"Me" - time

Socialising is the greatest form of masochism. You put time, effort and money into meeting new people or catching up with old acquaintances…and then let these very people steal your peace of mind, increase your stress level and leave you disgusted.

The one thing that I really want to be is:
“Self-motivated to be happy” (as one of my wisest friends, Sus di puts it)

As each day goes by, I realise how badly I need to master, or at least acquire this skill. At the moment, I am far from it…depending on “external factors” for my daily dose of happiness.

Friendless, in a far-away land that has offered very few like-minded people, I absolutely MUST learn to be happy alone.

Wish I could be happy in my own company (which is hard…because I am quite boring unless drunk)

Wish I did not need "people" to talk to(I could talk to the trees or insects in my garden and am sure they would reciprocate better)

Wish I had as much fun reading a book or watching a movie as I do when I am with friends (which would also help build that dream library I want so badly)

Wish I did not need to call a hundred people in India to feel good (which would save a lot of money too)

Wish I wouldn’t let random comments from random people affect my peace of mind (which would let me concentrate on other more important things like cloud-watching or cleaning the toilet)

If only I could start enjoying the “me” time, I would be so much closer to the person I want to be.

Aroma therapy

If I could have perfumes specially made for me, I would order these:

Pujo-pujo smell

Ma-ma smell

Bari-bari smell

Kolkata-kolkata smell

Hill station- hill station smell

Brishti-brishti smell

Lazy Sunday afternoon smell

Summer holiday smell

Shiraz Biriyani smell

Bikel-bela-tele-bhaja-and-cha smell

Holi’r abir smell

Bedwin mutton roll smell

Sea-side smell (not the stinking fish types…but the fresh cool breeze types)

P.S. I wouldn’t really “wear” these (I don’t have too many friends here, anyway…and I have to keep my job too). Would just smell them occasionally, according to my mood. I am particularly missing the first one now :(

Home is where the familiar “smell” is.

I never quite understood the romanticism/obsession about a “house”, though it has been the bricks of some great literature. It could be a menacing backdrop, as in Pinter’s The Room or a symbol of “purpose in life” as in Naipaul’s A house for Mr Biswas. Whatever it was, I never quite connected with it, till I visited my “home” two years back…after ages.

Opening the rusty lock, I entered a house full of dusty memories. Having been deserted for quite a few years, the smell of “dust” was beginning to overpower the smell of “home” that I so longed for. Fighting the cobwebs that hung from the ceiling, I tried to concentrate. The sofa that was also a clever little spare bed for cousins who stayed back the night had been specially designed by Baba. I removed the batik-printed bed cover from it (covered by Ma, to protect it from dust), to see if the colour was still what I remembered it to be. It was…only slightly faded.

The pegs on the wall smiled a strange naked smile. The paintings and photographs of friends and family had been dismounted when Ma went away to stay with Didi. They are kept somewhere safe in the cupboards, I think…but the walls look bruised without them.

The book-shelves in my room had also been wrapped up in a floral printed bed cover that I remember on the beds where I sat to do homework. The books were still there…neither Didi nor I could carry them all to our new cities. I picked up the Byomkesh Bakshi : Collection that Mama had given me when I did well in college. The second page had that beautiful handwriting, almost like calligraphy:
Dear Tuli,
May you enjoy the “search” as much as you enjoy the “find”.
Blessings,
Mama

The pujo place, which was actually a shelf converted to a place of worship, was empty. Ma had carried the Gods that she could…and the rest were sent to Mamabari, for regular “jol, batasha and dhoop kathi”. What remained was an old brass dhoop-kathi stand, which didn’t seem to find a new home and lay there all alone. I tried hard again to remember the smell of the incense sticks that Ma used…a chandan one, I think. But the cobwebs distracted me again.

