Chimera...

It's easy to fall back into the usual patterns, it's easy to forget everything and do what you don't have to remember, but you know, somehow, it doesn't feel right anymore. And as you still try to justify it to yourself, you realise, you didn't reach here to be a 16 year old again. You owe it to yourself, and you owe it more to those 27 years.

And as you walk away with that feeling, you realise, this is what it feels, at last.

Woman In Progress...

In a world where more and more women are trying to be like a man, here I am, struggling to be more of a woman.

Safe Distances...

If there was someone who had to be shown what lay beneath, I always knew it had to be you. I don't know why I chose you, I have tried to reason with myself. You don't even care any more, and if I told you this, you'd expect me to come up with a brilliantly convincing answer. But I can not. I am not clever, I have no sense of occasion and specially to you, I say the most stupid things. I wonder if this is one of those stupid things I am better off not saying. But even as I try to articulate everything I want to say, I feel you already know. You already know me, don't you? Your knowing scares me, but I know if I don't get out now, I'll choke. 

Living The Wrong Story...

There has been a battle going on inside me for years and I never realised, till now.


I still remember the summer holidays when mom took me along to her needlework/stitching class cause there was no one to take care of me at home. I played with the lady's daughter who was perhaps two years younger than me. I remember the flowery, dark leafed, perfumed garden and the corner under the guava trees where we sat and played house. We made tea that afternoon in little ceramic teapots and drank from little teacups. And I had never done that before. I never played "ghar-ghar" like all girls did. All sister's toys, dolls, were given away when we moved houses. When I finally met R and girls in 6th standard, I played with dolls for the first time. Being an asthmatic, I was never allowed to play like other kids, so I would end up spending all time alone, with my imaginary friends, talking to myself, reading, playing with trucks and lorries that dad would get, or fiddling in the kitchen and getting yelled at by mom.


I can't dance. And I am always wondering how dancing comes so effortlessly to most Indian women. So many women can dance so beautifully without ever having received any formal instruction. I realised why the other day while I was leading another girl in the Rumba class. I am not comfortable expressing myself. The "aada" that is such an instrinsic part of every Indian woman, it is so alien to me, it's there somewhere, just that I have never let it out. I have never allowed myself to feel womanly. Being the second daughter, I was raised like a boy. So while all girls played with dolls, I played with jeeps and trucks. While sister was flirting with guys in school, dad was teaching me how to repair a broken fuse. While all girlfriends danced on stage, I wasn't allowed to, so I stayed backstage and looked and wished I could dance like them.


Last year when I joined ballroom dance class, I hated it. I didn't realise what I was doing wrong but I was really bad at it. I would come home and write down steps in a notebook, 4-3-2-slow-1. Everytime I faltered, Shelly would say, "A, you dance well, but just feel the music, don't concentrate on the steps." I didn't understand what she meant. How could I not concentrate on steps? Wasn't that how you learnt to dance? But I see now what she meant. I am finally enjoying dance. I am finally letting myself go and feel. And I am loving it :)


Dance is such a direct extension of who you really are, it's an expression of your soul. You can't dance, if you aren't comfortable with yourself.

"Raat ko jab chaand chamake, jal uthhe tan meraa

mai kahoo mat kar o chandaa, is galee kaa feraa

aanaa moraa saiyaa jab aaye..."

I love this song. I love Waheeda Rehman. She has been my idol for so many years. She is my definition of a woman. Ins't she so lovely? So womanly, so graceful and so very beautiful! There are nicer songs featuring her, but I don't know why I love this song. Even when she's sad and yearning for her love, she's so beautiful and womanly, you can't take our eyes off her. You want to love her.


I think heartbreaks are good :) They serve as a good wake up call. Shake you up from my la-la land and force you to introspect and change and for good.


Sigh, I have such a long road ahead of me. 

Love, Again...

The single most cause of unhappiness in my life has been fear.

I don't know how and when I'll get over my fears.

But till such time, happiness is going to be a choice.

A Woman Named Drown...

It was hot, as it always is in Mumbai, and we were all back at our hotel after watching No One Killed Jessica. I was in my room, everyone had gone back to theirs, getting ready for the evening. We were supposed to be at Munira's reception venue by 7pm and it was already 5pm. Anjali and I shared one room, Apeksha and Mandy were in the other room. I was sitting on one of the beds, and I could hear Anjali in the bathroom. I was done with my bath, and I should have been getting up and getting ready, we were already late, but I just sat there on the bed in my towel, listening to sound of running shower. Absorbing the sound, her presence. Just the fact that she was around. I felt good. I felt calm. I felt...safe, loved.

