Tuesday, September 23, 2008

Emotions

I have always been accused of being "extremely emotional" by different kinds of people, starting from my friends, wellwishers, my manager, to even the closest ones. In college, my friends used to call me an "emotional fool" - but for me it was always a compliment. I knew i could emote more than any of my friends at any given point of time, and that made me feel good about myself, regardless of what others said. I mean, you change yourself only if you think a particular trait of yours is not good or can be replaced by a better alternative. But for me, being emotional always was, and still is, the best attribute of mine. Emotions come with a parcel of so many attributes - kindness, empathy, understanding, passion, love , i mean, you just name it! So I never thought of letting go of this trait ever.

I give more importance to relationships than anything else in life. I value human bonds more than anything else in life. If am a fool to think that way, so be it. Sentimental movies bring tears to my eyes, even if I am watching it for the 100th time! If am a fool to do so, then be it. Children bring smile on my face, even if they are strangers to me. If I am fool because of this, so be it. Unknowingly, I bless every couple I see on roads. Romantic cards, mushy romantic songs boost my spirits up. I believe in fairy tales, I beilieve in angels, I believe in wishes. I believe people who live us for the greater journey beyond life, become stars and watch us from the sky above. I believe Santa is there (my daughter doesnt). I remember, in my college, when I would passionately discuss "love" and ideals of love, my friends would laugh at me. That never stopped me from beilieving in my dreams.

Why am I even talking about all these? Because, when friends called me "emotional fools" I took it by my stride and paid not much attention to it. When my manager, once told me to overcome my emotions in corporate world, I didnt pay much heed to his advise. But when, that one special person accused me of being emotional and one who hypes on "Self pity" to get others' attention, I just coudnot take it... at times you are so deeply hurt, that you forget to cry... you forget to complain... u just accept it and take that lump inside you. Its like a tumor, which gives you pain, but you hide it from everybody, because you are afraid of the diagnosis.

Am living with that lump, a lump thats growing bigger every moment. I will live with this permanent lump forever, and probably not even talk about it, because the moment I share this lump with my friends, they will laugh at me and call me an "emotional fool". Since this is personal, I will not discuss this with my manager for sure, and if with all my heart I go to that special person and tell him how am feeling, I will be diagnosed once again as one who has this "accuse syndrome of creating self pity to attract attention" - dont know much about the disease, but the diagnosis itself is too much to bear.

Will leave you all with a quote that I once came across

"Don't cry in any relationship, cos the person who loves you will never let you cry, and the person who you cry for, is not worth your love"

I understand this - but my tears dont... they are more emotional than I am.

Happy Birthday




A man, in fact an average man, turns 68 today. The man who taught me how to walk, the man who took me to the zoo and got me introduced to the animals from my coloring books! The man who would sit with me in the balcony and show me the stars... the man who later on helped me with my sums, the man who always criticised me for my handwriting, even though his is worse than mine, the man who always stood by my side, and still does... its his 68th birthday today.


My father strongest! was a tag line for one of the recent ads on air. Today if I look back, I know my father is not the strongest, neither he is the most successful, the richest man in the world. But even then, he is the best father for me, and will always remain that way. Unlike other father-daughter relationships, ours is not a very close one. I mean, I dont remember my father hugging me ever. I dont remember me discussing my problems with him ever. Infact my husband still laughs at the fact that when we were getting married, my father was sleeping (yes, it was pretty late at night, and my father cannot stay up awake so late). My father cant have intellectual discussions with you. He is not thay type.


He is reserved, he is an introvert - a music lover, who can play any kind of musical instrument without getting any formal training - nowadays, rich kids of rich parents go for Piano classes, but I think he is the best piano player i have seen, though he never got any formal training - talking about inborn talent.


This post is not a literary masterpiece. This is just my emotions about my father. The first man I have interacted with, and grown up seeing. My father - a middleclass, average human being with a heart of gold. A true family man. A fantastic husband, a great father, and now, an adorable grandpa.


Each and every role he played in life, he played it with utmost sincerity - thats what makes him special, amidst all his so called faults. Faults reminds me, his temper is something i was always very scared of - no! he never hit me, he just didnt require to - one cold look from his side would ensure am back to track incase had deviated.


