another new year... will it be new for all?

Midnight today will usher a new year... new hopes... new goals (i know it is cliched, but many still make goals in the wake of a new year)...
midnight today, will not make a big, huge difference in the lives of many others who are living every minute in fear in Gaza where for the past five days there has been relentless rocket fires...
this post is not to discuss the right/wrong of what is happening and address why is it happening...
i am too puny a person to do that...
for the moment, let's think about the countless injured, in ramshackle hospitals, which are running short on every blood group... the countless homeless, trying to track their children, who may or may not be alive, mass funerals which are not attended by the kith and kin since many are nameless faces... but very much people of this planet, with the same emotions, same pains, same joys, same aspirations as you and me... but so much less fortunate than us... have you wondered at this small truth?
i have... and felt grateful for this small life of mine, which despite many issues, which i, at times, consider enormous, has given me the joy of a child who misses my absence, a husband who still wants a lot of attention and care, a Mother who still pines for my company and demands periodically that i tell her today when i am going home next, a job which is satisfying (if not hugely lucrative), colleagues who are good human beings...
in 2009, that is my only goal... to remain a satisfied individual, crib less, carry on with a smile and make some few people around me happy... AND (this is most important) shrug all bias, since that is the root of all unhappiness...

the real ME

where is she???? the real me... i am delving deep and i know not where she is...
to Mom, i am the daughter who is needed for everything that one can imagine, her details of money spent, where should she go for her next holiday, her complaints against the world, her agonies of loneliness...
to R, i am her Mom, whom she needs, to tell her her stupid stories, her quarrels in school or her performance at the Toastmasters classes that she is going for in her winter vacation, show her anger, negotiate a deal (most of such deals are wholly unfair and totally in R's favour) but one she cannot afford to ignore since as she herself says, "you are my fat, sweet Mummy"...
to B, i am the wife, who does not cook (but arranges for food for all meals), who keeps a neat home, who is still more a friend rather than a wife, so can share a good bit of his secrets (odd ones, like the new sexy secy in office, without insecurity) but who knows him bone to bone and whose opinions he relies on...
to natal family, the eldest of my generation, even now cherished by aunts and uncles (on both sides) who make an effort to keep themselves informed about this idiot who is too busy with her life that she does not keep a tab on them...
to marital family, the elder daughter-in-law, somewhat distant, somewhat tough, somewhat decent, but can be relied on in times of crisis...
to friends,(very few and far between) who can talk about any and everything that bothers them since the sounding board is not judgemental...
to colleagues, who miss the banter and the loud voice when i am on vacation but who can be entrusted with work safely...

in all these myraid me-s, where am i? it is all of these put together, added one layer with the other to make a fat, strong, pig-headed whole, very opinionated, and not very scared about her opinions...

the flop baker

it's winter vacation in schools... trying time for all those who have to leave their children and go to work.
and more trying if the child is home alone...
so Mummy turned a baker in the evening today...
one who hardly cooks (and does not feel sorry for the fact) steps into the kitchen since R wants the cake batter (not the cake, mind you)... she wants to lick the batter from the bowl in which Mummy has made the batter and emptied it in another for it to bake...
there was a time, when in a phase of transition between countries, i was at home (read, not employed) for six whole months... the MOST diificult time of my life... i had sort of decided to find a job where i could dictate timings (fancy me, as usual) so that R could be looked after as well... that story i will tell later...
it is in that fateful six months that i got hooked on to tele, a vice and an opium at one shot... so in addition to all the soaps, i watched the cookery shows too...
so when today's batter turned into a hard lump after mixing four, sugar, essence, baking powder, i ran to the bedroom to locate my yellowish notes... those that i had taken down with my bionic speed while the host almost wound up the show... and found that i had not added butter...
quickly i added that, but some evil eye had cast its spell... so bake i did, but the cake (R and i call it so) turned out totally flat...
but R licked the batter and kissed me with the batter all over her face...
B, am sure, will not even notice the yellowish thing lying on the table...
and for consolation, R wants a bit of that lump for tomorrow's breakfast.
she understands that Mummy is no cook or baker... and has internalised it well. she instead reads the magazines i write for (including the fashion title which she reads cover to cover and is on top of things in that domain)and tells her friends about the issues we try to talk about...
at least, her mind seems to be occupied.
for all my inefficiency with cooking, i try to make it up by the books that i get for R from the library or Virgin Megastore...

On the lap of history...

this is my reaction to our latest vacation. we literally were in the lap of history, with each building, nay each brick in the city of Paris, having some history attached to it.
it is difficult to have savoured the city in just five days... one really needs to be there for five years... only if one can retain her status as a tourist and does not have to get into the fray of earning a living, can one do real justice to the awesome place.
a bird's eye view of the city one gets on top of both the Eiffel Tower (do not bother to go to the topmost level, since with fog, visibility is limited; the second level is good enough) and the Arc de Triomphe. it is from this latter landmark that the fashion capital of the world pans out in 12 different directions, with La Defence and the Louvre equidistant on either side.
for one, the country has and knows how to preserve history. they have kept the memories of its stalwarts (that we laymen from other countries know only as characters popping out of history pages) alive... so Napoleon and his family, De Gaulle and his exploits have been preserved in museums dedicated to them...
when monarchy died out in this advanced nation, palaces fell vacant, but not the memories associated with them... and what better use can a nation do of its old palaces than to convert them into museaums?
so one has the Louvre, a museaum that has the largest art largesse in the world, including the Mona Lisa, the Invalides that has Napolean's tomb on the one hand and his daily budget on the other... such is the detailing that has gone into the thought behind the collection...
why leave out the Siene? a cruise on it takes one from the Sorborne University to the Notre Dam, the Versailles Palace and the French Assembly...
and if history does not interest you and fashion does, go for Paris. the average man and woman in the city looks and carries as much fashion and style that sets the tone and direction of the whole world. so stroll on Champs Elysees and you'll see budding models who may make it to the cover of Vogue some day on the open ramps in the many shops that line this avenue. and believe me, all the images of Hollywood from the late 1960s till this day fall in perspective on the Champs Elysees... each lady/man that you see on the roads remind you of some Western movie or the other... they carry colours, bright and muted; new patterns, loud and understated; new cuts, bold and traditional, with equal elan.
and what about the open romancing? o la la... each couple had their lips locked, be it on the Metro, or the Champs Elysees or lift taking us to the top of Eiffel Tower... inspired by all these lip-locking romantics, B and i, managed to hug a couple of times and requested R to click us... that was very romantic for us and the photographer merely managed the shots, with a lot of unasked questions...
it is all a question of perspective... where the West believes in showing off their love, we feel it is something to be felt...
all in all, nice trip, great weather, good food, smooth wine and memories of a lifetime... while i have put this down here, R is busy her Paris collage and B is humming Champs Elysees... that's his way of compensating himself for not having seen the Lido show...

glycerine soap for winter; normal hard soap for summer

there used to be a clear segregation of the type of soap to be used in winter and summer... look at the hoardings all over, the radio or occasional (then) TV advertisements and all one could fathom was: glycerine soaps are meant for winter and there were a plethora of local names (they were too puny to be called brands) to choose from...
with glycerine soaps piggy backed the skin care lotions: names like Tuhina, Basanta Malati that appealed to the earlier generations and Nivea, Dove to the later ones...

this was the scenario when we were growing up... soaps and skin care products were touted only on the anvil of winter... rest of the year, one could live without any regimen of skin care...
and believe me, we lived this... we became conscious of skin care only when the weather became drier, each year, year after year...
the rest of the sultry, sweaty summer passed without much ado about skin care...

today, when R spends aeons in front of the mirror, applying lotion, all year round, i find it perfectly normal...
but when i look deeper into this, i feel, she is growing in different times, away from family elders... many of my growing up experiences were different from R because we always had invisible power centres outside of the immediate family, constantly interferening in the way we were growing up, giving 'new' (since they did not strike Mom alone) ideas on how growing children need to be controlled. we, as parents, do not give such liberty to anyone to comment on our child's limits and on our parenting lacunae...

this has its merits and shortcomings... she is growing free from interference, but equally she has very few people who know her as a person, even within the wider family... in my natal set up, she is my daughter; in B's family, she is his...

random moments

Eid holidays are on. before every long break, i set out some tasks for myself, not in writing but in the mind. creates less pressure than a written list, possibly.
this time, it was clearing the closets and the enormous book case R has, part of which she has managed to fill with all the rubbish she gets from anywhere and everywhere.

yesterday was closets clearing day... time to chuck out old clothes, none of which are torn or even faded, but those that we have got tired of wearing. time to sort those clothes out in neat packets and old suitcases. while most of these were R's since she has outgrown quite a lot of her clothes which were just dumped into this unused corner, while sorting these out, my mind seemed to get into those moments that went into carefully selecting those frocks, those dungarees, those tights, those Ts... and picturing R in them... when she ran with those, when she smiled in them and when she fell with them on... part of it were also gifts from Mom or B's parents... remembered some of those old moments when the gifts were given to R, nothing rich or ornate, but filled with love for their only grand daughter... incidentally, R does not any girl cousins... on both sides, she just has younger brothers, three naughty ones...
now the challenge is to find out what one can do with these clothes. coming from a country where a many have insufficient clothes, we feel guilty if we have to just junk them out. i would like to give it away to some organisation which looks after kids so that these could be put to good use. does anyone know of any such local organisation?