I am missing them all today, my people.

I wish I could fly. I wish I could go sit next to them, not talk, not do anything. Just sit next to them, absorb their energies, be around them, feel their presence. And once in a while, have them look up at me and smile. Just that. Not more. Just that.

They've Been My Fiction...

I was talking to D sometime back and she asked me what I loved, like a physical feature, about the guys I have loved in the past. And I couldn't tell her a single thing about a single guy. I remember the long agonizing nights I spent crying over them, I could tell you the number of stars that twinkled every night or how the sea-green walls offered comfort, but I don't remember if I loved their eyes or hair or mouth or hands or what else.

I don't think I could paint them from memory if I had to. I found that weird in retrospect.

And the more I thought about it, the clearer it became that I never took much notice of the physical form. I always loved the idea of them. The wondrous and magical place that existed between their ears kept me engrossed and busy enough for me to notice anything else.

And when they left, their dusty faces were easily washed away by the rain, but the idea of them stayed back for a long time.

Clipped Wings...

I am scared of being caught. Scared of being put in a pigeon-hole. Scared of someone telling me, you can't do this. I hate that. I can do anything. I want to believe that.


Friends often make fun of me when I tell them I am claustrophobic. I don't like small cramped places. Small rooms. The first time I heard about Vaishno-devi, I was scared and amazed. There's a small hole you need to pass through to enter the innermost chamber, and that to me seemed impossible. Every time someone talked about it, I saw myself stuck in it, always. As a kid, and this is funny, I believed, ardently so, that I was some sort of an angel (well, not like a nice person, but someone who could fly) and that I had come to earth for some reason and having done my job, one day, I would fly back to wherever I came from (Yep, stories, stories, I always loved listening to them and making up my own). I once dreamt in college that I could fly. I rose above the ground, very ethereal, and flew away from the living room window, like I was a light bird and my dad was trying to hold me back, like a kid who is trying to save a balloon that has escaped from its grasp. I told this to my family once, and we all laughed at how silly it was. Why am I so scared of being caught? What is all this struggle about?


I love windows, big windows; they represent freedom, an escape. As long as there's a window in the room, nothing can keep you tied down and helpless and locked. You can always flee.


I think I am running away from me. I think I am struggling to be free from my own grip.


There are so many things I want to do, and the only thing that's stopping me is, perhaps, me.  

I Fought For A Long Time Now...

"It seems to me that almost all our sadnesses are moments of tension, which we feel as paralysis because we no longer hear our astonished emotions living. Because we are alone with the unfamiliar presence that has entered us; because everything we trust and are used to is for a moment taken away from us; because we stand in the midst of a transition where we cannot remain standing. That is why the sadness passes: the new presence inside us, the presence that has been added, has entered our heart, has gone into its innermost chamber and is no longer even there, - is already in our bloodstream. And we don't know what it was. We could easily be made to believe that nothing happened, and yet we have changed, as a house that a guest has entered changes. We can't say who has come, perhaps we will never know, but many signs indicate that the future enters us in this way in order to be transformed in us, long before it happens. And that is why it is so important to be solitary and attentive when one is sad: because the seemingly uneventful and motionless moment when our future steps into us is so much closer to life than that other loud and accidental point of time when it happens to us as if from outside. The quieter we are, the more patient and open we are in our sadnesses, the more deeply and serenely the new presence can enter us, and the more we can make it our own, the more it becomes our fate."
— Rainer Maria Rilke

*****
Much like that, one morning I woke up and realised I had changed. I still wore clips in my hair, much like a school girl, and still measured 26 at the waist, and I have it from a 19 year old guy that I can easily pass off as a 23 year old, if not 22(of course I am vain, darling); but my inner landscape had completely changed. So much so, that I now felt nothing like I did just 2 days back. When I told this to AP, he gave me that you're-crazy smile, ignoring my admission as some female whim, but inside I was struggling even as I said those words, I wish it was some whim. I feel like a woman these days. I don't feel like a girl anymore. How does that feel you ask me, the skeptical you, the curious you, and I say, I don't know, except that I know I am different now. Age is now a tangible thing. I can feel it between my fingers, heavy, I can smell it, like burning rubber, I can see it snaking through my life cutting my dreams short, and I can hear it constantly talking to me, telling me to calm the fuck down. It is driving me mad.


