Its just what, 3 cms?

It makes a difference, oh boy it does. I am not even twenty five and i have my mid life crisis all ready to descend.

I was never the types to bother about appearances. I was comfortable living in my favourite pair of shorts and wearing jeans and tee's to weddings. With my huge glasses, I was not exactly ever a feast to behold. Then the before and after happened. I got lenses and my aunt and mom gave my wardrobe a makeover much against my liking. How I now wish I had never changed anything about the way I looked. My line of work contributed to a bigger change, everyone thought was for the better. Being in front of the camera and modeling demands a certain appearance and i gained it. An acquired factor that became an inherent part of me.

Now as I stood in front of the mirror, combing what was left of my hair, i realized my mom was right as always. I had dark circles with all the sleeplessness and the stress of work and classes and all the other running around. I had the haggard look of having suffered a lot. I had insect bites and this infection on my left lower jaw, that had left strange warts all over. My doc calls it an infection and is treating it. Ma says its not enough if you have great clothes you need to have a good body and great looks to carry it off. I agree. I don't seem to have either.

Being unhealthy and being unattractive are two different things. I have managed both pretty well now i guess. I don't have the charm any more either maybe that's why I don't get the attention i used to. Maybe that's the reason I am no more appealing. Strange but true. Adi told me that its only 3 cms and how does it really matter. But I know how much it does and what it feels like to have low self esteem and know that you are not attractive enough. # cms, but an incision enough to leave a scar.

New Wheels!

There is a set of new wheels in my life, belongs to a certain Ford Fiesta that belongs to a certain Prabhu boy. :P Glee, whee whee!

It smells like Pasta spirit!

I make amazing Pasta, my Prabhu boy does not like eating pasta anywhere else because i make it a lot better, so he says.

Saturday was the second day in the "Today is not your day, tomorrow does not look good either" series. I had promised NJ that i would teach him the fine art of pasta making as i knew it. I went over and his mom had vacated the kitchen for our experiments. Our shopping took till four as we went for this Kathak performance thing in between. We start at four and then i lived through it barely. I will post NJ's version here for everyone's benefit and will stop at this for now. The process made me drwon like twelve glasses of cranberry juice.

Then, i went to Prabhu boy's house and made some more pasta for dinner. So Saturday was pasta day.

Now i can still smell the pasta in my memory so vividly.

I want!

The topic in question: Dan Brown's The Lost Symbol.

Me: I want to read it.
Prabhu Boy: I started already, I will read it first the give it to you.

After a lot of wheedling and saying the key words being I want I want over and over again, boy gives in.

Prabhu Boy: Ok you take it, but promise me you won't blog about it till i finish reading it.
Me: In that case finish reading it and then hand it over.

I cannot read something and not talk about it. Well, but i lost and now boy's asleep at home with my copy of Idea of Justice and his copy of the Lost Symbol and i am awake here and blogging. The Lost symbol would have really helped.

The Thought Cycle

There are things you can do about some things and things you can’t about some other things. Profound, but true. There are lines that you draw and there are lines that you cross. There is no pattern or rhythm. But love is unbridled, it does not seek or ask, it wonders. I wonder the how and the why and the what.

It’s strange, the way things change or evolve, I don’t know. Isn’t evolution change? There are so many questions and I don’t have answers. Reactions and feelings and emotions. So much to think about, but an exercise in futility. Without answers and clarity everything can be trivial. Perspective and ideas can be painful clashes. This is a never to end cycle. Thought and contemplation, the death of me.

Yeah right!

You have to tolerate stress and understand it and be nice, vice versa is not applicable.

You can say what you want, but you have to face the music.

You can be judged and criticized, but it does not work the same way otherwise.

You can always be at the receiving end and expected to live with it.

Double standards and all Freedom of speech and expression is a rigmarole. An impeccably weaved one at that.

No more!

My cheeks have lost their softness and are no more the softest ever.

My eyes sparkle lesser and don't twinkle enough.

I have lost my charm and intellectual wisdom if i possessed any.

My laughter and gaiety.

My everything tat ever made me appealing.

So what? At least i still have my sanity, maybe only bits of it, but what the heck!

Age catching up, so much i can't even run.

Interpreter

I am reading Jhumpa Lahiri's Interpreter of Maladies now. After so long, from its release to buying it then to now, i have the time to read it finally. Interesting and well paced. She weaves the story through so well, you see yourself reflected in so many nuances of her characters.

