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. 

The Deprived Goat...

And as I sat alone in my empty flat, away from home on a festive day, more to punish myself than anything else, I realised a couple of things about myself that I never knew. Sometimes I wonder if people, normal folks, go through this too. Discovering new things, new facets of their personality, as often as I do.


But anyway, coming back to the topic at hand, I grew up on a healthy dose of romance novels. I saw more romance movies than action movies (though I love action movies too). Come to think of it, I was always lost in the beautiful locales to notice what the heroine was saying to the hero in an oh-so whisper-y voice. And when M, exasperated, said, how can you not know? I was forced to take a good hard look at myself and accept that maybe, I am just not a romantic. That came as a shock to me. All my life I believed myself to be a romantic. Somewhere, I still think I am, but maybe I am a closet(whatever that means) romantic you know? Does that make me sad? It does. (No the closet bit, but not being able to weave poetry all the time and not knowing what to say and  more importantly, how to say it).


Women are supposed to be romantic, you know? They are supposed to be born with all tricks of the trade. Getting men to do their bidding is a cake walk for most women and I am always left with my jaw on the floor. How do they know what to say and how to say it? Like is there some class I missed as a teenager? I can flirt all right, but when it comes to the real thing, I am always left fumbling. I'll either say something entirely stupid and spoil the moment or just not know what to say and keep quiet.


So when someone says you have such beautiful eyes, I'll stare blankly at him and say okay. (I still don't what the correct response should be).


And although it does make me feel less like a woman, that's who I am. I am artless. I am stupid. And I am, most of the time, scared.


So, I give up. Maybe I really should go up in the Himalayas and learn how to chant and stuff.


P.S: Next time you want to get all romantic with me, get a list of responses you'd like in return. I am good at reading.

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.

The Wheel Breaks The Butterfly...

I am tired. And hurt.

Very.

But I won't do anything about it. I'll just soak in it for now.

I am angry at myself. I am so angry at myself.

*****
UD asked me why I am not moving out of this place. Almost all things here are broken and to make matters worse, I have one weird flatmate.

I couldn't answer then.

I always liked taking the broken and fixing it. I have never understood this about me. Why? Why this obsessive need to just fix things? I will live with the shittiest things, in the shittiest circumstances, but I will not quit...just so I could make the shitty not-so-shitty. It is a weird kind of pleasure I seek. Transforming things. And I realize what a dangerous habit this is.


But I guess which is why I am still living in this place. It's a nice house, or rather it has so much potential to be a nice house, but so many things are broken here, I guess that is what is keeping me here. I'll leave once I fix this place up. Make it nice.


I wish I could fix things in my life as easily. I wish it was as easy as buying a new wardrobe or buying a new pan and a nice green plant and adding new fixtures and nice gold curtains and spraying some air freshener.


But it's not.


And I am learning how it's not. And I am learning to let it just be. I am learning to live with the broken.


I'll soak in that too for now.

*****

Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo.
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo.

When she was just a girl,
She expected the world,
But it flew away from her reach,
So she ran away in her sleep.

Dreamed of para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Every time she closed her eyes.

Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo.
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo.

When she was just a girl,
She expected the world,
But it flew away from her reach,
And the bullets catch in her teeth.

Life goes on,
It gets so heavy,
The wheel breaks the butterfly.
Every tear, a waterfall.
In the night,
The stormy night,
She closed her eyes.
In the night,
The stormy night,
Away she flied.

I dream of para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.
She dreamed of para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

La-la
La-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la-la
La-la-la-la.

Still lying underneath the stormy skies.
She said oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh.
I know the sun's set to rise.

This could be para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

This could be para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

Oh, oh. Oo-oo-oo-oo-oo.

This could be para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Para-para-paradise,
Whoa-oh-oh oh-oooh oh-oh-oh.

Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo
Oo-oo-oo, oo-oo-oo...

Escaping Life...

A friend once asked me if I think I'll ever find my happily ever-after. Without thinking I said no, maybe not. I am such a miserable soul I said, I am always pining after something, sulking, brooding. I wonder if I'll ever be happy.

I have been thinking about it. As the 27th inches closer, I have been thinking about a lot of things. These days what gives me a fright is that very thought of happiness. Will I ever be in that place where I'll be happy? Where I can feel my soul satisfied? I am not satisfied. Something's missing, a lot many things actually. I want them all. I wonder if I'll ever get them. Am I being greedy? No. I just do not want to settle.

