~

Kehta hai dil, rastaa mushkil
Maloom nahin, kahaan manzil

- Shree 420

Reality Bites

Looks like I may have to take the dreaded path after all :)

Ah well, maybe it won't be so bad. Maybe it won't be for too long.

People shouldn't be allowed to read, watch movies, listen to music or lie sprawled under the stars cos it gives them silly ideas.

Moving on

It seems to me that I’m always looking out for other people. Always conscious of how what I say will affect them – make them feel bad or hurt. So I don’t usually say what I want to, except in times of extreme vulnerability. And I’m getting tired of it. What about me? What about the way I feel?

One decision, the biggest has been made. It was fairly obvious actually.

Have started looking at classifieds.

Am choosing the middle path as far as the second is concerned. Hope it works out and am not forced to choose the path I know I will hate.

I wish I was God

No seriously, I would do a much better job. I’d paint a girlfriend here, a job there, a mountain for Bipasha. Put away all the baddies where they can only hurt themselves, turn all nukes into chocolate. Clean up the rivers and forests.

I mean what’s with all this you are on earth to learn lessons, suffering is the best lesson crap??

Someone needs to tell God to get a life.

With gratitude

This has to be the sweetest email I have ever received. Thanks Angel :)


"no he is not .. my mom hoeever saw him once and sid
that he was good looking.. he does have a chin dimple
thing!! if only hed stop pulling my cheeks!!

i figered the cousin thing would take time...am on it
already!! need to talk to the parents though!!
thanks it was really cool of you to mail you know!!
i keep telling people (and yes they allthik i m a geek
for being so involved with my blog buddies)that you
are the coolest married person i know!!

anyway now that my dark coulds have lifted.. wassup
with you?? why so sad!! you know i just realsed that
you and i are rather opposites... if i am troubled i
run to friends... not to anyone...to a few selected
ones...most of the time it means a big STD call!! but
hey it works!!

i know i am not reallyin a position to say let me try
and help... but if you need to talk ... please do id
be more then happy and very free!! all i can offer is
a non judgemental ear and may be tons of coffee if
your in the neighbourhood ...
the best part about the internet is that the anonomity
...

ill be posting about this but i have to tell you ...
today has been the most glorious moring..in long
while.. got up bathed my chotu and dropped mom to her
bus came to work and received three unexpected
mails... all loaded with TLC!! what else could a girl
want!!!??! blessed is the receiver of caring e mails i
say!!

*HUGGIEE*
hey try the new kwality walls rumkick... chocolate
choco bar flavoured with rum...a kick it is!!"



Thanks also to the the Ubergeek for extending a shoulder and Bipasha for the financial advice :)

And of course to everyone who commented.

..

I’ve had a very bad night and right now I just want to feel those arms around me for a long, long time. I want to be kissed on my forehead, I want my hair stroked, I want the ‘It’s okay’ and ‘It’ll be fine’ and ‘I know you can do it’ and ‘I really want to be here for you.’ I want fingers on my back.

Not going to happen.

Maybe another cup of tea would be nice.

Killing

Today after an emotionally overwrought session she expressed concern for my well-being. She said I needed to nourish myself before I could move on.

She asked me: Is there anyone whom you can now just go to and lay in their lap and cry your heart out? Your mother...your sister? Someone who can just take care of you and pamper you… Can you think of any one person?

I scanned through the people in my life and I had to say: No.

I didn’t feel bad for myself at that point, it was just a fact.

And she looked into my eyes and said with real understanding and empathy: You chose that.

It killed me.

Because I had to be honest: Yes, I did.

Checking in

It’s getting more and more confusing as emotional ties become apparent.

I have to make two major decisions, preferably fast as one will affect the lives of others.

I see myself depending to an extent on the therapist and I am not sure if this is healthy.

I don’t want to bring hurt and tears to people, but I don’t want to be in a situation where I will remain unhappy either.

The body has kept up well though there was one day when I fell asleep for two hours purely due to stress.

There is isolation, I can’t bring myself to see a movie or talk with friends about arbitrary things. This is the third day that I will stay home.

I am very, very scared. Of taking responsibility and facing the consequences. I feel alone.

There is also a certain situation that has made me feel discarded and lowered my self-esteem. Whether I am right in feeling this way or not is an interesting question, but irrelevant to the way I feel.

It is difficult to think straight or write, as is evident from this post, so I indulge in focusing activities like online scrabble and vocab tests.

I do not think it right to discuss these issues with friends. No one wants to be bothered and brought down by unhappiness. I don’t blame them, I am the same. And why not? When you are struggling with questions of your own, whether major or minor, you really don’t need more from people around you. So I pay for discussion and I think others should too.

The thing is, that even when you are in a funk, you still notice the feline grace of your cat, you still laugh at Homer Simpson, you still sigh over Marquez’s magic realism – so why not share that? Why talk of things for which you know you are the only one who can find solutions.

And I will. I have to.

Actually to be honest, I am losing the will to change. The status quo entices.

A Rainy Day

Today, after sploshing through many a puddle in very thin soled slippers, I was watching the rain in the auto coming back home. The day was gray and the leaves were bright green, the breeze was chillingly comforting, and I thought to myself perfect for a nice hot cup of tea.

