New Beginnings

It’s the time of the year when you review the months gone by and measure the things you’ve achieved or failed to achieve. It’s also the time of the year when you look forward to changing some things and starting afresh, setting new deadlines and make resolutions for the next year. Making resolutions is not for me, not because it’s overdone and a cliché and I look with disdain on the triviality of making promises that won’t live longer than a week, but because if I need to change something, I might as well begin now. Waiting for the right time or even a day’s delay is all the fuel needed to burn my intentions away.

Besides, who gets to decide when the old ends and the new begins? And why do we have to use milestones of events or calendars to set targets; after all our plans don’t run parallel to the plans of the universe. All it takes is an event, big or small to change us. Dates, days or months then cease to matter. When you are being kicked in the gut it’s hard to ignore the signs. Sometimes it’s an earth shattering truth that feels like someone’s just slapped you hard, really hard, and at other times it a slow transformation that started somewhere, somehow unknown to you, finally manifesting itself like a light switch flicking on inside the brain. You see a new path that might possibly take you away from things you’ve known all your life and gives you clarity and fortitude to effect a change. 

Dreamers vs Realists

From yesterday's episode of Modern Family:

"There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You think the dreamers would find the dreamers and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not, the opposite is true. See, the dreamers need the realists to keep the dreamers from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists? Well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground."

Art of ageing

"Time and Tide wait for no man, but time always stands still for a woman of thirty."

- Robert Frost

If I admired Robert Frost before, I absolutely adore him after coming across this quote. Ten years ago, I absolutely believed in my ability to withstand this constant obsession with age that some women have. So, when I discovered my first strand of grey hair at 28, I was quite delighted. I have always been fascinated with sporting a lock of white hair across the forehead, much like Indira Gandhi —the ‘iron lady of Indian politics’. Like all things that feel different when it happens to you, I was aghast when I found ‘my lock of white hair’ in the middle of my head! There was no feeling of joy! All I felt was horror. Surely that was a sign of me turning old, wasn’t it?

From there started this obsession with turning old. I suddenly felt and acted like my world just ended. I mentally started ticking off all the things I should have done by the time I turned 30 and realized that other than actually turning 30 there was nothing else I could tick off. Top on the list was the fact that I was still single, but I was am not so worried about it. I was doing all I was supposed to do to meet some eligible bachelors but if I continued to elude the marriage bond, it was not for a lack of trying.  As far as my career goes, I am not too ambitious about where I land; as long as I am learning something I am fine. So, maybe I could just tick career on my list.

I realised that over time, I had become very conscious of the presence of younger people. I constantly compared them to myself at their age. At times, I was elated at being miles ahead of them and sometimes envious of the choices they had before them. I found myself territorial at work, colouring their ideas and opinions with my prejudices and obsessing over the fact that I would never be as fit as them. Oh how I cursed myself for not listening to mom about so many things plus the bags of chips I ate through on a regular basis!

Low-fat, trans fat, calories, cholesterol, health check-ups, diabetes —suddenly these words were popping up everywhere. Once I turned 30 health articles on ‘food habits for the 30s’ seemed to catch my eye more than I wanted to. Subconsciously, I started making healthier choices, not that I am too unhappy about it considering that I haven’t entirely given up on my sweets as yet. 

My obsession with age had to stop. Imagine running on the treadmill and all I could see was age group 30! As the days passed into months, I felt that nothing had actually changed for me. It was really all in the head. Age is just a number. I still have all the fun I did before, I pretty much eat the same kind of food though of the leaner variety and my hair stopped graying at that first lock of hair.

I wonder if I will face another crisis at turning 40? Or would I be deadpan like Maya Angelou, when she said, “When I passed forty I dropped pretense, cause men like women who got some sense."

A day at the races

It’s a treat for all the senses, except of course the ears. My first time at the F1 races was heady, fun and absolutely thrilling. This year, I made it a point to take the free ticket, even if it was not for race day. After all, a qualifying session is good enough, especially when it’s free!

Most of the people watching the sessions were tourists, real aficionados of the game. They came in all ready with flags, binoculars and the all essential ear plugs. You really need the ear plugs; my ears are still reeling from the sound. I thought the sound of gunfire in a shooting range was deafening; this gave all new meaning to deafening. When the first roar of the cars was heard, I was not at all ready for the decibel that greeted my poor ears! Then I got used to it. I was also ready to only ‘see’ cars as a blur and endure whiplash as a result of all the neck strain but I could see the cars quite easily. Getting them on camera, well that’s another story, though I did manage to get a shot or two. Every time was aim and miss; by the time my camera clicked it, the car had zoomed away! It was fun to see the cars swerve and whiz past; it was more fun to recognize a few teams. I knew the drivers for some of the teams but in the cars I didn’t know who was where. The commentary was on but it was drowned by the sounds of the roaring cars. I was doubly excited to see the Force India, something about the saffron, green and white got me thrilled.

My seat on the stands game me an excellent view of the circuit, marina and all. I was disappointed that Webber didn’t take pole but glad his teammate did. Unlike the gentleman near me who showed his disgust at Vettel taking pole by repeatedly hitting the railing and swearing!

Just hold on

How does a day that starts so well, where you are all perky and happy and smiling suddenly become a day from hell. Everything around you starts to slip bit by bit and before you know it everything you’ve built collapses around you. And you are trapped somewhere in between looking haplessly on at the rubble that is left, heaps and bones of a world you thought was yours. A dream being shattered is nothing compared to this feeling. You try hard to stay in control, the reins are in your hand, you can feel them but someone else is wielding the power.  You have no control in the events, only in how you are going to let it affect you. Time is always racing ahead, one moment you are in top form and the next, everything you touch crumbles.

You forget the rules that kept you safe all the time and let your guard down and the marauders come charging you. Before you know you are down. Caught, chastised, hurt and wounded; then begins the self-flagellation.  Time is a great leveler; there is a climb, a peak and a fall. Everything goes through this process; it’s the law of nature. Everything that is born will die only to come back again. You understand the idea, you really do, but why does it seem like you’ve missed the lesson on this. Somehow you seem to remain unevolved, emotionally stunted somewhere along the first hurt, disbelieving and distrustful.