For the first time in my life, I sat down and sketched my future. For a person like me, who lives life as it comes, impulsive, I planned. I wrote down on a piece of paper- 2011, 2012, 2015....


That broke my heart. You'll argue that planning ahead is a good thing, but to me that was cheating. That was compromising. That was...dare I say...choosing what to dream?


All these years, I realise I was stuck at 22, blithely unconcerned about the hours ticking by...and then I suddenly realise I am 26 now.


It's safe to say I am freaking out like a pig that knows it is going to be butchered.


I remember waking up at an odd hour in the morn to loud cries one day. I was late in enrolling, and so my college had put me in a hotel outside the college premises. It was almost a dump, the hostel, and to add to that, there was an open field next to the hostel building where many pigs made home. My room window opened to dirty pigs for the whole one week I stayed there. And I remember waking up to loud unfamiliar cries, on the first day itself. I opened the window and I saw some two men trying to drag a pig into a tempo sort of a vehicle, the sun was just rising behind them. I almost wanted to cry for the pig, it desperately struggling to get away and run away and not die, its cries painful.


I feel pretty much like that pig now.


I can not be a free spirit anymore. I will be tied down. I just pray I have the fortitude to go through with what will come next.


But god, I am miserable. 

The Hand That Feeds...

Today Apeksha pinged and asked me if I was okay with her talking to S.


Apeksha and I were talking about my moving and then we were laughing about the movie KKKG, and about my role as "pooh" in final year play, and out of the blue, this. For a moment, I felt dizzy.


I know it was not very mature on my part to forbid my best friends from talking to S. But I did it anyway.


Here's the thing. If I love you, I would not hesitate to even wash your feet and drink that water, but when you're out of my life, I take everything away. If it was possible, I would even want to erase every single memory of me from the minds of people I oust from my life. I am extreme in my love and hate.


My friends are my family. And I was hurt and I was not okay with them talking to someone who has hurt me.


And, yes, I knew by asking Apeksha not to keep in touch with S, I was in a way hurting him. I knew it would affect him.


I knew it was a wrong thing to do. And my sweet girlfriends, except G of course(Who is also a sweetheart, but just more practical to give into something like this), agreed without a single why. They understood they said. I do have sweet friends, no?


So Apeksha, I am okay. He was your friend too. He's been a good friend to you. Yes, I still want to keep you with me and not have you talk to S. But I don't have that right, even as your best friend, I do not.



Things happen, fuck ups happen, people you love don't always love you back, you get hurt and you don't always do the right thing.


But it's not too late for me to do the right thing. I am sorry I kept you away from a friend.

Soup For the Chicken...

I am chickening out already. Now that it has sunk in, I can see myself cracking.

It's like, I have just learnt to walk and I am already endeavouring to climb the Everest.

What will become of me? I truly do not know!

And yes, a magic wand someone? Please?

Framed...

I don't have a display picture on Facebook, or on any social networking sites. And I can become quite a pain in the behind when someone wants to click a picture of me. I don't allow them. I could count the number of people I have allowed to take my pictures, I could count them on my one hand now.

Everyone asks me why I don't like getting clicked. Yes, partly that.

But the real reason is that it's too much of a personal commitment for me. When I let you click a picture of me, and let you keep it, it means I want you in my life forever. And there only a handful of them I want beside my bed-side when I breathe my last.


Save that picture of me you have, I might need to borrow it sometime. 

A Private Message...

Friend: Welcome to the quarter life crisis.

Me: Damn, it's so fucked up.

Friend: This makes me immensely happy that u feel the same way and it totally is. But it is true, perspectives change so much these days...that I sometimes don't really know what do I believe in, again the whole discovery of the self...I'm so tired and exhausted...

Me: Yep, it's like you handle one thing, one emotion, one thought, you deal with it and you stow it away and there again, pops another one and you're back to staring at a stranger in the mirror.

Friend: Yea, such is life...I guess...

*****

And so these days I spend most of my time acquainting myself with my new thoughts.