Desperate for some fresh air, I went to the balcony. There were a few pots still, but no plants. Ma had given away most of her potted plants to neighbours and family. She could have left at least the old cactus behind, which always reminded me to a toothless, hairless old man. Cacti don’t need water or care, so am sure it would have survived. But no. She left all her loved ones, with some other loved ones.

I plugged in the old tape recorder that Didi and me had bought with our saved money (years later, we came to know that Baba had to pool in 90%, as our savings could buy us a few cassettes, not a whole cassette player. But we always thought it was “our” hard-saved money…and when Baba asked us to lower the volume, we sometimes told him that we won’t because it was OURS and we could do what we wanted with it.). Luckily, there was a cassette in it “Cliff Richards: Young Ones.” Half expecting the player to crash at my touch, I pressed the Play button.

And to my surprise, the magic voice started singing, low but clear. Clearing away the cobwebs from my home and from my memories, the music brought that familiar “smell” back.

Inspired by a recent conversation with a friend who is also visiting her home after ages.

My home on GoogleMaps:
http://wikimapia.org/435296/Aelite-Housing-Soceity-3-Bidhan-Sishu-Sarani-Kol-700-054

Therapy for a bad day...

It’s one of those days when suicide seems to be the best option…or murder.

And anybody who asks you to “take it easy” or “take a few deep breaths” reserves a place in your serial-killing victims list (an Excel sheet with no colours but grey).

So here’s an exercise for world peace. Am trying to think of all things I want, badly want:

A tree house where I can vanish…and simply disappear



A hammock in my backyard that overlooks the sea



A massage that just goes on and on …and on…and on



A sunny window sill where I can read, day dream and doze off



Is it too much to ask for?

Images - Gracias, Google
Acknowledgements - Gracias, Debanjana. I remember one of your posts on these lines.

The Mythical Land of "Maike"...

I have no doubt that most women today are more privileged than their counterparts from the black-and-white days. No getting married when you would rather go for school camps….no being thrown into the fire when a granddad of a husband takes off for the other world….no being mistaken for firewood by a dowry-greedy mother-in-law…no becoming mothers when you would rather be a kid yourself.

Having said that, I think the women today are deprived of a rather cool privilege. That of rushing off to the “maike” (parents’ place) when they got angry with the husband. It must have been so liberating! One had so many options to choose from:

Light anger – Don’t talk till forgiveness is asked for.

Medium anger – Have a war of words…cry a little…and threaten to go away to your “maike” till the opponent is moved to the golden words of “I am sorry.”

Heavy anger – Cry a lot…pack your clothes (don’t forget the novel you have been planning to read for a while) …walk out of the young man’s house…to walk into the old man’s house (who is always happy to see you, no matter what).

And then, life would be such a party! Eat and sleep and chat and read…and do what you want to do, while closely monitoring the number of times the husband calls in a day (of course you have given out strict instructions that the phone should not be passed to you, no matter what). And when you are sure that he has suffered/felt guilty enough…give him the chance to say “Sorry” or “Please come back home” or “I miss you”. Cry a tear or two to prove once again that “You were really hurt”, but say “yes” when he asks you if he should come to pick you up.

Then go back to a home where the pleasantest surprises are awaiting you. Dinner is cooked (for a change)…maybe a bunch of flowers somewhere to welcome you back home. What bliss!

There was something romantic about the whole episode, don’t you think? The parents are aware that it is only “one of those fights”, and don’t really force you to go back. The neighborhood friends pour in to ask “What exactly happened?” and you spice up the story, where obviously “he” is always at fault. And all this happens under the quiet, reassuring feeling that you will make up with him in a day or two and the two of you will live happily ever after… till the next fight.

Alas! “Maike” these days is as much a mythical place as “Kailash” or “Brindavan”.

We can fight and scream and cry and go into the “I-am-not-talking-till-you-say-sorry” mode. But we can’t rush off to the “maike”. Unless we are ready to apply for a visa, take annual leaves, buy last-moment expensive train/air tickets and travel a few thousand miles or nautical miles.