Everyone needs that one person to call their own, that one person who does not judge, who understands. Who does not question but supports, who stands by you through ugly, fat, humiliating times, who reaches a hand out no matter even if it festering. You need to find that person somehow, get to them and hold on for dear life, till this awful, awful, day from hell ends. Till then you have to grin and bear it, life never claimed to be fair. As someone wisely put it, some days you are the pigeon and some days you are the statue.

Standing still or moving on?

What do you do when others have plans and you don’t? When their lives seem to be moving on to newer, exciting things and yours seems to be standing still. Do you feel jealous or share in their joy. Do you pretend to be happy while inwardly cringing. At what? At being alone, left out, at stagnating, at becoming a non-entity? You begin introspecting, probing and prodding at every decision that brought you to this very moment. Are you becoming one of those people that time leaves behind? Are you saying goodbyes to people or are people saying goodbye to you. Are you turning into those people you used to pity when you thought your life was fun?

Whilst these thoughts ring through your head and make you feel more morose and sad than you already are, a thought hits you. “Hang on,” it says, “If people are moving on, so are you”. You. Moving on? How? Simply put, when something is removed from an equation there is a shift in balance. It equals out, lessens out or increases.  In all three scenarios you realise that your life was not all that bad or perfect then, neither is it now but you now have the choice to either keep it the way it was or work to make it better.  The players may change but the elements remain the same.

You find yourself reaching out to people who until then were on the fringes of your social circle. You suddenly have more time to discover other things. In the familiarity of the mundane, you slipped into habits that you are now forced to abandon or change to suit the new. So how is change bad? As they say, “when life hands you a lemon, what do you do with it?”

Guilty Pleasures

We all have our little ‘treats’, little ‘something’s’ that we indulge in regularly. We know that it is bad, senseless, does not add to anything, embarrassing and harmless but we can’t let go of them.  What are my guilty pleasures? Here they are, in no particular order of preferences

# Crappy TV Shows/Series — Hart of Dixie (the lamest, new show), Las Vegas, Bones, Castle, Grey’s Anatomy (I love this show and all it’s gorgeous men), Roswell (still love it), Gossip Girl (don’t watch but track it via recaps), Axe your Ex, Love Net and the like, Bigg Boss, Balika Vadhu, F.I.R. and Pratigya.

# Historical Romance Novels —This I’m not explaining/defending/justifying

# Gossip mags/sites

# Crime cases and the media attention

# Urban legends

# Voiceover narrations and their quotes— Meredith Grey on Grey’s Anatomy, Emma Thorne on Revenge, Kristen Bell as Gossip Girl (especially when she signs off xoxo), and Carrie Bradshaw on Sex and the City.

# Reading children's stories — All possible fairy tales, Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene (Nancy Drew) and Franklin W. Dixon (Hardy Boys) 

Bring me back to music

After silence, that which comes nearest to expressing the inexpressible is music.

Aldous Huxley

Music infuses every aspect of our lives. Whether we are humming tunes whilst we go about our daily chores or tasks or whether we are singing along with the songs playing on the radio or our iPods. Have you ever caught yourself swaying to music no matter where you are and feeling good about yourself? And have you noticed that when you walk on the street, your walking reflects the beats of the song playing aloud somewhere?  There’s no escaping music, any kind of music, even that which hurts your eardrums or brings an incredulous look across your face or that which instantly lifts you up and makes you smile.

They rightly say that there is a song for every occasion.  You may be feeling low or high and everything in between but just switch on the radio and there would be one song that mirrors your state of mind. Growing up, my parents listened to all the popular artists of their age —Beatles, Paul Anka, Tom Jones, Cliff Richards, Jim Reeves (what would Christmas carols be without him), The Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley, the Rat Pack and of course Engelbert Humperdinck. As we grew older we added artists to include all the young girl crushes. The one thing that was banned in my house was Hindi music; my father (and not my mother for a change) felt it would ‘corrupt’ us and make us speak Hindi at home. Little did he know that the radio gifted to my sister was surreptitiously being used to listen to all the latest Hindi songs in the afternoon! Our maid would lock the doors, we would turn down the volume, try and muffle the songs through blankets and pillows and huddle around the little radio and hear the very songs my father hated. Such fun that was!

Over the last few months, I realised that my music world had shrunk. I no longer listened to the radio, I no longer caught up on videos on YouTube or any of the music channels. I didn’t know the names of the artists (in all fairness most of them sound alike) or even who was the best selling artist of the month. Lamenting on the lack of music, I also realised that my music appreciation was restricted to the popular only; I had not expanded my scope of music or even artists at all. That’s when I decided to expand my music repertoire. And you know where I find most of the songs and artists I like? TV series! Laugh all you want; if it introduces me to something nice, I don’t mind the source. These series and some movies have introduced me to some brilliant artists I would never have heard about or beautiful songs that I would never have the privilege to hear.

My must-listen list now includes Yiruma, Vanessa Mae (her I knew about), Rachael Yamagata, Mozella, James Morrison, Glen Hansard and Markéta Irglová, The Civil Wars, Regina Spektor and a lot more.

Bookish Behaviour

I would like to think of myself something akin to a book nazi warden (if that was ever possible). I am very particular about keeping my books stain-free, fold-free and dog-ear-free. It distresses me when I find old, ravaged books, scribbled over mercilessly. I’m not a fan about making notes in books, unless these are your college texts and you have to, but even then, I make the effort to make the notations in pencil. C’mon we can show that much respect to books.

Over years, I have lent so many of books to people with a list of restrictions; I feel neither shame nor shyness when I list out my conditions. It may appall and even hurt a few but honestly, I don’t care. These are my books. I’m being magnanimous enough by lending them to you in the first place.  A couple of people have refused to take books from me, just because I have so many ‘rules’.

Honestly, the rules are not too many — they’re just about cleanliness, hygiene and good manners. To all the people who find these ‘rules’ finicky, I just tell them to think of something they are fond of or proud of and the feelings they encounter when they don’t get it back in the shape they’ve lent it out.

