• For today, DO NOT talk/think more than once about (only, if you complain about them/think of them with negativity. If positive, then think of them all you want) -
  • The all-important bai (Maid servants)
  • Kitchen and cleaning up
  • Husband/Boyfriend(s)
  • In-laws
  • Kids (homework, disobedience, ungratefulness, and the like)

Anyone who causes the lovely lady that you are, pain – is SO not worth it.

Once you have done this today. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Every day.

• We love the way men look at us. We love it better when they appreciate it in words. But, you know what? Nothing like a compliment from a woman. It always makes my day! (Hint-hint. Nudge-nudge)

• Hate the pain you suffer?…say while threading, try this -
  • Relax ALL your muscles
  • Think of something else. Thinking about relaxing your muscles might be a good start, but – good, bad, anything…take your mind elsewhere.

From threading to labor pain, it works. I promise.

Hurt to the heart might also feel less painful with this technique! WARNING! Don’t try this on a fresh wound. Start from the 5th day, no pun intended.

• First 4 days, find someone to talk to. You are not meant to let yourself go through trauma alone. If you were, you would be a MAN!

• Yeah, yeah, yeah…men are dogs and we can write that in ‘caps lock’ too. But, each of us, each one of us is a lovely, charming, bitch.

Oh come on, you know that. We aren’t any easier to deal with. No one nags better than us. And get this, each one of us hates nagging and the nagger! This is only one example that classifies us as a bitch. We expect, we obsess. We assume, we extrapolate. We act and we over-react. Sure men do this. But that doesn’t make it right.

To a better me. To a better you.  To a better woman for that man to woo.

(and now let me get to doing at least half the things written above ) Oh yeah…and a very happy woman’s day to you too!

You know the emoticon ? It’s always smiling. The other one is a whole different emoticon. And there are people like these emoticons. Some of them with lips always curved upwards.

My first memories of people like these is from school. There were a bunch of them. That they were always smiling and making people laugh, is just one facet. These people would talk about the saddest events of their lives with a smile you could sense even if you couldn’t see it. Not mockery, not sarcasm, there was hope in that smile. Maybe even a belief, that it will work out.

S is one such girl. We first met when we were all of 12. We parted ways after school, 3 years later. Then we would bump into each other once in a while. After the longest while, maybe 12-13 years, we met a couple of days ago at a school reunion.

Like most of us (we were about 30 people at the reunion) she too had gained a lot of weight. But the change in her hair was…let’s just say…difficult to miss. It’s a nest resting on her forehead. Long-lost friends that we all were, how could we not comment on it, in the most politically incorrect way possible. Her smile hadn’t change over the years. She laughed along with us. Then she goes –

S – I have to give you guys a surprise. Let us wait till everyone comes.

the bunch of us who were there insisted, “e tell no-tell no” types.

S – It’s a good news. I want to tell when everyone is here.

More “tell no, tell no”

S (that twinkle in her eye, clasping her hands in glee, the broadest she might have ever smiled) – I’ve just been cured of breast cancer

* * *

After a milli-instant of silence, we cheered.

Yeah, she went through detection, chemo and is still under treatment for various other things. Not only that, compared to the other things that have happened in her life, the cancer might have taken its toll physically but was least tormenting, mentally.

Sure, we all know someone like this. We all know we are given the strength to deal with whatever is presented to us. Whoever reads this will go, “wow, look at what people face and we call our problems problems”

But, isn’t there something more than this to it? She’s smiling guys. Her smile understands the awkwardness we feel, the pity we are avoiding to convey. SHE is taking care of us. Maybe, for her sake it’s good that it’s not the other way around.

She made me realize what inspires me. The never-changing smilie.

Another thing that goes hand-in-hand is hesitation in letting the other person know. Of course, this is not in the romantic sense. A recent school reunion happened just in time for me to realize how all of this actually relates to the age-old, now-clichéd adage -

if you love a butterfly , let it go.

if it comes back to you it was always yours.

if not. it never was.

… or something like that.

At the reunion I noticed that a lot of people I wanted to connect with 21 years ago actually wanted to know more about me too. A recap of my relationships is evidence of that too. Recently, I exchanged this conversation with one of my best friends today.

me – girl, you are so approachable, but you seemed so completely in your world when we first met. i could never myself come up and talk to you.

she – get outta here. you were the one who didn’t wanted to be talked to!

But, this is more than wrong interpretation of body language. It’s about timing and I think it’s about not pursuing too hard. The latter is not about ego, it’s more about letting the butterfly fly back to you.