There is just no fun in marital fights anymore.

Jhooth bole - Bobby (Hindi song)- Watch more Videos at Vodpod.

Driving FAQs

Why is “driving someone crazy” so easy while “driving a car” so difficult?

The grocer’s shop from the petrol station is 2.5 kms. Why does it feel like 0.5 kms when Amit is driving, and 250 kms when I am trying to drive? Is distance inversely proportional to driving expertise? Why didn’t they say so in our Physics books, then?

Why is it important to “indicate” even when you are practicing steering control in an empty parking bay at midnight? Why is it that nothing makes your husband angrier than when you fail to indicate (even if you have taken a good stable turn)?

Why do I act like I am colour blind at a traffic signal? I surely can tell between a red, green and yellow when I am anywhere in the car apart from the driver’s seat. Again, if colour blindness was related to your position inside the car, why didn’t they say so in the Biology books?

Why is it that I can turn “left” when I tell myself “turn left” but will always turn “right” when someone else asks me to take “left”?

Why is it that my "brain" wants to obey my driving instructor but my "hands and feet" will take instructions from nobody but me?

How many times will I have to tell myself that to indicate “left” I need to turn that thing “up”? Don’t know what it’s called…but am referring to an elongated, protruding, rounded-at-the-tip part that can move up and down and also sideways and even a gentle touch can make it move. (Now will you dirty minds stop giggling and tell me what it's called?)

Why did it take me so much time to understand that while reversing a car, the “back” of the car moves to the direction to which the steering is turned? For god’s sake, when you are “reversing”, you want the car to move “backwards” and what the “front” of your car does is none of your concern! Why couldn’t I get such a simple thing?

And most importantly…

Why don’t they have something in between the accelerator and the brakes? Am I the only one confusing the two and speeding up head-on towards incoming traffic?

Of Faux Pas and Morals - Part 2

If you haven't read part 1, here it is.

It came to me like an epiphany...
That the greatest morals...
Are born...
Out of the greatest Faux pas…

At this year’s performance appraisal, I really couldn’t think of anything that I wasn’t happy with. I liked my job, I had awesome flexibility, the pay wasn’t bad, I could work from home when I wanted to, my teammates were competent and friendly and my manager was understanding and appreciative. So I spend hours on the “What you would like to change in your role” field on the self-appraisal form. But it seemed to be quite boring to leave that field empty. So I just forced myself to put this in:

“Would like to be involved in other creative work like advertising and promotional material”

(As if I didn’t already have my plate full with technical writing!)

Anyway, my manager was delighted at the proposition and asked me to prepare this year’s advertisement for our annual conference, which is a BIG event. My brief was to promote the Training team and to get more clients to come to us for training. I was excited.

The world was getting stingy and most companies preferred to train their employees in-house rather than sending them to the expensive professional training departments. So, I decided to make use of a good statistic that I found somewhere. “In-house training costs X% more than outsourced training “(though we tend to believe just the opposite). The idea was to make companies aware that sending their employees to us for training will not only ensure better performance but would also turn out cheaper.

Toying with this idea, I thought of an analogy, which was something around these lines:

“You wouldn’t school your children at home.
Then why train your employees in-house?”

And this would be followed by the cool statistic that I had found.

I also thought of a picture of a bored kid being schooled at home by his mother, with a blackboard hung in the kitchen and the chair next to him being occupied by their pet dog.

Quite happy with the concept, I called a meeting with the key stakeholders i.e. managers of the different departments, the Business Development team and my manager, of course.
When the clock struck 10am (actually there is no clock in my office really that “strikes” with that much drama…but there is something mysterious in saying so, instead of saying “At 10 am…” Don’t you think?)…

…the meeting room looked busy. The seats were taken, the projector switched on, the first slide of my presentation up.