Rule #1

No leaving your food stains on my books. I don’t want to know what you’ve eaten over the time it’s taken you to read, really. My book is not a coaster as well. From experience I’ve added, neither is it a fly or any other insect swatter. Finding a squashed bug between the pages is not something I or anyone else would appreciate.

Rule #2

No dog-earring my book. You need to mark where you’ve left off, take a piece of paper and place it there. Don’t fold the page, ever! Use train or bus tickets, newspaper shredding, a flyer about someone’s garage sale, a feather even (provided it has no blood stains on it) anything (thin and flat) actually will do. Besides, if you love to read, wouldn’t you have a bookmark? No book lover I know, doesn’t possess at least one bookmark.

Rule #3

No scribbling.  You need to find out the meaning of a word, don’t underline the thing! Make a note somewhere else.  My book is not your scrap book that you feel comfortable taking down phone numbers, messages and sometimes even recipes.

Rule # 4

No folding my books when you read. Some people have the habit of folding the cover and pages read as they go along, which is okay as long as you do it to your own books. I don’t like seeing my books resembling a palm tree!

And lastly, this is not a rule per se, but if you’ve taken my book, please return it. I don’t set time limits on how soon they should be returned but that doesn’t mean that you can keep them forever.  

Read this interesting article I came across a few weeks ago:

Winter is coming!

It looked like somehow hung a white sheet outside my window today morning. The fog just covered everything making it impossible to see much.

Yesterday was also a foggy morning, with a friend clicking this pic from her home.

Hook, Line and Sinker

This weekend I went fishing with a couple of friends. I'm not a fishing enthusiast, I don't possess any skills even remotely, and I was of the opinion that fishing would be boring and not fun at all. 

A couple of months ago, I was persuaded to join a group of friends for a 'night of fishing' as they put it. It was my initiation into all things fishing and boy how much these guys love to fish! Four hours later, with quite a decent catch, considering the tides, the wind, and equipment issues, they were still enthusiastic. I tried my hand at fishing (on an aside, what would you call it a sport, a game, a hobby, and art?) and after being warned by the guys not to get the hooks into people when casting the line (apparently it has happened before), I gave up. 

This time, we chose another venue and it was a much better fishing site. Beautiful, calm waters, a few rowing enthusiasts going through the paces, jet skis far off and the setting sun. I just cast the line once and then sat down to whoop and clap everytime they caught something decent and jeer when they didn't.

Why does it happen …

… that when you are waiting for transport on Lane A, there are plenty on lane B but when you switch sides, they all seem to do so to.

… that when you wear a particular shade and style of clothing, you spot several hundred other people wearing the same.

… that when you leave your umbrella home after several sunny days, it rains

… that a slow, tedious morning at work is followed by a flurry of stuff just an hour before end of day

… that when you make plans, work interrupts and when you anticipate work and make no plans, you’re left twiddling your thumbs

… that when you think you are about to win at a word game, your friend finds an awesome word and you lose, again! J

Somebody's mother

I remembered this poem I used to say in the third and fourth standard whenever I participated in poetry competitions. I loved it then and love it all the more now for its profoundness, its simplicity and for the honest emotions it evokes. I always choke at the end, and today too, my eyes were moist.

Somebody's mother

Mary Dow Brine (1816-1913)

The woman was old and ragged and grey
And bent with the chill of the Winter's day.
The street was wet with a recent snow
And the woman's feet were aged and slow.
She stood at the crossing and waited long,
Alone, uncared for, amid the throng
Of human beings who passed her by
Nor heeded the glance of her anxious eyes.
Down the street, with laughter and shout,
Glad in the freedom of 'school let out,'
Came the boys like a flock of sheep,
Hailing the snow piled white and deep.
Past the woman so old and grey
Hastened the children on their way.
Nor offered a helping hand to her -
So meek, so timid, afraid to stir
Lest the carriage wheels or the horses' feet
Should crowd her down in the slippery street.
At last came one of the merry troop,
The gayest lad of all the group;
He paused beside her and whispered low,
"I'll help you cross, if you wish to go."
Her aged hand on his strong young arm
She placed, and so, without hurt or harm,
He guided the trembling feet along,
Proud that his own were firm and strong.
Then back again to his friends he went,
His young heart happy and well content.
"She's somebody's mother, boys, you know,
For all she's aged and poor and slow,
And I hope some fellow will lend a hand
To help my mother, you understand,
If ever she's poor and old and grey,
And her own dear boy is far away."
'Somebody's mother' bowed low her head
In her home that night, and the prayer she said
Was "God be kind to the noble boy,
Who is somebody's son, and pride and joy!"

These my habits, I lend to you

Every day as we go about our lives, we pick up ‘signatures’ from others that unknowingly become part of our style whether in speech or gestures.  When you spend a lot of time with a particular person, you unconsciously pick up their mannerism down to all the minutest inflection.

 You’ve been observing and absorbing their behaviours,  gestures and style from the sidelines, sometimes even making fun of them, when one day, suddenly out to the blue, you say something and your mind pulls the brakes and you have the “what the hell just happened” expression on your face. You’ve just reacted like some you know.

A few days ago, I caught myself saying, and with all the style that this colleague does, “One day I will kill him, literally” and I went Whoa! All this time I’ve been laughing at him and mocking him and here I was saying his stupid little sentence. Even the exclamations and interjections we pepper our daily interactions with tend to get coloured by the company we keep.

Over the years, I’ve picked up words like ‘babes’ from a client’s assistant who would call me every hour (which I have happily shed now), ‘pavam’ (poor boy) from a friend and words like ‘aiyo’, ‘aiya’ and other culturally influenced words. At times, I’ve caught myself leaping, clapping and doing random body gestures that were never part of my limited mannerisms, and when I do catch myself mid-(said borrowed)gesture I can only speculate which of my friends I have to thank for polluting what should have been my unique reaction.

Sometimes, these unconscious pick-ups also extends to laughter. Yes, laughter. Funny as it may seem, my laugh over time has changed, depending on the company I keep. My laugh has always been loud, gurgling and unstoppable; sometimes my close mouthed laugh resembles a ‘puppy yelping’ (or so I have been told among other not so polite descriptions),  so when I find another kind of laugh coming out, I stop and reexamine who I’ve been spending time with. I love my laugh, and I draw the line at my laugh descending into a witch-like cackle or a hamming villain from a C-grade Hindi film.

