Horn OK Please*

After five and a half years of writing whatever drivel I chose too, I thought it was high time I got some feedback from my dear readers. So dear readers, I have introduced the star rating system for my posts - where you can throw bouquets and brickbats ( the former, for a choice. We drivel-writers have rather thin, vulnerable skin). Any super enthusiastic folks who want to go and rate the archived posts are also welcome ( No? Well, it was worth a shot)

I also just got an invite to be a Desi Pundit contributor - and as you can see, I am being very modest and NOT putting it all in block caps and NOT writing about doing the hula hula around the laptop after receiving the mail. A very, very big thank you to the Desi Pundit team - I am very excited.

And in this spirit of feedback, dear readers and dear lurkers, I would like to put in a question to you. Which would you consider the top 3/5/10/Heck-as-many-as-you-like-don't-stint posts, which you think should be made into DP ? Please comment with whichever titles, categories you remember. ( I have been struggling with choice. Also with the temptation of marking ALL 150 of them.So am taking the easy way out and passing the buck hyuk hyuk.).

* Wanted to wake you up you, dear lurking readers.

Nothing official about it.

The hero seems to have acquired an office wife whose existence is causing much merriment in my life. AND she seems to keep hero in line without me having to do any work ( an ideal state of things,no?).

She is positively and definitely MUCH more wifely than the I am or am ever likely to be.

She tut tuts when he goes out for a lunch with the team the day after he has been sick (Keep him away from chicken when he feels like it? Very hazardous to health activity, that)

She cuts her hair and seeks his opinion ( I have come to the conclusion that unless I get a Mohawk cut, or get a tonsured head, there is very little actual chance of hero noticing.And if I were to ever ask him questions like "how is my hair looking", chances are that he will give some utterly inappropriate (and devastatingly truthful) response.)

She gets scandalized when he swears and tells him "mat karo" ( The official wife is proud of the fact that she has a better cuss-vocabulary then the hero. She is the co-author of that famous cuss-word dictionary after all).

And she, the unofficial wife calls him "Aeee"* in full marathi ayya-issha style( as oppose to "Abbe").

Poor fellow dreads work tete-a-tetes with her because he thinks she might start nagging about something.

I, of course, am shining in comparison.

So that philosophy that "If you want to look thin, get fat friends" seems to work here as well. If you want to be the cool wife, GET a scary wife.

* Closest hindi equivalent would be "Aeji" I think.

Happy Diwali

Wish you and your family a very Happy Diwali.
May it be full of light, and happiness and love and luck.

Smell

I am always amazed at how much impact some smells can have on ones life and state of mind. I don’t mean common smells – good fragrance, bad odor – the perfumes and the rotten eggs which evoke that ah or ouch moments. I am talking about the scents which are much more personal- hardwired into some inner, unknown consciousness. Smells which spring up and catch you by surprise and have the power to suddenly and without warning change your mood, your outlook, your frame of mind.

Yesterday, I was someplace where the receptionist just switched on the air conditioner. It gave off that slight whiff of old dampness (of an air conditioner unused for a while). Almost immediately I felt a heaviness in my heart - (I have no cause to feel so right now).

Which set me wondering about what possible association it could have which causes this sudden change of mood. I have felt it before – that sudden sniff followed by the melancholy. I know that the predominant mental image I have of the smell is a wet blackboard on a rainy day. Me, clutching someone’s hand and climbing up this dank, dark stairway which comes out to a second floor landing outside an old classroom on the second floor (I clearly remember the second floor bit clearly for some reason). I even remember that the bottom edge of the blackboard is above my head. (Reason validates that, the only classroom which could possibly fit that kind of memory happened when I was maybe three or four years).

I don’t know what happened which caused that kind of oppressive subconscious association. I can’t for the life of me remember, and neither can my mother. But that is the odor I can smell (even when it’s not physically present) on late Sunday evenings in the throes of pre Monday blues.

Similarly I can’t tolerate the scent or rose-incense sticks – and the variations of that rose perfume, rose sticks, gulaab paani (not roses though) – that’s always associated with traumatic death. Easier to explain since that’s one of the strongest smells which entered my head through the haze of pain of my fathers death. But what is more difficult to understand is how my nose can locate that sickly sweet odor when I hear of someone’s death miles away.

There are positive associations as well – first rains on parched earth are always the smell of childhood. Whatever I am doing, however stressed I am, that fragrance always manages to infuse a little freedom, loosen some shackles and make me feel lighter.

The intensity of the negative associations is usually far stronger though – can be almost like a physical jolt. .

Hmmm.

Recyled from (12/05/2007)- Will shift a few more to blogspot. Pls to bear with me.

Wake up Cyn.

I normally don’t watch Karan Johar movies.

A few years ago, probably after K3G, I came to the conclusion that sugar-coated homilies which alternated with glycerine-histronishowers, are really not my fare of choice- I prefer something a little more pungent. So Karan Johar extravaganzas got relegated to the watch-the-version-on-cable-if-you-are-masochistically-inclined category of movies.

Yesterday however, I made an exception and went to watch “Wake up Sid”. Why?

Because I was in the mood for a movie and the choice was between – Wake up and Do Knot Disturb (KJo marginally beats the race – and well, one can at least be assured of some picturesque locales). And partly because the SIL’s husband had raved and gushed about the movie – and more specifically Bombay (Mind you, he might have spent all of twelve days in Bombay, he doesn’t know Hindi, and he has never stayed in India). So I thought it behoved me, as a dyed-in-the-wool Bombay snob (can one say the B-word??) to see what the fuss was all about.

Let me put a caveat now. The following is NOT a review – but is rather a random compilation of thoughts which were crossing my mind as I watched it. For those of you who don’t know, it is supposed to be the so-called coming-of-age movie. Bade baap ka bigda beta suddenly discovers his calling due to the love of a good (sic) woman blah blah blah.