Age, again, yes. A recent shocking one I found is this:

I remember there was a time when I would see nothing wrong with a man who "experimented" a lot. While I did not particularly like such a man, I thought, well, so what? His life. I never judged him. His this aspect never interfered with my dealings with such an individual.


These days, however, I find myself repulsed by the very idea of such a man or woman. For whom women/men are nothing but a notch on their respective bedpost. Who see nothing wrong in jumping from one to another. A new attraction every day.


Earlier, I could separate their such private behaviour, seeing it as just one part, unsavoury, but isolable aspect of their whole personality; even making allowances by saying to each its own. But these days, I find it increasingly difficult to like or trust such people, no matter how they are with others. No matter how truthful and loyal they are toward their loved ones. No matter how they conduct themselves in other areas of their life. I am finding it very difficult to talk to such men and women and not feel disgust.


And I am, not liking such prejudice on my part. I am hating it in fact. 

We Are Here For A Reason...And It's Not Fun...

Having the nephew for 1 whole month has been quite a revelation, to put it mildly. Now that that one month is coming to an end, I can pretty much boast of being semi-qualified as a mother.

For the one whole month sister was here, she was on vacation (meaning she got to sleep for 5 hours at a stretch, poor thing), so it was all left to Dad and me to take care of the nephew. Nephew didn't take to mum a lot, so he pretty much stuck to dad's side or then mine.


So my repertoire includes bathing an one year old, feeding him, clothing him, changing his diapers, keeping him entertained for hours and though it still requires monumental effort to control my shrieks every time I feel something warm running down my legs, I am now also okay with things like baby pee and baby poop without puking. What else? I can even sing lullabies and put a kid to bed. Nice? Eh? And all this without having ever touched or even looked at a kid before. Would it be bragging if I said I was awesome?

No, right? I know, honestly, I deserve a medal!

(Which was duly gifted by sister in the form of payals. And I love them! I almost want to grab the first guy I see on the street and show him how beautiful and feminine my feet look with those colourful anklets and then feel all happy)


Moving on, I am also fully qualified as a hostess. I must have entertained atleast 5 dozen guests in the last one month whilst taking care of the nephew(Clearly, we are not a very sociable family). How awesome can I get? They should like make a new award for women like me!


But I hated every minute of it. Like really, now I know why women want to marry only rich men. Cause rich men can employ two dozen servants at home for all this entertaining business. All the hostess has to do is dress up and sit nicely and smile prettily at the guests and say, "ramu, memsaheb ke liye woh sherbet lana, aur baby ke liye woh lichee ice cream lana", and afterwards, when the party is over, all she has to do is remove the heavy jewellery and remove the pins from her hair and sigh wearily at her husband, who's rich remember?, and tell him how tiring all of it was and Mrs. Snooty-ass definitely wore a prettier diamond necklace. Like really, there's no cooking and washing plates in her life. I want to be a memsaheb too!


No surprise then, I have just postponed marriage by another 5 years and don't plan to have a kid. Unless someone pays me a few hundred lakhs to have a kid (which ain't happening).

Err, yes.

I cried the first day the nephew was here. Now, I am a very private person. I need my "me" time. I need loads of alone time. Which was like zero when the nephew was here. Usually, frustration comes out in two forms: loud, peppered with swear words yelling or then muffled sobs. Since the loud yelling would have woken up the nephew, I had to settle with the sobs. The first day I had to deal with a kid, it freaked me. I am, even now, after one month, can-pee-in-my-pants scared.

Motherhood is not easy.

Let me say it again, motherhood, is not easy. 

I said semi-qualified, cause motherhood is more than bathing and feeding a kid. It requires a whole different sort of sacrifice. A whole lot of patience. All women with kids are not mothers, some are just child bearers. It takes something much more to be a mother. You need true whole genuine love in your heart to be a good mother. Every woman should be scared of being a mother, cause it's a tough job. No demand is exaggerated, no sacrifice too big. Motherhood is not all toys and rainbows. At times you'll want to hate your own kid, but you can not. You can not disown your kid, or give him away one day you're tired and frustrated and under-slept and underfed and on saline cause you're so weak or even dying the very next day. You have to count to10, take a deep breath and paste a smile on your face and tell your kid something funny.


Married couples, please please spend atleast minimum two years with each other. Do not, really, do not rush to have kids. Your whole life, as you know it, will change once you have a kid. It will never be the same again, ever. Even after they, your kids, graduate from high school.