Everyday battlefield

Life is a battlefield. Every day we literally dodge bullets, hide from enemies, cross borders, enter hostile territories, lie waiting tense, alert and on our toes. We take on each day knowing that we have a long day ahead, a fight to finish off well. It may not necessarily be battles with guns and tanks, it could be short swift jabs with our hands, legs and pretty much anything we can get. We wear an armour of indifference and insolence most often and cowardice and fear at times.

We hide from friends whom we ditched last minute or have something to hide from instead of confronting them. We keep our guards on and put on our most defensive stance at work, we gear up for the commute battle ahead, we strategise, make plans and plot lines that will tear people apart or join them forever, or teach someone a good lesson. And every night we pray and hope that we live to see another day.

Since when did living become so difficult? Why does every day have to be this drudge to bear? We protect what is ours with a fierceness that is terrifying and we pursue brilliance, money, power with unrelenting desire. What happened to taking each day as it came? I think it’s our need to be better than the rest, to prove ourselves better contenders for whatever race we’re participating at the moment—mom of the year, best friend ever, superstar at work, business whiz kid of the century, brightest mind of the millennia, breakthrough artist/scientist, saviour of mankind.

The going is never easy, but we are prepared to do battle, we always have been. Ever since we were kids, we knew that we had to be strong and not let others get ahead. We may not have been the typical bullies but we were all determined to do better than our friends, even our best friends. And as adults, the battles just got fiercer and dirtier. We have been taught to survive, to be street-smart and tough.

That’s just one half of the story. We have also been told to watch out for the ones who are not so tough, the ones who get walked over on, to be caring of people, to share and respect and love and do good deeds and more. And that’s where the problem lies. How do we maintain balance between peace and war? Our natural instincts move towards the survival of the fittest or that’s how Darwin would like us to believe. So we try to be nice and befriend people and curb our ruthlessness. It’s a difficult thing to keep doing, it’s like saying, “I’m-sorry-to-beat-you-to-the-taxi-even-if-you-were-here-first-but-I-need-to-get-to-work-on-time-and-to-hell-with-you-actually!”

 It’s funny that we try so hard to be nice and all in situations when we just want to rip out someone’s head. I guess that’s the price you pay for being a part of civilized society. We strive to maintain some kind of armistice, a protocol of good behaviour even in the fighting ring. And just like the soldiers of the Western Front during Christmas 1914, we work out an unwritten understanding to respect boundaries and extend the hand of goodwill, peace, love and cheer. Or at least we try to more often than not.

Deindividuation

(I had written this piece more than a year ago and forgotten about it. I’ve altered it a bit after a recent article I read.)

We all understand how the virtual world provides a cloak of anonymity and many of us are grateful for it. A year ago I read an article that spoke about ‘moral disengagement’, which simply means that “the further removed we are from the consequences of our actions, the easier it is to emotionally separate ourselves from our own behaviour”, and I realised that what we witness on the internet on a daily basis in terms of comments is a perfect example of moral disengagement.

Last week, I came across another article that explained how, “The shield of anonymity strengthened by pack mentality leads even ‘normal’ people to let out their most violent avatars on the internet.”  Psychologists now call this ‘deindividuation’, (a word I don’t personally like and Word does not acknowledge).

As more and more sites encourage participants to express their opinions, a large number of people are finding that the anonymity of the internet is a perfect tool to vent frustrations. The vitriol that is spewed in the name of comments is unbelievable. Nothing is sacred and nobody seems to be scared. Scathing rants bordering on the abusive are heaped on everything and everybody. It’s almost like graffiti artists, you know the ones who perfected the art of defacing good pieces of furniture or walls to express their opinions, have found a never ending platform to voice opinions.

Trawl through the comment sections on any site or forum and you’ll find tons of examples of fantasised violence and rage coming from seemingly normal people, who are really normal people in their regular lives but morph into ‘trolls’ (as they came to be known) in the virtual avatars, that makes you wonder where all this comes from or where it will lead. Personally, they seem to expose the rampant xenophobic behaviour of people that is becoming all too common in the modern world. Good, healthy debates and legitimate counter arguments are drowned out by often ridiculous arguments, personal vendetta and slights. At times you notice a pattern, with a certain group of people constantly barraging each other and you realise that you’ve just witnessed cyber bullying happen right before you.

For some people, the internet is a God-sent miracle that allows them to express their frustrations; most of this can be legitimate annoyances while for others it can be just sheer delight in attacking from behind a veil. Getting annoyed, throwing abuses around, ranting and raving in public spaces can damage your reputation, often irrevocably; on the other hand online forums or sites can ban you only to have you resurface as another identity with no damage whatsoever to you personally.

I guess that’s the problem with anonymity. It creates lions out of lambs; and in a space where nothing can really harm us there is no telling the limits we are ready to cross.

Anger

Anger, the emotion we all underestimate, is surprisingly powerful.  Most of us don’t consider it a threat at all, categorizing it as something we can control, something we have control on. But that’s the thing with anger, it’s deceptively devastating. Whether it is a slow, simmering, seething kind or the one that flares instantly, anger has the potential to destroy and damage. After all, if it’s among the seven deadly sins, then it must be because there is more to it than we would like to acknowledge.

Like all vices, anger clouds our judgement, but the thing with greed, lust, pride or sloth or any of the other vices is that the danger is mostly to one’s self and a few others. Anger on the other hand has more far reaching impact. Anger almost always drives you over the edge taking a whole lot of others with you as well.

Under your spell

I have been sitting on the piece of writing for the past four days. Every time I sit to write this out, my thoughts go on a different direction. This time it’s not me and my errant thoughts that are a problem, but rather the topic; the topic lends itself open to various interpretations and treatment. Keeping it leashed to what I want to actually say is the problem.

I just want to focus on words that I spell wrong, as simple as that, but apparently not so! The dangers of misspelling words are huge; nightmarish if it goes out to a larger audience and red-faced-wish-the-world-would-split-open-and-swallow-me-whole moments when you know that audience personally. Spelling errors do happen, but when that gets an embarrassing or suggestive tone, you wish you had spotted it earlier.