Frankly, the movie left me cold.

I couldn’t bring myself to whip up much sympathy with the rather parasitic Sid or any empathy for his lack-of-focus, what I shall do with my life existentialistic angst unlike say, a Lakshya. In the latter, one actually relieves the same growing pains of cluelessness, lack of ambition or what have you. This what-next malaise was one which did plague my generation at least (not sure that its equally relevant to kids today who seem to be hugely goal-oriented.) Lakshya captured that beautifully – and the build up to the climax (replete with all the self-loathing and contempt) and the subsequent hope-affirming transition resonated with a lot of clueless folks. In Sid, this metamorphosis from the irresponsible lazy caterpillar to the butterfly is just far too glib.

I don’t think there was anything particularly wrong with Ranbir – but I thought that, to use a very apposite Konkani saying “he lacked a little salt”. It was mostly a pretty face, acting the role –NOT a good actor living the role. Could be inexperience, could be genes.

Konkona of course, I find hugely annoying in principle – so I can barely be a unbiased reviewer. ’Cept for looking old enough to be his aunt (see I am not saying Ma. Hmpf) , and coming across as quite a sanctimonious so-and-so. Also, after Luck by chance, Life in a Metro, Page 3 – isn’t she getting a tad predictable?

What did amuse me however was how quickly and conveniently both the protagonists discover a) their calling b) and get fame-glory-money in their calling without having to go through the pains and grind of us lesser mortals for people in the corporate world to even realize we exist (I KNOW it’s a movie – but seriously, the really pat way in which the whole thing was handled, trivialized almost, was amateur).

Having said all this, I really wouldn’t mind LIVING in a KJo movie- this fantastic dream-world, where life is all spun candy, and lucky breaks just happen, where chotu makes your morning tea , and the only work you really have to do is be in love.

Wake up!

Online Housie.

Another very random conversation with Mo, has led to this very interesting question which I would like to convert into a tag.

If this blog was a house, what would it be like?

Hint: I told Mo's that hers would be a sleek condo, all minimalist, black and white, granite and leather. I think mine would be a messy, scatty house. What is your blog house like? What do you think mine is?

P.S. Two posts in a day? I am rocking or what?

Baby Blues.

Yet another friend had a baby few days ago. I am hugely happy for her. And for the couple of other friends who have had kids in the last year.

But if truth be told, there is one small part of me which gets all freaked out every time I come to know of a baby-in-progress. The event forces me to take my head out of the sand and confront the brutal reality that time is passing by - fast. That it really doesn’t matter a jot what the emotional and mental age is- or whether, as in my case, that its 10 years behind the physical age. The latter is what ACTUALLY matters in the real world.

Also, nothing is straightforward or assured anymore. A generation ago, the jobs were more secure, the support system more solid and financial strength was linear and growing. Now, the first two are increasingly becoming a chimera, and if anything, the financial graph is flowing in reverse (monies are much easier to come by in the thirties/forties rather than fifties/sixties). All the more reason to have kids younger, so that there is some guarantee of being able to care for their needs, not to mention, the energy to enter into their pursuits.

It's not that I don’t want children. I do. But in the abstract.

I have a pretty strong suspicion that the life I lead right now (which is fun enough at this age) might start looking pretty sterile and colourless ten years hence. After all, only so much of movies, malls and travelling one can do before it becomes totally meaningless.

But the actuality of children - that’s a different story altogether.

Nothing actually makes one confront one's inadequacies as much as the thought of a child of one's own. It’s not even about being a perfect parent – I know that parenting is learning, growing process and no one is omniscient or right all the time. But inadequacies in terms of say, selflessness – voluntarily abdicating the focus on self, keeping aside one’s needs and whims for the good of someone else – always. I don’t know whether I can do that on a sustained and continuous basis.

I look at myself and S, I don’t think we are particularly selfish or self centered, or irresponsible, or cruel, or any of those things that make bad parents.

But I don’t know whether we have what it takes to be good parents either. We have our foibles, we have our moods, we can be quirky verging on eccentric, we can be abstracted and so inward looking that we lose sight of the outside world. We can be jaded, and unenthused. We cannot pretend - feign interest in things which bore us, or be social when we would rather be quiet, or display any extraordinary degree of emotional selflessness. Or allow anyone (including the spouse) to cross into the absolute core inside of that ephemeral concept of personal space

And one cannot get into childrearing with ennui and cynicism. A child does not have any definition of personal boundaries or limits and rightly so. But the thought of letting go, is what is so terrifying.

Or the thought of giving up that control which one has struggled to achieve in life -On one’s independence, on one’s body, on one’s sleep, on mental and emotional liberty. I know that people who are parents will rush to tell me that you can still do whatever you want to – whether its adventure sports or travel or whatever else. I am aware of that. However, one’s hold on life and limbs, has to be that much more tenacious for the simple reason that there is a kid depending on one – so there is always going to be that restrictive mental seatbelt. To paraphrase a quote I had read in some book “I cannot die now, I am a mother”.

I am not saying any of this is bad or something I don’t want to do – but the thought of doing that 24/7 for the next eighteen years without a day off, without margin of error, without a safety net – THAT thought is terrifying. I have seen a lot of people who were fairly irresponsible when they were single step up and rise magnificently and become wonderful parents. So I try and reassure myself with a “if they can do it, you can probably manage too” but somehow it ends up sounding like a meaningless platitude even in my head.

But I don’t know how some people do it – transition so naturally from one life stage to another. Marriage and then the maternal instincts come roaring in. I always seem to be in a denial –resistant mode about these sorts of things. Always seem to be fighting change, battling against growing up. And one cannot stay a child, if one has a child of one’s own.