The Month That Was.... January '15

Mostly I have only one reaction:

New year’s eve and January 1st were spent with some of the people I care about the most in Bangalore – we laughed and laughed and played board games and laughed some more. We took a break from the laughing to dance and group call those who were not with us. And then we resumed laughing. It was fun, to say the least. And more meaningful than any party I could have attended.

Work pressure eased out a great deal – it was like January came around and all my problems just fell away. Someone I really look up to came back to my team and I breathed easier for it – I knew all the messes would be cleaned up now. He is being hard on us but it is worth it.

I went off on a much-needed vacation during the Republic day weekend. It was lovely being so cut off from everything, not being able to use my phone for anything except clicking photos. I found the perfect place to sit and read, and I went skateboarding down a ramp… several times. It was crazy. Then I trekked and fished and zoned out of life as I knew it and I loved it. I came back with a better head – one that wasn’t crammed full of questions and stress and God-knows-what-not, and I’m a happier person for it. 

Some of my new year’s resolutions/decisions are on track, some fell away and some were forgotten from day two… Ah well, something better than nothing, right. Fitness is still on the backseat, I cannot seem to find any kind of exercise that I can stick to for longer than a couple of days.

The horoscopes say that Arians are going to have the best year in a long time and despite my logical side shushing the incredulity of it all, I can’t help being hopeful – the last few years have been stressful, physically and mentally, it was one thing after the other. So maybe this is going to be my year after all :)

Days are full, nights are deliciously cold, time is flying.
And I’m hooked on to The Hanging Tree.

February, how you doin’?

Mind – numb
Body – tired
Soul – aching
Thoughts – scattered
Mood – brooding
Feelings – sharp
Sentences – garbled
Fingers – cramped
Nails – chipped
Muscles – sore
Clothes – drab
Hair – undone
Emotions – blank
Feet – wounded
Screen – cracked
Keys – broken
Sight – impaired

Life – weary

 

 

 

 

P.S: Sorry about being such a downer, I'm not depressed or anything. Just how Mondays make me feel. BAH.

Roasters Being Roasted

Let’s talk AIB roast.

A set of gentlemen, who rose to fame doing standup comedy on Youtube, decide to up the ante of comedy in India and do a roast (click to find what EXACTLY a roast is). A very well-known set of gentlemen and a lady, who are from the entertainment industry, were roped in to be part of the aforementioned roast. All said characters were above 18, the videos put on social media came with clear, simple disclaimers announcing the explicit nature of the content and the profanity used. Karan Johar said, before anything else, if you are easily offended, or even offended at all, please stop watching.

Now, my question to all those who are “offended”, “disgusted”, “throwing up”, think that it is against Indian culture (I’m laughing so hard at this one), feel that AIB has committed a serious crime by misusing the freedom that netizens have and believe that they hurt the sentiments of people: WHY DID YOU CONTINUING WATCHING, YOU MORONS? Did the “Close Window” button disappear? Were you hynotised? Tied down?  

Addressing certain points in further detail:

1) The very point of the show was to introduce roasting, a form of comedy that has existed for decades now, to India and the fact that AIB was able to find established celebrities to take part in it and allow themselves to be taken potshots at, is commendable. Like it has been said before: us, Indians take ourselves too seriously. We are a bunch of people who can’t laugh at ourselves. We lose no time in making up Sardar jokes, Bihari jokes and Mallu jokes but the moment the joke turns on us, we get up on the high horse and become snooty as hell. I’m guessing most people who have a problem with the entire thing haven’t even watched Western roasts which are far, far more “insulting”. 

2) Two big stars of the Bollywood (going by popularity) got insulted about their acting skills, about their looks and behavior and even how pathetic at studies they are. One of the most prominent directors of Bollywood, a well-respected film critic and a group of boys who are trying to up the ante of stand-up in India - they stepped in to get insulted voluntarily. Mind you, these are people whose careers depend on the image they have, they still chose to have that image trashed, all because they had the balls to try something new. Which one of you would like to take their place? Huh? Forget that big a scale, try standing up in your office and doing something embarrassing, or even have your boss have you pull you up for coming in late in front of the whole team. I’m sure most of you will cringe away from that.

If you can stand up and be okay with being made fun of for being obese, gay, dark, generic looking, unsuccessful, bad at studies, bad at relationships, or any of your other billion shortcomings – go right ahead and criticize AIB and their roast for all you are worth. Otherwise, shut it.

