhere become larger than the individual and the moments shared. In a sense it represents a definitive lifestyle one where u TRULY live the present and ensure that as much life is squeezed out of it today without waiting for a more secure tomorrow.

To borrow from the ant and the grasshopper these are the happy grasshoppers that are gathering life experiences that are varied, vivid, real and have a horribly long sticky value.  These experiences are acquired through travelling, the kind of travelling where one really meets people and plugs into the community, leaving you exposed to trying out whatsoever may come your way.

Hmm this implies that everyday has a sense of new and wonder. They become the people with the most chilling stories shared over a bonfire or a dinner table, not always the most intense ones but def the most intriguging ones. The sheer depository of experiences that they can dip into to engage in a conversation is HUGE!.

So during a week with BB (Belgian boy) we spoke about everything from Mac Donalds, to dreams and aspirations, to death and what it means, the influence of languages, how people react to whites in India some extremely nonsencial conversation about hippos and winning the world peace prize.

Point being- there was a constant dribble of REAL conversation that did not have to borrow from the clichéd of favorite actors, work politics or the routines of life. I concede that any meeting with a stranger has immense fodder for conversation, the newness drives it.

But more than that at a subtle layer is what my friend calls the difference between a “Social Science” person and a “Science” person, where the former looks and is challenged by things like art, culture, shall want to learn the sitar while in a new place and explore the mindsets of children in the rural set while the “Science” gang is more concerned with the POINT of all this and if that cannot be answered are keen to brush these pursuits in the bucket called hobbies and live a real more meaningful life.

I ramble, think because these are still thoughts that are forming in my head. All I know is that in my experience there is a something called a “Explorer mindset” where one is an experience/conversation/newness junkie and this is motivation to get them to do anything, from planting seeds in a farm to milking a cow for no reason except that it has not been done before.

Experience 2

The night BB left, the long weekend arrived and we trooped off to the coolness of Coonoor, Ooty and Kothgiri, little places that have been charmed into producing tea for the colonial Saahibs. 

Male monica, excel marcoman and me sat in the car and trooped off.

Now Male Monica and Excel Macroman are the “science” types in several ways. Excel macroman the extreme version of it, to the extent that he had a statistical average computed regarding the average number of times that he shaved in a month and could not see car number plated without multiplying all the digits.

Male Monica, is definitely a few shades better, he is interested in opinions and has a point of view, well read and a robust interest in performing arts means that he is a storehouse of knowledge on several aspects.

The one thing that they however lack is the zeal to experience anything new, unless there is a real hardcore rational and compelling need for them to do so. They are willing to be cajoled into doing several things and more than comfortable being lead into situations rather than being initiating wild things themselves.

Result- I ruled during the trip. Became the cool bee; whatever I wanted we did. Lets boat sure lets boat. Lets shop? Eat dinner here? Not go to the room just yet etc etc I initiated and was surprised to see instant acceptance.

The one time that these two men had to enter into a conversation they started to speak about work, culture, what each of them did. The moment I woke up though, nonsense banter stirred from her sleep as well and a lasy time was spent chattering about B grade movies.

As excel macro dropped me home, we discussed the differences between us. The “lets do” vs the “let us let them do” gang. He was pissed that the “lets do” gang assumed that the “lets not do” gang did not want to take part in stuff we planned. He said that they enjoy it and infact like to be called for those events. However, they are not great at planning these and so are better at executing. Why he wondered did we not get that and just live with optimum utilization of capabilities?

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Maybe it is a valid grouse. But all I know is that for me I connect more with the “lets explore” mentality. The lifestyle and life purpose is easier and takes much less energy to convince someone who wants to do these activities than cajoling a reluctant person to enjoy the silliness of sitting on the top of a car.

Either you like sitting on the top of a moving car and sit.

OR

You sit in the other car and wonder what tomfoolery are the jokers upto on the top of the car.

Both exist, both are valid. Which one am i?  

what a day!

The dogs were the only ones up and awake at the insane hour of 4.30 am, as I grudgingly walked down to the waiting indica. The sleeping city was not showing any signs of stirring as I waited for a filmmaker women who i did not know to show up. What followed was one of the most dramatic story days of my life, each a fascinating account of how diverse human experiences can be. 

Grouchy zen like me sat in the car and waited for the illusive film-maker to show. When she did show up she was in a chatty mood and wanted to know who, what, where, why etc about my life. Barely capable of stringing words together i mumbled that now was not a good time and please can we speak later. Note to self- between honesty and tact sometimes it is better to choose tact!


anyway, turns out the filmmaker was currently the queen heroine of a dramatic bollywood plot that cast her as the lead heroine. A resident of one of the poshest Blore gated communities, she was held hostage to male testosterone driven power lust, had a fake FIR filed against her and her husband and had to cower n bow down to "urban thugs mascarading as Presidents to ensure she was not arrested.


