twenty-five

Well, what do I write here. Those 'I turn this number and here's what I have to say' articles are so abundant aren't they? A fellow blogger observed when he turns that extra number, that he no longer belongs to that 19-25 age category, you know the one that you have to tick mark in those forms? Different people, different observations, different epiphanies..hmmm


When I was growing up, birthdays weren't ever an occasion to cut a cake, blow candles or party . Strange as it might or might not sound, this 'un'merry like attitude to anyone's birthday in the family sort of made me a bit mellow perhaps, but brought in a strange form of humility towards life early on. The family gathered around, there was the 'pranam' to the elders, lots of hugs and kisses and then of course the customary visit to the temple. Later in the evening, we did have a great family dinner, friends and relatives would join in and well that was our way of having a good time. I remember feeling strange at how the neighbourhood kids celebrated their birthdays. Everyone sat around a big table or hall in a symmetrical circle, ate potato chips, plastic coloured pastries and went back home happy with a 'return' gift. So, I guess with my family's method of celebration, me and my sibling had matured a little too much beyond our years to NOT expect all this hulabuloo, fancy gift and money being splashed around .

Today, my 12 year old cousin who's way too 'hip' for my comprehension (and we tell our parents about the generation gap!) asked me over the phone what I had done or was planning to do so far and what do I get in reply? "God that's so boring didi!' (Kids today I tell you !!) Of course my family didn't organise a treasure hunt that landed in all the goodies coming to me (I love these kind of birthday parties btw , it's a brilliant game to play as well if you've got a good writer in the fray coming up with fantastic clues) or drink away to high heavens while the younger brood of the family swayed to music but I had a great day. And here's why. Because it was REALLY about everyone in the family doing their very bit to acknowledge this important day of my life and well, make me smile about it! A cousin of mine woke me up with chocolate and a hug, next my uncle walked in with flowers, my eldest uncle gifted me a papita from his own garden (and anyone who knows me knows that I'm a 'fruit-a-holic! and fruits from the garden, ahhh bliss!! I love gardening as well btw), baba and I had some quality time at the temple, Ma toiled away all morning to make me what the Bengalis simply can't resist, the 'mishti aamer chaatni' (sweet mango chutney), my sister doing the every best that she always does, helped me smoothen up a 400 word SOP that was simply not working out and in the evening, well what do you know?!!! My youngest uncle and aunt surprised me with a birthday cake and well I did do the routine that I haven't done in quite a while!!! We all sat around in the porch overlooking the garden after that and gup-shupped for a solid 2 hours (in Bhubaneswar's heavenly evening breeze) with our black lab bounding around gleefully amidst us! Now how many people have this fortune?

And time for the cliche:

I turned 25, twenty-five, 20+5. and I have no epiphanies this year. Not a single one! Strangely I'm overcome by some calm , perhaps it's the mellowness that comes with 'it's just another year of my life towards a larger figure or maybe I suspect this time, some inkling of the fact that's growing stronger within me: that, what I've done or not done so far doesn't matter, it's really this second, the day and the month followed by the year that will. Oh wait! That is an epiphany! So I'm turning off the lights, logging out of my blog and hitting the sack with this recurrent thought. 25shouldn't be so bad, should it be now? Just a little too perfectly placed in the middle of your 20's. Gaining balance and drawing margins is will really be the motto this year :)

AND THE PIECES CAME TOGETHER

So I admit that staying home 24*7 for a while now has begin to bug me...finally! But in between worrying about my next project, sending off applications to film schools and nail biting hours of scholarship hunting, I resort to one activity now and then, most of us do, scout interesting blogs to read :) I simply clicked the little tab on the left hand side of my screen that says >>Next Blog. The results left me a little stumped. The first blog was about cupcake fridays, basically some pastry lover's blog. The next was a BITTERSWEET something about a choc-a-holic; and well surprise surprise the third was on Ice creams!!!

Either divine intervention is trying to cheer me up with these sweet tooth writings or well I'm being given a sign I need to take some serious interest in increasing my weight (yes yes I baffle my high school teachers even today because every time I meet them, I seem to have "stayed the same" their precise words. I weigh a meagre 45 btw. Anyone needs a partner for ice skating??)

I am not trying to say something finite in this post, most of my posts always do have a clear point that I'm trying to convey in between lapsing into verbosity. But heck, here's something I just realised I wish to say through this post.