3) I don’t understand what the big deal is about profanity. Like you have never heard ten cuss words in a string before. The show was predominantly in Hindi, so they cussed each other out in Hindi. Shows like Roadies, Splitsvilla and Big(g) Boss which everyone is a fan of (let’s get this straight, while everyone openly disses these shows, we all know that they wouldn’t have continued for ten odd seasons if they didn’t have through-the-roof ratings… which basically means that we are all watching it secretly:/) have beeps in the televised versions every five minutes and the Youtube versions aren’t even censored. But suddenly when AIB pulls off a successful show, you will realize how “LS” the cuss words are, is it? Double-standards, much. You are going to be all uppity about a comedy show? So what jokes DO you want to hear? Ones about the chicken crossing the road?

Also, two words for you. DK Bose.
I didn’t hear anybody being deeply concerned or asking for public, unconditional apologies over a certain catchy number that even children had started to sing.

4) They sold tickets for a good cause and gave the patrons their money’s worth.  Yes, you I-take-myself-too-seriously person, some people took it in the spirit it was intended in, paid money and laughed and then continued with their lives. Charities benefitted. People’s lives became slightly better. And there ends the matter. It should have ended there for you too - you have way too much time on your hands and no semblance of a life if you take comedy shows seriously.

I’m not a die-hard fan of AIB or anything - I like some of their videos, I have watched and re-watched them, I don’t find some of their videos funny at all. But I am very, very impressed with their out-of-the-box thinking, at the way they got such big names to agree to being roasted, at the sheer guts for having pulled the entire thing off in a country like India.

I’m not saying you have to like it. I’m all for you having an opinion, positive or negative. But judge the roast with the same yardstick that you use to judge comedy in general, for this is just a form of it. They tried something new and they made it work. If you can top that, then do that. If you can’t, leave them be. Don’t try to malign just for the sake of malice.

In my head, this is Charlie Hebdo all over again. Not in the gravity of events but the media, any form of it, having the right to freedom of speech. They said their piece, agree with it, choose to disagree, but let them say what they have to. Have the courage and the confidence in your own opinion to let other people have their say, the way they want it said. Otherwise, you are no better than a schoolyard bully whose brain never really made it to adulthood. 

P.S: Linking to AIB's response to the entire fiasco which I find extremely mature.
P.P.S: "You" is not a general statement. It is a pronoun referring to all those people who can't take a joke.

14 Things I Hate About You

14. I hate the way you look after a haircut; all that beautiful hair gone.
13. I hate the way you contort your face into so many different expressions; pleasantness replaced by grotesqueness.
12. I hate how patient you are; annoyingly so.
11. I hate how you drive my Activa; how the speedometer doesn’t go beyond the 40 kmph mark.
10. I hate it when you say those little white lies; winning an argument at any cost becomes priority.
9. I hate it when you are too lazy to text; you have gotten over the obsessive texting stage, you say.
8. I hate it when you make me change clothes; the reverse psychology on the shortness of my skirt is unbearable.
7. I hate how you don’t hold my hand for more than two seconds in public; decorum should go take a hike sometimes, you know?
6. I hate how long you take to put on your socks; really? Socks?
5. I hate it when you give me gyaan on road rage; he fucking overtook me from the left, that moron!! He deserves the finger.
4. I hate how my stomach drops when I see you in the distance; I anticipate the warmth of a bear hug.
3. I hate how you thought of making moong dal chat before I did; I’m supposed to be the recipe inventor and pamper-er, no?
2. I hate needing you to tell me that the murderer was just a nightmare, that I have better men in my life now, that I should stop thinking so much, that it’s normal to talk to mom for hours on end and abnormal to not like plum cake.

1. But what I really hate is the way I don’t hate you, not even close, not even a little bit, not even at all.

P.S: Shamelessly copied from the movie, but my version.

What I See In The Mirror

I see locks of hair which seem to have a personality of their own; poker straight from the top and those annoying (sometimes) outward flicks towards the end – no matter what products I use, how many different styles I try or how much heat I apply, those flicks have refused to leave my side for almost a decade now. We have made our peace with each other; I even get compliments sometimes, people asking how I style my hair to get those flicks.

I see bangs that fall into my eyes the day I shampoo, the bangs that I admired on my mother. The bangs that made her look pretty and young and me, very wannabe back in high-school. High-maintenance bangs which never really look the same each day but have to be ironed out every single day. Otherwise, they curl up into unsightly Clark Kent-like versions making me freak out if the power goes out when I’m getting ready for work.