And deep down, I believe, or atleast want to, that I'll find it. The elusive pot at the end of the rainbow. Somewhere, something tells me I'll find my own slice of inner peace. Maybe it's that bottomless well of optimism that's pushing me through. Maybe I really will. I don't know.

For now, I think I am going to believe that I will. Maybe if I believe, I really will. 

The Greenness Of Your Grass...

"Chances are, you’re not going to be alone forever. You might joke about being a spinster—about getting cats with diamante collars or maybe an obnoxious Cockatoo you can teach dirty words—but inside you, somewhere deep in your bowel, nestled beneath your utmost fears and insecurities, there’s a little scrap of knowing that tells you that one day, somehow, you’ll have someone by your side...

...start spending more time with you. Laugh at your own jokes. Luxuriate in solitary silence. Walk. Read. Pamper yourself. Be as filthy and disgusting as you please. Learn the comfort of your own embrace. It’s a cliché but it’s true—you will love better once you’ve fallen in love with you. Sleep sprawled on the bed. Snore. When you wake up make eggs and bacon and eat them in bed on your own. Find things—big and small—that you love doing and do them everyday.

Focus on your job. Find a hobby. Do whatever the hell you want. Because when that day comes—the secret day you hold onto in the hidden recesses of your guts—you will have to compromise. You will have to think of someone else whenever you make a decision. You will have to share your bacon, and maybe they wont like it crispy besides, and you’ll have to adapt. You will have to sleep wedged between someone’s limbs. It wont be better and it wont be worse; it will be different, and you’ll have to learn to love it too."

From, Thought Catalog. 

Jazbaat...

There will be that conversation you’ve been putting off for as long as you’ve known you’ve needed to have it. There will be those words that you’ve rehearsed over and over–in your car, in front of your mirror, in your bed in total darkness while staring at your ceiling–that tumble out of your mouth inelegantly, tripping over each other to make it out just so you can get this over with. There will be that ugly ball of thoughts that hangs in front of you, the thick, opaque cloud of words that formed in between you, through which you cannot breathe. There will be that moment where you try and scoot away, wanting to disown everything you’ve just said, ready to scream at the top of your lungs just to cut the silence.

And there will be that moment, that brutally delayed moment, where they respond with a shrug, a sigh, a casual dismissal of all that you just implied. They will demonstrate with unintentional precision just how uninvolved they are, how little they have emotionally invested, just how very little this has all mattered to them. There will be the moment you struggle to physically scoop up every humiliating statement you made and all their brutal implications and cram them, hurriedly, back in your mouth. You’ll fight back tears as your cheeks fill, blotchy and red, like a veteran alcoholic. You’ll linger on the cusp of wailing, of running in any direction until your lungs ache–but you won’t. You’ll shrug and vaguely shake your head, pitifully mumbling something along the lines of, “Oh, of course…right. No, no, that’s cool.”

But it will pass.

And everything else too...it always does.

Flight...

I should be getting up, eat something, dress up...I have been dealing with it for hours now...but it doesn't seem to budge...like a pest, it annoyingly follows me every where I go...follows me like a shadow...fucking up my neatly lined brain on its way...I check the time again, I have to meet a friend in exactly an hour's time and knowing Mumbai traffic, I should be in an auto now...instead ...I am typing this...why?


I open Facebook, voyeurism is so common these days, we don't even blink before nosing our way into others' life. Lots of photos, people love posting their pics, I wonder why...what makes them want to put up their pics for one and all to see? Then there are updates about who's having lunch with whom...someone's put up a video of catwalk fails....there's dear D posting an article about injustice against women of Saudi Arabia...then music videos...all hip hop, trance, club...no one likes mellow songs these days? Maybe, they do, but are afraid to accept that they like meaningful songs? It's not cool to like slow sentimental songs, you're sissy if you do. Whatever. Who cares? I need a hatchet to drive this thing away, it's not going away. It is instead laughing at my silly attempt to ignore it.


I ask the friend if it's okay if I am late by an hour.


It wins, I give in. 

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. 

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?

Saying Yes...

Sometimes I feel the real me is hidden in the drafts.

In words, that never get heard, published; words that are scared to come out lest they be rejected for being too simple. Too honest. Too painful. Cruel even.

I have 311 drafts sitting in my Gmail and 395 in blogger.

