The world we are living in...

She walked off this morning.

Yesterday, when I found her at about 8 am, she looked as if she was almost gone... trying to drink water from the open nullah that she could not reach. I had heard her crying, the low rhythmic half 'meaow', thats probably all she could let out, after 24 hours of no food and water.

This is how I found her. Hearing what seemed like a childs groan, continuous, every few seconds, I stepped out to the verandah. The 'meshomoshai' from accross the street was asking a young sweeper to "get a rope and drag it somewhere else", and the sweeper wouldnt... he was too afraid it would bite. "It" turned out to be a full grown cat, a known thief from careless open kitchens in the area.

I could just see her sitting next to our apartment garage gate. As I tried to understand what was happening 'mashima' informed me that someone, or maybe a car, had hit her on the hind legs. Now she cant move much, only drag herself a few inches. "She had dragged herself inside your apartment complex yesterday afternoon to get some shade... now she is trying to drink from the nullah"

All they could talk about was what the stink would be like when she died... "the carcass rots real fast in the heat"... yeah, the heat, which made her so thristy that she dragged herself out to drink from a nullah she could not reach... crying for water. They just waited for her to die, thats ok, but what does it take to give a dying animal some water? A dish? Some stairs to climb?

One whole day they all saw her, they heard her cry. One whole scalding boiling searing hot day. And they did not give her a dish of water.

There are lots of children in the area. Tomorrows leaders. Torch bearers of humanity. My only thought was, how do I protect her from them. All the veterenary services were off for the day, it being a Sunday. I had to wait till Monday morning.

With a little milk and some rice, she could already sit up straight. With a Dettol wash- which she took silently, her pleading eyes on my face- she lost the smell which came from sitting on ones own excrement for a day. By evening she had moved to a corner in the wall, almost hiding from the world, and I was hopeful.

This morning I could not find her.

Desperate, heart in my mouth, I skirted the building... and there she was, hidden in the undergrowth of some small trees inside the complex itself. The baby food I was carrying worked, she raised herself and moved towards me. I say 'moved' because she could not walk, nor limp even. She was still dragging her hind legs, but wonder of wonders, she was trying to place them on the ground... she succeeded with one, the other was still too painful.

A friend had advised human pain killers in very small doses. I had not given her any yesterday night, but this morning I mixed it in the baby formula. Probably she would try to get her own food till I got back in the night.

Yesterday they waited for her to die.

She walked off this morning.

Believe it or not

An "about me" declaration from a dude on a networking site. Its copy-pasted exactly as-is.

ABOUT ME: ********SIMPLY BEYOND EXPECTATIONS....********
My Heart is like a VIOLINE......
if you strike wrong note,In a wrong string...
It will make noise,And will really irritate you...
But if you strike a beautifulnote,On the right string with loveand feel...
You will find the Music...
Which you were seeking andmissing in your Life.......
***********************************
I am like WIND...
No one can hold me,No one can keep me beside.
I follow the path of my will,And my will is a fervent followerof Dreams.
I care for no boundaries,I browse through meadows and dirts Right and Wrong, Vile and Virtue,Never bothers me at all...
I do carry the essence andfragrance of all,Whatever comes in my Way...
I may flow through your mind andHeart,Distracting your thoughts and disturbing your feelings...
If u d'nt want me In...Close the entrance and windows ofyour mind and heart.....

Slaves to love

Are we such slaves to our need for love? All of us? Why do I see such strong intelligent women around me fall prey to this disease. All around me. They stay in abusive relationships, they take all kinds of rubbish, they go to such extents just to please someone, just to hear the words, I love you, or not even that. To feel needed.

Why is it so? Today we have all the necessities to build and to live a life self sufficient. And yet we need depend and be depended upon. Its not a financial need, its not security any more. Is it our motherhood instincts that prompt us into these things. Poor guy, he needs me, he needs my help, he can change only if I am with him... and so starts the spiral down to hell.

