14th april

hello world.....

This is the acceptance speech. The end of anger and denial. I accept that you and I will never be the same again. That while those days will live in my mind forever, they're over. I hate it. But I accept it. And I'm moving on now.....

peek-a-boo :)

Here i come again...desk stacked with a pile of papers, a horde of unwritten mails , a to- do list as long as my parrot green gypsy skirt and a perpetually disobedient mind. Well i guess this happens to the most constant and prudent of us sometimes..... but today "the other side of me" has absolutely decided to play truant. I keep on surfing irrelevant sites and giggling at all my collegues who are constantly giving me disapproving looks.
Hmmm.... lets see what would i have done today if not compelled to sit in this place for my daily bread and chocolate :)
1) Take a bus to some unknown destination with a W.H Auden book and listen to Green Day.. "Wake me up when September ends"
2) Happily consume a sizzling brownie with hot chocolate sauce oblivious to upcoming baby-fat attack.
3) Watch the sunrise... i know its not possible at 11.15 am but what the heck.... to watch the sunrise.
4) Braid my hair with yellow flowers
5) Sit near a huge fountain somewhere where the spray hits my eyes and feed pigeons.... ummm white pigeons...
I absolutely have to start working now... reality beckons.

Letters from iceland

I first came across exerpts from this book in the movie Away From Her. There was something strange and alluring about the language...thus began my obsession to find it. I searched crosswordz, Om book stores, Old delhi book bazaar only to be dissapointed. However being the strangely stubborn girl that i am... i didnt give up. I pestered my boyfriend at my regular intervals till he mainly to preserve domestic peace got it reprinted from the publisher(it had gone out of print). And what a treat the book is..... charmingly funny, irreverent and vivid...believe me its a sin to have it go out of print. Here goes....

Isn't it true however far we've wandered into our provinces of persecution, where our regrets accuse, we keep returning back to the common faith from which we've all dissented, back to the hands, the feet, the faces? Children are always there and take the hands, even when they are most terrified. Those in love cannot make up their minds to go or stay. Artist and doctor return most often. Only the mad will never, never come back. For doctors keep on worrying while away, in case their skill is suffering or deserted. Lovers have lived so long with giants and elves, they want belief again in their own size. .

I am lost in iceland.W.H.Auden rocks!

a note about d freewheeling laugh

friends, were you ever the victim of irrepressible mirth, convulsive laughter that creeps in at the most inoppurtune moments. Moments when you are supposed to be concentratedly focused on the enormous seriousness of the situation. You try hard to stifle down the little impish stream of giggles but they adamantly burst out noisy in thier uncaring abandon. It constantly happens with me like in.... labour law classess, convocations, poetry recitals, interviews and quite often in romantic interludes .... which sometimes leaves the other person quite mortified.
And how different is this laughter from the pseudo- pretty smile which i sport in my numerous photographs. I wear that smile as a part of my carefully assembled armour against God-knows-what and it is supposed to mean absolutely nothing at all. In fact i wear that smile when i do not care a bit about what is going on and want to show you, him, her and the rest of the world that it is, in fact very important to me.
So why is it that in all great classical paintings men and women are shown smiling perfectly and not laughing? Starting from Da Vinci to our very own Raja Ravi Verma the paintings have beautiful,peaceful,cunning,innocent,frivolous, holy,pitiful and wonderful smiles but i am yet to come across the truly thoughtlessly laughing face. How can we explain why great painters ruled out laughter from the realms of beauty?
The great artist Rubens once said "a face is beautiful beacause it reveals the presence of thought, whereas at the moment of laughter man doesnt think. "In the instant that man grasps the comical, he does not laugh; laughter follows afterwards as a physical reaction. Laughter is a convulsion of the face and a convulsed person does not rule himself either by will or reason. It is again the greatest unifier..... we differ from each other by our immovable features but in convulsion we are all the same.
On the sunny side i have seen many a quarrel ending when people give in to the dormant nudge of laughter. It is one of the few occasions on which i relax and completely forget about how photogenically disadvantaged my face looks and keep laughing till i can feel the salt of my tears against my cheeks. I am lucky to be in love with a man who appreciates the rich abandon of laughter more deeply than i do and hence i had more of these glorious moments in the recent past.But no more of this now. Customer Relationship Management class beckons and i must rush.... Have a laughably beautiful day.... cheers..

brand me new....