Enjoy your precious independent days. Stop hankering after marriage, those who are single. You know how you plan your day without a single thought for anyone else? That? That is gold. That freedom. Treasure it. Love it. Respect it. You'll miss it so much once you have a kid, but it'll never come back no matter how many times you say you miss your single days.


Having a kid means timing your loo breaks, means forgetting the idea of a full meal, means thinking atleast 10 times before going downstairs even, means thanking your stars if you get to sleep for 3 hours at stretch one fine day, means celebrating with canned juice if your kid sleeps without crying for one whole hour first, having a kid means no time for exercise, no time for looking good, being cut from the entire world, means no alone time ever with your spouse, and definitely, forget anything about sex once you have a kid. For one, your bodies, women, will be your worst nightmare. But you'll accept it anyway, cause every time you want to curse having a kid, you'll look at your baby looking at you with eyes full of hope and innocence and then she'll/he'll flash you her/his best smile and you'll say, its okay, I don't mind it, it gave me you. But yes, any man who sleeps with you post baby, tie him to your bed and never let him go, ever. And two, if you ever get any time, even like 20 mins alone, sleep! You can never bet when you'll get 20 whole uninterrupted minutes to sleep again.

Sex? Forget it.

Alrighty, I am off to make some watermelon juice for the nephew then. 

Mango And A Jackfruit...

What do you say of a girl whose worst fear is that she would turn out to be like her mother?

Life Inside A Book...

The problem with people like me is that we want to have a life worth talking about, but even more, worth writing about.
People like me, we look for beauty in even ordinary everyday actions, motions, gestures, expressions.
We want to romanticise everything.
Lead a significant, not rich, not powerful mind you, but meaningful, poetic life, beautiful life enough to be shot in slow motion.
We want to have a certain magic in everything in life, even when life plain sucks, we desperately search for something that'll save us.
People like me want to lead lives where even a simple thought like, Mrs.Dalloway said she would buy the flowers herself, is worthy of being the opening lines of a wonderful book.
Like we need to wow ourselves. A tall order.
People like me don't want to waste life living ordinary, plain, simple, common. It's the biggest nightmare, of not making anything of your life.

And then when we don't find it, we become miserable and waste away. Waste the same life that we want to adorn with the finest jewels.

On Love...

"Love should bring joy, it should grant a person peace, but here and not, it was bringing only pain."

Love has always brought me pain. And I realise, it is because I have always been running away from it. I've been thinking about a lot of things in the past few months, and feeling depressed about a lot more. There's comes a time when you need to stop moping and evaluate your choices, yourself.



I've tried to be honest here and I will try to be in the future. But I promise I'll be honest, not only here, where I know few people read me and fewer still know me in "real" life, but I promise myself that I'll be honest, in the real life, about loving. I will love with complete abandon. I won't hold back. I won't run away. I won't hide. I'll love without the excess unnecessary baggage. Without brakes. Without thinking about the scars I wear. Without worrying about the future. Without worrying about getting hurt.



Anything else, I realise, is a travesty. A lie. It won't be easy(Even as I write this, a small voice mocks me), but I hope such a love won't suffocate you, won't suffocate me. That such a love is possible. And maybe, just maybe, such a love won't hurt.

Truth And Dare...

I have eaten enough grapes to make a barrel full of wine today and so I am going to use that as an excuse to totally write things I shouldn't be writing. But I do stupid things when drunk like drop cabbage in my dress and shout loudly, "There's cab in my tra, someone remove it". Or then refuse any assistance and go fall from the stairs and cry loudly much to the embarrassment of everyone. And nice friends console thinking I am crying over a guy, but in reality I am crying cause I have hurt my ass so bad, it's black-blue the next day, from the fall :|. Now that I have exhibited enough stupidity, let's play a game, shall we? Truth or Dare anyone? Oooooh, lookie! The bottle points at me! Awesome! Let's get started with it then. Without further ado, let me begin.

Are you ready then?

