Unconnected posts

When is one old enough to say NO? All the while when I was a kid I heard NO from every quarter. mostly amma :), teachers and random adults. I was so looking forward to growing up and saying No at will. 3 decades older though I am today, I can't say NO to a lot of people. I can't say NO amma ever (Emotional blackmail kicks off before i can even get to the vowel.) Saying NO to in laws is outlawed. You can't say no to dear friends and not so dear friends lest you hurt them. Thankfully I don't have a boss per se so i don't have to add him or her to this list. May be when I am a crabby 60 year old i can do that. But what's the fun? People will think am the senile old woman who just says no for the heck of it. I want to do it NOW. Even if people say am acting like a senile old woman who just says no for the heck of it :)

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I have been taking Miss T out a lot these days. Meeting people is part of growing up right? So I thought I should use this opportunity and meet Shruthi and Puttacchi. Whom I have known for sometime via the blog. I did meet them briefly a few years ago at the Just Femme Film Festival. So off we went. And what fun we had! Puttacchi was an absolute delight and she played a gracious host to little Miss T. Shruthi and I chatted on with no hesitance whatsoever. Didn't even realise that that we had stayed on longer than originally planned. I hope to do it again :)

S&P thank you :)

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I get to go out twice a week for a few hours, alone. And what a joy it is to be out on my own. I mean, as much as I love Miss T...it is so nice to be out and about. Drive my bike. Meet adults. Have adult conversations. There's a niggling bit of guilt of leaving the baby behind of course. But when I come back Miss T practically jumps into my arms with such squeals of joy that all the guilt vanishes away.

It has been nearly two years since I did things on my own. Little things like buying veggies from the market is a such a joy when you don't have to wait for someone to do it for you!

Here's to freedom. Even if it is twice a week :)

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In memory of M

It is so hard to talk about people in past tense. I cannot bring myself to say M is no more without a quiver. A young boy, all of 23 is suddenly no more. He went on a trip to Coorg this last weekend and he never returned.

He was the sweetest of VM's friends. The one that stood the test of time for 20 years. I met him only a handful of times. But he was part of our lives. I knew what college he went to, what course he studied. What kind of friends he had. I knew it all. He came for my wedding and very thoughtfully gave me a rolling pin set. I met him 2 months ago at Amma's place. He was a part time professor, an insurance agent and a tax consultant of sorts. At close to 6 feet I told him he was growing too tall for me to look up. He promised he wouldn't grow any taller.

I always asked him if I couldn't find the right Kannada word for some English word. He never said a harsh word to any one. He once went to play cricket with VM and someone used a foul word and he said "nanagu intha maatu aaDodakke barutte soujanyakkoskara naan aaDolla. aadrinda dayaviTTu intha maatu aadbeDi" (Even I can use those words but I don't do it out of courtesy. So please refrain from using such language) That was M at 20. He was our reference point for goodness. So much so that VM and I worried how he'll survive in this harsh world.

He's on my Orkut list of friends. What do I do with it? His profile says "multi-oriented, multi-spaced, multi-tasked ,multi-chirpy, multi-faceted personalitied M. Ever welcoming multiple friends.........!"

How will his parents come to terms with their only son's death? If it hurts me so much. I can't even imagine how much pain is there in those two hearts.

He was going to take up research, do PhD, probably find a girl for himself....Death never comes at a comfortable age!

Time Machine

Oh its such a delight to bump into old friends. Friends who you shared the laughs with, some who cried with you, some who helped you tide over, some one you thought was cute but had no courage to tell him so just said hi...it is always a pleasure:-)

But there's one thing though. Sometimes you realise that you and she have nothing in common but that thread of friendship shared many moons ago. You try very hard to work that enthusiasm back to see the magic happen again. Not always succesful. A friend of mine had a fine analogy (if I can call it so) for such relationships. He said we put memories and people associated with those memories in time capsules. We like to look at them as often as we can but we can never recreate the moment.

He said that many years ago, now he is part of my time capsule and I am guessing I am part of his for our conversations are not the same but always manage to have a good conversation because of the bond we shared back then.

Time capsule or no it is fun to talk about old times (its crazy how much of old times I have to talk about with so many different people...man I am getting ancient!)

New role.