today was the book cleaning day. first of all, must say R tries to obey me. when i keep telling her that last year's exercise books which have pages left must not be thrown, but used this year for rough work, she has followed the first bit of advice... not thrown them. but has she used them? i don't think.
so what is the use of keeping them? "Will use them some day," was her response... when? when? when?

possessiveness? or mean-ness?

recently, i came across a lady who seemed most graceful in everything she does -- working tirelessly, managing a home with three generations, having a very well-defined identity, great marriage and above all seems happy with herself...
actually, the last is what should have been first since that is, to me, the root of all else she does...
this lady, i shortly discovered is also very generous (i do not have any better word to use here) with her husband...
odd, but true...
she knows of her husband's ex-crush since they were friends before they became serious about each other... what's more, she does not shy away from the fact that the crush caused quite a bit of pain to her now-husband...
honestly, i have not been able to categorise her... is she very smart? realistic? not possessive?
or many others are dumbos? impractical? mean?
many other marriages i know of would have collapsed had the wife/husband known of the husban/wife's ex-crush... here, it is as smooth as butter...
after a lot of analysis, i finally concluded: it takes all kinds to make this world and she is one of the rare kinds. two, it is just a question of attitude and she has loads of it...
keep it up, wifey, though she would, as far as i have known her, would loathe this descriptor...

how do the mornings look?

how does the morning look at your home? how does the morning look at X's home or Y's home?
today, on a lazy winter weekend, while having my date with a steaming cuppa, i was reminded of this eternal query on my mind, aeons back...
i would love the way the morning looked at home with the sun kissing the bed, bathing the balcony with its warmth and creating a feeling of hope and renewal in my mind.
similarly when visiting my Mom's natal home or my paternal grandparents or any aunt, i first thing i would do when i woke up, was to run out and see what the morning was like... how did the trees look? how did the flowers bloom? how long was the shadow of the house? how did the people walking in the sun look? how much sunlight did the rooms have? and all these at later hours too... for the road in the morning looked different from the road at 10 am or 12 noon...
thus, i hated the monsoons, many days of which began with an overcast sky.
but for all my rendevous with the morning, which i never realised then, i understand now that it was possible only because of the habit of early rising that was forced down our gullet. so i had decided that once on my own, i would never wake up early when i am on my own.
but as luck would have it, i entered my professional life in a city that never sleeps... so my morning sojourns continued, but in a different way... i was in a train coming towards VT or Churchgate in Mumbai...
and now it is more of habit... i cannot sleep beyond a particular hour and can neither lie down when awake...
i have come to enjoy the mornings alone, i do not want to talk, i do not want to be distracted from my gaze outside the window where i stare out at the shadows that the buildings opposite my home create, the slow pace of the day (today), given the less number of cars on the road, some curious by-standers...
and let me tell you, i go back home each morning when i am looking out here at the speeding cars in the road outside my window... and one question in my mind is... morning are you the same there as you were 17+ years back?

have you done this?

i have not. but given a chance to re-do what i have done, this i surely would...
well let's have a better bargain... i will do it for our Silver Wedding Anniversary, some 8 years from now and will invite you too...
on a different note, B's colleague and his wifey are all excited about their 25th Wedding Anniversary, they will wed again in the Church where they got married, they will have all nth cousins attend it, and the two MCs will be their son and daughter. while they are full-time planning, Mr A (B's colleague) sends out the e-Card to all in the office.
an hour later, N, a young lady who works in Mr A's team, comes in hurriedly and says, "Happy Birthday, A... and many happy returns."
crest fallen and in no mood to clarify, he sobs his heart out to B, who could not help laughing out loud.
when i heard it at dinner, i almost choked and R, in the midst of a glass of water, spewed it out on the wall.
who said insensitivity is not fun?

our people assessments

we do it all the time, whether we are conscious of it or not... we study people, we look at them intently, we re-look at the interaction we have had, we keep on revisiting the experience and on the basis of all these, we draw an image of the person in question; we also tailor our expectations of people -- how they will behave with us, how they will react in a particular situation, how they will deal with life in general... based on the assessment that we have made...
and many a times, we are correct in the way we have formed our opinion of the world around us. so we feel, life really rocks.
but what we forget to factor in all of these is: the person(s) we have assessed is not a static entity, s/he has a mind that is also working over-time, moulded by all the experiences that s/he is having on a continuous basis. so what we assessed on day x, may not hold true on day y
so some other time, we feel that we have goofed up on our assessments and are shocked by the way people (whom we have formed opinions about) act, react or behave.
the shock, however, comes only in the first instance of the new behaviour pattern... and as we lick the wounds of the shock, mind you, the bugger inside, already starts work in re-sketching the opinion and re-setting the parameters so that we have an easier time dealing with the person in question, the next time on.in the midst of all this, we also need to factor in another variable: while we assess, we are also being continually opined on... and the person's reaction to us, whether pleasing or shocking to us, has also been coloured by the way s/he has assessed us...
so next time you face a jab (silent or vocal), remember to count in all these in your mind...
well, have i told myself all this????????????

Happy Birthday R

it is 13 years for R who was born this day in 1995.
13 years for B and me as parents.
13 years for two families with their first grandchild.
lots of memories, lots of looking back.
but one wish...
May you grow fine, R,
May you hold your head high
May you love others
And allow others to love you.
Mummy

at last

the Government of India has not only paid lip service of taking responsibility for the horrors that Mumbai went through, but is also re-manning its key posts.
the Home Minister has gone, at last, replaced by the erstwhile Finance Minister, someone known for his 'will do' attitude.
the National Security Advisor has also put in his papers...
at the State level, why should the entire Government be not given marching orders? R R Patil's comments on the tragedy is now history... only if he lost one hair, i am sure, his tone would have been different... and with what authority is he talking about not putting in resignations? we need to invent some adjectives to describe his ilk...
hopefully, we will see a more responsible, tough guys in charge...

and the media too, after being reminded by an eminent film-maker, have now started talking about the people who were affected at VT Station... better late than never...

we just are a patient race, and believe in giving endless chances... is that to cover for our own inaction?

Mumbai, we are with you

the purpose of writing is is not to add anything to what has been going on now for the past 40 hours, the longest duration terror which has struck India and Indian sovereignity.
as usual, the victims are people who did not choose what has happened to them. first time of course, terror has struck the wealthy, though that is by no means any justification of what the terrorists have done.
one common logic that the media (the audio-visual) has been giving is: Mumbai with its resilience will bounce back to normalcy, as it had done post 1993 when the Stock Exchange, the Air India building, and countless other locations were blasted. then happened the 2006 July blast.
and for once, i could not agree more with Shobha De, who left-right-centre blacklisted all the politicians... true, the security expenses of the State exchequer that goes to keep these politicians safe is totally mis-spent. instead more money should be spent in the security of common people.
the role of the media in this entire coverage is not beyond question. while it is for them that the world gets to know what is happening moment to moment, questions remain on the way the coverage is being done. first and foremost, why show these things live? are we not giving banal criminals a place they do not deserve? second, why should top ranking (hierarchically) reporters fly from Delhi to cover in Mumbai, when there are local staff, well trained ones who are there? yes, i am referring to Barkha Dutt.
next is the issue of intelligence. when these terrorists came by boats, what were the Indian Coast Guards doing? and mind you, the Coast Guards are right across the Taj. If one sees a global pattern in what is happening, security in hotels need to be tightened.
what is confusing is: should the cops been more rash and stormed in? obviously, they feared for civilian lives. but what price are we paying for being patient, now that there is news of fresh encounters?
how long more will this whole fiasco last?

is expression the whole of love?

nope... or so i thought.
love is something which is to be understood, felt and cherished, silently, in privacy... this is what my socialisation was all about... my natal family never believed in love which was shown... so bro and i had one of the most down-to-earth upbringings... public hugs and kisses were taboo, nay i do not think, it ever crossed our parents' minds.
privately also, when just with their children, the only expression of affection i recall from Dad was in a coy, but broad smile and softening of his small eyes, behind his glasses. Mom also, now i feel, was too serious in her responsibilites as a homemaker and a mother, so much so that she did not remember to show either of us any affection, except on our birthdays, when she hugged us tight and blessed us.
with this notion of love, i stepped out into a world of my own, with B, 17+ years back.
my marital family belongs to two schools of thought on love. my DIL is a strict Dad, no-love-to-be-shown school. MIL, on the contary, is very expressive with hers for her children and grandchildren, and since her elder son possibly expected a replication of some, if not all traits, of hers in his bi(e)tter half, he got a rude shock, initially.
i was never (and still am not) a hugging, kissing kind, something which if you know me well, you would have known. i hate showing emotions publicly. in that, i strictly carry the torch of my parents.
my love is in the deeds i do... if i feel warmly for a person, it will be evident in my dealings with that person; contrarily, if i feel cold towards someone, i will show it, though, i feel, over time, the latter has mellowed.
today, i tried to rewrite the love-not-to-shown rule about myself... being B's birthday, i decided i will show off my **** for him... so i did cook some things he likes... and who noticed the difference first? not B, who went about the morning like any other Friday, but R, whose big eyes turned bigger... she ran to her Dad and both came together to the kitchen...
B just gave a stingy half-inch smile... i think i have infected him with my love-not-to-be shown bug, but R gave me a hug and tonnes of kisses.
i will try to do this more often, let's see if i can...