Okay. So it was a dark stormy night...and I was sitting by the window, my poor little window, and I wondered, like I always do. About what? What else do you think? About the only thing this blog has been hearing for the past 20 years or so (promise after this I will  write only about football, food, Laetitia Casta and maybe economics)

Anyway, heartbreaks and failed romantic relationships are a part of everyone's lives. And we always want things to work out but they don't and we are left to wonder why. If there's one word that has featured with unfailing regularity in my life, it is the word-Why (From the time I could speak, mum says, I always asked questions. Why this happens, why that happens, why I can't do that, why you can't do that, etc etc. (Yes, I have always been a pain). She had only one answer to my constant whys-I don't know. Smart her. And so, disappointed and angry I would decide to find the whys myself and I would find the answers too! Smart me too :)).


I am sure people spend much thought over why a certain friendship fails. A parent-child relationship? And I am sure many grey cells are used up pondering over why a romantic relationship failed. And I wondered too. And every time I thought, I blamed destiny. Maybe it wasn't meant to be I would say. Since we are playing truth or dare, the truth is that it isn't the truth. And I can't run away from the truth any longer. I need to face the truth and act on it. Trouble of being 26, you need to own upto things you don't want to. It's called growing up :| Anyway,  I can't be lying and cheating myself like this- by refusing to accept the truth and blaming destiny, blaming them, blaming my astrologer, blaming friends, blaming anything and everything, except myself-I need to put the blame where it belongs.


The truth is, I am scared of being in a relationship. I crave companionship and love and romance, as much as the next girl, but the minute I get close, I run away from it. I get claustrophobic. I go back and forth in my mind about wanting to be with this guy. Should I? Should I not? (Bloody nonsense!) The minute the guy shows any emotions (even supposed emotions), I freak out. Next course of action? I find flaws in him. I find reasons why things won't work. I find excuses to walk away. I look for anything that will give me a reason to run away. I just need one reason to walk away and I take it and I run with it. I walk away emotionally.


I have liked intelligent strong men. Who knew what they wanted, all along. Who were sure if they wanted to be with me, or not. It was me, who was never sure. It was me being indecisive. It was me, acting out and not wanting things and not appreciating when I had them and then crying when I didn't have them. It was me driving them to a point where they no longer were sure too.


Unnecessary drama and complication, friends will say. I agree, but at the root, it was fear acting out.


I remember heaving a sigh of relief when a certain relationship ended. And later I sat by the window and cried about it for days. Nay, months. I did the same with the next and okay, I am giving away the count now.


Thing about relationships is that it won't ever flourish, unless both people are ready to be honest with each other. Unless there's truth and trust. Unless there's transparency. I am ashamed to say, I have never been honest, in a way, that I have always kept myself aloof, hidden. I have never been vulnerable. I was too scared to be vulnerable. I don't think I ever did justice to any of those guys. Cause while they lay there bare, naked emotions and dreams, heart and mind, I heard and looked, but I hid myself cause I was so afraid.


I am not strong (unlike what friends think) or perfect (no one anyway thinks that) or even close to perfect (not even that). I am flawed, blemished and hurt and weak and sappy, extremely silly, confused, and really really scared. And I am a coward (And you'd never know it). Right now, being vulnerable is the hardest thing for me. But I need to be okay with being vulnerable. I need to be okay with being seen as flawed and imperfect. I need to stop being scared and evasive and, unemotional. Really! For the love of God, am I making this into a very trashy melodrama? Oh, who am I fooling! It's tougher than climbing the everest. Being Vulnerable. Cause I have never done it. Good lord!

But I guess, this is the first step toward me being vulnerable. It begins right here for me. I need to hit that publish button! :|

Alright, look, I don't like hogging all the limelight. Let's hear you talk now, okay starfruit? Humour me.


P.S: I am going to so regret eating grapes tomorrow morning.

P.S.S: Munira, I am so envious of you. You could always so easily be vulnerable.You always stood there fearless with your flaws, joked about them even, and you so easily shared your fears. You could so easily cry about your failures and I wouldn't shed one tear, lest I be seen weak. You could so easily talk about your shortcomings, about your imperfections, and that endeared you to me, to everyone I know. Even when you were so wrong, you never judged yourself. And I always envied you for that quality of yours. Never lose it. 

The Naked Soul...