So many conversations that never happened. 

Goats & Dogs...

1,600 Chinese workers embrace Islam in Saudi

Wondering why?

Here's the story: When a multi million railway contract to build a 450km rail road linking the holy cities of Makkah and Madinah via Jeddah and Rabigh was won by the China Railway Construction Corp, they were told they could not bring Chinese workers to build the railway, cause according to the Holy book of Kuran, non-muslims are not allowed to enter the holy city of Mecca.

"The majority of scholars – including Muhammad ibn al-Hasan among the Hanafis – are of the view that it is not permissible for kuffaar to enter the sanctuary of Makkah at all, The view of the Hanafis is that that is permissible if there is a treaty or they have permission.[link]"

So what did the Chinese do?

1,600 of them workers converted to Islam.

I don't know which is a scarier community. But I am scared. Terrified.   

Hello Kitten!

Life, I just can't be arsed about you.

*****
Oh these long unyielding nights! I have started to fear these unfriendly sleepless nights now. The despairing panic that blankets the sky come evening...the long wait ahead drowned in cup after cup of sweet tea.

Nothing happens.

Sometimes, tangy tomato soup to keep me warm. Still. Nothing happens.

The cicadas try to keep me company, but I reject them. They make too much noise.

I sit close to the warm, humming machine instead, scrolling word after word.

Numbing.

Days are no better. Left on the coffee table in anonymity, they shift and shuffle, unattended.

Banal. I reject them too.

*****
Dreams, evade. Nothing to dream of. Death too escapes. Nothing to live for.

I have given up on death. It has nothing to offer. It will cheat you into surrender and then poof. Nothing. It will not deliver on what it initially promised.

There's no hope.

*****
The other day I dreamt that some mad scientist has brought the dinosaurs back to life. And that people were living in mansions and houses that float.

I wonder what will happen if the dinosaurs come back to life. I, for one, will welcome them.

*****
Maybe I should go have a kid or something I am thinking. It'll keep me occupied and busy enough for me to never realise that I am not living.

Busy enough to inhale and exhale enough number of times through the day without questioning why.

That's what women have done in every generation. Have kids to escape this never ending unhappiness.

And in turn, created more of it. But maybe I can do it better. Arrogance.

Maybe, after all, there is some hope.

I'll go polish my knuckles now.

A Dying Girl...

There's no electricity at home. Didn't go to work. I am sitting on my bed, in an airless room, with Latika's theme playing on my laptop. Inverter gave up. But it's not so hot in here. But everything seems still. Even the breath I exhale seems to hang in the air much like the heavy gold-beige curtains in my room. I've shut the windows, essentially, to keep the heat out. But the dark, reflective film covered window panes cut out light and noise both. I feel alone and cut off from the world. And then suddenly, I am transported back to 2009. My train journey from London to Glasgow and then Glasgow to Aberdeen. I find myself by the window, in an A/C car, in a foreign country, and fields after green fields pass by me. Then a salty, frothy cold sea. Grey clouds. Sheep. Little houses.

I feel again the feeling of independence. A sense of achievement brings a smile. The feeling of being burdened drowns in the sea. All my worries melt. The feeling of being in love bobs on the sea of memories. I feel a bit sad now. I wonder if I'll ever feel love again.

That. That time. Those precious hours. That was pure unadulterated happiness I realise.

Every time I think of happiness, I think of a happy green grassy field. A huge field with a beautiful sky above. And I see myself running in the field (not the DDLJ type). But I am not a grown up in this picture. I am a girl dressed in a red frock. Sometimes it's a white long dress. With ribbons in my hair. And I am free. Unrestrained. That's my definition of happiness.

I think that image must say a lot about me. But I don't know what.

I am craving monsoons. Rains, I am missing you. Come.

Right at this minute, I feel age slip by. Time. It will never be back. It's an intense feeling. I wish I was a writer enough to put it in right words. It's a hard realisation. I want to run away from it, but I let it weigh down on me like a lover instead, I feel its every cell and every pore, so I can memorize its every detail. I am scared that I will not have more of those happy moments. The happiness I felt in that train. I can see life slip from my hands, much like sand in an hour glass. It's an desperate feeling. But I can't do much. It's an helpless feeling.

I want to run in that green grassy field with ribbons in my hair.

I want to feel raindrops slide down my cheeks.

I am craving happiness.