Last weeks Mint lounge triggered off this post. There is a columunist whom i regularly follow and she had written about how people mindlessly spend on brands to keep up appearences. It reminded me of a page in my international marketing book which mentioned about a drastic dip in the sales in United States of The italian Haute Couture trio.... a la Armani, Prada and Gucci because of a new govertment rule "all products substantially modifed/manufactured should carry the name of the location of modification/manufacture. Now scarves for all these brands are made in China ( chineese silk is of uncomparable quality) but the USA consumer market was not willing to pay premium prices for products with "made in china" labels. One lady commented " i dont care if they are made in CHina, it just should not say so in the label".
That got me thinking why do people buy brands? apart from the obvious quality issues which by the way are not always applicable a brand is for the most part a status symbol. More crudely put it is " look i am so rich i use xyz brand" . Now dont get me wrong.... i am all for " if you have it you have every right to flaunt it" but if the flaunting is primarily meant for "those other people" then maybe we need a crash course in " how 2 realize that u r supercool without any props " course. Point being dont be a pseudo person ( refer Catcher in the Rye'). If you enjoy jewellery go ahead splurge, wear a different piece every day. But carrying a hideous looking Louis Vitton brown handbag with ur head full of" i know its ugly but its L.v" thoughts is what makes you a psuedo person. If you dont drink , dont stand with a glass of bubbly endlessly ( u r cool anyways, remember :) . On the other hand if you really do like it, go ahead and have one on me.

joy de' vivre .... after d storm...

Dere was a big storm yesterday, here in d city of joy. Normally i enjoy windy dayss and i love the rains... but it was real scary yesterday. The windows in my office kept on rattling, making weird pseudo-ghost noises and the constant downpour had to be seen to be believed. My phone kept on ringing all day . As everybody called up, even some grumpy people who miss my birthday called up to warn me... Any ways i packed up at around 3.30 and started to leave. There were only three girls at the office. ( lemme explain i work in an hr consulting house and mostly everybody is away in client offices during office hours.) I waited for a slight lull in the rain and went out walking towards the nearby bus stop. Immediately the heavens opened up as if on cue... :( After which two things happened. 1) two straps on my uber- cool slippers broke. 2) the wind blew away my umbrella. ( dis 2 calls for an explanation, its fashion over convenience for me anyday and i am supremely indifferent towards the consequences.)
Anyways the umbrella was rescued from a nearby drain by a valiant knight without-shining- armour who happened to be standing there. The taxis were all whizzing past without stopping, buses were overstuffed to a d. I tell you , bollywood movie scenarios would not have been a match for yesterday. This is where i gave myself a pep talk.... " you can do it.. jst hold one of your broken slippers in one hand. climb up one of those overstuffed buses and GO home. you have to do it now. There is NO other choice." After 5 minutes of self- motivation i did exactly that. During the 40 minute ride home, the smell of sweat, the crushing crowd nearly made me gag. But i survived it... After that since the bus refused to go further because of a tree which blocked the way, i walked the rest of the way home.
I walked back barefoot in the rain looking like the lead actress from zee horror show but feeling strangely liberated. I always had a cocooned life... doting parents, caring boyfriend, protective friends everytime something unpleasant came up i knew somebody would take care of it. Well not anymore! Its still nice to have those somebodys around but i dont NEED them. I can take whatever life throws at me now, climb every mountain , cross every stream ( am i breaking into a song?)
I am free.... joy de' vivre :)

d return of d prodigal blogger...

It has been more than 4 months during my last post. There was a phase in which i used to voraciously blog and spent a sizeable portion of my time lost in the delights of blogger-bliss. Suddenly a new phase arose in which i used to think every alternate day.... i really should blog 2day.its been long.... However strong the spirit might be the flesh resisted and i lost myself in a thousand other things.
Here i am now , halfway thru my summer internship, doing some supposedly very important work, when suddenly i have this irresistible urge to open www.blogger.com. I am completely clueless about the rationality of doing this in my office where i am not supposed to open non official sites. ( if anybody from my office is reading.... then this is not me, but my identical twin .)
Anyways, chuck it.... what i wanted to say was friends did any of you ever have this strange inexplicable need to get away from a thing,habbit, activity or person which or whom you are closely attached to . Honestly, it happens with me all the time. Dating back to my childhood days when i used to hide my blue teddy under the bed after intervals of around 5 months of inseperability. I remember not even looking at it for days and then again going back... a picture of contrite repentance.
The teddy was very understanding though and didnt snap or bite me.... However in adult life i have to deal with bruised feelings and wounded egos quite often. It usually goes on till the time people either accept me for the person i am or unable to cope up with my periodic dissapearing act they do a permanent one of their own. So many times have i tried to straighten this random zig-zag behaviour but Claustrophobia with a capital C chases me away. This need for asserting my independence after i realize the rainbow theads of affection binding me pushes me and i retreat into " i am the female equivalent of the famous rubber band theory" kind of phase.
However as i was saying did it ever happen with any of you. After all my " i am unique, independent and dont follow the beaten track " declarations are over. Its nice to know that there is somebody in a similar looking boat.