For me, I always dread spelling public as pubic. Seriously, every time I type that word or edit files, I’m extra cautious.

Pantry without the ‘r’ can make for some very exciting sessions. This is another word that I always double check. At one of my previous organisations, the office assistance sent this mail where the correct spelling obviously eluded her not once but twice! “We’ve noticed that the panty is always a mess. …  Please ensure that you leave the panty clean after you’ve used it”!

Auto spell check is a handy element for words that I always can never spell — privilege, refrigerator and length.  Without meaning to, I always end up making mistakes while spelling form and from, tow and two (my two always gets spelt tow, always, even now, sigh) and surprisingly change becomes chnage (which just got auto corrected).

Ironically, as I type this piece, I had to go back on almost over half the words. Misspelling you see!

Time faster Time

Is it just me or do you agree that time has got a new set of wheels? How else can you explain the whizzing speed of days and years? One minute you are in April and the next getting ready for the New Year! I always feel like I just finished buying my Christmas gifts for family and friends (which can be so exhausting) and don’t have the energy to go through another round of them just yet.

Time is relative said Einstein but I don’t think that’s applicable these days. Time just seems to fly whether or not you are having fun. Try as much to slow down your hectic schedule and you still find yourself huffing to catch up with days. I feel like I’ve lost so many days without knowing how and when they dropped off the grid. I will admit that there are a few days where time seems to drag but overall it seems like the axis of the earth has shifted into some kind of super speed.

A procrastinator like me always pushes tasks for the next week, month, couple of months, year and before you know it, it time for me to come good on promises to myself. I’m always struggling to catch up with my lazier self, it’s like I can never catch a break. Events around the world celebrate their anniversaries and I find myself wondering if it has actually been those many years. In a way, there is no more place for anything old, it is always and always immediately replaced by the new.  Everywhere it is one revolution replacing the other in more ways than one.

Sometimes, I feel that modern living is all about speed. We measure our lives in nanoseconds and get impatient by every kind of delay. A 20-second delay in page loading gets us aggravated (come to think of it, I don’t think we can stand a 3-second delay) or  the 1 minute it takes us to get food heated in the microwave makes us impatient. Is this the reason why we seem to have lost track to time. Once a upon a time now really seems like a time phase really gone.

Writing about this, got me remembering this episode on Seinfeld. Have you seen ‘The Friars Club’ episode where Kramer is trying to copy Leonardo Da Vinci's sleep patterns to experience more life?

KRAMER: Listen, uh, do me a favour, will you? I got a hot date tonight with Connie. Knock on my door, wake me up in twenty minutes, alright?

JERRY: Catnap?

KRAMER: No, no, no, no. This is evolutionary. I’ve been reading this book, on Leonardo de Vinci. See, that means 'from Vinci', did you know that?

JERRY:  That must be some book.

KRAMER: Yeah, well, turns out that the master slept only twenty minutes every three hours. Now, that works out to two- and-a-half extra days, that I'm awake per week, every week. Which means, if I live to be eighty, I will have lived the equivalent of a hundred and five years.

JERRY: Just imagine how much more you'll accomplish.

Tales of this and that

I had this thing to get and couldn’t remember it. All I could hear was I needed this for that. It’s a habit in my family, where we use the words ‘this’ ‘that’ and ‘there’ alarmingly often to substitute words we can’t get at the moment. Mostly, it works; we know what ‘this’ or ‘that’ is being referenced at the moment. Sometimes, it gets you in trouble. One rainy afternoon, I remember being screamed at by mom, for not getting the clothes off the line in time. She insisted she told me hours ago, I was adamant she hadn’t. It then dawned that she did tell me to get ‘this’ from ‘there’. With no reference to put context to either, I fell short.

Regular placeholders like Whatchamacallit or Whatshisname or even Thing'em-bob never caught in my house. We were having so much fun figuring out ‘this’, ‘that’ and ‘there’. My extended family too indulged in the extensive use of these placeholders, which made me wonder if this was some genetic defect or a family tradition passed on. Often, we would deliberately pretend to be obtuse and come up with random, unconnected items to fill in the blanks, much to their consternation, till they would scream, “Pass me the hammer, you dolts!”

Placebo effect

In medicine, there is something known as the placebo effect, when doctors administer a drug that is supposed to make you feel better but in reality is just a sham drug that is actually nothing. The effect of the placebo is that is works on the idea of perception; you believe that you are given a life changing treatment that will change your condition. This belief may in fact have a subjective positive result in you feeling your condition has improved.

How many times in our lives have we faced this placebo effect? Whether we’ve been the ones to administer it or the ones who get the dose? We have all deceived ourselves, others and more at some point or the other. Was it to make ourselves feel good or was it for the good of others?  Were our motives truly honest or were we fooling ourselves into believing that we were actually doing some good.

Deception is what we do every day. We force ourselves into believing that there is a reason valid enough to support these lies. In the beginning it may be something we do just to placate ourselves but over time, the reiteration of the lie completely obscures the truth. In times of trouble we pacify ourselves into believing that this phase is just transitory; that it will change and we will feel better. “ I am much better” we say this to ourselves over and over again that even if we don’t feel any better, we force our minds to accept that things have changed, have improved.

The truth is always harder to accept when you realise that you are not among the selected few to actually receive the real cure. We cannot accept that life has decided to skip us over for someone else. We’ve been handed the placebo instead of the real thing. It surely sucks. So what are we going to do? Are we going to fight, scream and shout or are we going to the do the next best thing which is to accept? We all have our ways of making peace with ourselves—rebellion, anger, submission, indifference, pathos, acceptance and denial.

When we deceive others, there is to an extent something clever about it, but when we deceive ourselves it is simply pathetic. Yet we never desist. We know that there is nothing more that can be done for us, so we do what we do best, ignore it and hope that it goes away. Sometimes, it does. Sometimes we do effect a positive change, because we have worked around the problem and tackled it in a roundabout way. And sometimes, despite what we do, there is nothing we can change. The harm is permanent and the end is inevitable.