flexi hours and we

i have to write this, since i practise it and have all along advocated it... switched jobs in a jiffy, just so that i could work on my terms, not in anything else, but time. i have always felt that i need to decide my work timings, i need to be in command, though i would leave the targets to my employers... so i have always given the logic: you give me the target and the timeframe; let me decide how i want to work around it. and i am, if necessary, available online 24x7 (sounds marketing cliche, i know, though i am not an expert marketeer in any case)
what she says is true and i agree wholeheartedly.
yes, it is a fact that at the end of a tiring day, we feel a little conned... but what else is the go between fixed hours (which may or may not suit us, mothers and homemakers, who take those roles equally seriously), stiff targets and managing our times (which in essence is linked to the timimgs of our children, our spouses, our cooks, et al)?
i have experimented a lot in this domain. i have held jobs, cushy ones, but which required my presence at office for 12 hours. while it suited me fine when we were DINKS (double income no kids) and we were that for a good five years after marriage, once R came along, i was no longer ready to do it... started my working from home, started my poring over proofs at midninght in between feeds and comforting a cranky child...
the result -- i quit with a golden handshake.

get into another job, specifying clearly that i would be available only between 10 am and 6 pm... the result, i was unable to attend most meetings which were deliberately fixed after 5 pm, to suit the decision-making men in the company (i happened to be the only lady supposed to be attending those meetings)...
the result -- i quit again, moving cities, with B's new job...

the next stint, very rewarding in terms of the things i learnt on the job, but killing since most work started flowing late in the evening, after a full day at work, since i left on time and the refrain was, "you will do it, we know.".
the result -- quit yet again, this time with B's transfer to a new city.

yet another stint starts... again i specify that i am available only on fixed hours of the day, while delivering all the work on time... but the men i work with refuse to understand that while working in a team, there have to be some priorities fixed according to the lady member as well.
the result -- quit to leave the country, with B again.

sit at home for a six months, determined never to look around for a job, but is that possible with me? nope...
find writing work, strictly specifying that i am available only in the mornings...
this arrangement continues, but R has grown up, she can manage herself to an extent, though bouts of being ignored, periods of attention deficit happens. and her quote of the week is, "you love the comp more than you love me."... so to deal with that, i am hugging her tight, but a part of my mind is on the Cover Story i am supposed to put in today...

to be honest, however, i am largely satisfied with flexi hours. yes, there are taxing times. yes, we do tend to work more. yes, i too feel over-worked and over-taxed (i am working all weekends, in the evenings, sometimes in the nights), but i call the shots when it comes to my time, my home, despite minor adjustments, carried on fine. that, however, is possible because of the fantastic team i am a part of. most of us are women who have children, some are expecting... but we are pulling it off... with perfect understanding, perfect poise and balance, much to the chagrin of many.

my time obsession

this is one strong obsession i have and try as i have might, i have not been able to change it... it is in my upbringing. Mom and Dad always insisted for both of us that if we had to be in a place at a particular time, we had to be before time.
now in our respective professional lives, bro and I are misfits in some cases, correct in some others.
in 99 out of 100 cases (why not 100, i will explain down), we are correct... so in many conferences, i show up just a while after the organisers, while the other journos are either caught in traffic or in some other assignment.
today, when i called up Georgetown University at the nick of 1 pm, the time they are supposed to open and could renew my books, i was thrilled...someone is really following the clock, i mused.
and i insist the same with cab drivers, with R, B of course... and when a colleague who came home one evening and narrated the harangues i had with cabbies, B was cool and replied, "if city cabbies have such a tough time, you can imagine my plight."
but when i was five minutes delayed in a meeting this week, because of traffic (and the fact that in flat 40 minutes, i had to run to the pharmacy for R who came home with fever and B was in a meeting, not to be disturbed) and received a little less than double-didgit calls in exactly 30 minutes, my heart broke on two counts: one, i had done what i hate others do, make people wait; two, i had missed the record of being the super hyper human on the planet.
while i will take care about the first and will try harder to be before time in any meeting, be it an oil & gas conference that i am covering or a luxury house which is opening a new outlet, i am not sure what i can do for the latter. may be, in my next life, i will write for my own magazine, till then will have to grin and bear.

wilful exclusion???

yes, certainly. if after being in the region for four years, one just does not know the language, s/he deserves to be excluded.
after many conferences, meetings that address only the Arab media, leaving the English out just as one would treat furniture or flower pots, i have vowed to learn the language... but have not moved my little finger... so i deserve to be left out.
yesterday, one more conference at the soon-to-be-opened Museaum of Islamic Art, one more instance of reminding the likes of me that we were just present, but did not count...
it started right at the entry, where the security took away my ID card (for many of us, that card represents us, a number with a photograph), handed a Visitor Pass... i hung on to that piece of paper and after getting stuck in at least four different points of security check, landed at the venue, which had been shifted from where i knew it was being held...
for once, in a long long while, i felt i was on foreign soil... there were none who spoke English... every soul was Arabic speaking, so all my desperate efforts at communicating were falling on deaf ears, with a small, staccato phrase, "mafi english."
to top it all, the security who was escorting me from one wing of the huge building to the other, thought i looked like some Chinese or Japanese...
ok, i thought... may be...
but while at the Conference, it was painful to be excluded... messages were only being translated on request... but the speakers could not only speak English, they were good at it... and that was evident when a prominent TV journo insisted to speak in English since her channel is telecast in many English speaking countries.
so where do we, who represent just the local circulating press, stand? any idea???

do i have quirks?

yes, it is an endless list... and as this colleague says, there cannot be universal quirks... what is quirky for one, could seem perfectly normal in the other...
here are mine:

1. my addiction for music... some tunes, some songs give me a high, so much so that i go on tuning them on, to the point that i loathe them after a point of time. while writing this too, i am on an old ABBA number.
2. my love for wine... the idea of being high on wine excites me more than the actual wine since i tend to fall asleep after a while.
3. i still smell R though she is almost a teen. i still ask her who she loves the most, in the fond hope that she takes my name, though she studiously avoids giving an answer.
4. i cannot sleep without a book beside my pillow. it could be just be a para that i read while in bed, but the book has to sleep with me.
5. i enjoy one person's company the most, apart from B: myself and can spend hours with just her.
6. remember the birthdays, anniversaries, the kids' birthdays of all in the wider family, including first cousins and silently expect that they reciprocate mine, knowing fully well that they will not.
7. expect that B will wake up early and make me cup of steaming tea in bed.
8. i love to sleep and sleep and sleep.

life, why art thou so difficult?

i hate to whine. i hate whiners.
i love life. i love to live. and i love to live mostly on my terms.
therein lies the reason why i have difficulty in gulping a lot of things, swallowing terms set by others, though most of the time i work out a middle ground between what i want and what someone else says... but there are instances when i even wholly accept what the other person wants, if reason is better there.
but this one is different... this challenge is unique and to that extent more difficult. it is the first time in life that this is happening... naturally, with every first time, you dither, you are unsure, you are groping, you are looking for a way out, you are thinking how to react, you are weighing your reactions, you are responding, you are negotiating (covertly and overtly, with words, with gestures, with the way you look or stare), you are conscious of every word you say (aware that you are judged every single time)... and there are many more subconscious processes that your mind is engaged in.
it is in view of this, that i have not been here... i have come and gone... not stayed on, not elaborated, not felt like talking. my silence means my mind has been preoccupied...
today, a while back when i opened the edit post menu, i saw seven drafts that i have saved over the past one week... and believe me, i did not feel like continuing on even a single one of those...
i am dealing with questions, some of which are below, and i know that this test is mine alone, that i will have to figure out all the answers myself, that there are no second chances, that it is only the future that will let me know the correctness/incorrectness of the choices i make now, that i need to be patient and pleasantly so, that i cannot show that i am worried, that i need to behave normally...
1. what do you do when your child starts contradicting you on every single thing -- from food to dress to friends to how she is/should be occupied?
2. what do you do when she questions you relentlessly?
3. what do you do when she, though not very openly, shows that your opinion does not count, that it is useless?
4. what do you do when you know that though she does not say it, she is not taking you seriously?
5. what is the magic wand that will lead us out of this state? more love/less love; more time/less time; more space/less space; more freedom/less freedom; more concern/less concern... most important, how much is more? and how much is less?
till date, i have dealt with life more rationally than emotionally. i have tried to keep a balance between the head and the heart. i have found my own way out, my own answers to most questions in life.
hope this will be no exception.

PS: if someone reads this post with just the previous one, they could have doubts on my sanity... but such i guess is life.