I see eyes which are always painstakingly lined with kohl. But I don’t know why I bother: I have Chinese eyes, ones that disappear when I crack a smile, even a small one. No amount of kohl or liner help in “defining” the eyes, which is unfortunate considering I’m a writer who believes a woman’s doe-like eyes are both the windows to her soul and the keepers of her secrets.

I see a nose, a button nose. Nothing as cute as it sounds, but nevertheless. One which gave me so much trouble as a teenager by producing oil enough to run a small country. Now, it just sits there, functioning. 

I see skin, remnants of tan, scarring from picked-on pimples from a time when I didn’t know better, bags under the eyes from nights spent trying to pick a chapter after which I should put down the book, the beginnings of fine lines fanning outward reminding me to act like the 24-year old that they see.

I see a body that is full of overdosing on junk food, a life of two years that has been an indulgence, to say the least. My time in the city of no rules, my yearning to get the unwieldy love for food out of my system, my efforts to live life at the unhealthiest best.

I see clothes that have been picked out with no care. As a child, I was constantly prettifying myself up for no other reason but to just be pretty. Now, I see an adult who hates to shop, even online, has no penchant for putting outfits together and always waits till the last possible minute, quite literally, to rummage through the wardrobe to find something appropriate for any occasion.

I see hands and feet that desperately need some yummy-smelling, indulgent cream after the chill in the wind has nipped them of all moisture. I keep thinking I’ll do it tonight knowing full well that ‘tonight’ will be spent zipping through the pages of another story, yet not having the will enough to fetch the bottle from the shelf that sits just out of reach.

What I see in the mirror is so imperfect. So flawed, so full of faults.
So human.

But then I realize: I’m not a sum of all that I see in the mirror. I’m a sum of all that I don’t, a sum of all that I am.

P.S: This was written for Sharath Kommaraju's contest, never got around to posting it.

The Year That Was... 2014

The year whizzed by so quickly, I have no idea what hit me.

1)    January was a month full of resolutions that I never even bothered following up after the first week.

2)    February was Typhoid Month. I didn’t tell my mother that I was down and out and was adamant about not going to doctor because I thought it was only a fever. Needless to say, it was a horrible week. And the rest of the month was awash in the pallid discomfort that comes with a serious (relatively) illness.

3)    I don’t even remember March! :O All I remember is how I had to do 50% more every day at work to make up for all the leaves in February :/

4)    April was my Tattoo Month, a dream of 6 years fulfilled. Friends made sure my birthday was extra special, a lovely handmade card changed the relationship equation, resulting in a bond that I sure will do my best to hold on to for the rest of my lifetime. The following weeks also happened to have back to back birthdays as well – all in all ensuring that I had several of those amazing cheesecakes from the aunty on Brunton road. I also blogged every day. Yay me. 

5)    May saw me changing roles. And wishing I hadn’t. While I am proud of what I have achieved so far, I cannot play politics for the life of me and the current set up requires me to. Many a sleepless night battling a conscience and needing to do the right thing was spent, work ethics and principles were tested. What started in May of 2014, has not ended yet; why - maybe cowardice, maybe shrewdness or the lack thereof. Or maybe just the fact that if I up and leave, I'll be broke. Whichever it is, not really good for my sanity.

6)    June was a big, fat blur spent languishing in the heat... Oh, the heat :/ I'm dreading summer of 2015 already, that bad the previous one was.

7)    July was a bigger, fatter blur.

8)    August was the month of gossip. When, as usual, people I thought were friends came out with their own hidden agendas. So there was a lot of we know that they know that we don't know that they know going on around here. Tiresome, nothing less.

9)    By September, most of my friends were either getting married, or having babies, bringing out the incredulous phase of am-I-really-old-enough-to-be-married? No, I don’t have any illusions of being a lithe teenager still, especially not after random children call me ‘aunty’ [-_-] but mental age also has to be taken into account when it comes to marriage and growing up no?

10)     October witness my aerobics fiasco. Needless to say, I decided enough was enough after the month was up and I blocked my trainer’s number to prevent him from ‘motivating’ me into going back. Despite my desire to get back in shape, self-inflicting pain is not my thing. October also witnessed my blog makeover; I decided that starting over can be a good thing to, allows me to set my own pace – something I need for my writing.

11)    November was the month of reading; I got a Kindle and I begrudgingly admit that it is so much more convenient that actual books. Not that I will ever, ever not love the feel and the texture and the sheer pleasure of a printed page, for practical purposes, I think I’m hooked onto the Kindle. Someone give me some ideas to spruce up the cover, though. Boring black.