Maa says, I am exactly like my father - that makes me so happy. I want to be like him. I have never seen a more peace loving person than him. Both of us are very laid back and relaxed! Miles away from crowd, we prefer silence over everything else. And we love to eat!!! And the most remarkable similarity is our spendthrift nature! Maa always criticises us for that, but who cares!


Baba, on your birthday, I cannot give you what all you gave me on my birthdays, but I take this opportunity to thank you for everything I got from you - yeah, those cold looks as well.


A very happy birthday to you, and many happy returns of the day!

With Tears...

If I were a tear in your eyes
I would lie on your cheeks and die on your lips
But if you were a tear in my eyes
I would never cry in fear of losing you

Friday, September 19, 2008

Free India

If you think that India is a nice peaceful safe place to live in then you are unbelievably dumb and misinformed. From terrorism to inflation, we have pretty much every single problem known to mankind. Most of the population is either stupid or doesn’t really care. I don’t mind these people, I have nothing against the mentally challenged or the apathetic. The people I really hate are the ones who know about these problems but still delude themselves and others into thinking that this dump is a great place to live in... I remember the pledge that we were to utter everyday in our school assembly... India is my country...all Indians are my brothers and sisters...I love my country and am proud of it's rich and varied heritage...

As kids, we were fooled...

You may argue that other countries have such problems too. The difference is, in India none of these problems are recognised, discussed or worked upon. Only a few major scandals even make it into the limelight and then the media covers it for days until the next celebrity comes along to be interviewed. However things that happen in daily life are ignored or accepted as part of life.

Ordinary citizens cannot highlight problems either. No one wants a visit from the thugs of a local politician. That’s what happens if you complain. Call the cops? What a joke. We all know the cops are corrupt scum who are only interested in how much money they can get out you.

You think we have freedom?

Welcome to India.

Only the other day the Indian Mujra-hideen sent a terror email from an insecure wireless network, an act the press respectfully informed us ” as hacking into a wireless account”. Bombs went off. People died. Which city was it that day?

Jaipur, Varanasi, Bangalore, Surat, Delhi, Mumbai or somewhere else ?

Does it matter to you or me as long as our loved ones are safe (for the time being)?

Does the significance of the fact that terrorists need only a few months to organize another high-profile attack, even after a few of them get arrested, sink into the national psyche?

Do we, as a nation, understand that the whole “spirit of the city” feel-good is nothing but an euphemism for people becoming so inured to flying ball-bearings and bloody corpses that they accept terrorist violence as a fact of life, like traffic jams and power cuts ?

Do people realize that when Shivraj Patil warns of “stringent punishment” to the perpetrators of the blast that he isn’t just re-reading the statement he prepared a few months ago for the last blast? Do the citizens know that once he has done with his “I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who would attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon thee” message of future retribution , that he vanishes into a dark corner, away from the national eye, where he puts on a Batman costume and personally hunts down the terrified evil doe-rs while riding his Bat bicycle?

Do I realise, that after every bomb blast or terrorist attack, I criticse my country and its honorable leaders more or less the same way, because I, like the nation, have nothing new to say or do?

Welcome to India. Welcome to our world.

Let me fly...

Round and round
Mentally unsound
On shaky ground
Insecurity profound...

The mind whirls
Emotion swirls
Dreams unwind
Destiny unkind...

One hopes
That he elopes
But one is bound
To one's ground...

To escape this cage
Needs an adage
No need to cry
One is born to fly...

Thursday, September 18, 2008

I Am

I am
Therefore I live;
I am
Therefore I breathe.

To live or not,
... is the question
To breathe or not,
... is the dilemma.

Moments of panic
That are tragic
I am lethargic
Need some magic.

Uncomfortable...
Unstable...
Unable
To be stable

I am hurt
But I wont be curt
This situation does hurt
Who'll clean up the dirt?

I will try
Not to cry
It's about time
For me to fly

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

The Dark (yawwwwwwwwn) Knight

Nobody asked me to review the movie Dark Knight. So I am doing it.

p.s. : Infact A told me not to write it - So I am doing it all the more.