Everyone wants that love marriage, where you meet "the one", your soul mate and then decide to get married cause you can not stay away from each other, no never, and so you tie the knot that will keep you together always, forever, la-la-la. And having found the love of one's life, one imagines oneself in a red Mercedes convertible driving into a brilliant sunset, with one's hair flying in the wind (and maybe one can surely add a flimsy Audrey Hepburn-esque scarf flying in the wind for added aesthetics.) How romantic and all that one thinks. On the other hand, no one desires an arranged marriage, for it is so cold, for that's how it appears, very cold and very businesslike. Where you meet random people, decide to get to know each other over a cup of chai/coffee and then talk over phone and if you're lucky meet in person to dissect the other's character and coldly weigh his/her "value" and if he/she fits the bill, get married. But something similar happens in love marriages. You meet a random person, maybe at a party, maybe in college, maybe at work and decide to talk and then maybe get to know each other over a cup of coffee and then blah blah...you know the deal. Yet, we look at arranged marriages with such trepidation, and love marriages with our rose-tinted glasses. I wonder why such unfair treatment?

Probably because in a love marriage, you know the person well enough(get to know in "biblical sense" too?) and you know for sure that this is what you want, this is who you want to be with. In an arranged marriage, how well can you really get to know the other person during the courtship period?

The first thing that went through my mind when I thought about arranged marriages was-sex. I can be all modest and choose to ignore it, but it's an important aspect of a romantic relationship and I have seen couples break up, after 2 years, cause the girl wasn't ready to commit fully or the guy was no good. Physical compatibility is as important as emotional and intellectual compatibility and while you can judge a person's emotional nature and find out if you both match intellectually by talking to them and spending time with them, there's no sure way of knowing if you'll click in the bedroom department as well, unless you actually give it a shot. Which surely can not happen in an arranged marriage (You can't be kissing every guy your parents/friends approve!). So essentially you enter into an arranged marriage with your fingers crossed, hoping that you both will be great together. Definitely loads of luck and some divine intervention I thought.


After talking to a lot of people, it seemed like, yes, it was one of the main drawbacks of an arranged marriage. A colleague from work is in the process of getting a divorce 'cause apparently the guy had some problem. Another one is getting a divorce after two years cause the guy still refuses to do it with her. A friend's friend has got a divorce 'cause the guy refused to even get near her. And when my best friend got married, I did wonder if she would be comfortable doing it on her first night. Wouldn't it be weird, I thought, to get intimate with someone with whom you've never been intimate, at all? And say if you do get intimate and find out that it was a total dud and then what? What a damper that would be! And you're stuck now, cause you're married! ***


And so I told H about my doubts. And what he said made much sense, atleast to me, though I think I have yet to fully figure this thing out. Physical attraction is a tricky thing. You can never know. A friend recently told me that she had the most awesome time with a fat guy, and she never ever even dreamt of going anywhere near a fat, sloppily dressed guy. Forget a fat guy, I feel zilch attraction toward even some of the good-looking, impeccably dressed guys. I was looking for some kind of pattern that I can trust to guide me. But can you really know? Can you ever guess who can take you on a ride in the clouds and who will leave you staring at the ceiling? What however, one has noticed is that physical attraction comes when you like the person, really like the person. Physical intimacy comes when there's emotional intimacy.

I remember a guy friend once told me, I loosely paraphrase, to seduce a woman touch not her skin, but her mind. When I look back, I realize, the guys I have strongly been attracted to, physically, I have most definitely been very very strongly attracted to their minds. I remember liking a guy, who, what shall I say, wasn't exactly James Dean in the looks department, but I loved him, cause I was so seduced by his mind. Which also explains why I just can not bring myself to like this another guy, who's is physically great looking and all that but I don't remember ever going "wow" while talking to him. "Yawn" most of the time.


So there, I am still confused, but maybe one doesn't need to worry all that much about the sparks and chemistry and getting to know your partner in the biblical sense before tying the knot. Our parents, after all, did have babies, no? I guess then, strong physical attraction will be there if you like that person and are emotionally and intellectually compatible.


***Same could hold true for other qualities as well. Really that girl who comes carrying the tray, all shy and coy and salwaar-clad, do you really think she's all shy and coy and wears salwar-kameez all the time? Or for that matter, I always wonder, what would be a right response to your husband's "Have you had sex before"? If you say no, you make him happy, and you hopefully live a happy romantic married life. If you say yes, brace yourself for a barrage of questions, loads of insecurity and a possibility that it might ruin your chances of a happy romantic married life. I always wonder what guys would prefer to hear. Would they prefer to hear a no, never knowing if she was lying or being truthful, believing the best and forgetting about it or would they be okay, truly okay with hearing the truth. I know most guys will say, "I would rather you be honest with me and tell me the truth", but I wonder, deep down, if they'll really be ever okay.