R's Mummy and R

below is what i feel about the most important role in my life...
i still have doubts on my mothering skills though it is 26 days short of 13 full years... and let me tell you also that R was neither an accident, nor an after thought... she was planned and timed, when my parents and B's had almost given up all hopes of their first grandchild...
my first reaction to this bundle of joy was insecurity... how could i understand when she is hungry? when sleepy? when in colic? how do i know how much to feed her? what do i do in case of a high fever? or when she does not pass stool? or vomits? or goes into a dehydration?... all related to creature comforts, all when she was hours, days, weeks, months and till two years old...
this stage passed... passed with days and nights of back-breaking effort, more so because we were alone without any family help, first-time parents, had to commute one-and-a-half hours each way to work and back, kept busy schedules at work, all this while the lady entrusted with her care at home while we were away at work, decided to leave, so enter the day care, and the big G rearing its head every day when we dropped her off, and she said, "bye" for 10 hours with a tear drop in each eye and a pout on her lips... my heart broke every day... but i could not bring myself to resign from a cushy job at Mumbai and later at Kolkata...
gradually, when we shifted to Kolkata and R began her play school, the challenge for me was to keep her mind occupied, teach her the difference between a y and a w, teach her social skills, read to her at night (i did that from the time she was barely a year old) so that she slept with dreams straight out of books...
then started formal school... change of routine from her play school, and the associated newness... by then, she had her friends and their moms became my friends (this process still continues)...
then came Delhi, change again... R struggled with Hindi with me... had new friends in her new school and all along when her friends said, "you look like your Mom," she relayed that to me with a twinkle in the eye... and one day told her friend, "obviously, because i was in her tummy for 248 days" (the mother of this friend recounted the count later over coffee!!)...
at this stage, she once told B, "i look like her, but my skin is like you, see the dots,"... an effort to humour B, lest her father feels left out...
Kolkata again... change again, new school again, this time a new board too... R looked tired at times with these frequent changes... but i learnt adjustment from her... that she is a silent kind with the habit of keeping things to herself i knew now...
enter Muscat... struggle less, because i was with her at home for six months at a stretch... new friends, new board, new country, new language, Arabic... but remarkable versatility
to Doha... she is 11... getting mature in logic, but knows how to negotiate and when not to, reads like us, incessantly, shows a mind of her own, with strong arguments at times... still dependent on me, i love that though B feels i am putting her in a handicap...
in fact, R renewed my faith in life when Dad left and left suddenly... she is the one who comforted me with her tiny hands whenever i became wistful... she pulled me back from a huge bout of depression, her kisses and hugs tell me that i am important, her eyes can spot a slight change of look or expression on my face, she is the one who cries when i am travelling on work, and it is she who takes me back home every single day... the entire structure of my day and night is wound according to her day.
never have i identified more with anyone else and she has shown me what my parents have done for me... so that i love them ever more.

words and words

some instances of what i do not understand and most of these are very frequently used, cliche as they say:

1. the big picture: of what? and why big? why not small?
2. think tank: outside the tank does not think?
3. middle of nowhere: if it is nowhere, how can there be a middle?
4. shape of things to come: how is that possible?
5. dust settles: does it?
6. read between the lines: is there anything?
7. think outside the box: which one?
8. go nowhere: same as 3
9. heart of gold: possible?
10.hand over fist: can't be visualised
11. as luck would have it: why not plain luckily?

... more later, perhaps.

the last day, perhaps...

of a world with a White US President... and that's really really rewriting history for a number of reasons, about which a little later.
right now, my mind goes back to my student days in college, when as part of our major curriculum, we had to study the US constitution and one of the most difficult to engage topics at that stage was the Presidential elections... how the popular votes and the electoral college votes work to get someone elected or knocked out... remember the controversy over George Bush's second term in 2004?
anyhow, today the whole world is gazing at the US... it will be good to have a refreshing change... Obama, for one, has brought about a major change in the way the whole campaign has been conducted. many watchers have compared him to John Kennedy and the whiff of fresh air that the latter had brought about, in his brief term before his assassination.
Obama, unlike Kennedy, has fought it every inch, first against a formidable rival within his own party and now more against Bush rather than McCain since the Americans see a Republican re-election as nothing but continuation of the many international (Iraq, the foremost) and national (economy in shambles, which stole the show in the last few weeks) blunders that Bush has done on over the past eight years...
while he has these blunders on his favour, he has his colour against him... and that is not an easy thing to overcome, going by the fact that there are no past preceedents... the only reference that colour has had in the American context is negative, though with the coverage of the campaign, the Presidential debates and the polls which consistently has suggested Obama leading by no matter how slim a margin, it is by now clear that he has relaid the length that colour can set for him, transgressed the erstwhile boundary and the marginalisation on the basis of colour... this itself is a big big leap... and if American media reports are to be taken word for word, it has clearly branded Obama as someone who has given the nation a new way of looking at life... not only has he based his campaign on the theme of change, he also has a definite agenda when he talks about the US economy, though it will mean less outsourcing to cheaper labour hubs like India or protectionist trade policies...
we just need to see whether Americans are sane enough to buy that worldview...

how much do children share with parents?

depends on how much they are allowed to share, period. the child, when born, is a tabula rasa... it is us, the parents, who give them a shape, a state of mind, set largely by the contours of allowable behaviour that we set for them. in setting this parameter, we are driven by our own experiences... and there are two ways of reacting to our own framework... the more common reaction is to redo what we faced, trangress the limits we faced and set more space for the child to operate in. this is the outcome of our own unmet wishes, our way of rebelling against the cramped space we may have got as children; the other is to ditto what we have gone through as children and is an ideal case scenario since most of us tend to have assessments on what we faced as children and what could have been better had our parents been a little different...
whichever route we take, there is bound to be rethinking, at least periodically and many a times, we set the rope tighter for our child(ren) or give them more space.
the child(ren), like sponges, take in and absorb from every single experience, every single encounter... and each moment a small line is created on her/his/their minds...
so every censure they face, every condemnation of their action that we do, leaves an impression on their minds and will affect their next line of action...

two years in Doha

today we complete two years here... quite an accomplishment, going by B's track record of finding jobs in a jiffy and no I haven't reminded him yet of two years gone by, lest he starts updating his CV and looking out...
somehow, i have sort of fallen in love with this place... possibly it is familiarity, but love there is between me and Doha... and this is now...today, when i was passing by Airport, trying to recollect how Doha looked like when we first landed and came out searching for the hotel coach that was supposed to be waiting for us... the first reaction was a little jerk... having come in from as beautiful a city as Muscat, we were struck by the work going on, on the roads, the city was busy preparing for the Asian Games that were to begin on December 1, 2006...
now of course, we have understood and accepted that ongoing work is what this city is all about... in fact, even the hotel where we checked in is no longer there...
and some entire roads have been redone, some flyovers broken down, some roundabouts made signal driven...
but now that i love this place (despite the hours that we spent initially commuting between Luqta and Office, the two shift of homes that we have done, the pain i underwent after having enrolled in the driving class here), i want it to continue... let R pass out from here, let her not be new girl again, let me hold on to this job (i love that too), let B's mind be settled in his present job, so that when we move, we move finally...
is that a tall order? hope not, dear B.

the non-existent house

it does not exist any more...
yes, there is a multi-storey building in its place, which made more economic sense to the five sons and two daughters of one Mr Ganguly who built this house after marrying off one of his daughters in 1956, keeping away money for the wedding of his younger daughter who was still studying...
a good part of my childhood was spent in this house... i am a grand child of Mr Ganguly... no i haven't seen him, since he passed away five years before i was born... but i have seen the huge oil paintings of him, his wife (whom i have seen and am told resemble a lot, my grandmom, my Mom's mom), his ancestors and his wife's ancestors in the high-ceilinged house that he built...
part of our (my bro's and mine) summer vacations and winter vacations were spent in this house... it had two huge balconies, one on each floor... the floor was of red cement, shining red, with black borders... there was a well-kept lawn in front of the house and a well at one corner, where we, the grandchildren, took bath, on days we wanted to be different from the other days...
mornings at this house were different than those at our home... it began early with tea, crisp toast and butter, with All India Radio to match the grandfather clock that was in the hall, with merun sofa...
the sun came in all brilliance from the large open windows, with dark curtains which were tied neatly by Mr Ganguly's third daughter in law... it is her husband, my third maternal uncle, their son (who still stays with his family now in one of the flats in the apartment) and daughter who stayed in that house from the day it was made till the day it was broken down for some money that the siblings, My Ganguly's children, had agreed on with a builder...
after a hurried round with the newspaper, my two uncles went for bath, had breakfast, carried lunch and were off to work, leaving the house to their families and us, the occasional pampered visitors...
my Mom was happiest when here... she became carefree and went out leaving us with cousins, aunts and foremost, our grandmom, whose smell i can still get if i think hard... Dad would come to drop us off and pick us up after a scheduled number of days...
i still dream of this house... how we fought on the balconies, how we played hide and seek, how we watched the sun set and planned the next day...
and as the dream wares out and i wake, i feel a pang in my heart...
Mr Ganguly, Mrs Ganguly... i too feel the pain that your children could not keep your dream house intact...