But at the same time, there's this feeling that something is about to happen. Something big. Something important.

I wait.

But does fate care enough?

I have an email in my inbox.

Little People, Big Horrors....

It's been almost 10 days since the nephew came to India, and I have come to understand three universal truths about having kids. I shall write a whole big post later, when I get some time, but for now, pay attention:


Realization# 1: Forgot all about yourself once you have a kid. In short, your freedom is fucked.

Realization# 2: For a cleanliness and neatness freak like me, having a kid around is like my worst nightmare come true. Either have two dozen servants at hand to clean and mop constantly, do it yourself and die of exhaustion or then close your eyes and learn to enjoy living in something like a pigsty.

Realization# 3: Women, oh dear women, your beautiful divine body, it will resemble something close to a overstuffed potato sack after having a baby. And that'll be the least of your worries. Unless ofcourse you're Victoria Beckham. In which case, you can go sip a martini and worry about your $20,000 manicure.


Nature, you are most biased toward men. 

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?

Relax...

Bad things are going to happen.

Your tomatoes will grow a fungus

and your cat will get run over.

Someone will leave the bag with the ice cream

melting in the car and throw

your blue cashmere sweater in the drier.

Your husband will sleep

with a girl your daughter’s age, her breasts spilling

out of her blouse. Or your wife

will remember she’s a lesbian

and leave you for the woman next door. The other cat—

the one you never really liked—will contract a disease

that requires you to pry open its feverish mouth

every four hours, for a month.

Your parents will die.

No matter how many vitamins you take,

how much Pilates, you’ll lose your keys,

your hair and your memory. If your daughter

doesn’t plug her heart

into every live socket she passes,

you’ll come home to find your son has emptied

your refrigerator, dragged it to the curb,

and called the used appliance store for a pick up—drug money.

There’s a Buddhist story of a woman chased by a tiger.

When she comes to a cliff, she sees a sturdy vine

and climbs halfway down. But there’s also a tiger below.

And two mice—one white, one black—scurry out

and begin to gnaw at the vine. At this point

she notices a wild strawberry growing from a crevice.

She looks up, down, at the mice.

Then she eats the strawberry.

So here’s the view, the breeze, the pulse

in your throat. Your wallet will be stolen, you’ll get fat,

slip on the bathroom tiles of a foreign hotel

and crack your hip. You’ll be lonely.

Oh taste how sweet and tart

the red juice is, how the tiny seeds

crunch between your teeth.

- Ellen Bass

Pour Me Some Rum!

So Mommy dearest has been most anxious these days. "Get married! Get married!" She keeps saying. So dearest astrologer was consulted and as per her, I shall be shooed away by 2012. Mid of 2012 she says. That means I have 1 and 1/2 year to have some real fun!

Mom's Punjabi friend is most interested and suggested some Punjabi guys and as soon as sister heard, she was shouting over the phone,"No Punjabi men! No Punjabi men! They beat their wives!".

Like really :| Generalizations abound? In my family, most definitely.

Astrologer also says I would end up getting married to someone from my friend's circle. Someone I know. When mom heard this, she was like, "Yeah! I like that friend of yours. He looks good. Why don't you marry him?". Like it's as simple as buying soap from the supermarket. It's not of any concern ofcourse, that I think of him more in the brotherly sense. And so she kept talking about him all the time. Frustrated and angry I finally said, "Mom, he's sleeping with my best friend. Do you understand that? He's just a good friend!". That shut her up nice. Actually no. That shut her up nice about the friend, but then she started shouting, "You girls!" and went on to give me a lecture. Arghh, bad, bad move! I am a bad girl now.

Then, mom's best friend has suggested one guy from Umrica. Very rich and good family. Mom was floored. "He's tall and fair and so very handsome".

"What am I going to do with tall, fair and handsome Ma? Place him on the coffee table as a showpiece?!"

"I don't understand what you want".

"I agree", I said, "you don't".

It's been peaceful since then. Nice.

*****
The thing that freaks me out about marriage is that one day I'll end up posting my kid's pic on Facebook and my friends will comment, "How cute. New clothes for baby xyz?" And I will reply, "Yea. I bought new slacks for her/him." And someone will reply "how cute" and that will be the most exciting thing in my life!

Terrified. My-heart-can-pop-out-and-run-away-and-hide-and-my-brain-can-come-off-in-pieces-terrified.