Trying to change

So J introduces me to the GOOD 30-Day challenge. As I'm reading through it, I wonder if I could do something similar, not exactly the kind of challenges they set, but maybe borrow from their ideas. I could definitely do the talk to a relative and send a postcard, though at a later stage.

As my first task, I step into a restaurant/cafe and ask them for their take-away menu. Believe me, this is hard for me, and what helped was I did it on an impulse. If I sit to think and analyse, I'm always doomed. I get flustered easily so calling in for anything is a task, as I assume that people will always judge me on how I speak, how confident I sound and if I even know what I'm calling in for.

The second thing I did was let someone else take the taxi before me. If I haven't grumbled enough, getting a taxi to work is hard and fighting fending off people ready to 'steal' your taxi is even harder, so the idea of me willingly letting someone else take a taxi before me, even if they got there after me is a BIG task. I did it and felt better and almost felt as if I deserved a humanitarian award gold star.

Maladjusted

As people we are all used to making adjustments just to get what we want, whether we like it or not, and as Indians we are more familiar with the term. Whether in school, college, in the train or the bus, we always squeeze to make place for that one more person in our lives, on our seats and sometimes even on our toes.

I have nothing against making adjustments just to accommodate that one more person, but not at the cost of my well-being. I get all irritated and fidgety when I am squeezed and scrunched; I feel encroached upon. The feeling is worse when it happens in church. I mean, I make all the effort to get there well before time so that I can sit comfortably in a decent enough spot, and then the latecomers straggle in and ruin my peace. I know, I am supposed to display charity and goodness especially in the house of God, but I cannot, honestly cannot. How can I when my shoulders are scrunched in, I have someone nudging and jostling me every time I move?

For the last few weeks, I’ve had to sit up, squeezed just to make place for a pregnant woman, a lady with a child and a younger girl and her sister. If there is place, it is indeed shameful to deny someone a seat, but when we are already shoulder to shoulder, how can the usher expect us to adjust? I cannot pray when I am distracted by people stepping on my toes and elbowing my sides. What is the use of pray when I want to shove the next person or am grumbling about the lack of decency in people? When we were asked to shift and make place for the pregnant lady, there was place to sit, but the lady next to us wouldn’t move her kid who was sleeping across the bench. This only meant that I had to move forward so that the pregnant lady could be seated.

Okay, so you make the place, but then the newcomer decides that they want more. They start shifting, moving forwards and backwards till they can rest their backs. Hello? Whatever happened to being grateful that you got to at least park your butt? Even the fourth-seat passenger in the train will ask you to try and move! What happens then is that you have to take your shoulders in, sit with your legs crossed and lean towards the next person, all the while making you look like the interloper!

Thoughts

So I got lazy. Four days of my leave are almost over and all I did was shop, eat and sleep. Hence the laziness to get online and type.

I can think of nothing other than finishing season 3 of CSI. I am addicted to it and have to replace it with something else. I guess I will start with Game of Thrones and refresh my memory before the new season starts; besides I have to start reading the books that have inspired the series.

Speaking of book, I have started reading Room by Emma Donoghue and must say it is very interesting. Will review it later.

J, you've always been a motivator and inspiration to me and with ABC you did just that. The writing is easier for me now, and though I haven't really polished the style, I am happy that nevertheless I'm writing.

We never got to deciding the prize, though. I guess we both deserve to share it.

5 days of leave

So it's Eid and this time I have 5 days of leave. Every year,w henever we make plans to disappear somewhere for the holidays, the moon plays truant and comes either a day earlier or later, messing with our itinerary. So this yeat, I let it be and decided to do nothing, and as if on cue the moon is sighted Monday night,which means that I have the rest of the week off.

Also, playing spoilt sport is work; I am on standby for Saturday. I just told my boss, this is like punishment for not leaving town. I really don't understand clients and their lack of planning and their assumption that people are available at their beck and call. Just because they have no life and/or a willing to change their plans at the last moment without any repurcussions, doesn't mean that all of us can and/or are willing. Their yardstick of measurement with regards to fairness changes depending on what is being judged. Good bonuses and praises all go to them along with recognition of their 'sacrifice', while our hardwork is just assumed as part of the deal of being lower on the rung.

Anyways, so my first day of the holidays, was spent shopping in the gold area. An area, I usually avoid (why on another day), but since the price of gold seemed less than last week, I decided to brave it out. So now I'm two bangles richer and a cool seven grand poorer. Plus, I also picked my sister's wedding gift, which means that before the start of the next month, I'm already relatively broke.

No quick gun!

It was a shock to say the least. I didn’t expect to feel the violence that comes with discharging a gun. I’ve always felt that I would be trigger happy, I wouldn’t mind shooting from a gun. I honestly believed I had a predilection for shooting, what with all the detective fiction I read and watched in overdoses and still salivated for more. The difference between reality and fantasy absolutely dawned on me when I held that 9mm gun in my hand. It was recreational shooting but nothing prepared me for the violence in the sound of gun discharging, for the kick you feel when the trigger is pressed or for the enormity of the whole act.

My cousin, his friend and I finally managed to make it to the Caracal shooting range after planning over a year. It took so long as we would always plan and then forget. The prices were slightly steep; we paid around AED 275 for 25 rounds and safety instructions (since we were first timers). You could pay another 50 bucks and get another round of 25 bullets. While we were waiting to register, we watched two guys engage in a pistol-shooting duel; the targets looked like bowling pins. The guy on the right knocked down each one of them without missing, while his opponent struggled. I thought, “Great. This I want to do! When can we sign up for that?”

When we were ushered in our section, I was only hoping that there wouldn’t be an audience. Luckily, besides a local guy shooting with a rifle, we were the only ones there. Taking our instructions from our very friendly Pakistani instructor, I could only focus on the overwhelmingly loud shot sounds. So palms sweating, ear mufflers on (I forgot to put the eye shields),I  took my stance and fired. Bang! What did I feel? “What the hell am I doing?” “How do people shoot every day?” “I can’t do this.” “Ok. Relax. One more shot. Slowly…” Mid-way through our session, my cousin finished his; I asked him if he wanted to take over mine. He was in his elements, getting everything on target. He refused and took another round of 25. At one point, I was saying my prayers, wondering why I couldn’t fire even when I was pressing the trigger and hoping that I don’t shoot anybody, worse yet blow up my own face. I don’t have that kind of money to pay off the blood money debt! Whilst all these random, negative thoughts were running through my head, I think the panic showed on my face. The instructor came in and told me to relax. He just needed to reload the cartridge! I felt like a complete idiot.