PS: i am the child of the daughter who was not yet married when Mr Ganguly built this house in 1956.

forgive i will, forget i won't

i am really really angry and why shouldn't i be? i am asking myself...
we had a small Diwali party in office... organised by some of us, we sent out a mail to all in the office: let's assemble at the pantry at 12 noon and have a small get-together...
we got the food, were all ready, waiting for our colleagues to join in... some who were out on assignments rushed back as soon as they were done...
some other people, however, were conspicious by their absence... they did not take calls when contacted and did not excuse their absence...
and they were home for lunch!!!... this while we went all the way to join in their Iftaars...
since some of us work on two shifts, our friends came back and headed for the pantry saying, "is there food for us?"
some of my colleagues do not know what to read into this initial absence followed by taking food when the party is over...
i am confident that they have deliberately not come: if the meet is at a particular time, they should have been there, or else have had the courtesy to inform us...
should we make an issue of this? or should we carry on, move away from this? the latter seems more of an educated choice... this is how we have been bred, nurtured, indoctrinated...
the seething anger will settle, we will have to carry on working... and though i will possibly forgive them when a new sun rises, i may not be able to forget this...

marriage and/or success?

this is a crucial paradox but true nonetheless... women have to choose between a stable, successful marriage and sky rocketing professional career...
and i have stopped asking why... i did ask these whys when i was younger, when i was relatively inexperienced, but now i keep silent (in fact, while i was in the process of being hired by a financial institution way back in 1993, i was asked at the second interview, "what are your family plans?" when i did not understand and my face said it, the Executive Director of the company asked me, "we mean when do you plan to have children?" pat i replied, "pardon me, but had there been a guy in my place, would this question have arisen? and equally pat came the reply from the ED, "no certainly not, since he would not take maternity leave and be away from work like a lady would need to." so though i did not answer that question and was still hired, the question still lingers in my mind)... but have still not accepted it... and often question the choices i myself make from time to time...
how many women have you come across personally, who are very very successful and have a rocking family and family life? whose success on the job has not eaten away balanced children, a happy spouse? who sits on the Board of her company, travels 20 days a month on work, have brilliant children and an equally successful spouse?
honestly, i have seen very successful women from very close quarters... but the choices they have been able to make, can by no means be universal... one lady i knew, was the Joint MD of the same company i referred to above... she was certainly very successful, having been shortlisted by Forbes... her children were quite balanced, but her spouse was remarkable... he was an armyman, took early retirement to be with the kids to enable his wife to fly professionally and introduced himself as "Mr LDG"... very few, i repeat, very few men would do this...
another lady, equally successful, has two growing children, but her spouse has chosen to work from home on his own business... this has worked two ways... a) the women have taken the lead in career, b) aided by men who have made a different kind of choice... but they possibly could do it as a family since there was no confusion on who wears the pants and even if the lady was more successful, that did not hurt the usually fragile male ego.
now not all women can hope for such robust support structures... again, am i opining that because of the men in their lives, these women could be successful to the extent they have been? possible... and why not? if so many score women all over the world are taking easy careers (your truly included, to be blank honest) just to enable the husband ride exciting career and career booms, what is wrong with some men doing it...
just the other day, B received a mail from an ex student of his... she works for Infosys, is on different continents on different days of the week, and is still single at 29. her parents have told her to find a guy, but she has not been able... she says that most men she knows want home-makers as partners... and she does not want to turn a home maker...
are we heading towards a situation where we either have successful women or successful marriages?

first time this happened

there is a first time for everything... so this too had to happen... highly highly unlikely... but it has... an assignment was marked to me by way of a mail, usual way of going about work... what i do is to make a mental note and carry on.
this too, i clearly remember seeing... but do not recollect having made the mental not...
so what should not have happened has... i am busy chasing proofs since one magazine needs to be finalised... and i hear my superior on a line, "yes, someone is coming for Rolls Royce," as soon as i hear this, i know it is me... and i am still in the office, fifteen minutes behind the schedule time of presence and this is the same me who am on time for every single meeting, every single conference...

i have completely forgotten about it... so in flat 20 minutes, i land up after the event is over... tender my apologies and come away with the information pack...

as i walk out, i am not only surprised, but worried... in fact, even my superior is surprised that i have missed a meeting... this is not normal...
and let me tell you, these days, i am having a problem with some names, some words, though my date memory is still intact (in fact, it would be better if i could forget some birthdays, some anniversaries, some engagements)...

so is this a warning telling me to cast off my confidence and start making physical notes? i do not have an answer...

should we soul search?

this says it all... if an award winning writer can comment that life would not change and that life in Mumbai"...has a way of reminding you that writers are not particularly important", it becomes telling.
really, for how many people is a book that important? how many people really follow what is going on the world of the printed word?... so even in the backdrop of a Booker, if Adiga commented as he did, it is time for some soul searching. Mumbai is just a micrcosm of the world where we are busy running our own routines... start early morning, run the whole day in chasing small goals, come home tired, wind up the day and start yet another unmeaningful, uneventful one...
while Adiga, since he lives in Mumbai, concludes so about his adopted home, most cities and its residents are more or less the same...
and believe me, writers are one of the most marginalised, in terms of the attention he or she gets... many consider the writer to be residing in a different domain (while s/he is constantly deriving her/his source of writing from what s/he observes around her/him)...
as Adiga says, "It won't mean anything to my neighbours, they won't know about this. Life will continue."... is this frustrating? or is this one stage ahead -- cynicism? i think it is the latter and that is because the writer in Adiga had to find publishers to talk to the world, while the next door remains closed...
yes many of the so called next door persons would say, "would Adiga talk to us if we did?"... is true also. Looking at the whole thing from the next door neighbour's perspective, i feel, there needs to be two way traffic... and that writers also have a role in their own alienation... but who takes the first step? there are expectations from both sides... the writer thinks the neighbour should come ahead, while the neighbour thinks the onus lies with the writer...
it is a broken communication... and this is as true of Mumbai, as London or New York... a larger human issue, i feel.

i live for some-time else

it's really a problem... i either live for tomorrow (i always set the alarms for all the tasks that need a reminder tomorrow, today; i try to save money for tomorrow; i save the pleasures of today to be able to enjoy tomorrow... but till date that tomorrow in my mind hasn't come) or i live in yesterday (this latter i put on a facade and deny vehemently... but yes, a large part of me, which i try to hide from everyone, lives in ruminating, in nurturing the pleasant memories, analysing unpleasant ones)...
so this wooden box, a perfect cuboid, which contains first flush Darjeeling tea, that sits prim on the top of my refrigerator in the kitchen is taking my attention away as i write this... it is past midnight, R is in dreamworld, B is snoring... but i am caught with the wooden box... it was a gift from Fortnum & Mason when i was on work at London this summer... wrapped nicely, i did not have the time to open it and see then, though some Chinese journalists did comment on it, saying what a useless box to carry all the way to Shanghai... can't blame them though... they are used to herbal or green tea... that Darjeeling tea is a delicacy that few relish, as the lady from Australia commented, "in case you do not want your box, do pass it on to us." to our Chinese friend...
first flush... a term i heard when i was still single-digit old... and one reason why i hated Mumbai was because the entire city drank Assam tea from Lipton or Brooke Bond... so until i discovered Girnar Tea on Dadar West, just outside the station, i did not drink tea...
tomorrow i will empty the contents in a container and throw that wooden box... it reminds me too much of the time when tea was bought in wooden boxes from some tea garden in the Dooars, in the foothills of the Himalayas, in North Bengal...
i will have to live for today, starting now... to hell with my ruminating self.

are all success stories inspirational?

there are various reasons behind success... for some it is sheer hard work, for others it is sheer luck, for a third bunch it is drive and energy, for the rest an admixture of all of of these...
but one trait that is common for most successful beings is perseverence... and none else but Bill Gates one else could prove this right... after announcing retirement from Microsoft , he is now yet again in a creation mood... and now the venture relates to a think tank that will oversee Gates’ personal pursuit of breakthrough ideas in science and technology...
while some draw lessons about success from his life, to me what stands out is his philanthrophy... succssful he certainly is and there is no denying that he has changed all our lives by his software genius...
the more important fact, to my mind, is the way he touches lives of so many unfortunate ones by his Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
this indeed is a case of extraordinary success matched with extraordinary human qualities... the total package is rare, but inspirational certainly...

every nest has an aroma

i was busy keying in a message, while turning the key of the home absent-mindedly... as i pushed the door open, my nostrils which cleared after a bad cold, were greeted by a strong smell... the smell of my home... of late there has been a new tinge to it, of a strong cleanser, the effect of a pest (only roach) control that we did some months back... minus this tinge, it has been the same smell across all my homes... all my 12 homes that i have set up, some earlier ones painstakingly, the latter ones, by way of habit...
the smell of a home has a personality, the same as that of the inhabitants... so there is a nicotine smell in the air at home, thanks to B's lean fags from Turkey; it has R's deo smell, which has replaced the tinge of the baby smell that abounded when she was a baby... but that baby smell i can still get when i recall her growing years; and the incense that we burn some days...
in the mornings, there is the perfume smell that i use before i go for work, B's after shave smell...
in the evenings, there is the smell of the cooking rice or the seasoning G, my cook (in fact, my life line, thank God, he does not read my blog... he could even ask for a hike) uses for the vegetable he cooks or the fish he fries...
all in all, it is our smell... and on days that i come to an empty home, with B at work and R, either visiting friends or in her classes, it is this smell that hugs me in... i feel reassured that i have come to a corner which is mine...
yet, it took a long while to get this identification... just after marriage, when in Mumbai, i could only identify with home back at Kolkata... so every long break we got, we ran there... so, not surprisingly, when Dad had come on work and i asked him how he liked my home, he answered, "nice. new concept. two bachelors staying together."
in fact, it was only after R came along and no matter how long a break we got at work, we could not run back, that my mind started taking root, longing to go back, but not with the same intensity... and the smell of my home started taking shape...