They use us, dont they. When they have the need for us, physical, psychological, spiritual, support or just friendship, they use us. Then they are there to wipe our tears, not a drop is shed, when they are all over us. They are there to hold us and to make us feel needed. But when they have gotten over that phase, then starts the mental break down. Cry them a river, they wont turn to you. They wont ask you even when you say you are down. They will cover the guilt by taking you out once in a while and buying you stuff, and there are good phases when you think nothing can be better than this. You go back to where you started, before you built all the defenses around you. And then the cut comes again. Isnt it familiar? Are they all like that?

I have seen women become progressively depressed with the situation. Sometimes they break the relationship. They walk off, after giving chance after chance for him to change. They are the wise ones, they are the lucky ones. The ones who cling on, they are in for trouble. What do they do, when they know they can get out of it, and yet things are out of hand. They try to send messages. Usually starting with harmless ones, tears, screams, bouts of madness... just to get the word across. Then it becomes a dangerous game. Throwing the glass at the wall to using the glass against her self. "I will hurt myself if you dont listen to me... I will do something to myself if you keep acting like an ass". All a game, a very very cruel dangerous game... a mind numbing painful game. They get used to that too.

I have read somewhere that a woman takes shit till she can take. Which means that we all have our threshholds.
One of my friends had to end up in hospital before she started divorce proceedings.
Another friend broke her engagement because he had already started abusing her and her family on the phone after drinking bouts.
Another acquaintance just left because of the loneliness, with children and a never-present husband. She did it with the support of another man... who she is in love with, but wait till they clock some time together.
Yet another took a bottle full of sleeping pills... and survived. She went back to him.
Another hanged herself with her husband and son in the adjacent room.
None an exaggeration. All true.

Have you heard of the woman who tried the way of suicide multiple times, always surviving? Pills one time, slashed wrists one time, jumping off stairs another... never good enough to kill her, all messages, all calls for help, for attention in a world that did not care. She was Diana... a princess, a beauty, an icon. And yet...

That is not to say men dont go through anything. To be fair to them, I have heard of many a man being hounded by women with issues. It starts with small jealousies... but men can get out of it easier. They dont have esteem issues like women have. They are not needy or clingy like us. Some amount of guilt may make them stick around for some time, but they flee soon enough. Most do, at least. For those who cant, welcome to the club.

Is it any use saying we need to change. Our basic natures wont change. We will not learn. We make the same mistakes again and again. Our needs wont change. Our desire to be desired wont change. We have to be mothers to the poor men in our lives. We have to stay around no matter what they say, no matter what they do. When they run away, we wait, patiently, silently... for the time when they will need us once more and come running back, tongues out, tails wagging.

30 Things To Do before 30.

1. Learn to drive a car- check.
2. Own a car- half check.
3. Own my house- Dream on.
4. Marry- check.
5. Have my first child- check.
6. Settle down in a job- check.
7. Wear a boot and stilletos- check.
8. Get a business suit- check.
9. Know what true love feels like- check.
10. Rearrange my life, list all birthdays anniversaries and names, make everything work like clockwork- no comment.
11. Finish my MA in English- I can only say I started 3 years back.
12. NGO work- I tried for sometime, but its not a "check" yet.
13. Start my novel- Yeah, right!!!
14. Read all the books I have bought over the years- No time.
15. Become a culture vulture, start visiting music festivals and theatre performances- ditto.
16. Get my finances on track- no comment.
17. Search out Promita Adhikary, my college buddy who went underground- I wish.
18. Get ego out of the window, kill them with kindness- Still at it.
19. Mature- Ditto.
20. Start something, a business, something, anything...- no comment.
21. Visit Paris.
22. Learn calculus, I mean really learn it.
23. Read Bangla, at least some of the classics.
24. Finish Joyce's Ulysses.
25. Learn to play the sitar- oh well.
26. Learn to play the piano- ditto.
27. Have only sexy underwear- ;)
28. Learn to dance.
29. Learn to cook a mean biryani.
30. Love like there is no tomorrow- check check check... No really, this one should be- Learn to speak French, even if broken- C'est la vie, mon amour.

Sorry is the hardest word?

Australia has apologized to all indigenous Australians some days back. For the atrocities they faced, for their land that was grabbed and subsequently their livelihood, et al.

Is an apology enough to heal a race? Maybe it is, because the wronged can start to forgive, and start to live once again. Its not about what is lost, but what can be saved by the power of the human mind.