The hazy details that I captured were this...


lady wanted to go the gym with her trainer. the guards did not like the idea at all. decided to forbid her from entering by standing as a human gate between her n the gym. When she insisted on entering, they raised their voices and like a army attack commenced to march towards her, her hubby was sent panicked smses and he rushed down to see 3 men towering over his wife. So he did what a normal hubby did, pushed the man away from his wife. 


Lo and behold that was THE BIGGEST MISTAKE OF HIS LIFE!!!!


The next thing they knew, the guards has filed a police complaint on the instance of the President of the residential association against the couple. All the vendors, the electricians all went on strike, the husband had to book an emergency crisis flight back from Mumbai where he had flown and in his absence the wife was terrorised by threats that cops would be ringing the doorbell anytime.


By the end of it, this couple had to pay 4000 rupees, to the cops to withdraw a false complaint and entertain a RSS kind of person, who was the head of the security forces that they were sincerely apologetic and would never ever commit this error again! 


RESULT? -  Law abiding citizens, with education, awareness and knowledge of rights were reduced to frustrated helpless blumbering people powerless in the face of urban intimidation. As lawyers, our advice is sound but infeasible and shall do little to protect them from the wrath of the bullies the next time around...


Returning to the drive, that by now was charged with indignation at the plight of the filmmaker and the dreamy smiles of the approaching rain. 


We were headed to Akshay Patra! (http://www.akshayapatra.org/)

What a place and what a story. Having successfully fed the millions of people at the temple daily, they decided to feed the children of a nearby school 1 meal a day. The results were dramatic, children who were almost never spotted at school began to return and soon the phone was ringing off the hook as more and more school queed up to be fed ....Today the NGO runs a gravity kitchen, spotlessly clean the workers begin thier day at 2 am to cook 6 tonnes of rice, 72 tonnes of Dal and 8 tonnes of vegetables so that by 11 am each child in the school has a hot meal to eat. So efficient is this system that if something was to go wrong they can work backwards to determine which drum made the batch of rice that fed a child.

All this is the vision of 1 center 1 person. 
Relying on the whims of the government for grants, they are battling a huge system to get 1 simple mission across ... let a hungry belly not keep a child away from education....


More on them later..... the work we shall do with them is promising....


hot idlis and filter coffee consumed on a rainy day, i took little belgian chocolate to the safari and the zoo!!!!!! ;-) I love my life, the ability to work and spend wednesday afternoon gazing at the antics of tiger cubs is definately a indication of a GOOD life!!!


It was amusing to see Indians react to a white man. He was almost gazed at like an animal himself and they laughed at his intense glee at spotting a porcupine and seeing the huge hippos prancing on thier dainty legs. The cutest scene of the zoo was watching the white tiger cub and the  YELLOW tiger cub spoon and sleep with each other. where each of them more restless than sleepy insisted on pawing the other one ust for the sheer joy of annoying the daylights of the other person....


i hate zoos. 
i love zoos
i want to free the animals

i want to hug the monkeys 
i want to flee from the snakes
and shake the stoned immobile crocs to life
i wonder at the resons for hippos to exist
and what must be the musings of a star backed turtle, as they stick their necks out of the water
a regal zebra strides alone, while a dainty white peacok swings on the beam
day in and day out they gaze and stare back 
confined and alone
wonder what they did to deserve this


Somethings make no sense... but i still do like going to the zoo. Was my favourite place in the whole world. and def scored above a circus! no questions asked ;-0


am off to the hills.. yeyeye
and belgian boy is gng away ;-(
hate goodbyes
sigh

Belgian Chocolate it is

I never knew I have a thing for Belgian Chocolates. But turns out that I actually do.... ;-)

Hmmm this is the third sentence that I have typed. Am not sure what to write, there is so much to gush about and so little of it worthy of words. lets start from the beginning; usually tends to work out fine.....

saturday evening, i decided to rescue someone who was spending his limited time in India in a hell hole of a hotel surrounded by Chinese electronic stores. Being in blore the only thing that made sense for him to do was to head to a geek party.. .. so that is exactly what we did.

A coffee, an ice cream, some vodka shared with geeks, a movie in the night, a lazy morning, a movie, a dinner with another earnest smart geek. (this one actually attended quizzes on Sunday and would get upset when he got the wrong answer and gave us stories about his colleague getting slapped by his mother, as his most memorable 30 seconds of life, when he fell into the indian commode) a night of talking about Peru, art and history, what made Belgium belgium, the best things to come from there.. ( there are like 2.5 things.. Sax, chocolate and beer), a monday morning that began at a time when most people have their week chalked out, a yoga class, lazy walks, heated fights, bowling and fights over french fries...........