the white jamai

in other words, the white son-in-law... we have one in the family... my niece has married an American who happens to be a writer...
so after the American wedding (in a church), the couple went down to India to get married the Bong style... it was more a challenge for him, rather than the parents who organised the whole thing... i was not there at the function, but have seen all the videos and what struck me was the willingness with which he went about all the riutals -- he did wear the topor (which is a hat made of some white decorative material), the dhoti (now you get ready-made dhotis, which you just wear like a trouser), the kurta and the kohlapuri chappals to go with it...
when i asked my sis-in-law (the bride's mom), how they got him to do all that he did, she said, "he had asked the meanings of all the mantras in English, so i got the mantras translated and had sent it by mail. then one day, he wanted to chat just on the rituals, which i later understood, was his way of getting a comfort that there was no conversion involved in the whole affair."
it might seem silly to us, but for this foreigner, coming with his Indian wife and going through an Indian wedding may not have been that easy...
but he came out in flying colours...

visiting cards... what do we do with them?

do we store visiting cards? or throw them?
we start with storing, and periodically spring clean them to throw out old, outdated ones...or so i thought... and rightly i think...since that tiny bit of paper contains a mine of information (again, this is what i think)... being in the trade that has largely to do with people, journos often face this issue of contacts... the next story's contacts are contained in that tiny info-pack...
so i got wild yesterday when at a conference, a lady, representing the company that held the event, comes forward and introduces herself and we exchange cards...
the conference begins, the Q&A happen and as we disburse, the lady gets up from the chair next to mine and drops all the cards that she has collected, including mine...
like umpteen times, i thought it was oversight and so i bent down my frail (!!) self, picked all the cards and ran behind her to give it to the lady...
she was busy with someone else, talking and exchanging cards... so when i butted in, handed over the cards to her and said, "you dropped these," she says, "oh how sweet, but i don't think i will need them."
i was beside myself by then... so to avoid an altercation, i walked out, making loud pit-pat with my shoes, as if the smooth granite beneath my feet was at fault...

gap bewteen what one preaches and what one practises

i am pissed off with this one... and am sure there are many others like me...
but what i am not sure is: which number is more -- the ones who prefer a gap (and willingly keep it) and those who struggle every inch to weed out the gap...
but i have a hunch that the former outweigh the latter since it is always easier to keep a gap, and move on...
it is a who-cares? attitude, a thick skin, an attitude of convenience that permeates most...and let me add here, it is to that extent easier... to just do what is easier, to do what is more convenient and do exactly that which will lead to personal benefit rather than stick one's neck out and get caught...
why? most say, since it is not conventional, it is not easy and it is more difficult to align the values with the practice... it is thousand times more easy to have values that change with the situation, that are use and throw, but those that can be used to derive benefit...
so why bother to struggle to keep out that gap between practice and preaching since that requires a lifestyle (and here i do mean to include, aspirations as well) that is comparatively more spartan, more honest, more threadbare since the person who does not have a gap, is one who not only sticks it out for herself/himself, but also for others...
and fighting for others need a person who is morally invincible, who is so way up that the ordinary folks cannot even reach up there...
but where are these individuals?
i am searching... do let me know if you come across any.

extended ego

that is exactly what our children are... we are hurt even before they realize someone was trying to hurt them; we are happy (read elated) when someone praises them...
so when last Thursday, R's teachers, in the Parent-Teachers Meeting said she was amazing in her English, Social Science, Hindi, Science and Maths, we both did feel very happy...
but her English teacher hit the bull's eye when she said, "I am very proud of A as a student, the ideas she comes up with, the expressions she uses, the way she handles unseen work, is exceptional for her age. But when i see her answer script, it is the absence of determination that i see all over. She is happy with the second place and almost willingly gives it up to A (another one), who, though less equipped than her, scores by sheer determination. Your daughter is gifted but lacks the will to succeed."
i had all along known this, have kept on dinning it into her ears (and indirectly her father's since it is he who believes in just leaving her alone)... so when this sensible teacher made the same assessment as I had, i was relieved that R was being monitored by adults who know their work...
this same view was seconded by R's science teacher who was happy with her for all the extra efforts she can see in her, as her House Coordinator, but said, "she needs to feel her sense of responsibility a little more."
so as soon as we were out of the room, B started, "you heard what she said... responsibility will come if we leave her..."
oh! same old assessment, i thought... and i retorted, "did you not hear what the English teacher had to say?"... for once B conceded, "well, she is like me in this..."
has to be, right?

rewriting history

this is the second time in my life that i feel i am a witness to history being made...
for a student of social sciences, ideology is an important aspect of orientation that gives a sense of identity... born and bred in a Left-ruled State, it only heightened the ideo-bias since we studied, as part of the curriculum, two Constitutions of two erstwhile Communist countries, USSR and China... now of course, the same curricula has been revised to include the Swiss and French contitutions...
but most of us have forgotten the person behind what the West calls the fall of Communism... Mikhail Gorbachev... who with glasnost and perestroika, made way for the system to give rise to a new, undefined version of Statehood... this was way back in 1989, the first time i felt that history was being rewritten...
that time, it was redefinition of the Left... giving rise to new paradigms in international relations... Cold War, a major subject for us in International Relations, was deleted, since there was no Soviet Union... it was re-christened to Commonwealth of Independent States... so too small for the US to stoop and have war, cold or hot...
the subsequent 20 odd years have seen the unlimited rise of laissez faire... but what are we seeing now? bye bye Adam Smith, George Bush, in his last leg of Presidency, is doing what he might not have dreamt in his dreams -- nationalising major financial institutions, ones that formed pillars of the US economy...
so where is the scope for ideology? in a sense, this shows that nothing is really invincible... what would work is the question, since neither of the two have stood the test of time...
possibly a mix of the best of both... but who would bell the cat? who would suggest what is best? and who tests that, since it might only be a too costly experiment for which a running economy may suffer...
questions, questions... are there answers?
let me know, if you do...

smartness is the way up the ladder...

...of success, defined as fast forward jumps of an individual across the corporate hierarchy... and this need not necessarily be accompanied by any individual growth since corporate success has very different parameters... one has to talk glib, be savvy... these are the only USPs...
it need not abide by the gross right/wrong matrix, it can ride roughshod over small sentiments, pidly little assurances not kept...
in fact the smarter one is, the higher the chances that s/he will climb that much faster...
one just needs a thick skin and the guile to get one's way... and the rest will take care of itself...
i have seen many such people, who expertly turn arguments, change facts and allegiance in the matter of a moment... and they have moved up the ladder very fast... one simple reason is that they are not straight, they run with the leader and their values are suspect... but all these in the eyes of people who take words at face value and trust easily...

the days i am in love with myself...

1. i do not go back to bed after R has been packed off to school,
2. am at work early, by 7.30 am,
3. work methodically, as per a list i have drawn up the previous day,
4. do not go to bed for a snooze in the afternoon,
5. go for a walk alone on Corniche, after dropping R to her classes,
6. do not gorge/binge during a single meal,
7. read, read and read away the entire evening,
8. drop dead in bed by 9.30 pm, ready with the alarm the next day at 5.30 am.

we make an art of coordination

we, the working mothers of the world, who are trying our best to be a good Mom, an efficient professional and a good individual, all at the same time, really make an art of coordination...
we try to keep the children occupied, by some activity at home or outside, while trying to make it for the meeting in the evening and keeping an eye on whether we can do anything to help someone -- be it a lady who we have to help us in rearing the kid or someone we know in need to some help, need not be necessarily physical... could just be by way of bolstering someone's sagging morale...
there are countless occasions when i have tried to do all of the above... huury back home to be on time to select what dress R would wear for her violin classes on a Saturday afternoon (i used to work half day on Saturdays, those days), gulp down food to save time, pack in a book to keep myself occupied, drop R's nanny on the way to the nearest point where she could take a bus to visit het Mom (she could not visit her Mom on a normal working day, since her husband would not allow that!!)... rush to the violin class... and by the time i got time to breathe, i was far too tired to look at the book i had packed in...
the classes over, many days R was in a mood for an ice cream or plain outing and though i yearned to hit the bed after a shower, i would try to do it with her...
sometimes B would have to be picked up on the way...
and all this while, the next deadline for the Annual Report proofs which would have been distributed to various departments would be on my mind... and that would be mentally slotted for the first task for Monday...
now of course, R has grown up, she no longer stays with a nanny, has given up violin classes... but there is still a lot of coordination to do... and all of it in the mind... we make no noise while we are mentally juggling, trying to slot in as much as possible in as less time as is possible, bettering the effort every single day...
and mind you, most of this is done while our men are at work... they have no clue of of what is going on...
if B knows that i am feeling down and out with this mental task day in and day out, he will politely say, "why did you not tell me?" and believe me, if i tell him, it is 90% sure that he will have forgotten, since he has to multitask... then the grouse is, "why did you not remind me?"...
with such cooperation, i resolve that i will manage independently...