The Dark Knight is a deliciously wonderful movie for anybody who grew up reading Batman comics. I didn’t grow up reading Batman comics.

In fact, I don’t even understand Batman. What does Batman have in common with a bat other than the fact that they both are classified as mammals? He can’t fly. Nor can he generate ultrasonics. I was waiting throughout the movie for the Batman to hang upside down on a tree, he didn’t do that either. I was this close to demanding my money back (ok, thats an exaggeration, I didnt wantch it in theatre - i watched it on a pirated DVD available for 30 bucks in Gariahat - I was actually close to returning that DVD and exchanging it for a Himesh reshammiya soundtrack) . Also, have you ever seen a bat fight bad guys? You never did. You know why? Because they don’t. All they do is hang in some dark corner; and when you get up on a building, lean on the wall and throw a stone, they fly up and scratch your face. Hypothetically, I mean.

Ok, now that I have given you a lecture on bat and batman, let’s talk about the cast. First of all, Christian Bale doesn’t look like a bat. He looks more like a vulture. He did his best to act and in a couple of scenes he actually showed some expressions. I wish they didn’t make his mask so tight though. Every time he wore it, it pinched his throat and his voice became very hoarse. It’s got to be pretty darn annoying fighting bad guys while gasping for air.

There was this Joker too. He was amazing. Rest in peace, Mr. Ledger.

Most people don’t notice, but there is a heroine in the movie. I saw cadavers livelier than her and blank whiteboards more interesting than her face. She is like a decorative African art on a table - nobody knows why it is there and you won’t even notice it until it catches on fire. That is precisely what happens in the movie. She moves the story along only after she is dead.

I guess my biggest gripe with this movie is that batman is not even like a hero in the movie, forget superhero. Batman gets beat up, hit by a car, bitten by dogs, shot at and slammed into a wall - in the first five minutes. It gets worse after that. What is missing in the movie is Batman’s mother so he could run whimpering to his mommy every time Joker outwits him. And in a crowing moment of glory, batman ends the movie running away being chased by street dogs.

But whatever it is, i hope by now you have understood that what I am saying here is, overall, its a great movie...

Monday, September 8, 2008

The Mistress

Yesterday I read and article called "The other Side Of Women" in The Sunday Times. Quite an interesting article on the so called "other women" or the "mistresses". Quite an interesting article for me, more so because this one echoed my viewpoints.

I have always wondered why the "other woman" is always looked down upon by our society. They are always made the villain of the piece - the home breaker and what not! As if the man had been either forcefully dragged into the reltationship (people call it extra marital affair/infidelity and what not!) or hypnotised into it. I mean, please grow up! How long will our society behave in such an immatured way? No man is a kid. And I believe (at the cost of generalising the whole thing) that an extra marital affair is an effect of a broken home and not the other way round. So, first of all, we should stop blaming the "other woman". Secondly, I think it takes a lot of courage to live your life as the "other woman" in a relationship where there is no commitment, no security, and to top it all, no social acceptance!

Love is a strange thing, which, when happens changes your whole outlook. It does not fathom to any logic, any calculated move towards profit or loss. It just happens. And when it happens it gives you an entirely new meaning to your life. You see beauty in everything, you yourself become beautiful. Love brings in magic to your life... this is ofcourse one aspect of it. One that you find in M&Bs. But real life is quite different. The other women go through a lot. They love a married man with all their heart. They know their relationship has no social acceptance, no future, no security... so they live in the very moment. May be thats why they can give their man, and that he wants and even more. They value each and every moment they spend with their man, probably without being demanding, without expecting much.

Men on the other hand, have nothing to lose. They get the best of the both worlds. They have security in the form of their family, and they have the mistress who can give them much more their wives can - whats more, mistress wont demand as much as the wife; with mistress their is no responsibility attached, there is no commitment to keep...

So, next time we comment on the other women, we should think twice. After all its not an easy thing to do - to love someone unconditionally without expecting a future out of it... dont know why, but i always feel for the "other woman"...