And I decided I would share “how” I arrived at the idea before proceeding with the idea itself.
So I said “We all have memories of our school days. Good, bad, ugly…but memories nonetheless. We may have bunked school, hated exams, faked absent notes, copied homework from friends, waited eagerly for the lunch break, wrote silly rhymes on teachers we hated, bullied the “bulliable” kid and pretended to fall sick just before a test we hadn’t studied for. But we all remember school. And no one can deny that it is a BIG influence on who we are today.”

Saying this, I presented the main slide…with the picture of the bored kid, and the text accompanying it.

After a brief silence, my manager spoke (god bless him). He said “Good work, Deblina. But there are many parents who really don’t send their children to school.”

Annoyed that such a superb concept was so casually rejected, I said “But that’s quite stupid. Why on earth would parents want to deprive their child of an experience that every child deserves? I know that some of the greatest people have never been to school…but that’s different. We don’t do that anymore. Not going to school is not an option for any of us, petty mortals.”

“Actually, I was home-schooled myself. None of my siblings went to school. And you wouldn’t say we did badly for ourselves, would you?” my manager said.

I gaped.

Moral:

• Never ask for more work when you already have sufficient.


• Keep your opinions to yourself. Better still, don’t have opinions
  

I have sinned

A recent visit to a little church in Fremantle sparked the religious cells of my body. And I realised I was a sinner. That too of the “deadly” variety.

Gluttony
"Gluttony is an inordinate desire to consume more than that which one requires.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be force-fed rats, toads, and snakes."
This one’s going to take me to Hell for sure. Biriyani from Shiraz, momos from Tibetian Delight, fried rice from Lords, mutton rolls from Bedwin, gulab jamun from Haldiram’s…gosh, I have sinned. I have gulped and swallowed and eaten till I almost puked. And I don’t intend to repent or change. So Hell, keep the juiciest rats and the fattest toads ready for me.

Lust
"Lust or lechery, is usually thought of as excessive thoughts or desires of a sexual nature. Giving in to lusts can lead to sexual or sociological compulsions and/or transgressions including (but not limited to) sexual addiction, fornication, adultery, bestiality, rape, perversion, and incest.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be smothered in fire and brimstone. Not kisses."
On one of my farm vacations as a child, I once pulled a cow’s tits really hard. That was when an old man (caretaker of the farm I think) had taken us (cousins and me) to the shed to show us the big cows and how they were milked. So that was really bad of me and I hope that cow can forgive me for the torture. But since I did not really rape the cow or want to have sex with it, I think I will not have to walk within the flames. Not sure, though.

Greed
"Greed is the desire for material wealth or gain, ignoring the realm of the spiritual. It is also called Avarice or Covetousness.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be boiled alive in oil."
I exaggerated in my self- appraisal form and wrote the longest list of “Employee’s Achievements in the Financial Year 2006-2007” in order to convince my Manager that I deserved a raise. How very materialistic of me! Can I have olive oil in Hell to boil in, please? I seem to have a cholesterol problem and olive oil is all I am allowed to use. Thank you.

Sloth
"Sloth is the avoidance of physical or spiritual work.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be thrown into snake pits."
If Gluttony takes me to Hell, Sloth’s going to keep me there. Well, I am prepared for the snake pits …I have had my share of cooks and cleaners and gardeners and dishwashers and washing-machines and frozen meals.

Wrath

"Wrath is manifested in the individual who spurns love and opts instead for fury.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be dismembered alive."
I don’t break flower vases or expensive pieces of china when I am angry (what a waste). But I must confess that I almost bit a piece of flesh off Amit’s palm when I got angry once (can’t remember why). I also tore a handful of my sister’s hair when she refused to share a piece of cake (that too, after I had finished my share). Can I at least nominate which part of my body should be dismembered first in Hell? I’d like my stomach to go first, please. I always wanted to see myself without a tummy.