12)    December was and will remain my second favorite month because of all the happiness it brings in the form of spirit of giving. Mum came over for Christmas, the sister created a board game (yes, created from scratch) and the brother fixed my laptop making me realize just how much he has grown up. New Year’s Eve was spent with lovely people. Videos and pictures, the number of which is not even in two digits, were taken to remind us through the year how lucky we are to have some people in our lives. A great end to a decent year.

2014 has been more than kind to me.

I have a few resolutions, though I‘m scared of labelling them that for fear of non-compliance. I’d rather call them lifestyle changes. Looking forward to a few important things that seem very likely to happen this year: my second tattoo, a career shift, settling down, some people to be cherished, some to be cut out, some habits to be nurtured, some to be nipped in the bud. 2015 is definitely going to be… interesting. A test of my willpower, of sorts.

I’m sure this blog is going to witness any and all of these events, so I’m not going to elaborate (I can hear you heaving that sigh of relief, you know? I’m right here :P)

I wish each and every one of you people a very, very happy new year which gives you everything you deserve and then some. A year that spaces out the crests and the troughs to ensure that you remain grounded. A year that will have highlights so stark that it will remain etched in your memory forever.

Happy 2015, y’all!! 

 

transience

Everything turns into a memory – good or bad – and is stored in the recesses of your mind only to be called upon when life manages to replicate some part of the memory at some point, a smell, a sight, a sound, a word…

PC

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

My tummy is hurting so bad that I can’t stand up. I will myself to think about something else but the moment my thought process leads away from the pain, a sharp jag brings it back to the focal point somewhere between my ribs and my waist. I hear the clink of vessels in the kitchen next to my room and I wander into a tale of self-pity in my mind – I lie here, suffering, and my mother doesn’t care enough to come cuddle me, say a few soothing words. She gave me some medicine about an hour ago and that was that. Self-pity can be very comforting and very destructive – a few tears leak out of my tightly-closed eyes. It would be years before I realized that there is nothing my mother could have done about it. On the other hand, the way she reacted is what inched up my threshold for pain and for that, I am thankful now.

***

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

I knew that I’d just gotten past the point of no return. Three years together have come apart at the seams. I’d parroted about a point of no return but when it really comes to pass, I feel dissociated despite the questions about the future that has a big, gaping hole in it. I think what makes me want to break things is that someone who is supposed to know me well chooses to believe the first rumor that comes around. It would be long years before I understood that when you have had enough, the first excuse is enough. I vow I’d never let a boy get me this low ever again. Now and forever, I come first. Me.

But that doesn’t stop me from beating myself up secretly for failing. The baggage is piling up.

***

I lie curled up in a ball, my favorite pillow yielding no comfort.

I feel winded, like someone had taken the air out of my lungs. The long, long post that highlights everything that is wrong with me. Surprisingly, I am not angry at the writer; in her defense, I’d started it. I always thought that I’m only as flawed as the next human being, but seems like I’m more than. I know it is pure spite that is spilling out, that I wasn’t half those things by many other people’s accounts. But I’m like that chef, one bad review trumps twenty good ones. Way to kick a person when she’s down, I tell the author in my head. Forgiving her is easy, chit of a girl... forgiving myself is what is going to take a long, long while.

***

I lie curled up in a ball.

It is only when you are dying that your life flashes by you, they say.

I close my eyes tight and picture frames like the ones from 1 Second Everyday run by my mind’s eye – a half-eaten bowl of rice and a picture book about a hat that grew larger and larger, a beating that came after the kulfi in the fridge was checked on too frequently, Lego blocks in a yellow tub, a raggedy brown bear that wasn’t cute but terribly loved, Rachel, the dinosaur who has travelled all the way to Dubai – farther than I have ever gone, buttons that were bought to make earrings for best friends and forgotten in a bag, the blue credit card that has been buried at the back of the wardrobe, the picture from Grade 10 that brings a cringe to the face, Ma’s biscuit cake, pushing the cousin off his cradle, losing pets, writing stories, talking to the mirror and sometimes the pillow, hospital visits that swung between the best and the worst, the unbearable drama in some relationships, the astounding simplicity of others, one billion thoughts a day, life – past and future. 

***

The best moments of life and the worst are temporary. In the end, they are all relegated to one barrel of memories, each just a blip on the radar of my existence.

