1999

I've been wondering if one phase of your life or one year is ever more important than the rest... isn't it like saying, the rest of my life was not so great...
anyways, dwelling on that, realised that there just maybe phases in your life, where a lot of things seem to happen. For me it was 1999. More specifically, my 25th year.
It was a year full of firsts or mosts or news... and in no particular order, but what memory dictates
1. i covered an election campaign in the districts, trailed Amma
2. i travelled to the North East again
3. i got married
4. i stayed away from my home (parents') for the first time, when I went to the Film Inst in Pune for a month.
5. i left Madras and moved to Doha
6. i lost my virginity (am a good indian girl and waited to get married)
7. i went abroad for the first time
8. got my passport
9. switched tracks in my career and worked on the desk at GT
10. for the first time, truly hated my job and office
11. Touched 75kgs for the first time
12. Cooked a full meal for the first time ever
13. Set my first home
14. Learned that being sexy was not about looks but attitude
15. realised that marriage is a lot of hardwork!
16. India lost the world cup
17. almost had a ******* (censored), but better sense prevailed
18. for the first, only and last time was invited to an orgy at the film inst hostel...
19. almost tried pot but chickened out...
20. for the first time (and last) ever, ran from an eve teaser instead of standing and fighting because i was in a strange country, and didn't know the language. still ashamed of the coward i was... and for not kicking him in his balls.

Happy Birthday To Me!

This is the new me. I am celebrating myself. My birth and my life.
So as a first step, I indulged in a beautiful Skagen watch, and a pearl necklace.
My indulgence shall continue.
Happy birthday. Jai Hind!

Support Arun Gandhi! Jews, Move On!

Arun Gandhi was forced to resign from the board of M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence based at the University of Rochester. Simply because he chose to comment on the all powerful Jewish mafia.
Here is a news report quote:

Gandhi was on a panel of scholars, writers and clergy who discuss a new topic weekly on the Washington Post's "On Faith" page and his comments, posted Jan. 7, drew a torrent of criticism, much of it unfavorable.
He wrote that Jewish identity "has been locked into the holocaust experience — a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of (how) a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends.
"The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. ... The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on, the regret turns into anger."
Describing Israel as "a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs," Gandhi asked whether it would "not be better to befriend those who hate you?"
"Apparently, in the modern world so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept," he wrote. "You don't befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity."

Now pray tell me, what is wrong with his comments?
Why does the whole world have to continue apologising for what happened to them under Hitler? To appease them, another set of people (the Arabs/Palestinians) have been permanently displaced, terrorised and satanised. Isn't that good enough? Who will speak up for the Arabs in the Middle East, and what they have had to endure because of what Hitler did in Europe to the Jews?
And why couldn't the Jews involve in a verbal debate with Arun Gandhi, instead of shutting him up and getting rid of him?
Hasn't the world asked the South African victims of apartheid to move on? Hasn't the world asked the African-American victims of slavery to move on? Hasn't most of the world moved on from sometimes brutal colonisation.
Is death really worse than brutal discrimination. So the Jews died dreadful deaths. Does that make other brutalities, that didn't result in deaths, less despicable?

How screwed up was this guy's childhood?

Philip Larkin - This Be The VerseThey fuck you up, your mum and dad.
They may not mean to, but they do.
They fill you with the faults they had
And add some extra, just for you.
But they were fucked up in their turn
By fools in old-style hats and coats,
Who half the time were soppy-stern
And half at one another's throats.
Man hands on misery to man.
It deepens like a coastal shelf.
Get out as early as you can,
And don't have any kids yourself.

a lifetime just ain't enough

is it?
for all the things we wish to do...
for all the things we want to learn...

how can one lifetime be enough to be all the people we want to be...
for everything we wish to achieve...
.... we hope to experience

how can one bloody lifetime be enough for all the places we want to visit...
for all the cities we want to live in...
for all the people we want to live with...

how the hell can one lifetime be enough for all the people we want to love...
for the all the children we want to have...
for all our fantasies...

how is one lifetime enough for all the books i want to read...
for all the words i hope to write...

is one lifetime really enough to be everything i want to be: generous and rich, great mum and great professional, well read and read widely, well fed and thin, sexy, but not do my legs, be the master of my temper, be spontaneous, full of contradictions, but no hypocrite... gossip, but not be gossiped about... is one lifetime enough to be or do all that?

