Friday, February 4, 2011

The Rainbow Spotter

It's a Friday night and I am fishing for new martini recipes while soaking in the orange glow of my little flat. My little nest this home has become, comforting me with its 70 F temperature while the Tundra outside threatens me with arctic frostbite like symptoms. I am waiting for someone to join me and I am so happy that I came home tonight to share my single-hood with Q instead of falling asleep to yet another night of an episode from Mad Men (don't get me wrong, it's a finely written and brilliantly directed series but sitcoms make bad bed-fellows. You know...they are addictive, you feel miserable falling asleep alone, so you watch one more and then one more until your eyes hurt with sleep. You then wake up next morning looking pathetic)

I have travelled two continents and I still stand by this solemnly: no one in this world can compete with your women friends when it comes to companionship in times of joy and sadness. Yes the cliche stands true that we do blabber our heart's content about EVERYTHING. I see my male friends and how clammed up they can be, denying their inner feelings to be vented and thereby building layers and layers of emotions suppressed unhealthily. God knows what that self-inflicted silence hides beneath the tough exterior of most XY species.

I am privileged. Yes I am....to meet the confident, independent, funny and inspiring women who befriend me wherever I go. JJJCQ....I look at these women and I wonder if there's a larger cosmic reason we all are yet to be found by worthy companions.

I say "found" and not "we are yet to find". We chased - in some cases relentlessly - men whose intellect fascinated us. Normally, I am all for the new order of courtship that my generation of women practice. Woman spots/meets guy, tests his sense of humour and intelligence, checks to see if he is compatible and then zeroes in to lock herself emotionally. But, of late, I get a sense that maybe the old order of courtship needs to be revived. I am not suggesting you play coy and wait for a man who is IT. But why not give them an opportunity to seek us out. Someone I knew very well used to say "It's all about the chase". I finally get it even if I want to deny it.


 If only all of us can resign ourselves to this: fate and timing often have more to do with meeting people. Not "right" or "perfect" but individuals who are confident of themselves yet humble and up for a challenge.

It must be a bit of the wisdom that my professor shared with me tonight or the good Hendricks drink she fixed for me...but I think I can see myself a bit clearer today. Being a woman, an Indian and turning 26 , in this country is sparking off the epiphany that all of us have parallel identities, co-existing and supplementing the extremes of the other. And if we all managed to live the most honest and healthiest of each of those identities, ONLY then would we be truly doing justice to ourselves.

Enough diatribe! I shall now sit back, cross my feet and enjoy my chilly lemon martini. Cheers Q! Your presence really brings out the zany side of me...albeit in a good way. Now only if I can find a guy who does the same.