R Tagore and our R

it is a shame really that R knows little about Bong culture... the icons we grew up with... Ray, Tagore, Mrinal Sen, Ritwik Ghatak... are not even familiar names to her... she does not know who did what and what is their claim to fame, except that Tagore won the Nobel for Literature... and yes, we do have Sanchaita and Gitobitan, the two tomes of Tagore's poems that every Bong home has...
actually it is not her fault... when she was little, we were in Mumbai... relocated to Kolkata briefly to pack again to Delhi... again back to Kolkata and left for Muscat and then Doha...
am i making excuses for R? nope, for myself, trying to explain why i did not teach her to read and write the mother tongue... she speaks, since she learnt that at home... but it should have been us who should have taken the trouble to teach her to read and write the language... unless one reads in a language, how else is one expected to have any interest in what goes on within the culture...
here, we have fallen short... so no point in now getting annoyed when she is busy with some remix on her iPod while we are blasting a Rezwana Choudhury Bonya at home or in the car... she is not aware that this can be listened to as well... we have failed here... not she...
culture is a function of the place where one lives and grows up... R has constantly been moving, so she has no specific regional cultural values, except the broad contours of right and wrong, do-able/not-allowed, good/bad categories in mind...
to an extent, today's generation is growing with universal values, which means good in one way, but detrimental in another...
good that universal values get reinforced so many times over and bad that local distinctness gets lost...
i grew up in a home where Tagore was the staple of many discussions... many sang his compositions... there was an effort on the part of my parents to inculcate the habit of reading Tagore, listening to his songs...
B too had a somewhat similar background...
why did we fail teaching the finer nuances of our specific culture? is this not the way in which so many major currents get lost? YES... so why blame R?

so what that we fight?

i had to write this one... she, my colleague, prompted me to... i could have just commented and finished off... but i have tonnes to say...
we, B and I, have known each other for 24 years and he formally proposed 23 years back, been married for 17+... but till today, if we disagree on something, we fight and fight hard... it can be very acrimonious, very bitter... but we are still together and find nothing wrong in fighting... in fact, if we have an issue right now, we will fight again...
and over the years, i have received comments (read unsolicited advice) from relatives, friends and even acquaintances... ranging from, "why don't you accept what he says?", to which my retort remains, "that's the easiest thing to do... to accept... but i cannot and will not."... to "women should be more docile," to which, i frown and say it all... to "why not meet a lawyer"... to which i laugh...
to my mind, there are three patterns of marriages -- one, the traditional, where men rule, two, where women call the shots, and three, where it is between two equal individuals... i have the third type of marriage... so we fight, we make up, we fight again... and no, there are no cold wars, no enmity, no ill feeling, we both know in our heart of hearts that we are each other's well wisher... we have been like that, we are like that, will remain like that...
to a query from a colleague as to what we did in the Id holidays, i said, "we finished all the pending fights..."... he burst out laughing... but that is so very normal...
in fact, on the first trip back home after our wedding, Dad saw us bickering while entering... we pretended to be normal in front of everyone but i saw a sombre Dad and anticipated questioning...
he asked me, "what was all that?", referring to the heated exchanges... i coolly said, "that is the way we fight... normal." "fine if that is what you think as normal, but take care to do it in privacy". it is only this advice that i have heeded to...

face to a name

there is this strange and growing habit these days... while writing mails, i have a problem, if i do not know the person... rather haven't met the person... i have an issue recalling that mail later which is not the case if i have seen the person and have interacted...
is this normal? no idea...

what the mountains teach

what the Americans do, they not only do well, they scale up perfection to another level... grudgingly, and after long years of disagreeing, i have come to accept it now...
one book that i am reading now is The Best American Magazine Writing 2007... published yearly, the Editors sit together and scan articles from magazines that have a certain circulation figure and select the best in some categories -- profile writing, reporting, etc....
the reason why i have finally fallen for the Americans is not their glam or glitz... it is their objectivity... the brilliant pieces that this book has is keeping me totally enthralled... so be it the Beslan seige where the writer explains that for the entire period that the children of the seige, the children not only went without food, but without water as well... the only fluid they could take was each other's urine... or Reinhold Messner who learnt the basics of life and living from mountains which he climbed alone, without oxygen...
just two examples where, though removed from their continent, not only were stories commissioned (Beslan was a crisis, but Messner was a personality from Italy)... but they have also found a pride of place in an anthology...

what colour NOSTALGIA?

this is that time of the year when we (read Bongs) go overboard with a dreaded disease, one that has only symptoms, no cure... NOSTAGIA...
while Kolkata celebrates Pujas religiously (how much is religiousity, i know not), Bongs all over the planet seem to reek with NOSTALGIA...
about how they spent their younger days, what they ate, where they went, what they drank, what they wore, how those times were different... NOSTALGIA...
peek into any social networking site, and all the Bongs have painted their profiles in one colour... NOSTALGIA...
so you have the Bongs in the US many of whom who have already celebrated the Pujas last weekend and they are saying one word through their photos... NOSTALGIA...
but ask any of us, how much we really would like to go back and work there... all the NOSTALGIA vanishes... i see very few who stay in the city and love it...
i am clear on one thing... NOSTALGIA is fine when we, each and every one of us, can pack bags right now and get back there to stay and work...
if not, just get rid of the word and dump it... and have no NOSTALGIA for NOSTALGIA...

Winpop-ping vs pantry parties

there was this company i worked for which had Winpop, a software that pops up in a small window, on our desktops, an instant messenger that enables the colleague to tell you all that s/he desires, without having to budge from the seat...
i remember having drafted an entire resignation letter for a colleague on the Winpop...
the only danger is while on the Winpop, you have a desire to pee and leave your seat without telling your colleague at the other end, the secrets can be read by all who pass by your work station...
while that is a definite disadvantage, it can be used very well for bitching at work, while seeming to work (since you are glued to your PC) and does well to hoodwink bosses in a tight company, one that literally counts the number of hours you spend at the desk...
now, of course, the place i work for, does not count the hours i spend in front of my PC, so we use the pantry when we feel the need to open our hearts out... either way, it helps us to feel light... software or no software...

married women look different

why?, though i should need to qualify the fact that it applies mostly to India... in the West, men and women, who are married/engaged, wear a ring to show that they are committed, any which way...
for us, however, we go overboard... and mind you, it is only the women by looking at whom you know their marital status... we either wear vermillion on our forehead/head (a very pan-Indian phenomena) or the mangal sutra (a neclace made of black beads and gold, again spans the entire North and West), or some specific colour bangle (white and red for Bengal; green for Maharashtra), or a coloured cloth over the waist (in Sikkim, over the baku, their traditional attire) while our men do not need to wear anything as a sign of marriage... some exceptions wear the wedding ring, but as i said, they are fewer in number than who do not...
why this difference? why should only women look married?
we have been taught that if we sport the signs of marriage, the unison will be more peaceful, his health and wealth will be protected and the marriage will last longer...
shouldn't a peaceful and long-lasting marriage, which is a partnership, be the worry both men and women?
possibly, since women traditionally do not beget wealth, they do not need to be protected... and when was their health of any concern, anyway (if it was, India would be less populated, for sure)...
what i have not understood is: how can vermillion or a mangal sutra or a colour bangle help in keeping the marriage going? or protect the man? if the man is so invincible (again a product of the same culture), why should he need protection????
women, as usual, have gone on sporting the sign(s) of being married, without questioning... so it is odd when you have some, like me, who do not abide by such rules... except a bangle which could pass off as an ordinary adornment, i do not sport any sign of being married... and mind you, i do use the vermillion when i feel like using it as a cosmetic, or the mangal sutra that goes as an accessory...
i have been asked this many times and my retort, depending on my mood and who asks, has varied between a casual smile (meaning, i will not reply to your intrusion) to 'what does B wear for me?' (to those, who, i thought, needed to think before asking such silly questions)...
now of course, after 17+ years of sticking to my guns, i am left alone...

Sayonara Singur... you can sulk or agitate, it means nothing

Indian national, regional and the international media have catapulted Singur, a sleepy hamlet in Hooghly district, in West Bengal, India to fame, thanks to the Tata Motors factory that was to have rolled out the wonder $2500 car this month...
... we already have gone past the events and placed the factory to "was to have rolled out,"... in the past tense since Ratan Tata has announced that he is moving out of the State...
what this decision will do to Brand Bengal, time will say... because even the so-called Brand Bengal is the brain child of a political party that has to its credit, the singular achievement of closing down countless factories and plants.
who is to blame for this? well, Ratan Tata blamed Trinamool leader, Mamata Banerjee, which many, including Banerjee, have interpreted as being coached by the Left. If this is not far-fetched, what can be?
we more or less know what all have transpired between the impasse which started in late August... the Opposition led by Trinamool Congress started a dharna in front of the Tata Motors factory which was operational for the first three days, after which the Tatas issued a Press Release and closed the plant effective August 28, post which the Governor stepped in (an unpreceedented move in India's constitutional democracy)and put the two parties to a dialogue and coming out with a formula of settlement... the bickering continued, with each side accusing the other of having not met the terms of the formula...
while these bickerings will continue, what does it mean for the ordinary, average non-political man? without doubt, it is a jolt... a jolt to the dreams of working within the State and not moving out, of earning a livelihood staying at home, since the auto major would have brought a slew of investments by ancillaries... Tata Motors had even started the training of some young men and women for their forthcoming employment with them. While he did mention that these people will be absorbed wherever the new factory comes up, it is doubtful since it will clash with the new people whose land he will need to build the new factory, in some other State...
Mamata will continue her political life, the Left will try to woo someone else to come and build Brand Bengal to reality... hopefully, the latter will learn that land cannot be taken summarily and will involve the Opposition before sealing a deal in future, but what happens to those whose land has gone to the Tatas where they will not be able to farm and some member of the family is half-trained?
any answer Mr Bhattacharya? or Ms Banerjee?
hopefully, we will rememeber when we cast our votes next election and not swallow whatever they tell us, Left or Trinamool...