Envy
"Envy is the desire for others' traits, status, abilities, or situation.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be put in freezing water."
I have sinned. I have envied Julia Robert’s smile, Ambani’s wealth, Bill Gates’ brains, J. Lo’s ass, Sushmita Sen’s height, Dawn French’s sense of humor, Cliff Richard’s voice, Bill Bryson’s writing style, Oprah’s influence on people and Angelina Jolie’s luck with husbands.
I don’t mind snake pits and being burnt in oil. But freezing water!!! O how cruel!! I usually go without a bath if I cannot have warm water in winter (and sometimes even in summer. I hate taking baths anyway!). Please. Pleeeeaaase. Can I get lukewarm water, if I don’t envy anyone from this moment on?

Pride
"Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God.
Your punishment in Hell will be: You'll be broken on the wheel."
Usually, in most matters, I have absolutely “no belief in my own abilities”. But somehow, I thought that I can eat as much as I want…and not exercise at all, and can still remain non-obese. Now that I AM obese, this belief is shattered. So perhaps my putting on weight has some benefits after all…they won’t find a wheel big enough to crush me in Hell [Evil grin :)].

They say that in confession lies redemption. I hope the keepers of Hell are reading this. But if they were advanced enough to read blogs, surely they would have come up with more techno tortures like “data-entry for a 1000 years” or “write formal emails to a zillion people” or “read technical manual (perhaps the ones I wrote) for eternity” or “test buggy software non-stop till you die and are born again in Hell” etc .

Dunno. Any clue?

Sin research: http://www.deadlysins.com/sins/

Image: Google

Honeymoon

No am not going on my nth honeymoon…in fact am not even going on a vacation before December. But lately I have had many friends (who are hoping , fearing or simply going to get married soon) ask me “So give me some honeymoon tips.” As if people have taken me on their honeymoon since I was born!!!

On googling “honeymoon”, you get 22,400,000 results. Just shows how much “collective” information there is out there. But no “one” person can be considered an authority, as a person can technically go on a honeymoon only a few times (depending on the number of failed marriages). Of course there are a zillion “honeymoon experts” in the form of travel agents and package dealers…who will do everything that is to be done (except perhaps sleep with your partner).

So here’s my two cents worth, if none of the 22,400,000 results have quite helped you:

Do not postpone your honeymoon for a “more suitable” time. Go for one immediately after the wedding, while the mehndi is still fresh and the mind is in its “spending best”. If you decide to do it later, trust me, it will either never happen….or even if it does, will never be the same. Money will be short, holidays not long enough, destinations never decided, moods never right, and the most horrible “we-have-been-married-3-months-what-do-we-need-a-honeymoon-for” feeling or the "let's-ask-Guddu-and-Mampi-to-join-us-it-will-be-more-fun" feeling. DON’T let that happen. Set off from the reception venue, if you must.

Choose a place that both of you haven’t visited earlier. If one of you has, it will be like watching a thriller with someone next to you narrating the next scene…or worse still someone being very helpful by telling you what’s going to happen at the end. You don’t want your partner to show off his/her geographical/navigational/cultural/lingual expertise when you are on a honeymoon. Go to a new place and see it for the first time…together.

A honeymoon is NOT a usual vacation. So don’t make plans and checklists and places-to-visit lists. Even if you are the adventurous explorer, trust me, you will get plenty of opportunities to visit places in your life. You don’t HAVE TO see all the places that are to be seen…or do all the things that are to be done. Relax by the beach/mountain/forest…or in the spa, drink exotic fluids the names of which you can’t pronounce after a drink, eat the most extravagant meals, and chat chat chat. Get to know each other rather than getting to know the place (I know most marriages happen after a lifetime of “seeing-each-other”. Nevertheless, don’t give up on trying to “know” each other as that’s an exercise you will have to do all your life. Better start it when the weddings rings are still sparkling).

Choose a remote place that doesn’t have internet or mobile connections. You don’t want to check your work mails…or get phone calls from over-enthusiastic friends and family asking you “how is it going?”