"God is a Gamer" - Book Review

PC

I have been walking around with this book in my hand for weeks now, looking for an excuse to not read it. When I expressed the requirement of having to compulsorily read it for the review, my colleague made an apt statement:

“If you read and average of a books a week from now and we’ll assume you will live till you are 80 years old, you will read a total of  2912 books. Now, do you really want this to be one of those limited number of books.”

For someone who hasn’t read more than 50% of even the classics, the sound math put things into perspective. 

Yet I ploughed on for another couple of days to ensure that my review is not biased by my personal views on writing and fiction.

God is a Gamer by Ravi Subramanian is India’s first bitcoin thriller. A storyline that weaves through global streets and paced at breakneck speed, the book is a huge improvement on the previous thrillers I have experienced from Indian authors. But the sheer number of characters which have been introduced with a pointlessness that numbs my mind is surpassed by the amount of effort that has gone into making those characters… well... point-ful. Unfortunately, the effort goes to waste.

Let me break it down for you.

Cons:
•    The grand finale/reveal falls flat on its face – insipid to say the least.
•    Too many focal points to the story, all good in their individual capacities, but together lose focus and thereby, are ineffective. Like someone mixed upma, parathas and KFC chicken and then threw in a taco and some beans for good measure.
•    Weak characterization; most characters have been given roles with a lot of meat on them without actually letting the readers get to the meat. This, again, is a fall out of the above point, lesser focal points would have given more scope to elaborate on the intricacies of each character line, which in turn would have added to the storyline.
•    Flimsiness – of everything. Not one character, not only event could hold my attention.

Pros:
•    Bitcoins are fascinating, I did follow the whole rise and fall of the actual Cotton Trail and all, and this book educates readers on why that is so.
•    A lot of research has gone into the writing bit of the book which is much appreciated; there are no half-baked facts on gaming, poisons and such which are covered in the book.
•    The language is simple and clean, straight-forward even. No bad grammar and typos and whatnot.

All in all, this is a book you should read when you are travelling for over a couple of days and you don’t have the focus to read a good book because of all the vendors going chaay, chaay, kaapi, kaapi, idli-vadeeee every few minutes, but you still want to read something to keep your mind off the rowdy crowd, the unnecessarily inquisitive aunty and the extremely judgmental college student in your compartment. Or if you are one of those people who carry a book around to show off.

This review is a part of the biggest Book Review Program for Indian bloggers at blogadda. 

Sunday Mornings

My eyes flutter open. My lashes are still heavy with sleep and my breathing is still making that transition.

The first thing I see is you, sprawled on your tummy with your face turned towards me. I smile at this very clichéd, very poetic scene: a ray of sunshine is creeping in through my chocolate brown curtains dappling your face with a single streak of light across, your small snores and the fast swish of the fan are the only noises that break the silence of Sunday. Stereotypes are stereotypes for a reason, I decide.

It is comfortably cold, the kind that makes me tuck my toes in securely. I lift my head up half an inch to check if you are cold, if you need a podapu*. But I see that you have purposely stuck your feet out of the covers, one of your many little idiosyncrasies, one of many that come together to make you, you.

I smile sleepily: those moments when you are being you flit hazily through my mind – insistent hand movements that you make when you are talking about someone at work who you specifically don’t like, the yikes face when you realize you have forgotten to do something that I asked you to, the helpless face when I’m crying about family, the smile that sneaks out when you see me search absently for my phone with one hand while the other is clutching  a book which has my nose buried in it, the way you flop onto the bean bag with a thud that always earns a scowl from me….

That thread of thought leads to another, less pleasant one: all those times when I have, hands on hip, yelled at you for things that you don’t do and shut you up with sheer, unadulterated, acidic temper. I immediately feel sorry for you, for having to deal with it… It takes even more out of me because you almost never react till I shut up for good about it. I’m thankful, I’m grateful.

I know if I wake you up now, you will drag me all the way to Church for half the day. So I’m quiet as a mouse, I give myself up to the thoughts flitting around again; they don’t really make any noise, either.

You mutter something about a costing report in your sleep and I say pffft involuntarily – your obsession with work is something that I will never understand. But I have a feeling that I’m mirroring you in my career, I aspire to be you…. That’s gotta be a good thing, right?

I realize that I don’t question this anymore – there used to be a time when my face had a smile for you but my head was bursting at its seams with questions – I don’t know when those questions faded away, though. Have I learnt to go with the flow? Or have things just solidified, like truth or a fact, like how the sun will never rise from the west?