You know what you observe, read or listen to, if registered carefully in your brain and simply pondered over in some larger context can actually throw up amazing epiphanies? I have this cosmic force is trying to tell you something theory that was proved to me in 2008 when I was going through tough patch. I would listen to a very dear friend who would roll out these snippets of philosophy or theory she had read earlier and I would mull over it . I would try and find some solace in the wisdom of what she'd uttered. Then there would be the proverbial 'too much of a coincidence' instances where I would be guessing if something indeed had happened. I would only have to look at some feature stories in the day's paper that echoed my doubts or sentiments and I would be forced to wrestle with my desire to get the truth out of say a person or a situation.


Maybe there is some power/force that is determined to teach us a lesson or give us some wisdom to hold on to when we decide to look the other way. And the peace and solace that we often seek in our crazed lives comes from everywhere around us in our day to day existence perhaps even the most mundane things a newspaper, a line from a song playing on the radio or maybe your friend. And all you need to do is contextualise it to your problems. There's a process of unravelling your difficulty that begins therein and if not an absolute guarantee of happiness , it's bound to throw up some interesting epiphanies, thoughts to help you cope with your unhappiness or problem.

Try it out next time.

ABSOLUTELY!

Came across this quote the other day and I can't resist putting it down here because I second this. The quote isn't word to word but I've tried to convey very simply what it said:

It isn't a great idea to always fall back on an expert. They are so fixed with the idea of perfection they seem to have achieved their own way, that they are never flexible to try out more innovative methods and create something new

And she said

"The past is a metaphor for a person who continues to be my memory"

"It was a moment that lasted eternity"

THE COMING OF AGE OF BETIS AND BAHUS ON INDIAN TELEVISION

Today I want to do what every girl on Indian roads fears hearing and something my father has given up over the years trying to teach me. It’s the ear piercing, often embarrassing but joyous sound of the long drawn whistle. Stick your fingers into your mouth ladies and cheer for your own kind. Why ? If you watched last evenings telecasts of two soaps on Colours (yes, yes I may be the World Cinema doting filmmaker but I like my dose of desi melodrama) ‘Yeh Pyaar Na Hoga Kam’ (‘This Love Shall not Weaken’) and ‘Na Aaana is Des me Lado’ (‘Don’t Step into this Land, my young girl’) you’d know.

The subservient, submissive, sidelined female characters (often the underdogs of the director’s twisted plots) are speaking up and how! I have to confess that my interest in certain soaps - which I would have squirmed watching if I wasn’t living with my parents – has only been growing healthily rather than nurturing the distaste and disappointment my peer group displays for the same shows I’m so euphoric about today. I don’t blame them, after all the ‘bahu –saas’ (daughter in law and mother in law) dominated thrash that Balajai Productions churned out was enough to have my generation turn to American soaps (which of course seem worse to my parents considering their high quotient of adult humour) which have come to epitomize our lifestyle so to speak (Thank you Star World!)

When I’m joyous I often wax eloquent instead of coming to the point so back to the original topic! Today’s evening of television viewing made me stand up and clap for the silent suffering female characters who’ve been victims of humiliation in public and deprived of their rights for way too long. In the first soap that I’ve quoted a character called Rashmi, a Bengali girl who comes to Lucknow on the request of her fiancé Madhav, a Brahmin Lucknow based boy(and hence all the more reason for his parents to dislike this match), puts her foot down after having been publicly humiliated by her to be in-laws repeatedly. When the boy pleads with her to not break up their engagement, she questions his love since he seems to be helpless in the face of his tyrannical parents. And before she steps out (drums roll this is what I was amazed by) she confronts her fiance’s mother. “ You are the one who should be most ashamed”, she says ‘Being a woman you have done injustice to another. Have you not been a daughter and bride yourself once? You have insulted the rights and feelings of a woman yourself. You are not capable of giving birth therefore to a girl child because you don’t deserve one. Your family has never had and will never have a girl child ever!’, she curses the vamp and walks out with her parents (whose humiliation she hasn’t been able to digest so far leave alone hers). So no more laachar bebas ladki who is betrothed to handsome US returned ladka and has to marry him because after all she loves him. And oh! Women in love have to always sacrifice their happiness don’t they? (so preaches the great Indian soap jamboree).