The Art Of Losing...

2010 was a cruel teacher. It taught me lessons I didn't want to learn, made me face truths I scarcely imagine existed, it made me look deep inside me, it showed me my ugly side but worst of all and funnily, maybe even the best, was when it pushed me into that deep dark well on whose edge I have always stood, trembling knees, shivering body and a breath stuck in my throat, 2010 finally pushed me into that well. I fell down, splintered into pieces, my happy world splattered on the walls of the well, I lay bleeding and just when I was about to breathe my last, it offered me its hand and told me to stand up again. And in all that, it gave me a precious thing: It taught me how to lose. To cope with loss. How to be completely alone, without even those who gave me birth.

*****
I remember it was summer holidays and Priya and I were loitering around in her society when we found out Pinky's mother had died. I was only in my 5th grade. I had never heard of death before. I had never seen a dead body before. I knew something like death existed, I wasn't that naive, but by all means, it was an alien concept to me.

Pinky's mom's story spread like wildfire through the town. She was in love with another man; she knew she could not marry him. Pinky's family was one of the well known families in the town and her mother's love affair had become the talk of the town. There were constant fights at home, and finally it all had led Pinky's mum to commit suicide.

I remember standing a few days later at the same spot, with Priya, where Pinky's mother had apparently lain while waiting for the morning fast train, and wondering, "Will it be my mom next?". And if so, will dad bring another mom home? Will she be like Pinky's step mother? I was afraid even before I fully understood what it meant to be afraid.

I remember sitting by the window at 2am in the night praying to god to please send Dad back home. I couldn't bear the thought of him leaving us, his threats indigestible.What would happen to us? I knew mom couldn't work. What will I tell my school friends if I had to drop out of school? I could never grapple with it.

Looking back, I realise, I have lived my entire life being afraid. Afraid that someone I love, someone I care about, someone whom I am dependent on will leave me and then what will become of me? I have lived in constant fear; fear that first parents would leave, then friends, then the men in my life.

And I never realised it, but this fear was all pervasive, under the covers, invisible, but always present. Subconsciously affecting everything I did. I loved people more than I loved myself. Not because I am noble, but because I was selfish. I loved them, 'cause I was scared they would leave me. So I loved them. So I could keep them with me, close to me. And I never learnt to cope with loss. My losing mechanism permanently damaged, broken.

That acquaintance I don't give a rat's ass about? Let him stop talking to me and see how I go in my panic mode. I can't handle it. I can't see anyone walking out of my life. Why do I care so much about what others think of me? 'Cause I can't afford to have them think bad about me. Cause wouldn't that mean they would just leave me? I ran after people who didn't matter, after fake friendships, after hollow relationships, 'cause though they didn't matter, and somewhere I knew they didn't matter, I could never be okay with losing anyone. I hoarded relationships, people, like an ant would hoard food, saving it for a cold wintry evening.


So much energy lost in preserving friendships that didn't matter. So much love lost. So much time spent in mending broken relationships that weren't ever meant to be. So much lost, in this quest for not losing.


And then one day you realise you anyway have lost it all. You anyway have lost them all. You don't have them after all that running around, after all that begging, pleading, loving. And you sit dumbfounded and you realise how truly alone you are. And that's how everyone is. And that, it's okay.

And that's what you learn, when you learn to fend for yourself, you understand that nothing bad can ever happen.You can still survive.

*****
The art of losing isn't hard to master;
so many things seem filled with the intent
to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

Lose something every day. Accept the fluster
of lost door keys, the hour badly spent.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

Then practice losing farther, losing faster:
places, and names, and where it was you meant
to travel. None of these will bring disaster.

I lost my mother's watch. And look! my last, or
next-to-last, of three loved houses went.
The art of losing isn't hard to master.

I lost two cities, lovely ones. And, vaster,
some realms I owned, two rivers, a continent.
I miss them, but it wasn't a disaster.


--Even losing you (the joking voice, a gesture
I love) I shan't have lied. It's evident
the art of losing's not too hard to master
though it may look like (Write it!) like disaster.
--Elizabeth Bishop