I am overwhelmed, suddenly, when I realize that for once in my life, I’m at the right place at the right time.  I’m where I’m supposed to be. So I touch the wood on headboard superstitiously, silently thank my stars and shut my eyes tight, before snuggling in a little closer. This moment is mine and I promise myself that I will get it right this time.

*podapu: duvet

P.S: NaBloPoMo is obviously shot to hell. Sigh.
P.P.S: I want this to happen to me. Double sigh.
 

NaBloPoMo - Tonight

Tonight, I will be me.

Tonight I shed the inhibitions that society foists on my persona, telling me to be a certain way because it is cool, telling me not to say things which are not.

Tonight I break out of the mould that the world has cast me in, to make me easier to categorize, to fit me into a convenient ‘type’.

Tonight I walk out of the binds of tradition and religion, the chains which wind themselves around my feet – they started when I was a child and now they have become too tight, they hinder my steps, leaps and bounds.

Tonight I shatter the judgments that humanity has cast on me, I rip off the labels and the tags that trail around in my wake.

Tonight I tear apart the stereotype that I ‘belong’ to, I wring out the lessons I learnt to ‘fit in’ and cast away the cloak I hide me in. 

Tonight I step out of the stilettos that society has me wearing, to make my butt look shapelier in the fancy pencil skirt, for they say, a desirable woman should have a shapely butt.

I let the green grass caress my bare feet, I feel the wind rushing through the unbraided locks of my hair, the lips are devoid of the “color-of-the-season”, the eyes are bare and the clothes lack a fancy label.

The feeling of comfort that spreads through my veins, through my person, is a better high than any substance can ever give me. This is the best present I can give myself, to be me.

For tomorrow is a battle I intend to win.

NaBloPoMo - OneWord Prompt: Earrings

Her pearl drop earrings mesmerized him – the perfect curve of her cheek that was the backdrop to the pure, pristine white piece of jewellery seemed to have hypnotic capabilities that he wasn’t capable of comprehending. He had never paid much attention to random women before – just a cursory glance, one that was demanded by Nature and his birthright as a full-blooded male. But this one caught his attention right the first time her dupatta whipped across his face, when he was crossing the road from Forum to Koramangala – a scene straight out of a movie and yet, one that remained with him for a long time to come. 

He will never know her name, her favorite color or the way she likes her tea. She will never even know that he exists. But that brief quasi-meeting would ensure that every pearl drop earring he saw from then on, would take him back to the road from Forum and Koramangala. 

Ah, sweet unrequited attraction.

PC

NaBloPoMo - The Serenity Prayer

Oh Lord, give me the serenity to accept that sometimes there might be another side to the story;
Give me courage to understand that some people are just morons;
And give me wisdom to understand the difference between the two kinds.

I have come to that inevitable point in life when my newsfeed is filled with wedding pictures and even baby pictures, in some cases. My best friend from school tells me that, come February 2015, I’ll be the only single friend she knows and I’m filled with a desire to pump a fist in the air for this achievement of sorts (I do realize that it is not a competition :P). Another friend tells me that I'll be maasi in exactly 8 months. I feel like I'm suspended in a place where all these are alien concepts, so to speak.

The reason for my version of the Serenity Prayer is something else though.

I notice a trend:

1)    Find boyfriend.
2)    Make boyfriend’s life hell with tantrums, post sap on Facebook.
3)    Break up with him three dozen times and get back together with him three dozen times. Restart cycle.
4)    One fine morning, realize that boyfriend is not good enough for you (this will coincide with the time that you complete your post-graduation - at least with people I know)
5)    Get married to an NRI from US/UK/Ireland/Australia/Timbuktoo within the next six months. Or less.

My issue is not with the ditching of the boyfriend – I realize that some people are not cut out for braving a "tough" life (with a boyfriend who might not be settled in life) and are happy taking the easier way out. I also understand that you dated because the age you were at called for it and you didn’t think of the amount of money the boyfriend will have in his pocket by the time you are ready to get married when you were drunk on love. As long as the marriage is happy, I could care less.

My problem is the grieving period, so to speak, after the relationship. Most of these girls are married less than six months after I hear about their breakup and I wonder. I wonder how the fuck they are able to dispense off with the person they fell in love with and promised forever to so quickly and install someone new in their place, someone with big pockets who will gift you MAC makeup and Victoria's Secrets coupons, someone you hardly know.

I know I might be sitting on a high horse and passing unnecessary judgment where it is not required and sometimes it might not even valid, but I find it very unfair to the institutions of both marriage and love that you don’t even pretend to take time to get over someone you said ‘I love you’ to with your whole heart.  