The days mingled into one another, as we peeled off the onion layers to understand the other.

How does this work? when 2 people from totally diverse worlds meet and are able to find common linkages that makes the other person seem like an old friend? 

Been thinking about that.. and think a lot of it has to do with the person themselves. Humour and wit, a sense of ease around them, openess to eat crap like baigan ka bharta and puchkas (water balls) with as much enthusiasm and making omlettes the Indian way. 

ENGLISH.. the common delayering tool helps immensely. Hollywood, shared music and Google the handiman that you reach out to every now and then to show each other pictures of your favourite food or hear that song that seems suddenly so very apt

Bonds are created over shared conversations and more than the subject matter of anything that is discussed it is the sense of meeting someone without any expectations whatsoever. 

That is the suspended beauty of meeting a person in transit. 

A bubble land. 

A bubble that you know shall be bursting, vaporising into drops with different destinies

but for the moment the bubble is just to be lived. Truly lived

Belgian Chocolate has managed to teach me a lot, already. The biggest learning has been not about his nation or beer, or trivia about the crusade to be vegetarian but something far far subtler. The act of being. Just being. 

For a traveler he is very ZEN. There is no hurried frenzy to visit places and see things, there is no camera or sharing of pictures, there is no plan to the day, there is a lot of simple flow. Being with the flow just letting it all out. 

I cant imagine going to another country and not agonizing over the map. Wondering bewildered how to see it all. Each day would be ticked off as accounted for only if there was enough seen, enough done. Yet, after each such travel the memories that are sticky are the ones that were the spontaneous conversations had with someone at the curb. 

This is the beauty of meeting someone just like that

i dont think i shall ever tire of it

each of these encounters is a memory is something i cherish; 

taking little smiles with me to my grave.  

Avatar that fictional?

It took me three months, several oscars and a host of convincing from close friends before I subjected myself to the three hour drama that was AVATAR!. 

Despite sharing the cinema space with a nauseating child, who chattered like one of the chattering monkeys of Pandora throughout the movie, and having my cellphone ringing incessantly because some asshole called Suresh, wanted to learn yoga from me exactly at that point of time and messaged me 34 times to ask how long the movie was. In between this, sweet shall not give you work person wanted to know right now right then how the movie was going.....Wheeewwwwww

Despite this, there was a legend there, of 1000 years that took 10 years to make,  a place where the people believed that there was someone higher, the ancient mother would protect the balance of life, that the ancestors whispered secrets, there was a harmony that was above any and everything and certain places were sacred. This was the land of Pandora; supposedly fictional and alien. 

Ironical isn't it.

The way of the Pandora that seems so alien to us, with its customs and tribes, whispering trees and demons is very close to some of the civilizations that we seem to have lost. 

Was almost weeping towards the end, pained by the loss and helplessness that seemed to besiege them on the devastation of their home. But the very makers of this movie, were sitting in a land that was built on the collapse of a very similar civilization. The native Americans lost the battle between gun powder and well aimed arrows. The African colonization was built on trade of worthless trinkets for land and in the end wiped up the century old traditions that came with the place. 

So complete has been this cultural replacement that in the entire continent in South America, the languages spoken are Eurpoean. 90% of the population was wiped out by the died by the diseases got in by the white man. 

Action against terror. 

hasnt that been a often enough thrown about line by everyone. The bush says it. then the laden states it. then the new version of bush wants to state it without stating it and in the interim the pakis and the indians try to focus all the energy of 2 nations on 1 Headely... to me sitting in a city, where I see IT come and entrench everywhere, the few things that are little and purely Indian seem to be seeping out too.

Couching we are !! ;-0

So Jungle 82 had pushed it too far. He had gone from here to go be at ivory coast, why?? to make money. The unwritten rule was that he was to be miserable, unhappy and spending all his waking moments dreaming of soft idlis and pining for home cooked food.

Instead!!!! The douche bag is doing this

• Seeing real live chimpansees in the JUNGLE@!!@!%#%#% and they came up to him and took bananas from his hand... what ever! 
• is eating sushi, and that too with chopsticks
• dances the night away doing the perfect head rolls on the floor that the yo boys are capable of doing on the dance floor 
• has 4/5 gorgeous female flatmates and is always off having a blast all the time

This is just the tip of the ice berg, add to this the havana drinks, crocodile meat, getting pulled by cops, love lessons, some indian movies and cooking pancakes on the beach while drenched from a volley ball match and you have a heady life combination that seems to be working out ! ;-)

So what if he deserves each and every moment hands down, has worked for years and years to get there, I can and still retain the right to be jealous (J82 u know i looooove u)

With all these experiences being thrown at me, i had little to compete with. The mumbai trips and eating a dosa somehow just did not manage to cut it. I hate hate having my life being DRAB! Drama  must be the corner stone and adventure the pillar it is placed next too..... 