Second, the Haryana based soap ‘Na Aana Is Des Mey Laado’ which claims to stands against all social injustice that is meted out to women (including female foeticide, illegal second marriages etc etc) had its once spineless beloved younger son character called Raghav almost marry a girl his mother orders him to. This despite the fact that he’s already married to Sia (the apparent protagonist who’s vowed to bring justice to this village by fighting the injustice meted out by Ammaji, the evil matriarch of Virpur but is more busy shedding tears for Raghav who she still loves and hopes will stand up for her). The ‘varmala’ (exchange of garlands) is done and it’s time for the moment that our Indian filmmakers love - ’maang me sindur’ (a ritual where the groom applies vermillion onto the bride’s forehead). The drums are rolling, the background score is heightened and low behold. The trajectory of Raghav’s fingers ends in Sia’s forehead, not the handpicked Ammaji bahu material! Woohoo! Sorry! Peeeeee peeeeee (that was the best onomatoepic sound I could write for the act of whistling out loud!!

Sia’s silent endurance is symbolic of her struggle for truth and endurance but atleast this great Gandhian trait has her man vouching for the sanctimony of their relationship and refusing to marry a second woman. Bravo! So I guess, I should make the title of this blog even longer and add ‘The great coming of age of the spineless mama’s boy’, yes he’s Indian of course :P

So friends and strangers to this blog, detest if you must the nonsensical plots of these soaps that have everyone mysteriously procrastinating logical steps, hiding the truth from their loved ones or simply sacrificing their happiness for the benefit of another character who more than often is a scheming character and thereby adding to the frustration of the viewers (my mom and I regularly take to flinging pillows on the floor when the characters or plot choose to become dumber) but please be a little kind, spare some of your good mood and appreciation for the justice that the underdogs of Indian soaps are being rewarded with like Sia or grabbing for themselves like Rashmi. It’s a triumph after all no matter how small. Meanwhile, the great Indian television jamboree continues on other channels of course (Colours should pay me for this generous PR activity I seem to be indulging in !) with unpredictable twists and untimely demise of main characters. I hope Ammaji doesn’t shoot Sia with her country made double-barrel gun in tomorrow’s episode. That will be such a waste of the lung power I’ve been investing into my newly acquired whistling style.

Peeeeee peeeeeee

IN PRETENCE OF ANTICIPATION

The reds and blues of the evening still glow in my head
While you weren't noticing, I watched your smile
I watched it emerge and spread through your lips
A little like the feeling I held back that night

It could have been nice to ignore the people
To pour ourselves one more beer and melt
But it's the chaos and the crowd that strangely drew me closer
I'd like to think it drew you closer to me

What becomes easy after a point is to drive the thoughts away
We've both been through the road where our hearts bled
We got up and walked on, perhaps not moved on yet
Somewhere down that road, I wish we'd walk a little together

For the anxiety and anticipation is perhaps just a weary process for us now
We'd rather not pretend like the others who give in
That there's a point of speaking our thoughts out aloud
We'll do it in our little spaces for verse,

There's always the craving for a beginning, one that's meaningful
Beginnings that aren't similiar to our pasts, sparked by passion or interest or attraction
Just the joy of knowing that we perhaps could have it for ourselves, we could be happy about the blanks
That exist in our conversation, our letters, our meetings

The next will be a long wait
And perhaps by then my mind would have tamed itself quieter
We'll talk about places, people and photos
While my mind will wonder about the picture there could be

Another morning in Lokhandwala

"Aye, aye.....wake up!', nudging and more nudging that eventually materialise to raspy cold fingers on my feet. Where am I? Who are you? Aiyeeee!

'Ki holo' ?

Oh it's you! Get back to bed, this isn't the time to be waking me up!

"But I don't want to go to bed, I want to go out. And you are the one who takes me out. Wake up!"

Firm hand on her shoulders, her tiny frame under my unstable morning swagger, I lead her out of the room, resisting temptation to shut my door on her trembling innocent face.

"It isn't time to go out there yet and I need to sleep sweetheart. Let's talk when I wake up fully!"

"But you do this whenever I come to you. I don't want to get back into my bed!"

"Tough luck! Here you are". I tuck her in beneath the sheets that loom large over her . Her watery large eyes look back at me with disappointment and confusion.

Confusion. That's what prevails over her mind more than disappointment.

She's lost in a time warp, imagining herself to be in a house and amidst people who do not exist.

I am not even a member of her real family and yet my heart reaches out to her.

She's 79. She has Alzheimers.