The catch here though is that this can be said only in hindsight. When I first met this friend, wanted to talk to her, but couldn’t make myself to because I thought she was way out of my league, it bothered me. Every time, I thought of her or she was mentioned, I would sense this nagging feeling I’d learnt to ignore. Had I known, that not imposing on her was actually the best for this now super-friendship to bloom, I’d have waited blissfully.And this is true not with just this one, I’ve seen that happen with so many other relationships.

Now the catch over the catch is, it doesn’t always work out this way. But if history is to be believed, for the people I want this to workout with, I have to learn to let go and make my peace with it. Deep breath, let go…

* * *

ps. Yeah, I’m a people’s person and I can’t have enough people who I can connect with and wonder about the world around us.

I’ve been told that in almost so many words, by more than one person in the last two days! A couple of them were in a tone that I really don’t appreciate be talked to in. But they are near and very, very dear, so they can take me for granted.

What bothers me really is that they are people who are known for their analysis and acute observation skills, both professionally and socially. Also, I wouldn’t have connected with them, if it were not for the way they analyzed or the point of view they brought to an issue/situation. More interestingly though, I’m willing to take a bet, I wouldn’t be in their lives at all had it not been for how I think about things.

So, tell me, dear ones, the great thinkers in my life, tell me according to your own analysis, how does one stop analyzing?

Oh yeah, “STOP THINKING SO MUCH!” is another one. How does one stop thinking?

hmph…

Funnily, none of these people are ever likely to read this post. Even more reason to call it a rambling rant. So, those of you who have, do you know how to stop thinking and analyzing about things that happen around you…personally, socially?!

So, abu and i are watching either cricket or a music reality show he likes, Music Ka Maha Muqqabla, and a sanitary napkin ad comes and goes. And of course -

abu – what’s that ad for?

me (super-composed and surprisingly ready) – all women need to wear a diaper-like thing once a month. this is an ad for that.

abu – oh

Next ad. Since I couldn’t find the video on the net, i’m going to try my best to describe it. No people, it wasn’t a condom ad.

Blank, black screen.

A semi-thick white straight line runs down vertically.

The line takes the shape of a belly towards the bottom, Now the line looks like the outline of a pregnant woman’s belly.

The word “Miss” appears on the left of the line.

The word “Manisha” appears on the right side of the line.

The word “Manisha” is now deleted backwards, letter by letter.

The belly goes flat.

The word “Miss” now is changed to “Missing”.

It’s a public service message for the ‘Save the girl child’ program.

abu – mamma, what that for now?

me (taking a deep breath) – There are many people who want the baby to be a boy when it’s in the mamma’s stomach. So, when they find out it’s a girl, they do something to stop the girl baby from growing and don’t let her be born at all.

abu – oh… (not a man of many words, my boy), then?

me – This is not a good thing, right?

abu – right.

me – so this ad is saying don’t kill the baby Manisha when it’s in the mamma’s tummy. Don’t let her become missing.

abu – oh

i’m wondering whether he understood the concept, and -

abu – why do people like to have only boys?

me – …

don’t really know baby, because i don’t think that way, but maybe because a girl get’s married and has to change her surname. See A mama’s (my brother, abu’s maternal uncle) has the same last name as nana (my dad, abu’s maternal grandfather) but i don’t. And I live far away and am not expected to take care of him, where as A mama is expected to…

I don’t know baby, i really don’t

* * *

Use of a sanitary napkin is something that helps us deal with something nature gave us.

Who do I blame for making the ‘Save the girl child’ message a product?

Why did we create such a situation for ourselves that I have to explain this to my 8-year old child?

* * *

ps. A story from last month.

we get a call, “congratulations you are uncle and aunt to a handsome baby boy!”

we – “thank you, but what? who? when?”

them – “so and so delivered a baby yesterday”

i called the new mommy, “hey, congrats!” Among other pleasantries exchanged asked how here two older daughters were doing. Then -

me – we met just 4 months ago, how come you didn’t mention you were pregnant…Goodness! you didn’t even look pregnant…

she – you know how it is. we don’t know what our decision is going to be, so might as well let you know after everything goes fine.

The intention of this post is not to get anyone in trouble, but this is a first hand story. And i’m so not proud of even knowing this.

Once upon a time, there was a husband and a wife. Let’s, for the sake of convenience, call them Navin and meetu.

And in their “home sweet home” they have a refrigerator with a half-broken door. Yes, the door is “paani ke 15 botlo ke bojh ka maara”. Because, the philosophy of this household (courtesy: man-of-the-house) is – it ain’t a ‘decent’ household if there ain’t no chilled water in the fridge door.

Come the busiest week of meetu’s year, the door and it’s owner have a breakdown – one physical and one emotional.