To say I was nervous would be an understatement but nevertheless my shots were just fine for a first timer.  Considering my lack of aim, I would say it was a pretty bang up job. I think 4 or 5 shots of mine disappeared somewhere, while the rest made it somewhere on my target sheet. Every time the instructor asked me to shut my left eye and focus on the target, I would yell, “I can’t shut my eye. If I shut my eye, I can’t see anything at all.” I would attempt to ‘spot’ the target and then shoot blindly, most of the shooting was blind shots—they might as well have blindfolded me.

I always thought that I would be delighted at finally being able to shoot but I simply didn’t feel nice or even right. Maybe it was nerves, though I was so glad that I didn’t shoot anybody! At the same time I was proud of the fact that my hands were relatively steady and didn’t give in to my trademark hand tremble in nervous situations, though long after that my hand felt quivery and wobbly. I’ll just put that down to adrenaline after the act.

I don’t know if I would want to go again—part of me wants to give it another shot, to try again, and reassess if I am a non-gun type—or whether I should just let it rest and just tick it off my list of things to do and move on to the next sedate thing that is more up my alley.

PS: I meant to upload this last night with pictures (okay just one) and all. Got too lazy, so this goes up as today's post. I'll add the pictures later

Kook magnet

I have this theory about me and every other day there are incidents that prove beyond doubt that I am right about my theory. So what is this theory that I have? It’s quite simple—that I attract all the possible kind of weirdoes and whack jobs there are to know. Now this is not simply based on random incidents. Almost everyone here has a story to tell that involves a weird person, an unprovoked incident and a public setting.

For me the problem is more pronounced. It is not limited to just one country; it’s just made my ‘experience’ a little more varied—from scary taxi rides to chatty taxi drivers to pestering street guys to downright creepy stalkers. Some of the incidents are funny, laughable actually while some have scared the living daylights out of me!

Even as a child, I remember being harassed for no fault of mine. There are so many stories involving me and lunatics. Seriously! Mad men or women roaming on the streets feel some strange pull towards me. I have been slapped, kicked and taunted on busy streets with my family around. From all the people available, these lunatics zero in on me and attack! These attacks became so frequent that my mom would keep an eye out for them and tuck me away from their sight. It seems scary but the incidents were random; they never followed a pattern of any sort. A family friend suggested that it had something to do with the time of my birth and the moon’s position. Whatever the reasons, I haven’t had an encounter with a lunatic for a long time and I hope it stays that way.

Talking to some of my friends about my propensity to attract society’s misfits, they believe that I am overacting. According to their theory, every person meets a certain number of these so called crazies; the only difference being that I have only about met the crazies and never the nice ones. Which is my point exactly! Why do I always have to be the one encountering these species of the weird kind? Haven’t I fulfilled my quota of the strange and peculiar? What’s with the nice people? Why can’t they feel this pull toward me?

I feel that I walk around with this big target on my head. My friends feel that there is something in my body language that screams ‘easy target’. I am too defensive, too jumpy and too timid on the street. I take that as an insult, considering that the city I spent most of my life in, is guaranteed to make you bold and street smart. Me, who can push and jostle her way around crowded streets, too timid? Egged on by my friends, I am now working on changing this misconception of me as too timid. I put on my fiercest face everywhere I go, scaring some of my friends in the process. I am assertive, talk a lot more loudly and yes it’s done me a lot of good. Just when I thought that my friends were right and I was wrong, and this whole assertiveness has something to it, my amazing run with good people came to a screeching halt. A few days ago I got into a taxi, which coincidentally happened to be the same taxi as the previous day, and as my luck would have it, the taxi driver suggested picking me up every day! I just sighed, said a polite no and put on a fiercer face, and promptly set out earlier than usual today. Why tempt my rotten luck, when I know that the fates will always work against me?

Found these empty bottles of water on our floor. Somebody clearly fished this out from some forgotten place.

First crush

I spent my Saturday morning watching BBC's version of the Pride and Prejudice. Oh Mr. Colin Firth, you were my first crush. I loved you with all the intensity of a 16-year-old and even today I sigh every time you come on screen.

I remember watching the TV series, every Tuesday (I think) and being transported to Jane Austen's 19th century world of grandeur, eligible bacherlors, scheming mothers and elegant soirees. So, two years ago when I spotted a DVD of the series, I actually did a little jig, swooped in and picked it up and laughed like a lunatic! My colleague, who was clearly afraid of me by then, asked me politely if eveything was okay. I just grinned and went to the cash counter, plonked down 99 AED and clutched the bag to my chest. I had no peace till I reached home after work and played it.

Also, Jennifer Ehle was my perfect Elizabeth Bennett; I don't think anyone else has done justice to the character, certainly not a Ms Aishwarya Rai (hmphf!).

... and the winner is!

For a tournament that began with such enthusiasm only to get sidetracked by mundane things like work and deadlines and presentations, the end was sweet enough for me.

Ladies and gentlemen, it gives me great pleasure to announce that the winner of the 2011 office foosball tournament is Skullcandy! Cheers to Jay-shawn and me! This win was especially sweet considering all the countless times my daydreams have taken me to the dizzying heights of success, where I not only shocked people with the win but also surprised them with my skill and ruthlessness. Sigh! To all those who put me in the kacha limboo team eat dirt!

Honestly though the match was tough. Our opponents were a formidable team, the lead guy being somebody who could shoot from his goal post to the other's without touching a single player time after time. My job was to block him as much as possible and I did! I was rock-like and he even kept screaming in frustration asking me to move out of his way. It was a see-saw match, which I thought we were definitely losing. It was tense, fun and long. We could have played at least two other matches in the time it took us to win. We worked hard for every single point and in the end, the cup (okay this year there wasn't) was ours to win.

Did I tell you that we were offered a bribe to lose our semi-final match against Masala Massacre. We took the bribe in open, won and then returned their money.