So last night i became dramatic ...or decided to. For some random reason draped myself in a PINK dress and went to test drive cars. Pink dress, and high shoes I went for showroom to showroom asking the critical things that make me choose a car- mileage, safety n ability to zoom over speed breakers. Forgot all about the car engine, the torque etc etc. But was floored and how by the Mazda!! Superb ;-)

Then decided to beat Jungle 82 on his own game and met/hosted my first couch surfer.. 

Name - Wicked Boy

From - Belgium

Does - Grows organic potatoes, makes electronic music, flirts with the sitar, travels to south america, studies history and gets skin peeled off by baking on the seashores of burning Kerala 

Wicked boy was shown Bangalore by being escorted to his first Geek party, where he was assaulted by men wearing Royal Challengers T shrits, who explained in painstaking detail the role played by milk in creating lactic acid that covers the stomach lining as a result of which the indian version of marijuana, takes a longer time to react giving a high that has a duration of several hours and is natural in its body waste disposal method. So this reaction makes the equation of body and bhaang very powerful and he as a traveler must share some. 

Needless to state, we left and fast......... 

So wicked boy is chilling at home, and am trying to roll the corner stone of drama a notch closer to the adventure pillar. The drama is def there.. building up already..

Am off to swim today and then see a movie. Life is all right again I say

wisdom from a blue butterfly

have a butterfly friend in my life. Is a lot like the blue smoke spewing caterpillar in Alice in Wonderland, sits on a toadstool and looks at the world through wise knowing eyes. Speaks in a language borrowed from Neo of Matrix and leaves a lot open to the fluidity of life and destiny.

GR saw me upset 2 days ago. very upset. and one of those things that I could not share yet not not get impacted by.. Yea too gol gol.. anyway he is not a probing kind of a guy. Steps back and without going into the details balms the feelings instead.... how do people do that i wonder... I am a pest.. Tell na? What happened? your mom said something.. u took your weight? and then and then and then.. I can go on and on till someone spills the beans on what happened .. the feelings are usually brushed aside like bread crumbs.

Anyway.. so little GR sent me a present ... a story. The moral of the story has not been spelt out just yet, you choose your own interpretation.

There is a great difference between what gets attracted towards us and what we choose to get attracted to. 

Going back to the butterflies... there was this small girl with lots of butterflies sitting on her and showering real love. All seemed fine till she she noticed a cockroach nearby. Failing to realize that it is different from a butterfly, she expected it behave like the butterflies. She wanted it to show love and affection. But the roach being itself kept running away into the dark. With all her friend butterflies advising her that its a roach, she still chose to chase it. The butterflies found it difficult to hold on while she was running. Her pursuit of roach was so pure from her side yet absolutely senseless and insensitive for the butterflies. They could not help but wonder. In the process she forgot to nurture the butterflies - tender beings. Some found it difficult to hold on - some died and some flew. She became oblivious to the passage of time and events. 

She managed to catch the roach - only to realize that it is not a butterfly. Only to realize few are still holding on and other have left. 

Who made it? Was it her? Was it the lack of patience from butterflies? Was it the roach? Was it the circumstance? Ah...was it fate?  

mumbai only city worth it.. says CG

I love travelling. Anytime anywhere.

The moment you return you look at your city and space in a whole new light. During my last day in Mumbai, was travelling with a business associate and she said something uncanny.

A die hard Mumbai-ite, she looked honestly bewildered at how anyone could choose to live in any other city. Her rationales were even cuter.

• Chennai as we all know is not a city. 
• Bangalore has good weather, hence she felt incapable of getting out of bed. Result no work done
• Delhi- this is when she nearly spat out of the auto in horror. Chee she squeaked, that is a horrible horrible place, the auto guys are all thieves and they steal. Agreed the roads are good but what is the point when I cant walk on them in the night the only time when it is cool enough to walk there in the first place..... 

Well the logic was so tightly cast in steel that I could only mutely nod my head. 

She closed her statements to the jury consisting of me and the auto guy saying, you know was flying over Blore in the evening at about 9 and saw only a few lights on, she thought there was a power failure.... and shuddered when over the next few days the power failure became the 11pm deadline that paralyses this city weekend or weekday.

Then she took her flight back to Mumbai. Late night flight, the landing was timed at 12.30 in the night, sitting on the window seat she glanced at the city she calls home and GRINNED...... The city was ablaze, there were lights, traffic, movement and even from the air the city seemed to be signaling to her. Or as she put it 

IN MUMBAI EVERY NIGHT IS DIWALI!!! 