my bankers and me

this is a joke at work that i have a thingi (read soft spot) for bankers... my explanation is that, since i have for a long stretch worked for financial institutions, i possibly understand them better... but that has not stopped the joke from rolling on, so much so that after a heavenly time at a spa when i messaged my superior that i was on seventh heaven and cloud nine, she messaged back, "which banker are you with?"... this was fine... honestly, there was no grouse...

switch scene home... B receives a mail from our banker in India, addressed to Mrs B, that they are in the process of shifting the bank branch and we are requested to empty the locker since the bank will not be responsible for any loss or damage that occurs... while B sends a strong reply, cc-ing me in, threatening to complain to the banking Ombudsman since the bank, by its locker facility, is doing a custodial service and cannot absolve itself of responsibility, the banker calls me to say that what we meant by the mail was that if there are breakable items, the locker-holders need to empty the lockers and that security was his responsibility... he assures me, and i hang the phone on a high...

when i say this to the banker at home, B retorts, "he called you? Oh my God, flirting at this distance? i will still want a written reply and a call to my wife will not suffice"... he is not joking, but serious...

i am sandwiched... between two bankers, none of whom i can ignore... B for obvious reasons and that guy who has my locker, some investments... what am i to do??????

i am shocked and sad...

really... and for me, this is a rare combination which occurs when my belief in somebody i have known and respected is shattered... the shock is because that someone chose a path to becoming rich which, by any stretch of imagination, cannot be dubbed honest (so the major question in my mind -- why did he do so?)... sadness is because my repect for him was misplaced...
i am talking of a gentleman, X, who hailed from a Dalit (the lowest caste in India) famliy, went on to major in Economics, earn a doctorate from an Ivy League University in the US, returned and joined the apex bank of the country, rose meteorically, served in the IMF, is currently the VC of a University in India... this is all that i knew since i was a colleague of his wife, have been to their home, and have taken great comfort from her when R was a toddler and she used to advise me on the home-growm recipes to keep cough and cold away... i remember how we while leaving Mumbai for good, landed at her home since the company flat had to be handed over within office hours and the train would leave Mumbai only at night... i called her and she said, "do not go anywhere but to my home. you will have dinner and leave." we were relieved... she fed us, looked after us and saw us off from the city which was our first home and she broke down as the train left... that was in early 1998...
10 years back...

yesterday, we were home with an acquaintance and he too has come here from the same bank that the venerated gentleman, X, worked... this guy mentioned that X had a very tarnished reputation, that the home, in one of the poshest localities of Mumbai, was acquired by doubtful means, that the car they rode was a favour from someone else... i virtually dropped off my chair, could not believe my ears... since then, i have just been recounting all the times that i had met him, the brightness of the eyes, the scholarly look, the pride in his gait, all of it a great sham package... how? and why?... is this being worldly? is this being wise? then why create the aura? why the appearance of living life by values? why? why? why? why?...

participative reciprocity...

my take on this is that, while we try to learn and incorporate the local culture by not only observing their ways of life (which should be done, living as we are over here), we also try and read their literature to understand them better...
recently, i read Naguib Mahfouz's Palace of Desire...it depicts Egyptian culture so vividly that i felt like discussing Mahfouz with some Egyptian colleagues... in fact, one of the characters in the book was so much like a colleague of mine... and when i said so, he agreed whole heartedly...
but will they bother to read Tagore's Gitanjali? the parallels are clear... both are Nobel Laureates in Literature...
i have my doubts... we are far more accommodative, far more assimilative... that is what we have been taught and that is what we believe... whether or not others reciprocate...

am i getting anomie?

possibly, yes...
i love to be alone and i do not feel lonely... i love my own company and do not miss anyone else's... for me, life today is all that i do with myself... what i read, where can the next book come from, what i write, how well i do that (since that pays for my little indulgences in life), how i dress, how well i have slept yesterday night, rushing off for the after-dinner walks, what will i blog on next, where will the next vacation be (incidentally, India is no more a vacation i look forward to... it is more of social nicety which makes me tired beyond one week, no matter the great food, the familiar smells, the familiar sights, the famliar people)...
so i am happy alone, happy...i really do not have too many friends and do not miss having loads of them; am in touch with very few people from my past, carefully chosen and that is the way i would like it, brushing aside all attempts at being pried upon...
even the Eid break that we are having now, is getting me tired... since i am not getting enough me-time... so every now and then, i keep running to my books, without being able to concentrate fully... and that is making me irritated, impatient (what is new???), angry (is this new???)... i want to get back to my normal routine where the day moves in clock-work precision and i have my own things to do, in my own time and pace...
so next time there is a holiday, i will need to plan it differently... take a vacation, may be...

lump, what were you telling me?

was slightly late in getting back from work... R was home since her Eid holidays have started... i did meet her in the morning twice when i dropped her off for her Maths classes and agian dropped her back home...
to my surprise, when i got back, i saw a plate on the sink... it had the leftovers of a mini-meal that R had... was i seeing right?... i asked and she said, "i was hungry so helped myself to coriander chutney and rice?"... i felt a lump in my throat... was i happy or was i sad? happy because she felt hungry on her own? sad because she helped herself while i was late? happy because she is slowly becoming more and more independent, something that i had wanted so desperately when she could not move on her own? or sad because she was outgrowing me?...
i quickly gulped down my lump and served lunch... but the scene of my child home alone and helping herself to food has stayed on... though i still do not know why that lump came... what was it reminding me of? my inadequacy? my time up? my insufficient parenting skills? my... what?

my century... collars up!

this is to me or to you? not sure, i think we will share it since it started with me, but now, when i do not write, i get gentle nudges (why no posts? the lady who blogs infrequently and so on)... so it is to you too... let the happy partnership continue...

we are what we choose...

... to be or not to be... including what we choose to do by ourselves...
i have come across women of all sorts... women who make me feel proud that i am one of them, women who have made me happy beyond words, women who have made me feel ashamed that i am one of them, women who have made me cry with sadness/happiness...
category 1: women who are at home, but very very efficient home-makers, caring for everyone, making excellent food, looking after the sick, rejoicing when the children are small with their little successes, rejoicing when they grow up (and go away)... but basking in the glory of the husband (though not doormats), taking care not to waste his money, trying to economise on his money so that they have a better old age, sacrifice her desire for all else's, feel happy when others are... and let me tell you, this category of women are getting rarer by the minute...
category 2: women who are home, but are inefficient home makers, do not cook, do not care, do not care about others, do not economise on husband's money, bring up sloppy kids, do not sacrifice but make others do, exploit others, manipulate them to getting her way, crib endlessly, order around, are very demanding and get their way, are not earning and have no intention to, though if they tried, they could have, cunning so can pretend well enough... and let me tell you, this breed is increasing...
category 3: women who understand that they are better off outside the home than at home, cook when feel like, but makes sure that food is there for all meals, generally efficient, do not overdo their home-making skills, are realistic, take care of kids and husband, avoids waste, saves her money, tries to be a good mother-wife combo, tries to be a good human being, above all, is independent and is happy that way, does not crib, is guile-less and straight, refuses to be doormats... and let me tell you, this breed is increasing too...
then there are mixes and matches of the above, with a trait or two traded in or out... but the three above are the broad ones...
i have ready examples in all of these categories, but have not given them on purpose... take a little time to fix yourself in the category you belong to...no, you need not tell me, i will know if i know you... so enjoy alone...

handshake and hug over hilsa

this is a typical weekend scene at the hypermarket... yes, the hilsa can be substituted by bhendi, cabbage or car wash soap, but avid socialising happens on weekends where one is just supposed to go for business, i mean, something that has to be done...
i still haven't figured out why and how one can go beyond the customary hello or hi at the hypermart... i cannot, since i always am in a rush when i step in there since i either am between two tasks or am just struggling to recall what i have to buy -- i go only once a week... the hypermart is not a pleasant destination for me, i go because i have to... so i just need to finish all that i have in mind and am off...
i understand that for many that is the only destination they go to in the week... so it is an outing-cum-shopping-cum-socialising... and no, can't blame them either, but what i dread is getting caught by one such person while i am running at the store... the opening sentence is an accusation, "how come haven't seen me?" while i struggle with the explanation, tugged in with how they are, etc. (i can't go very much beyond this)...comes the next googly, "when is your next trip to India?"... i am unsure, since many a times, it is not yet planned... seeing my unsure answer, "oh, then you are having your in-laws here, am sure"... all these, while i am still strying to gauge the next question and preparing the answer in advance... while they fill me with all the details from their end, son gone to the States, daughter to Australia, we cannot decide where to go next, are we availing of the dsicounted fares to India and so on and so forth...
while i am tired and am waiting to escape, comes the last straw on the camel's back, "have organised a kitty on Thursday... come over with your daughter." i have foolishly attended one or two such parties, felt totally out of place...but now have become smarter and lie glibly, "i already have something lined up... am so sorry,"... i finally escape and am breathing light, so very pleased with myself... and my narrow escape.