I am enjoying the feel of every page.

Somethings are never yours.

There are things you have and things you don't. Things you own and things you don't. If you have an heirloom, its not yours, didn't belong to you, won't in the future either. A shared commodity that is only verbally shared and you have no role to play in it does not belong to you either.

You buy something for yourself, that can be yours, you build something by yourself, its yours. What your parents left you, is not yours.

Come to think of it nothing acquired or possessed is yours either, because when you end up dead, its not like you are even taking your own body with you now is it? So nothing is yours. Not technically, or otherwise.

Not for you!

I am in pain today. Severe. My back spasms are back with a vengeance. I have worn my new diamond nose stud and in the process, my nose bled, i have had a headache all day and my right eye has been watering. I pushed the stud in so hard, I must have upset a nerve. I have a bad catch in my knee and i have been trying to avoid limping, so i don't get any questions of what happened.

Some days you just do not want to share the fact that you are in pain. You do not want the sympathy or the nonchalance, whatever displayed. Some people are over the top with their care while some others are just not interested. Why share with the self involved? Does not make sense.

Strange

Some silences are strange, scary. They actually feel like they are making the noises and voices in your head louder. Like the screaming of inner demons. Loud and disturbing. Hellish. I don't like them and i don't wish for them, but i get a fair share of them anyway.

Voices, in silence. Strange but true.

The Jewel Story of Today!

Mom actually bought me a diamond nose stud. We went and picked it up in the morning and i wore it. I coupled it with my new silver and amethyst ear studs.

No one noticed or said a thing, no one i was betting on either. Disappointing.

So, it really does not matter if you have or don't have jewellery, people do not care or notice.

Moral of the story: Don't bother.

Apparently!

The three F's of me, according to some people:

Frivolous, fastidious, fearless.

1 and 2 completely disagree.

3 wholeheartedly agree.

The Idea of Justice!

Daddy's gonna buy you a diamond ring...

Nope, Ma just got me The Idea of Justice. I lowe it. It has to be lowwe, only that can express the w depths of lowwwwwwwweeeee.

She spent hours in crossword today. I envy her that. Its been ages since i went bookstore hopping. Once i spent eight hours in Crossword, just shuffling along bookshelves, soaking in the air that was fragrant with the smell of books. Blossom, Prism, Sapna, Select, Premier, Gangarams, Bookworms - both the stores. Landmark, Timeout, Depot.

I still hold Blossom and Bookworm closest to my heart. Miss the days of book journeys. My library at home is overflowing i have so much reading to catch up on and i have only one lifetime on hand.

Just finished Thorn Birds, its beautiful and exceptionally well woven. reading princess now, its intense and evokes an unruly anger, The Idea of justice awaits.

Then there is Amy Tan's 'The Bone setter's Daughter' waiting along with Orhan Pamuk's 'the New Life' and 'Istanbul', the list is currently endless.

The fourth Dot

Why do we stop at the third dot after dot dot dot, why can't we have a fourth? Why is it wrong? Why can I not use it?

If there are fourth encounters of the weird kind after the third, there can be a fourth dot.

I want the fourth dot because only three dots cannot suffice and sum up all the things left remaining for me to say.

Somethings...

Things you have to deal with:

Men, Traffic, Noise, Anger, Chaos, Bullshit.

Things you have to live with:

Husband, Mom, lack of cupboard space, lack of time, lack of sleep.

Things you can do without:

Irritation, Hypocrisy, A question for a question, Backache, Pains in the wrong places.

Things you had better have:

Patience, lenses, water, clean things, order in life, logic.

Who am I kidding, these are not your somethings, they are mine. Phew! Sigh! Groan!

If these are my problems, I am blessed, apparently so.

Something, anything, many things...

A year ago, now...

Last year, sometime around this time i was so blissfully far away. Our mad impromptu trip to Goa. My yearly pilgrimage to pay homage to the beaches and breathe in the salt and soak in the sea.

I had ended up in Pune on work and stayed with Pavi at the Symbiosis campus in the girls hostel, sneaking in and out of campus like i was a student there. Three days of city travails and i told her we could do something over the weekend. I had landed on Wednesday morning and had to start back Sunday evening. I had work on the day i arrived and on Friday. Thursday was off, so we roamed the streets of Koregaon park and shopped and ate and shopped some more. We went to the German cafe for some mind blowing iced tea.