Slurping Mama Mia ice cream at 2 am on the Bandra Bandstand, watching the moon dance on the waves as a couple tries to be discreet between the rocks can only smile at that statement

actions not words

Dr Brain L Weiss, is the author of the famous Many Lives Many Master book, amongst the other books on regression that he has written.


For the uninitiated, he was a trained shrink a certified doctor, who while treating one of his more difficult patients happened to regress her and heard spell bound as she narrated incidents from her past life. Its a fascinating series and real live cases of people who continue to live today.


For me there is/was one thing that stood out starkly in each book. As a patient died in their past life, they entered a tunnel of peaceful warm welcoming light, this light guided them into a period of rest and reflection. In this zone, each "spirit" would be asked what they had learnt during the course of that life. Interestingly, at the time of birth there was a mission that the "spirit" had set out to accomplish and it was time to do performance evaluation ;-)


The missions statements were the surprising things. It was not about changing the world or building the ozone layer but simple truths


- learning to trust
- love is important in families
- betrayal is ugly


lessons in these were what each life set out to teach. Taking these lessons as examples, in my experience space there is only ONE lesson that seems to be stuck on repeat mode.


           The lesson is - between actions and words choose actions. 


Simple lesson. Very tough to implement in entirety. 


Last year a specimen came in my life. A nice enough person, his actions however defied logic, am not even talking about the larger than life incidents that are dramatic. The small ones, the way you react when I am choose to see a movie with friends than meet you, demanding to be fed and served, subtle gender discrimination...


These are the small actions that are so tiny in the space that they consume in our lives that you let them slide. Focusing on the bigger events. The small ones break the foundation and leave you nothing to build on. 


Took me almost a year, to cease to have any interaction with that person in question. Wished had had the balls to cut it earlier.


Even at that time, what enabled me to do so was simple in its innocence. Made a laundry list of all the incidents that stood out for me in the time we spent, both the happy ones or the unhappy ones. Listed the actions, what we did or did not do forgot the words and was baffled at how the deep desire to be in love was clouding basic sanity of who you were choosing to be in love with.


Am revising the lesson now- aim to score full marks- Actions win over words

i am scared of me

Love is a complex game. 

The moment it turns us into blubbering fools. Keen to talk, to share to be validated. The same person we could have a back slapping conversation with, and sprawl on the bed with while seeing movies becomes someone we are conscious about. Every gesture gets a deeper meaning, every mail and text sent is read and re read looking for deeper meanings.  

Because somewhere in all this it becomes difficult to have a really honest conversation with ourselves and the  other person. We become scared to open up. Scared of the happiness of believing that it is here, that what we wanted for so long, the brief glimmer of hope that love may actually be knocking on the door makes us scared silly and we hide under the blankets dying to open the door and scared that if we did and let love in she would eventually up and leave.

That’s why I think we marry, its like a big lock that we can place on the door and say nopes, the flight out is available but u got to clean a lot of mess before you can choose to say the goodbye.

Why the hell am I talking in circles?

 Don’t know or maybe I do and am hiding from myself……

Someone once asked me two interesting and probing questions.

1.  Why do I seem to pick crash-burn-run relationships?

2.   Why is the attraction for those people who are taken?

As I type this out, I am taking a deep sigh and looking at them anew.  In the past year or two have seem to developed an art form of magnetizing in life some incredibility good and some useless people who are almost always stringed.  Good human beings, well then again everyone is a good human being for me but each with a story of how they had to go.  A fact that was not hidden but obvious from the moment go.

Hmmmm the problem then is obviously me and what I am choosing to attract towards me.  A cocktail of commitment phobia,  not having a ready made exit route ready or maybe the simpler scarier truth of the matter is that if there was someone who was there, really there then I would actually have to consider marrying that person.

The wisps of smoke, the illusion would solidify.

The dreams or the mental checklist I carry about who and what the person should be would become solidified to represent him.

Whoever that him is

Even scarier is that there may be a self esteem issue. Maybe and I think this is truer than I would care to acknowledge at some core cellular level, since I am prone to immense restlessness and get bored easily, I assume that is how every one else also thinks and feels. And so the fear is that when someone marries me, we shall get bored… eventually and that shall be just terrible. For him and for me.

What an absolutely silly way to think na……. that the institution of marriage then shall have to be re-crafted to allow the individual to shake themselves awake.. much like a dog post a shower and to reassess life post marriage. To get up and say, allright then this is sailing as is, but is not a kicker, so what else am I to do to get there… and this then gets the fuel going for more money, sailing, golf scores, some travel, chase and new conquests.