A century

This is my 100th post!

not peeing, just standing

everytime i see men standing by the roadside, i hold my breath -- almost a reflex action. Then I realise, they are just standing... not peeing! And this is Doha, not Chennai... It is difficult to get Chennai out of your psyche.
Same goes when I see people squatting on the road. They are only squatting... nothing more!
Chennai, singara Chennai... hmm, if only people didn't make a public spectacle of their crapping and peeing.

ana ismi V, wa anta?

well, i've started Arabic classes finally.
I learnt the script some 7 years ago, and thought it was time i made sense of what i read... mindlessly.
Interesting to be back in a classroom... The brain needs to open up a bit, soak in more...
there is time enough.
so for starters, ana min al hend, min madina madras. ana ashtaghil fi qt.
go figure!

then the sun came out

briefly in the afternoon. it was warm... and i loved it.
i love it when it's bright and sunny. after all am a 'madrasi'
i love it when it rains
i love it when the moon comes out, and smiles down on us

but i HATE it when it's cold

rain

it's raining in qatar. roads are flooded. it's raining here... i love that sound of rain. it gets messy and damp... i love it still

colour change

just in case any of my regular readers wonders why the colour change -- it was on the request of one of of you.
i had to give in for two reasons. one is because she claims that she is colour blind and the pinks and greens were making the letters illegible. second and more importantly, it would leave me with just two readers, and one of them writes this!
so back to black.

insanely worried about insanity

i am. so worried about it.
i'd rather have some debilitating physical illness (must i choose?).
and i am quite happy with my current level of insanity. i don't want that to accelerate.
it's not insanity=madness.
i am talking about mental illnesses in general.
chronic depression, alzheimer's, bipolar disorders...
it scares the crap out of me. to not be in control of my senses.
at almost 34, every time a mobile number dodges my memory, or i forget a name, i reach a state of panic. Early onset?
and of course this fear has been amply supported by an am-palmist friend (or is she?), who is quite sure the break in my 'mind line' must mean a period of insanity. Can't it please mean, that i only have a crooked mind?
now whether fate has insanity in store for me or not, all this worrying could easily tip me over the edge...

oooooooooooh! that feeling again!

as i walk along the glass wall, looking in, approaching the door... my pulse races, i am practising my lines, i am excited... a state of pre-orgasm. Embarrassing, definitely!
Then I walk through the door, and look into his eyes, and slowly mouth the words: "Can I have a membership form please."

Finally, a library member again, after close to 9 years of starvation.

Qatar almost seems normal now. Yes, the library is attached to the Georgetown Univ-SFS Qatar campus; yes, I have to travel some 12-14kms to reach it; yes, I can't borrow some of the categories, as I am a public patron and not a student; but, what the heck! there are loads and loads of books there. And finally I don't have to spend indecent sums of money on carting books to Qatar.

ps1: For the uninformed. Qatar doesn't have a decent book store. it didn't have a decent library. Otherwise, it is not such a bad place, really.
ps2: I've picked up two new authors, more of that later.

I Fall in Love Again, and Again,

and again.
Every day I wake up falling in love, and there are moments throughout the day that make me fall in love again and again -- a photo, a call, a memory...
Of all the loves I've had and have, this one is the toughest. Most beautiful, yes, yet the toughest.
And like all those who are in love... there is fear. A gut wrenching fear; only difference being, it is not a fear of being let down or being spurned. It is a fear of letting down, of not doing the right thing...
That my words and actions could scar worse than anything else possibly could.
That the total unconditional, uninhibited love thrown so casually my way, is not received as graciously and gratefully as it should be. That the debt I owe for being loved so, will never be paid off... if there is such a thing as debt in love. That this kind of loving will not be forever.
That I maybe too quick to anger, too slow to love; judge too easily, and not care enough; too full of expectations, too little of acceptance.
I fear that when I chide about being careless, before I kiss the wound away, her hurt would remain a longtime after the pain has gone.
And when I ask her to stop talking or humming or singing her nonsense, because I am being disturbed, I fear that I would not be disturbed at all, and left alone.
I fall in love so many times in a day, everyday...
when she calls me at work to just 'talk'
when she is curious about what I do in the gym
when she tells me the marks on my face are gone
when she kisses and hugs me, for no greater reason than because I am there
when even while at play, she reaches out to me
when every time we watch a movie, she switches off all the lights, and grabs a blanket to share... even if we are only watching Lion King for the 500th time!
when she shows unbelievable patience with her colouring
But that is not what I fear...
I fear that I won't love her enough when she doesn't do the cute things and the things I am proud of.
I fear that I may not love her the way she deserves to be loved -- even when she is throwing a tantrum, or embarrassing me
I fear that she may grow up to be me, and learn my prejudices, and forget to love the way a 6-year-old does...
I fear that she will grow up too soon...