Recently a grandson of Mahatma Gandhi was forced to resign from a peace institute of the University of Rochester (a department he himself co-founded), for his comments on the Jews and the holocaust. Apart from saying that the Jews can overplay the holocaust for sympathy he also put this question forward- how long can the whole world feel sorry for what happened to the Jews.

How long does the whole world have to be sorry? Forever, is my guess. Its not a question of how many millions died or suffered ... its a question of every individual who lived through it or died in it.
Its about every single child who went to the gas chamber because she/he was too little to work.
Its about every toddler swung against the wall with their feet, or hunted down from basements to be shot.
Its about every mother who had to see their little ones die of starvation or take them to their death in their own arms.
Its about every grandfather who was taken away never to be seen again.
Its about every father who had to live, and work at a crematorium knowing he is burning the bodies of his wife and children.

How long do we have to be sorry??? Is that even a question?

Some groups in India wanted England to apologize for their centuries of rule on this land. If England has to start apologizing for their colonial past, heaven help them. And while we are at it, why not ask the Central Asians (Babur was a Turk from near Iran) to apologize their role in ruling the land, or well, the Aryans who were the first to come and depose the original Indians, the Indian aborigins... who we knew in the last century as the caste-less... or at best the lowest caste, and who we protest against nowadays because they are taking away our medical seats and government jobs (due to the Indian system of seat reservation for the downtrodden and economically deprived). Wait, that might mean, I would have to apologize too.

Speaking of India, we find apologizing below our stature. The Gujarat riots in 2002- nope. The anti sikh riots after Indira Gandhi's assassination- it was even played down by the then prime minister, Rajiv Gandhi, who is reported to have commented- "When a big tree falls, the earth is bound to shake". The apology for the carnage did come through in 1998 (the riots took place in 1984), by his wife, Sonia Gandhi.

Going global again, what about the indegenous Americans- the (un-original) Indians. You dont even have to read anything to know what happened. Watch a couple of westerns, or read about Hiawatha and Pocahontas, and you get the drift. Any apology? None officially.

Africa called for slavery apology in 2001 from Europe and America... nope. White trash dont say sorry. They sometimes "express regret" for the atrocities they unleashed on most of the African and some of the Asian countries, they wont take the leap from regret to apology.

If we start asking for apologies, I wonder where it will end. From my friend who forgot to ask me why I wasnt well yesterday, to Kenya's women, from Bhopal tragedy victims to Vietnam, from the Rangoon monks to the to the Tutsi-s in Rwanda, from Jade Goody's racial slur at Shilpa Shetty, to Darfur's millions of refugees, from a kiss in India, to a race almost wiped out by a madman in Cambodia.

The human race is capable of great good and great evil. And the evil does not drive us completely mad only because of the good which still exists in us... in all of us. May the good always find a way to win. Amen.

Hope

Like a land destroyed
Chunks of concrete, shards of metal
Strewn all around.
Dark smoke
Black, black sky
The air hangs like an unwashed shrowd
Smelling of sulfur
Reeking, reeking of death.

Hearts break like that...

But what is this...
Is it a flower, a tiny rose bud
From this barren land born
Can she make it live again?

Written long ago.

Go and take a walk on the white and gray beach
feel every grain of sand as it slips and slides between your toes
look behind to see your footprints fill with salt water
leave them where you know the tide will wash them away.

Hold her hand tight if you want to walk with her
she may be wild like the wind that ruffles your hair
she is beautiful like the twilight, but soon darkness comes
she may be fleeting like the tide, like the day, like time.

Her smile is like the early morning sunshine
her tears like the million stars twinkling in the night sky
she touches with her fingertips like a cool summer breeze
her love is a tempest, a whirlwind, her love is the blue sea.

Build sand castles but soon they will crumble and fall
find kingdoms in the clouds above your head
do you see shapes of islands on the blue horizon
do you try to hold on to the sand or surf in your folded hands?