Am digressing into generic bullshit because talking about me is painful

So here is the bitter admission

I am not only blonde but also a woos. Trust easily and then look for love and reassurance in the wrong parameters. Get hurt and swear not to repeat this. I care and get invested, like meddle in your life invested super fast and then get confused when others are not like that.

But this is a sham. With the departure of each person, I re affirm my own limiting belief of how no one would want to spend a life with me, because somewhere am petrified of spending a faithful life time with someone.

Scary.

mumbai meri jaan

Saturday afternoon am sitting in the AB's  adorable house that he and only he could have converted into this creative coulourful expanse of himself; its adorably done and I slip into being with him after a year like we never ever left at all.

But like all good things we must be patient and commence ruminiations from the very begining. So hitting the pause button and rewinding to the Blonde me entereing the train compartment.

Think it is a media thing, but each time without fail when i travel there is a secret desire in me that I shall bump into someone interesting and the journey shall be memorable for the interaction that happens. So, lugging the rucksack and looking exceptionally blonde in a slightly clevage showing bright orange T shirt, jeans and huge glasses perched on head, I travessed the length of the platform to reach the berth that was to be home for 24 hours.

Disgusting. Passenger 1 is a toothy non talking baby who gives me a wide gummy smile signalling the duel that is to start. There is nothing worse than a baby to share a journey with, they cry, poop, demand to be fed and display thier butts shamelessly and assume that one smile at the end of it shall make life seem completely all right ;-(

Being the only women the mother gives me expectanct looks her forlon eyes looking for support in child care, little realizing that I am about as handy with kids as a grandmother with a foot ball.

anyway the remaining passengers were dotty as well. 1 was the quitessential tamil man who had all the buttons of his shirt closed till his adam apple. and squirmed each time the women fed the baby .... hahaha he made freinds on the basis of caste and subcaste even on the train journey. The other man was an IIT geek and examined every grain of rice before he ate it and the last person was sort of like me Dad, who explained to me in graphic detail what each of his children were doing in life, what he was doing, what he read, had 2 mobile phones and gave free gyan to all and sundry.

Needless to state, I spent the remainder of the journey standing by the door where there since I was clicking using my camera there was immense amusement caused on the platform.

But all in all was all right as a journey, though the heat has nearly beat everything to a dirty brown. Am feeling lazy and sleepy shall sign in later in the day to post about day 1 in a city that  i can never figure out i enjoy or not. Mumbai cant leave u numb, that is definite, it impacts you with its constant bustle at 3 am or 3 pm the sheer diversity of lives here is unparalleled.

Coming up day 1, the tales of the teacher jis house ;-), my welcome in, the place, the evening the new faces seen ... all this and more

sound like a commercial

train trips

Am taking a train to Mumbai and more than going to Mumbai I am excited about the train journey. It is an instant childhood recall button that I can press. Standing at the train door, watching the fields stream by, marvelling at the odd shapped scarecrows all make me smile.

The most favourite part is to open the door wide open, specially when travelling in the Ac compartment, sitting on the stairs and just letting the wind play havoc with your hair. Can spend hours just observing the world.

One of the oldest games that I play with myself is to wonder what i would do if I slipped off. In my dream world, of course there is no injury sustained, but more of a "rubbing your eyes" and looking around you pretending that you are alice in wonderland. Have gone and imagined the entire cycle, of stumbling across fields money and cell phone less. Going to the next source of light and then hoping like mad that the village has a STD booth...... Calling dad, hoping he picks up (hoping that I remember the number as well) and then the image fades. Each of the possible solution that comes to mind has a zillion issues.

Solution 1 - get him to send me money- how? where? which bank? no atm? no atm card what shall be done?
Solution 2- borrow money for another train ticket - who shall be the kind benefactor? and wonder what I can do for him in return. The idea of making little flat gobar things to plaster on the wall seems abhorant.
Solution 3- Stand on the train tracks and flag a train down - hmm... doubt if trains have a lets give them a lift system ;-(
Solution 4- Talk to the station manager and hope he is a nice kind of bloke....
Solution 5- Reenact scenes from Jab we met and hope a millionaire kind of a guy happens to be ambling along...

Hmmm as u can see my overactive imagination makes for frightfully interesting train journeys.  Manage to be entertained very well with all the people around me. Happily so.

Also its fun to cook up stories of who i am and why I am alone on the train. Stories range from running away from home, to being a refugee, to being a biryani maker in hyderabad. Everyone believes anything at all. To seeing the specimens that appear today.. shall narrate later

octopus withdrawing

I feel like an octopus, that is about to sleep or hibernate. Not sure if octopuses hibernate, but if they do then that is what I feel like.