Below the signature it says: Seal of chief of never pay accounts

What we've won is a day's off and a box of sweets each, which we distributed to all.

I celebrated later at La Boulanger, a quiet place by the sea, with Lebanese food of arayes, saj, mix grill platter, fatoush salad, Moroccan tea, mango-avacado juice, watermelon juice and shisha of watermelon and rose flavour.

My camera phone does not do justice to the place.

Coincidence cross connection

Coincidences. Do you believe in them? Most of us do and I certainly do. How else would you explain the fact that when you are thinking of something, it happens to pop in front of you? Coincidences have a funny way of manifesting themselves.

Haven’t you ever experienced yourself randomly thinking about something and it happens. I remember one particularly funny incident. I was in church and as usual distracted. When they were passing around the offertory collection, I was reflecting on the fact that it was so systematic and nobody drops it. What would happen if it did? And clang! Somebody dropped it! I mentally kicked myself for not wishing for something else.

There are countless episodes like this when you wonder about the power of wishful thinking, and most often than not all the useless, random thoughts are the ones that seem to fructify. So much for willing the universe to dance to your tunes.  I remember one of my friends remarking that you should watch what you wish for. Apparently God listens to you at one point in the day and grants you whatever you’ve been thinking. And try as much as I want I try to keep thinking materialistically or train my thoughts on getting that one thing that has eluded me so far but somehow or the other, an errant thought slips through and uses up my quota for the day. But then I’ll keep persisting and hoping and wishing. As they say “every dog has its day”!

A song for every occasion

All through yesterday evening I was wondering over the fact that I know so many cheesy Hindi movie songs, beats and all, yet, when I decided to list them down, they all ran away in the deserted folds of my brain! What’s more surprising is that for some of the songs I know the verses and not just the chorus only!

The few that happened to stick around include:

• A aa ee, o,oo, ooh, mera dil na thodo – Raju babu
• Aare chad gaya upar re (Gutar gutar)  – Dalal
• Mein toh raste se ja raha ta – Coolie No. 1
• Meri pant bhi sexy
• Back marti hai, front marti hai, dekho yeh ladki current marti hai
• Bholi baali ladki – Sabse bada Khiladi
• Ladki badi hai kamal ki
• Main sach kehta hu aapki kasam (Stop That) - Gambler
• Ruk ruk ruk, aare baba ruk, oh my darling give me a look - Vijaypath
• Kya aada kya jalwe tere paro, o paro  - Shastra
• Hai huku hai huku hai hai, yeh ladki mere samne mera dil liye jaye jaye
• Neend aati nahi, chain jaata nahi, kya hua hai mujhe, dard jaata nahi
• LML Baba LML, hone they baba LML, let’s make love bay-bay - Hathkadi
• My adorable darling, I think of you every night every morning - Main Khiladi Tu Anari
• Main ladki po po pom, tu ladka po po pom – Hera Pheri
• P, P, P, P piya, G, G, G, G jiya, piya tune mera jiya le liya – Prem Deewane
• Jhoom, Jhoom karta hai mera jiya
• Meri Marzi - Gambler
• Ladki hai Kya re baba – Laadla

Digital Legacy

A lot of our lives is online these days. We chat, video chat, twitter, blog, podcast, exchange emails, store our pictures, personal data, work and more. People once believed that there is a parallel universe that replicates our lives but interprets it according to its own universe; well now we live in a virtual world that is akin to a number of parallel universes. We can be who we want to be, anonymous perfect little creatures to live out our fantasies and goals that the real world has somehow put a brake on.

Recently I came across an article that dealt with digital information and what happens to it after the user’s death. After a person dies, most of this information remains unknown to his family and disappears into a cyber abyss. It’s something that most of us easily overlook. We make wills to take care of our loved ones, save and invest for a rainy day, make copies and backups of our memories in real and virtual sense, we squabble over possession of material goods but very few of us bother about what happens to our fiefdom in virtual space. Our real collection of comics, books and everything taggable in the real world are passed on to people we think will deserve it, but what happens to our online collection of songs, ebooks, movies and more?

According to the article some sites like Facebook have a concept of memorialising an account, which means that when they are informed of a person’s death, Facebook keeps the wall open so that family and friends can still access it; they delete certain info as well. In a way, there are ways to access information if you know the login details or say only the username.  One step ahead is a new online service called Legacy Locker that stores people’s login details and passes it on to a caretaker in the event of the user’s death.  So more and more people are creating something called digital legacies and will to take care of their digital data.  

On the flip side, say you are a healthy person, who creates and will and dies suddenly? But before your sudden death you didn’t get a chance to remove traces of your other self from there. What happens then? This scenario can play out whether we plan our lives or not. Our digital lives serve as an excuse to get away from the selves that fate has created of us. So we let go all our inhibitions and fears, and pursue avenues and pleasures that we would deny ourselves. And it’s a fact that we all have secrets safely stashed in the virtual world—pornography, erotic writings, emails from our adulterous lives, photographs and videos of our hidden exploits, our secret abilities and lot that stays buried in a pile of virtual junk.  Not all of this is seedy; there are a few who are too shy or reserved, who explore their talents just for themselves. They keep secret files like secret journals of their lives and live a fulfilled life that their real self denies them.

Imagine what happens when this virtual Pandora box opens on the very people we tried to hide it from? Much like the yarn unspooling from the spindle, secrets have a way of unraveling at the worst time. There is no way to stop the surprise, hurt and the shock. These secrets leave us exposed just like we were before on the doctor’s table being autopsied. People prod and poke us and measure and study and remove our insides for others to see. They judge us, the see us for what we really are and there’s nothing we can do.

Yaaawnn!

Lack of sleep tends to make one sleepy is a truth, but is it also true that excess sleep makes one more sleepy/lazy? The latter seems to be true in my case at least. I’ve noticed that the more I sleep, the more sleepy I feel for the rest of the day!

Given that I slept for seven hours last night, there can be no explanation for the lethargy I feel today. Caught in this limbo somewhere between wakefulness and sleep, I feel like everything is moving in slow motion. I’ve dozed off a dozen times already, twice while walking around!

Don’t blame me if this post makes no sense. It’s just how I feel.