And was reminded of my favourite comic book. Something I picked up cos it was on sale, battered, only 25 bucks. ‘The Four Elements’ by Roz Chast. A cartoonist whose work appears in the New Yorker. Her work is amazing, very holding-up-a-mirror-to-your-face.

I came home and took it out of the bookshelf, turned to the page that had reminded me of the book. ‘A Winter’s Day’, fits fine with ‘A Rainy Day’ too.

I’d like to share this page with you, but I don’t have a scanner and can’t draw it in Paint. So I’m gonna have to describe it and you’ll have to visualize it, piece it together. Maybe a lil brain taxing after the Su Dokus, bus rides, nerve-wrangling clients, sploshing through puddles of your own…but hey, humour me, just this once.

A Winter’s Day

Frame 1

Book cover.
‘A Winter’s Day by Mary Lou Fleckner’, Blurb on the right top says ‘49 cents’. Blurb on the left top says ‘A Here-We-Are’ book. Picture of a woman on the front.

Frame 2

Open book.
Left page: copyright 1981. All persons, places, and things in this book are fictitious, so don’t get yourself into a tizzy over anything.
Right page: ‘A Winter’s Day’. Picture of gloves, muffler, cap and hot steaming cup of tea.

Frame 3

Left page: Blank.
Right page: Picture of woman sitting at table drinking tea, looking out of window – English cottage feel. ‘It was bitterly cold.’

Frame 4

Left page: Picture: Woman looking out of window at cottage on yonder hill. ‘But there was nothing that Mary Sue Fletcher could do about it.’
Right page: Picture: Four ring stove with kettle on one ring. ‘Maybe another cup of tea would be nice.’

Frame 5

Left page: Woman back at table drinking tea. ‘Mmm… that hits the spot.’
Right page: Table with phone ringing. ‘Was that the phone?’

Frame 6

Left page: Woman standing over dead phone, staring at it. ‘Must’ve been a wrong number.’
Right page: Window with curtains, darkness outside. ‘It’s hard to believe, but at only 4:20 it’s already practically dark.’

Frame 7

Left page: Woman sitting on couch staring at TV which says ‘Evening News’. ‘Where did the day go?’
Right page: ‘The End’.

Frame 8

Back cover.
Portrait pic of woman. ‘Mary Lou Fleckner has written books on various topics and subjects, if you must know.’

Enjoy it at face value or read into it – it’s beautiful both ways!

Bodhisattva - Won't You Take Me By The Hand?

When one understands that he causes some of his own suffering, needlessly, then he looks for the causes in his own life.

And when he looks for those causes, when he investigates, then he is putting confidence in his own ability to eliminate the sources and end the suffering.

A wish to find a path to peace arises. For all beings desire happiness. All wish to find their purest selves.

- From the film ‘Kundun’


Happy Birthday Your Holiness.
___________________________________________________

23 April ‘05

... This is what I conclude - you can’t connect with another person. It’s all about the self – it’s about my blood, my tears, my sweat, the fishiness of my own fluid.

It’s about the little pool that is you connecting to the larger pool through nature or through music, a film, a book. And even when it is through the man-made, you don’t connect with the human creator but only with the vibrations that the work builds in time-space.

How can you feel that connectedness with life, with the universe with another person? It is unreasonable to even ask for it or think it possible.

Tuesday

Met with Rags today cos not sure how to go about the promo script. I can’t see how it will be different from the other two films we’ve done for the same organization. And after meeting her I still can’t. It just seems like it would be a shortened version of the previous script. I said so, and she agreed… so I’m still not sure of what I should do – but will give it a shot anyway.

And while I was watching her lips move, I suddenly had a realization! And some cobwebs have parted.

Hmm…maybe it’s having realizations in meetings that leave me with little clarity about the task at hand!
__________________________________________________

Hung out with AJ on his roof this evening. The weather was awesome.

He has this interesting theory that human lives all follow a sin curve – troughs and crescents. And so he claims that he can tell what situation a person will be ten years from now by studying their past sin pattern.

I asked him what about learning from mistakes and changing the pattern, but he said we will make new ones.
___________________________________________________

The writer sends the most lovely SMS’s.

Last week she had been awol for a night so I sent her a message asking her if she was alive and she replied:

Rainwashed and rumpled…

And today she sent me a message from Goa saying:

The weather is too lush, loaded, and heavy on the heart.

Today

Saw a Mallu flick. Muslim guy in Aligarh Muslim University influenced by classmates who make him see Babri Masjid demolition videos and convert him into a fundo. Becomes leader of local gang, thrown into jail. Wife casts away victim status by writing anti-fundo book called ‘In the name of God’. Guy reads it in jail and his eyes are opened. Wife gets the happy news and goes to meet him, the bus she is in is blown up by fundos. End credits.

Ate breakfast for dinner. Sitting across the table looking at the Lawyer make negative, tired comments.

“The sensible Muslims should do something about their community. It is entirely run by Fascists.”

Will now curl up with good book.

'What do you like about her?'

Morgan wanted to shout at him, he wanted to pound on the table in front of him, saying, I love the way she pulls down her clothes, lies on her side and lets me lick and kiss her soft parts, as if I have lifted the dish of life up to my face and burst through it into the wonderland of love forever!

- A Meeting, At Last by Hanif Kureishi