The Dark Cloud

A 7 year old widow, who never got to know her husband or even his full name or age for that matter, she is not aware of what it means to be a widow other than having to shave her head & wear white clothes. Somebody for whom life’s clock stopped at 7, who will have to live a sacrificing life because that’s what fate had in store for her. She didn’t cry when her husband died, because she knew deep down somewhere that’s what she has to do for the rest of her life now. From now it won’t be like she didn’t have a husband in her fate, but rather she won’t be having a fate at all!
It’s not some bad dream I had, but the gist of Deepa Mehta’s movie “Water”. For those who haven’t watched it yet, I won’t kill the fun by giving out the end; it is after all the most positive detail of the movie. This movie brought me down, made me feel how ungrateful I have been all my life for the independence, education, freedom, equality & above all love I have been taking for granted. How I always thought it was my right to have all this & even much more! It is the irony of our society where we still have such innocent gals living life as if they die with their husbands & in the blessed lanes of some bright lit suburbs, girls celebrate women’s day by forwarding messages, sending cards, cutting cakes, buying gifts for their sisters & moms ending the day by watching Ekta Kapoor’s soaps. Can this possibly ever change?

Pet name saga

When I was a kid, I thought giving me a pet name was the silliest thing my parents did to me. I mean hello, I had such a unique name but hardly anybody in the family knew about it! Just 3 years ago I met Balaji, a good old neighbor in New York & he introduced me to his wife by my pet name, I could not believe myself but I felt special. In retrospect, I think pet name reminds me of the time when life wasn’t so formal, serious or complicated for that matter, when nobody knew about ipods or blogging. Pet name also makes a point that you are not the same person to everybody. Today I am glad I have a pet name & when somebody calls me by it, I know that person is from inner family circle or reminiscent of childhood days. I regret the fact that I didn’t let my brother have one, because at that time I thought it was very silly to have pet names.

What is you sarcasm quotient?

Read everywhere how Amar Singh is pissed of at SRK for picking on him at some award ceremony. Personally I saw the function in bits & pieces & I thought SRK was as witty as he always is & whoever he picked on was all in good humor. But hey that’s just me & I have a dark humor side as well. Just the other day I was in a conference at Suzuki & the speaker called me “sophisticated”. I replied,” of all the names that people have called me, this hurt me the most!” He thought it was witty & he also said that anybody who can laugh at himself has it easy in this world. Later I thought more over his words & thought how true it was. People in general hate sarcasm because it’s not so sugary sweet, well folks so isn’t life. I will be wrong however to generalize this comment, I have met so many people who had this sarcastic sense of humor & they cracked me up.

Just day before yesterday, Sanjay told me Ganguly was playing good but was batting slowly, I asked him,” does he know it’s one day & not a test match?” well I am a mean person when it comes to humor, but this post doesn’t have to be all about me. I would like to use this as an open thread activity, for you all to quote your best sarcastic comments till this date! Any mockery is most welcome!

Incorrectly Practical

Where I grew up, all I was taught consciously or sub-consciously was to become a practical person on some front or other all the time. More so on the career front & just life in general. Then we go to school, learn like 18 years of math & science & become far more dry (engineer like?) or practical. Again, I cannot generalize it but I represent my mind here & that’s quite what I am like. Everything has to be practical, calculated & correct. Only a couple of years ago, I started thinking just the other way; OK, so now I am on the safer side of life (atleast that’s what I like to think), a little settled, a lot independent & mature, why not take a few decisions on impulse now? Why not just follow pure passions? Only then I realized that life was all about fighting between the mind’s impulses & practicality of the real life. Later, the mind trotted into areas like responsibilities; financial & social, commitments, insecurities et. al. How could I blow up everything for some impulse trance? Does it mean, if I follow my instincts, I would give up the control over my life? Ironically is it not that when we give in to passions, we breathe freely? Certainly giving in to passions does not mean being irresponsible. Is it why when we see those eccentric painters, sculptors, scientists we think they look like psychos? On the other hand, they are one of those few blessed individuals who give in to their passions, don’t care for what people think is right or how they look, they don’t let the world control them, but they have a complete control of their world. Yes they don’t have a normal family life or social life, but then they have to achieve so much more in one life & they know mundane things will be taken care of by nature.
And so what if I don’t have passions as defined as these people have, I can always make a few impulsive decisions like buying a Mustang over a Civic, or taking a job which pays $10K lesser. The more I think I about it, the more I feel that not everything has to be right from worldly standpoint. If this post makes any sense at all, it’s OK to slip onto instincts every once in a while!