It was cold last night... the type of cold where your can see your breath. We had gone to a friends wedding, our city batch mates, which counts up to probably 5 or 6, nothing compared to other cities... and I was friggin shaking in my 4 inch heels. Felt good catching up but its all so yawn nowadays. All I want to do is, yeah yeah, have some fun, and all I ever do is bare my teeth and hear everyone around me speak speak speak. Oh, for the lost days of innocence. One would give an arm to have a guffaw team around, and laugh till ones bladder rebels. Sigh! Where are all the laughathons gone?

On the turn of the year

So much is happening in 2008... my daughter had her annaprashan ceremony (rice ceremony) last week. Just a family get together, a 20 person affair... it went off well. We did not have a big ceremony. My family, who were largely left out are not done complaining yet. They have this to say- it seems my annaprashan was a gala affair. Another one of those things. When you were a child, so and so happened! Did anyone tell our parents that?

It still takes a lot to accept that I am not a little girl any more. I have a little girl of my own. It seems just like yesterday when my cheeks would get pulled by everyone... now its my daughters turn. Seems just like yesterday that I changed school and came to the place which shaped much of my adult life. Gave me friends for a lifetime... "jibono moroner shimana charaye" - beyond boundaries of life and death... and soon, too soon my baby will be going to school, making friends of her own.

It is good that I remember much of what I went through at every juncture of life. I will know what to expect when she cries on her first day in school, or throws a tantrum when, some years later, I tell her, no, she cant go to the sleep over at her friends place.

I want to be a good mother. A good mother is a combination of disciplinarian and friend. I hope I will be able to keep the balance. I hope I will be able to instill in her the respect and compassion my parents did. And whatever happens, I make a promise that she will never feel lonely as long as I am alive... she will never feel so lost that there is no way out.

I am waiting for her to start talking so I can tell her stories, fairy tales and where they are wrong about life (happily ever after??? really!!!??? - more on that later), fables with a moral and why they are important, stories from my head, of magical lands and mythical creatures. I am waiting for her to walk and run so I can take her to open fields and run on the green soft grass with her, holding her hand when she is tired and needs reassurance. I am waiting for her to start her lessons, studies, music and whatever else she wants to do. But most of all I am waiting for her to turn 15, when she will start discovering the world on her own... so that I can stand in the sidelines with my arms folded, and a smile, watching my baby as she finally learns to fly. I will be right here, when she wants to fly back to me to dry her tears and then tell her its ok, life is beautiful, life is as we see it... we can color it with our technicolor dreams in whatever shade we wish it to be.

Age and the Woman

A girlfriend recently celebrated her birthday. The usual dampener I give to everyone after some time is "so how old are you today". She stoically replied, one year less than last year. Now Ive started going backward!

Age. The biggest enemy of the modern woman. Here come the wrinkles and the grey hair. The sagging breasts and the blotchy skin. Where is the suppleness and the glow. The retinue of products, canned and bottled, that lie on my dressing and bedside tables increase every few months to help induce the just-out-of-bed translucent skin... as long as that works.

The old wisdom goes that a woman should always state an age 2 years less than the reality. I told my friend that. She wasnt not happy. "In that case Ill be 30 next year, no will do!!! Id rather be 28!!" What could one say to that logic? But Im happy with the 2 year less practice. With a little help from chemicals in jars, I might just pass off as 38 when Im 40, even if I cant move my eyebrows with my botox shots. Im 38, and I cant express how happy I am to tell you that! My muscles are frozen.

The Indian beauty industry is an estimated $3 billion. A large pie of this is dominated by, what else, fairness products. Every company has one at least... whatever the cream, just add the word "fair" to it... it will sell. Men can rest easy too, their "rougher and tougher" skins need not be left behind in the race to whiten up.

However in the past couple of years a new warrior has entered the beauty arena. The anti-ageing cream. In the west, this is the biggest grosser in the beauty market. Now Indians are also picking up. From general- 7-in-1 creams to higly specialised under-eye-anti-wrinkle... every post 30 woman is spoilt for choice. Finally hope on the horizon!!!

One thing that did not quite pick up here is the anti cellulite products- creams soaps et al. We Indians still love the love handles and the flab around our thighs. We cant be bothered to spend money for that, for godsakes. Maybe our daughters will think differently.

But as more and more companies enter the anti-wrinkle/ anti-age market I am convinced I can still get those second glances after the first glimpse for years and years to come. After all Ill be 28 in March. Or is it 26. Damned if I tell you. (wink wink).