In the calmest way possible am retreating from a lot of worries, and issues that would consume me earlier. Truly feels to me like i am living the last few days here and am mentally bidding farewell to this place. Not just the city, even people where ever there are lingering emotions, whirlpools made vide the past the present the future, feel like revisiting that person, those moments and the bidding farewell to let them sail off in the path that they need to.

Am closing. Was mentioning this to Jungle 82 and he asked me if i was dying, hahaaa well not that i know about. But there is peace in these actions. Am finally travelling been a while coming. its only to Mumbai but the city was where last year I went cuckoo in several ways.

Its also Ab's birthday. Last year we were all happy, blown and sining songs with the Leela guards while getting his cake at some insane hour. Each of the people from that day have left, be it yummy mummy, AB, the house mates .... living their own reality. All is well. The flow carries on

Cant wait to meet AB in his teacher costume. Too cute ;-)

our lady knights

A friend fired his cook yesterday, because she was taking way too many days off and the food sucked. I am about to fire my maid too, if she shows up that is. The maid too has been missing in action, arbitrarily changing her reporting time of showing up at work and not been reliable. By all standards of performance, both are to be assigned to the CIP- Continuous Improvement Program – a term I heard some organization use recently and thereafter be asked to let go.  No matter where I was employed, would have been asked to leave as well.

On the flip side, the cook being asked to leave is only about 55 years old. Ready for retirement for a life time of pursuing leisure, hobbies and smiling at the doorway as you see grand children skipping in the courtyard. Instead she wakes up early, hale, rain or shine waits at the bus stop for the illusionary bus to appear, pays her fare and comes to the door step of my friends house. Repeats this day after day for a month to be paid Rs 600/- only with the added benefit of a saree for Diwali or something.

 Can vouch without hesitation that my friend is amongst the breed of the gentler employers, never questions leaves asked for is wonderfully non interfering, non critical, the invisible kind of employer.

(the lady in the pic wrote a best seller -her tale http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/02/books/02maid.html)

The maid I am firing is younger. Married to an alcoholic she has spent several nights below our roof with her only possession being 1 extra saree. Reason she was homeless, needed 1000 rupees to buy a new roof and had not got the savings for that to be put up. Being a migrant from Chennai meant that even acquiring a mobile to talk to her children, studying in a school far from her was an uphill battle as the basic documents of voter id/ration card/driving license were not there, since the house was not there. Such was a plight that often she would be trudging to the railway station to seek a roof over her head.

My cook is better off, relatively speaking that is. She has a pukka house. A no nonsense women she is efficient, verbose and makes no bones of getting her way in any argument.  This hard exterior is not hard to rip apart to reveal a young girl who got to Bangalore from Uttar Pradesh. The husband turned out to be yet one more monster, domestic violence was the norm and drinking her wages away an entertainment.  Managing several children she did the bravest thing she could. Sent the man back to the village, got the elder daughter to nanny the younger ones, while she cooked in several houses.

Interestingly she ensures that everyday she wears all the ornamental markings that go with being a married women, lest someone assume she was available and take advantage of her.

These are not isolated cases. Each house has a ramu/basanti/deepa/uma didi and variations of them cleaning, frying and getting the machinery of the house humming. Think more than the booming economy it is getting a Ganesh to clean the car, the Meena to cook the dinner and the Tara to wash the clothes that is the BIGGEST attraction for the return of a not so pampered NRI. 

“the maid has gone to the village”

This statement is greeted with as much anguish as someone being struck down with a heart attack. Frantic calls are made, the days to her return marked off on the calendar and trepidation filled moments lived in anticipation of her return or her disappearance, with both being equally possible as events.

Yet for all that they let us do with our lives, they get back precious little. No pf, savings, benefits or paid leave. 0 bonus or increments, at best some cast off clothes, good meals and some financial assistance for tiding over a tough patch only if there is a sympathetic boss and rightful pleading done.

What then is the solution? Get them to form a union? Get a commission to study the matter? Form something akin to labour net, that protects their rights … Maybe they are all ideas worth considering. But that is the easy route. In one stroke takes away the responsibility away from us to some third entity – the state, the workers themselves or some activist someplace to make a huge hue and cry about it.

Nah.  Don’t think that is an immediate solution. Get the alcoholic husbands to be made to work for their drinks; no drinks till you have a job??? Hahahahaa can almost hear the gongs of the state wide protests against this idea across dear Kerala.

At best, maybe what we can do is to do onto others as we would like to have done to ourselves.  Loosing a job is never easy. Heck, I for one know that and the financial impact for everyone no matter what the level of earning is a setback that takes time to get adjusted to.