PC

Or maybe none of it was real.
Which makes me so naïve and silly that it is not even funny anymore.

NaBloPoMo: OneWord Prompt - Takeoff

Her feet had faltered when she had stepped in, her head was pounding from the duress she was under. After a point, she had blanked out her thoughts and was concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other, just to ensure that she could function normally. As normally as she could at the moment, anyway.

She found her spot and sank in, trying to wipe sweat off of her face with cold, clammy hands. All her instincts told her to leave, find the exit and walk way, while she still had the chance; but she grit her teeth and held her ground, she had to be at the meeting or it would cost her company millions in dollars. The door finally closed and a handsome steward went through the mechanical motions of safety and security – but she was shaking like an aspen leaf caught in the hurricane by then.

The procedures were in motion, the flight was second in queue for takeoff. She sat in her seat desperately trying to control her breathing, failing, hyperventilating…. She had never feared flying, initially. Hell, she’d been flying since she was three. The fear had just creeped in from somewhere, she never could pinpoint an exact incident that had led her to her aviophobia.

She was contemplating throwing up when she decided enough was enough, people flew all the time and she was being silly. She had leaned back into her plush seat when the Captain’s voice rang through the cabin: clear, precise and soothing.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Captain Zaharie Shah, welcome to Flight MH370…

And then the flight took off.

PC

Promptlink

The Month That Was.... October '14

There was a reason that I started The Month That Was… series back in July 2011. To keep a track of what happens when so that, when I look back at the year that was, all I see is not just a blur but a clear account of, what my boss insists on calling, hits and misses. I’m thankful to those posts. And I’m restarting them, after a failed attempt earlier this year.

PC

October taught me the art of being patient. AND how. There is something I have been waiting to come through since the month of September (which still hasn’t, btw) and it has taken everything that I have to not have a major meltdown about it. Everything else in life has been put on hold for this one thing but it is like God is waving it my face and saying, “Bitch, please. I have all the control”.
Anyway, I shall probably know something by the end of this month, so you guys will know shortly.

October taught me to endure pain by throwing the very-not-looked-forward-to-aerobics classes in my face. Every cell in my body wanted me to stay in bed and skip out on the next class but I pushed forward. Mostly.

October also saw me reading so much lesser. I invested in the damn Kindle in hopes that I won’t go broke shopping in Blossoms. But what has actually happened is that, the device has been loaded with all the books I want and then stashed away safely in the cupboard. All I have now to show for it is a bigger credit card bill. So much for that. NOTHING can replace paperbacks and hardbounds. Sigh.

October also saw my blog transition. I started researching on revamps for Mr. Phatichar and ended up with a new blog for myself. Two months of head-breaking changes later, I’m so excited to be writing here that it makes me think it is all worth it.

October also left with 200 bucks in my salary account in the end. Which is a first. The balance is usually in double digits.

October saw me fist pumping to be the last one in my school friends gang to be married. I also got news that the girl I had sleepovers with, who got married a few months ago, is having a baby in exactly 8 more months. While I am happy for her, I’m still working out how I feel about it. Not that it is any of my business anyway.

October has been the laziest work month yet. I have OCDs about exceeding targets, this month has been about doing just about what is absolutely necessary. Lack of motivation, lack of direction basically. And I don’t like this attitude which has set in. Working on it.

October saw Mum dropping and cracking the screen of her iPad. I haven’t even finished paying for it, dammit!! Damn you, stupid, careless jostler at Bannerghatta National Park!! October saw me missing family around Diwali for more reasons that just the damn Ghar wali Diwali ad. Diwali day itself was spent moping around and if it hadn’t been for friends who pried me out of bed and shoved a sparkler in my hand, this Diwali would have been worse than my 2012 one, which would be saying quite something.

October has also been about procrastinating. Right from the bathroom slippers that need mending/replacing to a much-needed visit to a doctor, everything has been pushed into November. I have promised to kick myself if I don’t finish everything that’s been pending by the end of the first week. Anyone willing/wanting to assist can drop by my office in Koramangala. No, there is nothing in it for you except the satisfaction of kicking my butt, good and proper.

I also am reeling under the shock of turning the calendar to the last but one page. Figuratively, of course, actual calendars are so passé *slips cool shades on*. WHERE THE FUCK DID THE YEAR GO?? Forgive my violent outburst, but I’ll be entering the 25th year of my existence in less than six months and it feels like I have done nothing at all.

Now that I’m done freaking out, I wish y’all a very happy Movember. Men, pliss to oblige. Women too, if you can bear being hairy for a month. It IS for a good cause.