Make sure that the indoors are as good as the outdoors (you might not want to go out at all :)). So the hotel/chalet/resort or whatever other cool things they have these days, should be one that makes you say “wow”.

Meditate for 5 seconds everyday in the morning. It might be too much to tolerate your partner 24/7 for 5-7 days at a stretch, with no one else to talk to.

Carry more clothes/shoes/accessories than you need or can possibly wear during your stay. Remember, these days the whole idea of going on an exotic honeymoon is to be able to impress friends and friends’ friends on orkut and facebook!! So you must look as cool as you possibly can.

Last but the MOST important, carry a tripod. Otherwise you will end up with dozens of solo pictures…or distorted and bloated faces of the two of you trying to look at the camera that you are holding as far away as you possibly can (doesn’t really help unless you have long hands like the “petnis” we read about as children ). Worse still, having one or two pictures of the two of you together that a kind passerby had volunteered to click. Remember, kind people are mostly bad photographers…and you cannot ask them to keep clicking till you look your slimmest best. A tripod will help solve all your photographic dilemmas.

So that’s that. Happy honeymooning!

Horrid Horror

I am a wannabe. Someday I want to watch a horror movie all by myself…in an empty house, at night. At the moment, here is what the situation is like:

I need a room full of people (preferably the brave types). These people need to act normal i.e. eat pop corn, cough or sneeze regularly, leave their cell phones in Loud mode, talk to one another once in a while. In short, I need constant proof that they are alive and normal….and have not frozen into mummies or evaporated in the air (as I sometimes feel may happen, during a scary movie).

I need two men on either side of me (men, not women…as most ghosts are women in white, with their long hair on their face). These days Amit usually obliges by being on one side (god bless him). To fill up the other side, I look for other people’s husbands (not a good thing for my character certificate). I end up with the feeling of being watched, all through the movie…double-watched in fact (one by the spirit in the movie, and one by the wife of the husband who has kindly volunteered to sit by my side). That, I’m afraid, is not a particularly reassuring feeling.

I need these two men on my two sides, to not leave their seats for a single second. No, they are not allowed a bathroom break while the movie is on. So Amit usually empties his bladder before taking his seat, and advises the ‘other man’ to do the same. Needless to say, I do so too…and I don’t drink anything after that, lest my kidneys call.

I need all the lights and heater to be on (spirits, I hear, do not prefer light or heat).

I need a blanket to cover myself and my eyes when camera angles and music suggest that something horrid is about to happen. It springs from the ‘if-I-can’t-see-them-they can’t-see-me-either’ feeling. This however, does not work on exceptionally well-directed movies, where the most horrid scenes appear when least expected.

After the movie, I need an escort everywhere I go, including the bathroom. The distance between the escort and me is directly proportional to the passage of time after the movie (as more time elapses, the distance can increase) and inversely proportional to the degree of fear (the more scared I am, the closer I need the escort to be). At the moment it works somewhat like the following:

Day 1 (immediately after the movie) - Escort needs to be inside the bathroom, with his/her back turned to me. He or she is allowed to sing in order to distract themselves from the sounds that my digestive tract or an over-eager flow of pee can make.
Day 2 – Escort can stand outside the bathroom door, which will be left open. Again, singing is allowed.
Day 2 – Escort can stand outside the bathroom door, which can now be shut, but not locked (so that he/she can rush inside in case I get any sudden attack of fear).
Day 3 – Escort can stand outside the bathroom door, which can now be locked. However, he/she needs to keep singing so that I know that they haven’t left their posts.
Day 4 onwards – I am pretty much independent again. Escort should however be ready for providing service in an emergency (a nightmare or a scary scene on television).

Acknowledgements: Ma was my most loyal escort all the years I was at home. Amit has reluctantly taken up her position, after our marriage. God bless you both!

Inspired by a recent viewing of The Ring, at a friend’s place.