Long live kaali mehendi!

Searching for a way to give in
To the madness in my mind
It's not OK and I am not fine
But who will hear me scream.

Accept that its all wrong
Who will stop this slow burn
How to mend this brain churn
Living an impossible dream.

Anonymous in my world
Slow descent into hell
Cancer in my every cell
A life undoing itself at the seam.

Ahhhh! Three cheers for retail therapy. Last night I thought life had ended... right now, Im on Cloud 9. And about 8k short in my bank. Oh but its so worth it. Not only am I on a non-alcohol induced high, but also, I have 4 pairs of shoes, and a couple of shirts to show for it. Didnt binge of food though, just a juice and a strawberries with cream for my partner-in-shopping sister... Im an angel.

The Great Indian Wedding

There is now an Indian "wedding industry" and not only is it alive and kicking but it is growing in leaps and bounds every season. Value of this industry- Rs 50,000 crores growing at 25% annually. In a country where more than 25% of its citizens are living under the poverty line still, the major newsmakers in the last few years have been weddings to die for- Liz Hurley to the PIO Nayar, Ms Mittal, and of course the dandy Master Chatwal to the oh-so-ethereal Priya Sachdev.

Look at the diamond advertisements on TV recently. Just 2 months back they targeted the upwardly mobile woman with "a mind of her own". Start November and they have all veered towards the wedding market, the bride-to-be, or her family. Even solitaires have their takers- to make your love shine brighter just buy a diamond for her.

The designers are cashing in. Its known that all designers in the world worth her/his needle will have a wedding range. Now they are going public about it, and how. Tie-ups between designers and jewelery houses are common. Bags, shoes, even watches have wedding collections. The tourism business is publicizing honeymoon packages in Malaysia, the Carribbean, or even in hippie heaven Goa. Furniture "wedding packages" are going at heavy discounts.

Magazines specialising in wedding and everything associated with it sell like hot cakes. No wonder every magazine carries a wedding special at this time. The latest buzz in India is the appointment of Wedding Planner. Supposedly everyone wants an "English Garden", or a "Beach" or a "Pink" wedding. Its providing for a lot of people- the flower arranger, the card maker, the cake maker, even the specialised gift packager.

And now, for the last few years enter the specialised marriage fairs, where you get everything but the groom. Its such a huge hit that they are traveling offshore to places like Dubai or inland to a Lucknow or an Ahmedabad.

Wedding in India is big business. Now only if I had an idea how to cash in on it...

Written on 4th March 2007

Inside out, upside down-
If the world stops spinning around,
The tiny ripples in rivers freeze
And dust flow like water on the ground.
If the birds turn to ashes in their flight,
And the flaming rhododendrons burn-
Buildings crumble and roses fade
The sky recede far far away.
Still life goes on, in quiet desperation.

Upside down, inside out-
Wanting, but I cannot shout.
Want the blood to stop
And skin to slowly fall apart.
Want the nails to burst away
Hair catch fire and burn me down.
Eyes fade to white, red lips turn blue
And the heart turn to stone- cold and hard.
But life still goes on in silent desperation.

Let us never forget

My dad just returned from a business trip to Poland. When there he got the time to visit Auschwitz. I go out my old copy of 'Night' (Elie Wiesel) yesterday and re-read it.

It was June 1940 when this Nazi concentration camp started functioning with the first batch of Polish anti- Nazi political prisoners. 1942 saw the camp transform into a highly efficient killing field, with thousands upon thousands of prisoners, mostly Jews, but also Poles, gypsies and Soviet war prisoners, perishing in gas chambers, shot down or just dropping down exhausted with crushing routines. More than a lakh victims, estimates from 1,10,000 to 1,50,00 died in 5 years. Just a days collection of shoes of victims formed veritable mountains...

Here are some of the sites which are keeping the Auschwitz memories alive so that the world does not see it happen again.
www.auschwitz.org.pl
www.remember.org
www.auschwitz.dk/Auschwitz.htm
www.eliewieselfoundation.org
'Night'- by Elie Wiesel

I held your heart in my folded palms
I said I will protect it from the world-
Wondrous rays made my hands glow
Wondered what secrets it would unfold!