Navin (on phone) – meetu, meetu SOS! my honey’s door is broken, what are we going to do?

meetu – Chill first (hoping he takes the pun in the right spirit). Yeah, about 6 months ago tech support said “door not available, buy new fridge”

Navin – Come then, we need to replace my darling.

meetu – can we please wait until end of week?

Navin – ONE WEEK!?

(Translation – one-fourth of a month with no cold water!)

meetu – ok, ok cool it! (thoroughly enjoying this by now). we’ll try to go tomorrow morning.

Navin – promise?

meetu – ok, yes.

* * *

Next day, meetu is mourning at the potential of 50 to 80 thousand well-saved rupees going missing in such a hurry.

Nevertheless, Navin and meetu set out for a romantic morning, fridge-hunting.

After a couple of electronic stores, when they see the perfect fridge –

meetu (to salesperson) – So, do you have an exchange offer on any of these things?

Navin (out-of-characteristically interrupts) – No-no, we don’t need an exchange offer.

meetu (thinking, “we don’t need a clumsy cupboard, either”) – uh…

Navin – (good friend) Amit knows someone who can fix the door.

meetu – huh!?

Navin (without batting an eyelash) – It might take him ONE WEEK to come…

*End of story*

* * *

closing credits –

as gracefully as possible, we walked out of the store. the “someone” came in a couple of days later.

my honey’s honey has a door that clings on to it just fine, thanks to some handy duct tape.

if you want to see what more fun happened, become a fan of the refrigerator’s facebook pages, yep plural.

* * *

ps. ok peoples, just because i’ve been ignoring this blog, doesn’t mean you leave your comments on the fb pages,

I instantly liked him. I’m okay with CCDs, in fact their Iced Eskimo is my favorite cold coffee. But, knowing very little about this guy, I liked him. Just because he doesn’t like a particular cafe chain? What does that say about the person he is? No non-sense? Closer to earth. Doesn’t make people who enjoy CCD farther from earth, but makes the non-CCDites closer to earth.

"People who don’t like CCD" = good -> did I just form the latest stereotype? And here I am, taking pseudo-pride in making opinions of people independent of the stereotype associated with them based on caste, region, religion, etc.

Made me wonder about what other stereotypes I have hidden within – positive or negative.

• Whether or not they go out in public with oiled hair?
• Does she wear georgette salwar suits with "bling" embroidery work?
• The colors of lipstick she prefers.
• Stubble or no stubble and how he carries it?
• A statement like, "I shop only in South Bombay."

Geez…there’s a whole lot…not good, not good.

Do you have such filters too? What are they?

The prick from the silly mosquito which loved my right elbow didn’t matter any more.

It’s not like I can’t pick the phone and talk to her,

A written word means another whole world.

I can read it again.

Just like the unexpected SMS from another friend.

All the body ache and headache passed away, was dead,

The body and the head felt alive even without the pain.

There was something more than 2 crocins at work here.

* * *

An exercise at the creative writing workshop I attended had us pick mundane incidents from the day thus far and write about them. This was my attempt.

This will hopefully also mark the healthy recovery of this blog

Do you get angry with an eye on the solution, are your fights directed to a solution?

It’s nice to have your eye on a solution. But, as so many damn situations have it, not all problems have a solution. The two views on some issues are just two parallel tracks of the railway line. Say, you love having pets and she just can’t stand them. Neither can you stop loving someone you care for nor can she be asked to fall in love with non-humans. (Obviously, this problem is specific to couples living together. But I’m willing to bet each couple encounters a solutionless problem at some point or the other – ofcourse guys, there’s difference between ‘awareness of facts’ and ‘pessimism’ – this is the former.)

you’re not any less of yourself if all you want out of life is to keep someone else happy

That’s the sweetest thought in a relationship, but its impractical and thus in an unsustainable state. How many people out there can really say, “this is all I want out of life”. The “this” could be anything, “this” promotion, “this” project, “this” child getting 99% marks, “this” child becoming the best dancer, etc, etc, etc. There is no permanence. Our needs keep changing, escalating even, whether materialistic or otherwise.

AND, with very change that is not there for the next 3-4 decades you are becoming less of yourself…

So, what do you do?

Quit? Never!

Be at each other’s throats for ever and ever? Like that got us anywhere but farther away from each other.

What we could try is -

Spot the differences.

Recognize them; certainly don’t turn a blind eye to them.

Accept them – Don’t yell at each other, sleep over it, mull, and then discuss it. The discussion will have to involve prioritizing the issue at hand in line with all other issues in life. This is possible – slowly you change from shouting instantaneously to waiting a couple minutes, to a couple hours, and so on. Believe me you still might not have a solution, but it gives you a better chance of accepting the difference. By accepting, I mean coming to terms with the difference. Like I have my view, she has hers and that’s how it’s going to be.