The free Saturday called for a plan. I asked Pavi if we could go someplace and she said Goaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa and I said lets go! We had to get back Sunday morning, so we booked tickets for Friday night and return tickets for Saturday night. We had just one day to spend in Goa and we reaches on Saturday morning.

I roamed the beaches, got scorched by the sun kisses, allowed myself to be dragged into every store that my darlin Pavi, her highness chose to step into. Spent more time shopping than on the beach. Scandalized the hotel guys and the uncle at the reception by turning up alone with no boys. Two women in Goa alone, well not something the folks there digest easily. He asked us if we were alone and where our boyfriends were like ten times over. We checked in and showered and dressed in Goa calling skimpiness.

This was Pavi's first visit to Goa and my umpteenth. So, we set out on our Goa stint. I knew the place like the back of my hand. We had a riverside breakfast by the Panjim river and crossed over in the ferry to Betim. I had stayed in one of the pretty Verem villas one one of my many trips. We went over to Calangute, then Baga and the first thing madam did was SHOP! She had lost it and she dragged me on and i went playing along valiantly.

A lazy lunch was what we desired, but we were forced to get ourselves out of two restaurants. It really is not a smart idea to be just two women all alone in Goa. We were leered at and leched at and out of disgust we went away looking for a place away from the ogling men. We managed to find a shack that was empty and we trooped in hungry. After beach walks and sand castles, we befriended a Japanese girl who was on a backpacking trip across India. Then after some more shopping and beer for Pavi, we started back. We returned to the hotel, showered and left. We walked the quaint streets of Panjim and went to the church and finished dinner and got back into the bus.

I wanted to show Pavi all of north and south Goa and get her to the fort and the other beaches. I had gone on dolphin cruises and i had water sported before in all the beaches, Anjuna, Cocoa, name it and i had done it. Goa is like the storybook fairy tale i enter and i feel so good about being there. I like Goa when there are lesser people and the beaches are empty. A packed goa with the mad parties is enjoyable only when the sunburn happens. I hope i can make it to the noise this year.

To Goa and to missing it. To the one day stint i managed and to Pavi...

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=55832&id=586307422&l=2046daf122

I am so taken!

It’s been an interesting week, there have been intense squabbles, topsy turvy anger, everything run amok. I have not had the time to breathe since college started. It seems like a very routine week again. The only thing that happened this week was the Yoga celebration, which went off really well.

Oh yes, we moved into our new house. When I say that, it feels so strange, our house, now I have an ‘our house’ and a ‘mom’s house’. I can’t help smiling; fortunately it’s just a four minute walk from my current home. I am super thrilled about the prospect of throwing house warming parties and all that. The best part is that I have a house where everything will be mine, well not entirely so, but still I like sharing with the boy who lives there. Goodness gracious me! It’s hilarious, this whole thing, I never imagined I would be so thrilled at the prospect of living with someone and enjoying it.

Shifting and cleaning and dusting and all the everyday stuff can be really exciting.

I am so taken by the whole nine yards of it!

A week that was...

It has been a mixed week. It has been more than a week since I wrote and I have been waiting to get back. There have been a zillion things vying for my attention and I am spread thin. A mighty heart’s review, Kaminey, Quickgun Murugan, Sicko I watched all of them and I am contemplating on what to write for the Sicko review, its Michael Moore’s and its brilliant. I have a few movies that I have to finish watching and a list of assignments to complete for class and a lot to do at work.

I can’t remember all of last week clearly, all hazy fragments and images flash by. Last week I got locked out of my room again and I sat with screwdrivers and cutting pliers till three in the morning unscrewing the bolt from the door. I managed to pull off most of it, there was still one left hinged, after several kicks to the door that left cracks in the frame, I gave up and fell asleep I wore the clothes that I could find scattered in my mother’s cupboard and I managed to last a day. I didn’t get a locksmith, had too much to do. Prabhu darling came home and actually managed to tug out the hinges from the door and stood there smiling like a benevolent God who had just unlocked the door to Paradise. Alright I’ll accept it, I was a little beaten and my ego had lost, he had managed to open the door when I had not. In retrospect, I can laugh at the expression I wore when he opened the door.

College, office, doctor, yoga, dance, planning poetry classes, Shakespeare for my students, lost nose studs, random drama snippets, house warming, the prospect of having a house, planning the shifting, everything about sharing a space with somebody in a few months. Phew! Last two weeks have been something.