PC

So Mr. November, how you doin’? ;)

Venturing Into The Unknown: Chronicles

One fine day, my colleague comes and tells me there is a dance class/aerobics thingy right next to the office for reasonable monthly costs. Point to be noted, she stressed more on the ‘dance’ bit and I fell for it, hook, line and sinker. To cut a long story of me slowly heading towards obesity short, I ended up joining.

*Just to give you some background, I wake up at 7.30, work a 9-6 sedentary job, go back home, have dinner and sleep and that is the extent of my ‘physical activity’; the most exercise I get is when I lift my hand from my plate and put food in my mouth. I’m guessing jumping around in the shower doesn’t count as part of it.*

PC

So on a fine Thursday evening, fighting my OCD about starting on Mondays or the 1sts of a month, I slip on my sporty shoes, haul on a pair of borrowed pink pants, find the largest tee I can find (to hide all the loving handles) and ambled off to the studio. I discovered several things, one of which is that I have the stamina of half a peanut, that also one of those blackened, ugh ones. Half a jump and I'm already huffing.

Some other random things/observations/whatchamacallit:

1)    We have a different instructor for each day of the week. None of who believe in warm-ups or cool-downs. Which invariably results in me getting a very painful stitch on one side and spending 80% of the class bent over double, grunting through the pain. While seemingly everyone else, including the 50-something-year-old, keeps up.

2)    This is the first time in my life that I’m not the teacher’s pet (yes, I am/was a nerd, we all have pasts, okay?) but the uncoordinated buffoon in the background who gets everything wrong, turns left when everyone is turning right and basically is the bull in the La Opala shop. The knowledge hurts.

PC

3)    There is no graceful or feminine way of exercising/doing aerobics. You will look like a grandma doing her own version of zulsa™ (Zumba+salsa) to the music in her head, but you will have to deal with it, accept the fact that you will never look like Deepika Padukone when SHE works out.

4)    Hot instructors are NOT a myth. My Wednesday Woman has a butt that is just.perfect., hair that has just the right amount of curl, big, beautiful eyes and dance moves which would make Travolta proud. And she wears the cutest exercise-pants-thingies and racerbacks. Oh my, my. I don’t think I have to spell it out that I have a HUGE girl crush on her. Smitten, I am.

PC

I kid you not, she looks like this, except for the dark eye makeup and the blonde hair.

5)    I have robots in my class (who are skinny, little skanks who are snooty and uppity [but this might just be my jealousy talking], so I don’t know what they are doing there in the first place). Why ‘robots’, you ask? (Even if you didn't ask, I'll tell you) Because they pick up steps in less than a second and keep going for 55 minutes without even stopping. Every twist is rightly done, every kick is perfectly executed. Just to give you comparison, I pick up steps only in the last rep and keep going for all of 5 minutes before I stop, panting like an excited Labrador. Makes me wonder if they ARE actually robots.

6)    This is the worst part - I sweat like it’s nobody’s business. And it IS nobody business. Hardly two minutes into the class and my tee is soaked through and through. I kid you not. By the time I leave I look like someone played the bucket-on-the-door prank on me. While people tell me this is a good thing and fat is burning and crow is cawing and all, I look like I lifted some fifty weights and did some major workout, when all I did was jump uncoordinatedly around, pointing my toe at the wrong times. Also, the robots? They don't break a sweat... they are just... dewy. WTF?

PC

Bonus point: All the ‘next days’ of the first week? Anything I moved, except probably my eyes and teeth, hurt like a muthaphakin’ muthaphaccer, making me aware of muscles and parts of the body that I didn’t know I had.

All in all, I be in a dilemma. I love food. I can't stress that enough. And exercise is a bitch. I can't stress that enough either. But still, I have hope that someday… someday I might be as stamin-ous (like I have said before, I reserve the right to make up my own words on my blog) as my Wednesday Woman.

But that day is definitely not today. Sigh.

P.S: And I have people like her on my feed who are so hot and live such healthy lives that I feel guilty drinking even water. P.P.S: Gah.. don't laugh.
P.P.S.S: God created food. For people to eat. Man created exercise. It is unnatural. (Just some excuses that I make up to feel better about skipping class on Tuesdays when there is a MONSTER instructor who makes me pick up 2.5 kgs in each hand and squat-walk all the way across the room. Six times. Like I said, MONSTER.)
P.P.P.S.S: HAPPY HALLOWEEN, y'all. Go watch Annabelle.