The solution ultimately is to get a pet or not. There is no third option. Either choice involves adjustment/change/sacrifice by one. One person has to change their priority and the other person has to acknowledge it. Not acknowledging is taking it for granted – another thing you shouldn’t be doing *all* the time. The two still can’t come to a resolution, then what? I really don’t know…

If that issue is *so* close to your heart, it would have done good if you’d known it before you got in so deep into the relationship. But now that you have, what? I don’t know…

Maybe it is to accept at first that there will be non-optimal solutions or solution-less problems. We can take solace that this situation is not unique to us. But by acknowledging this fact we are giving the much required room…and that’s what both of us need after the “I love you so much that I can…” phase is over…

Once issue resolved/acknowledge, bow a welcome to the next, and then the next…basically…lage raho…
* * *

More things I had problems with digesting –

Relationship has got less to do with the people in it, and more to do with their attitude in general

The attitude is the people. Our attitude is the basic-basic part of who we are.

All we needed to do was dip our heads in a basin of cold water, rearrange the way a few nerves are placed, and bring about a fundamental change to our thinking.

Can you really take the red wire off and plug it in the green socket and the green wire in the blue socket? Even if you can, you’ll be using a lot of duct tape to keep it in the new places which ultimately might wear off with time.

So, maybe you can rearrange the way the nerves are placed, then comes the real question. Can you guarantee that it will stay that way for ever and ever?

There is no ‘all we needed to do’. It’s always one thing followed by the other. And just being prepared for that is a good start.

simply by making a choice keeping in mind your partner, you’re not changing yourself

Acting with your partner’s choice in mind is doing something differently from the way you would have done it if the partner was not around. And this doesn’t happen once or twice, you keep the partner’s choice in mind constantly, and do things differently constantly. Sometimes these are little things, sometimes not so little…and then 2-3 years later you wake up from the “aware but yet blind-in-love” state to “oh $%&*, where did “I” go?” So, in effect you ended up changing yourself.

If one is happy with that, “great! Nothing like it!” But, my guess is that any independent, opinionated, well-exposed person is not going to be. Better blow the bubble the right size instead of having it burst in your face later.

That waking up next to the person you love is truly the one thing you should have throughout your life
That saying you’re sorry every now and then will help you get that

Saying you’re sorry, is not a thing that should be thought of, or done because you like waking up with this person tomorrow…it has to happen naturally because you feel sorry for what “you” have done wrong.

* * *

Does this mean you think, think, think and just quit enjoying?! Geez no! Relationships too can use a balance of ‘work’ and ‘play’…

My typical answers -

• Make a list of how you’d like your partner to be – from outer to inner beauty. Prioritize that. And go around making check-marks or giving percentages. – very flaky, and highly impractical. I look at it as my stop-gap, “give me time to think” solution.
• Have an elimination process. Some things are big no-nos. Reduce the choice and thus the confusion. – Yuck! I know…
• You’ll know it, go by your gut feeling and you’ll be fine. – could I get any more abstract!?

Come on guys! It’s been over 11 years and I was just 22. (And being 22 then was very different from being 22 now, but that’s a discussion for some other day.) You cannot expect me to remember the process I went through. All I remember is let’s take it one day at a time, meaning one boy at a time. Who knew the time would come with just one boy? Shebing-shebang-matter-close. All okay because it has worked out great…so far…except for the regular ups and downs… (another topic for another day) …but not everyone can or should take such a risk. Never!

Ruminating over the topic long enough, and going by my experience so far, I think this is one all-encompassing question that needs an answer -

“How much will I be required to change to be able to sustain this relationship for decades to come?”

And conversely, how much will I need this person to change.

This question needs an answer after the mush-mush-gush-gush “I love you the way you are” period is done with. So, in an arranged marriage scenario, there are practical problems due to social issues, like time spent alone before engagement, etc. Then again, there is no mush-gush in an arranged marriage before the engagement anyways. And society is getting more and more liberal towards time spent alone before you are announced fiancés, so there is hope.

The question needs an answer after the reality of “opposites attract” sinks in. Analogies do have their limitations, you know. That theory applies to magnets, not people! Okay, it applies to people, but NOT in the long run. In the long run you need common interests, common things to talk about.

Think about it, your partner is talking about some major philosophy of life and you cannot get over your fascination with the mathematical beauty of matrices. Or you are completely into making this country, your city, your society a better place to live in and your partner is absolutely content with keeping their self content. None of these are bad things, but a lot of them are incompatible. They sound trivial, but ultimately it’s the conversation that keeps the relationship going. Think about how you’d react if this happened today, tomorrow, a decade later and a quarter of a century later.

So, I think my new “way to go about it” mantra is -

“Judge how much you’d have to change for this person.”