For now all I have is empathy, treat your help as you would want to treat a peer in office. Free coffee and tea, some basic pay guaranteed to be on time, an increment, some praise, savings and a sense that you shall be taken care of because at the end of the day- YOU BELONG. No matter where you work, it gives u a sense of belonging to a larger community. Maybe its time we open our hearts not just our door to them.

My Miss Universe moment of the day is now over. 

dizzying realities

I sat in my bosses house, drinking a warm happy mug of coffee from a pretty blue mug. The coffee was well made, the bantering engaging. Yet something was wrong. The room was too hot, the walls seemed to be closing in, roommate called and I could barely concentrate. Went to the loo, washed my face and sat down.

the room swirled. the table wanted to come and greet me without my doing anything at all to encourage that. Trying to be all composed in front of the rest, went clutching the steady wall for comfort to the loo and retched  my lungs out.

What is it about the act of vomiting that is extremely repulsive, completely uncontrollable and very purging. See any one do it wants to make you take at least 10 steps back, yet you have no sense of control when the waves of nausea come over you.

dizzy and faintish, i collapsed on her couch immobile for a long while. Called Mom - no matter where you are the minute you are sick the one person you have to have to reach out to is mom, even if it is to hear the basics that you already know about what to eat and what not to eat. Having her voice, trickle into my ear shall be comforting no matter how old i get.

Drove home in  a daze, only to pass out in an power less house. the transformer had busted itself and we had hours of blackness to contend with. It was amusing after a while to see the different reactions around us. Almost all the neighbors yelled at the security guards, then zoomed off to friends houses. Me and ND chatted about Hum Aap ke hai kaun for some reason, and the cute bong ppl below, lit the stairs with candles got the guitar out and hummed the night away.

Got me thinking, without a functional mobile, internet, power, fan the sense of powerlessness creeps in so very fast. Wonder what life in a electricity free village for 10 days shall be. Depressingly boring?

lost tribes

 Now is the time to open your heart. - Alice Walker, the author of Colour Purple has held me captivated for the past few hours. Read her spell bound as she took me deep into the land of shamans, the concept of "ethnobotanist" plant healing from the jungles of South America, where there are herbal intoxicants used as a medium to free the spirit - called Ayahuasca -vine for the soul (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/0603/features/peru.html) MUST READ!

The above link, delves well into explaining one of the experiences that someone goes through through energy healing. But that is not what I wanted to delve into. Alica Walker, in her book travels through some memories of the native americans, the shamans of South America and the Hawai culture.

To me the very terms seem so incredible. The fact that you need a term like native americans or abrogines to refer to people who were native to the land they belonged to. For me it is akin to someone coming to India, wiping us all out and then our nation being home to white skinned people and the scattered population left being called native Indians. ! what a joke that shall be.

A native american, in this tale comes every Thanksgiivng to this guys ranch in utah. The ranch is super duper massive, covering acres and acres of land. The native american has only one request, to get water from one spring on their land. Each year he appears, knocks on the door, is driven to the spot, half fills his jug and thanks them in a solemn manner. Years pass, the ritual carries on with his grandson now assisting the old man.

When asked Y he needed the water, the answer was always the same : For ma bones 

With time, a mining company discovers coal deposits and the spring is dug up to reveal a lake, the exposed lake soon dries and there below the land there was a huge deposit of bones belonging to his ancestors. he would take the water from the spring, to another deposit across the ranch, pray to the bones buried there and sprinkle some water.

People mock at these ancient lores. Death is the end there is nothing more once we die, are often lines we hear. i for one dont believe. The distressing thing is the mass genocide over the years have made these ancient customs so hidden that other than scattered people who struggle hard with their inner faith to take up the profession, the shamans, the healers, the excorcists are all becoming rarer as diamonds.

am writing this in the wake of an sex -escapade of a swami in south india. As a lawyer, am not sure what is crime is? Sex? is not a crime. Mis representation at best, but that only holds true if he advocated everyone to embrace celibacy. if that was the way it was to work for everyone. Osho said the reverse and he too was banished.

Something in this book has made me want to be there experiencing this healing for myself. When and where and how i dont know. But to explore the inner deeper side of South America is a wish that has been there for a while.

Is consuming external substances the best way to do something like this? Probably not. But then again guess it is the manner and intent that makes the difference. All i know is that somewhere retreats like you clean you from inside, making a lot of everyday feel trivial.

Am in that zone now. Quiet, calm and collected. Not morose just feel like a very slow painter on the wee end of a large huge canvas. Have no rational reason but get a sense that I am closing the lid on a lot of relationships, friendships, thanking them casting off the last lingering thoughts and once that is done, only and only then shall new ties be formed.

For once, there is no haste. only chaste ;-) hehee