I opened my palms to let the light wash my eyes
And out flitted a million rainbow coloured butterflies.

http://www.people.com/people/package/gallery/0,,20160055_20160112,00.html

We poor things are competing with this???

Time to move on...

As a generation we are refusing to grow up. Yes many of us have married and some of us have kids already. But thats saying very little about the way we live or think. So many of us still depend on our parents for so much. We are the tail enders of Gen X, the cusp of generations- alienated from the larger group which just preceded us, or the next generation- the 80-s born... the 20- somethings.

We were the last to work in dead end jobs, the last to accept what our elders said as the bible-truth. The last to compromise. The Generation Y or Gen Next have grown up in a different world so to say. Technologically they have started off earlier, economically they have been born into an open market. They are just now entering the job scene with expectations which are sky high. Failure for them means different than what it did for us. They have more difficulty accepting authority figures. Research has shown they demand much more in the work place- money, time, technology, flexibilty in work, vacations, promotions etc. There was an instant in the US when a 24 year old was sacked for non-performance and the next day he turned up with his mother in tow, to demand an explanation.

Money is of primary importance. More than 50% say it is most important in their life to become rich. In a medical college a few interns were caught stealing mobile phones and selling them to make a quick buck. This, from a group waiting to make it big in a couple of years.

They are a different bag of marbles altogether. But we, the 28-32 years old... In everything we try to hold on to our lost childhood in whatever little way we can. We are a group who either have friends born in the 80-s and so believe ourselves to be part of them... or like me, look at them with a mixture of grudging envy and high handedness. They still have a long way to grow up.

But then, so do we.

Motherhood is the new black

Everyone I hear is either pregnant or has a baby. Look at Orkut. A year back I used to have faces in my friends list... now its them with their baby! Albums with "three of us", "my world"...

Pushing 30 means giving up something, I guess. Sacrifices which dont seem like sacrifices... yeah, I cant go out on Fridays and Saturdays... it takes hours of thought before I can go shopping. My mum needs to be free if we can catch dinner on a Sunday, a couple of hours of couple-dom outside of parent-hood. Ive forgotten what a long island ice tea tastes like. My staple is now orage juice, thank you. Even a coke raises eyebrows around me. And yet, they are all doing it.

Forget Hollywood moms... they have full time nanny-s to help while they do their thing. Its people like us who have to face the music, or lack of it. No time, you see. I can listen to music only if my baby likes it, thank god she does. Its the time of the new super-mom. Work, baby, home, shopping, entertainment... we do it all, many thanks to our super duper mummy-s. What would we do without them. And of course we have to get back into shape. I am not talking Maxim cover-girl shape (though I heard one of them gave birth the same month I did, and its her resolution to get back to her cover-girl shape by new year, god bless her) but ordinary pre pregnancy shape. One of my super hot friends who also had a baby in August lamented when she was 8 months pregnant that she was not gaining much weight. Oh! these model types!!! God is unfair.

I did gain normal amount of weight, and I still dont fit into my old pair of jeans, but my baby is a happy child, and I am a happy mom. May god bless her.

Im letting you go
Into the leaf strewn cobbled lane
Walk into the unknown
Into the sunset on your own
Finally, Alone.

Ive walked long with you
Growing up enough
To stand and watch
As you left my hand and
Learnt to fly.

And now you say
You dont want to fly away
I never believed you wanted to stay
I have looked the other way
As you tried to make up your mind.

Now the time has come
To search within my soul
For the music I lost
Someone else needs me now
Another hand to hold...

Long ago when I was a kid, my mum, sister and I used to spend lazy winter afternoons on the verandah, soaking in the sun, and peeling oranges to eat. The smell of oranges remind me of those days of innocence, when the biggest fear in life would be the term end examinations and biggest trouble the next days home work.

Isnt it amazing how different smells can transfer us to the past. My favourites- Johnsons baby products, because they remind me of my baby sister, I use their lotion and soap till this day, always will. Certain soaps, some fragrances or talcs remind us of specific people or of a phase in ones life... onions and stale cigarette smoke, wierdly... oh, well!