I just realised that none of my girl friends had to go through the rigmaroles of an arranged marriage. I mean seeing the guy, meeting the family, having to decide about a lifetime in less than 30 minutes. Needless to say neither did I. Where as all the guy friends have. Strange! Considering the common belief that men have more freedom than women when it comes to marriage. I have my own theories about this phenomena but that's for another post. Why am I thinking about it now? Well last of my bachelor friends is looking for an alliance and I've decided to help (Of course his family is more likely to succeed than me). But I've realised (not for the first time) that I have no clue about doing this in a conventional way. Firstly you need to know his caste, sub caste, gothra (don't ask me what that means), star, does he have a horoscope or not. Secondly you need to find out the extent to which he / his family is ready to relax the caste and sub caste fundas for the girl. I can tell you these details can fill at least one page.

And have you tried registering in any of the many matrimonial sites? It is certainly not as easy as signing up at a job site. They have so many incredibly baffling details to be filled it is exhausting. But the toughest part is describing the guy. I mean if I was telling a friend about him I could but to tell an absolutely strange web audience is very daunting. I am in awe of men and women who have put up such details on these sites, most of them have even put up their pictures (a site said that you have ten times more chances of someone responding if you put your picture up). I couldn't do it for my friend let alone for myself. Anyways for now I have put up his profile and hoping for the best. I've never played cupid before and very jittery at the thought of bringing two people together for life.

Friends came along.

We held hands together and walked all day
We saw everything there was to see there
We parted only when our parents came to pick us up
You were my first best friend in all the six years of my life

Then he came along, told me stories of things I didn’t know of
I spent more time with him, and saw very little of you
You too moved on to the front of the class, to another friend
We lived on without bitterness and heartaches with new friends

I stepped into the world of adulthood, I never saw you again
But friends came along, some instant relationships that lasted
And some slowly and steadily made their way into my life
There was laughter, happiness and few tears on the way

Then came the crossroads of life, we parted ways to meet our lives
With promises to keep in touch, very few of them fulfilled
But friends came along, adding new shades to the heart’s colours
Opening worlds that I didn’t know existed, I took it all gladly

This time it was romance that came in the way of friendships
Leaving gashes on the heart, though filled with love, it still hurt
We got busy setting up our own worlds, with love, happiness and hopes
But friends came along, bringing their part of the world to mine.

One not so regular Sunday evening.

One evening. Nine friends. Some old some new. Old memories refreshed, new ones formed. Some familiarity some shocking revelations. One harried week forgotten in one evening. Some wine, some Vodka, blueberry cheesecake and yeah football too.

Flavour the season.

What else but Football. I mean a bunch of football enthusiasts in a remote village in Assam have bought a colour TV for the village to watch the world cup and lo behold Brazil is their super favourite. Why should I be left behind? However I have to confess that I come from the family of Cricket crazy (surprise surprise). I am used to staying up late and listening to radio commentary and in later years fight with my mother to let us watch cricket instead of buniyaad and tea time matinee (yeah yeah yeah I am not from your cable tv generation I've seen black & white television and used radio for infotainment even before that word was coined). I watched every single match even ranji and our local gully tournament in my days. I lost all interest in it later over the match fixing controversy.

Football I knew very well. Not because I watched the game but because studied it for my Physical Education exams. Yes, I had a mad teacher who insisted we learn the rules of all games possible. The fact that both my parents were obsessed with sports didn't help either. Let me clarify that my mother later traded it for soap operas and tear jerkers (I seriously dunno why though). Coming back (!!!!!) Football I knew well but didn't follow too much of it. But all that changed during the last world cup. It wasn't a football crazy boyfriend or a wild football crazy friend's party that changed it all but my job. I was at the time beginning to be a journo and the only job my news editor trusted me with updating the ticker for the news channel I worked for. So it was my duty to run across two hallways avoiding the hurricane of producers running in the opposite direction, make a steep right turn bang into the chair on the left (every single time) and update breaking news. So when world cup started I had to keep track of the games and update the ticker. And I fell in love with the game. Ronaldinho stole my heart with that back flip goal of his. I nearly cried when he got the yellow card (or was it red?). And the excitement it caused in the otherwise mundane office life of ours was just mind blowing. The hurricane of producers running against me would stop for a second to ask "goal? Who hit?" and get back feeling a little better about their lives. It changed my life. It brought back sports into my life, after the exit of Cricket. And Now I watch all matches irrespective of who is playing and whether or not the players look hot. (pssssst all of them look hot btw)

Now the world cup is back. I actually am wishing I was in Bengal, Kerala or even Arunachal Pradesh where they go openly mad about this game and wouldn't mind a madcap woman losing it in public. I've done it Arunachal with a bunch of Monpa women for company for an inter-district game!

Any one for football party anywhere please let me join you. I will even tolerate the beer but please let’s see some excitement for the master's game. Lets put up large screens, paint (y)our faces and pay our respects.