Man as Beast?

yesterday didn't start well at all....my mom said that she saw the neighbor beating his 2dogs with a leather belt...the poor things are kept tied up together in a metal cage almost all the time only to be let out for this I suppose.... that leaves me with a question...does such inhuman behaviour give me the right to correct/educate him? Or am I as worse than him because I cringe inside but am scared/don’t walk over and do something about it..it’s almost the same when you are confronted with a wife-beating neighbor I suppose….do you say, “It’s their personal matter” and swallow your guilt or do you try and do something about it and deal with the consequences….

It’s not only this incident which has got me thinking….there has been a spate of news reports about cruelty towards tigers…I saw a video clip of villagers beating a pregnant, senseless tigress mercilessly…isn’t the word humane actually supposed to embody all the qualities something of a ‘higher’ species is supposed to embody- kindness, love, understanding of each other’s differences leading to tolerance?.....

Ok all this venting has to do with issues closer home…literally. My aunts who live downstairs have got a dog. Rather younger aunt rescued her from her previous owners who under fed, ill treated and chained her up all the time. The problem is that older aunt hates pets. She can’t stand anything that is not chained or caged. My parents don’t want a pet. Especially since we lost our own pet to cancer. And that is very painful. So all hell has broken loose. Nobody wants her. And in the middle of all this, I have fallen madly in love with her. She is so docile, is very cuddly and loves to sit in my lap…..I'm super scared and I don’t want her to go….

gift horse with rotting teeth, bad breath

what do you do when a loved one gives you something like this:

It's what we used to call a 'Mother Hubbard' sweater back in college. You know ribbed, buttons down the front and looking like my cat had bad fish last night. The biggest problem though is that it was given to me by my brother. Probably the one person who knows me the most. Which explains why I am so upset.

Does my brother know me so little to think I would willingly submit to be seen in something like that. Its a scary and life altering thought. And like with all good intentioned but out of place gifts, I have only one choice. I grin and carry wear it to the bus stop every morning, take it off there and put it back on the walk home from the bus stop.

Why do people give bad gifts? What makes an aunt believe that you will actually wear the light green salwar she has given you for your birthday when light green is the absolute last colour that goes with an Indian skin tone? Or what is the rationale behind bum chums gifting you a top 3 sizes too small because its 'sexy' and are then aghast that you don't fit into it. Or well meaning colleagues who gift you a purse made out of what feels like 'Original Lion Fur from the African Saharas' which you are forced to carry while your vegetarian-animal loving soul dies a thousand deaths....

No I'm not a material girl. I'll love you if you give me a 5 buck Cadbury's chocolate for Valentines Day and I'll love you even better if you don't give me anything. After all, its the thought, that matters. And with most people, I wish the gifting instinct stayed at that...

So existentialist question. Is there some kind of larger force at play that makes it necessary for all bad gifts to be gifted to me? Or do you have a better story?

...I'm It now!!

This is from Santozz's tag.....Really enjoyed doing this so J, yours next :)

What is the oldest / first memory you carry :

1. Of your Mother: This has to be my oldest memory…me bawling my head off because my mom was leaving for work…I must have not been more than 5 I think…my maid carrying me and standing in the middle of the street staring after my mom…I’m guessing she was scared because I remember howling really, REALLY badly….Of crying: Being slapped by a classmate in kindergarten because I, as monitor, refused to let him into the classroom during the break…

2. Of your father: My dad bathing me when I was little. He used to scrub me so hard I used to cry and that used to annoy my dad very much!!…

3. Of School: This involves another member of my family!! Pesky kid that I was, I used to always insist on hanging out with my older cousin sister and never my own friends in kindergarten. One day I insisted on sitting with her for lunch and her friend was like, “Why does she always come here” and everyone started laughing…

4. Of a fight: Around Class 5, I outgrew the shy phase and became a total tomboy. I had this huge tussle with this other girl in my class once. We both pushed each other around the class till the bell rang to signal the end of lunch. Best part is, we were both laughing because it was so much fun….

5. Of a lie you told: My earliest memory of this is from when I was in Class 4 or 5 telling my Hindi teacher that I had left my homework at home when in fact I hadn’t done it. Combination of being a goody two shoes plus being a painfully painfully tongue-tied kid meant I still remember the “I so don’t believe you” look she gave me even today…

6. Of a vacation: Endless summer holidays spent in the sun, with the sand between my toes eating raw mangoes at my grandparents house in Kolar and asking my cousins to make me whistles out of the leaves of this particular tree…

7. Of laughing: Sadly very few memories (early) of laughing out loud. Guess I was a melancholy kid.

8. Of a class-mate: There was this guy called Ian who was in my kindergarten class. I think I used to be madly in love with him. As usual though, I was too shy to ask him to be my friend or anything so don’t think anything came out of it.. :)

9. Of a relative: My granddad used to teach in my school and some of my earliest memories are of him buying me sweets from our tuck shop.

10. Of a Teacher: My kindergarten teacher Mrs David, who was so strict she used to scare the shit out of us. We had a little room where she used to keep rabbits. The stench in that room used to be unbearable but once in a while, as a treat, she used to allow us into the room to see the rabbits. One brownish white and one white.

11. Of your Brother / Sister: This is the hardest…too many memories jumbled up inside my head of my brother….always remember him being very possessive though…

Is there an eHow on meeting men?

went out for drinks the other night with some of my colleagues...so there was me, Colleague 1 (Indian female), Colleague 2 (Male Chinese-American) and Colleague 3 (Male American). Bear with me on these minor details, its very essential to my story. So we were discussing amongst other things, about meeting someone 'nice' in a pub....

Colleague 1: What would you do if someone walked upto you in a pub and tried to ask you out....

Me: Umm... if it was an Indian guy, I would completely freak out...

Colleague 2: So...what does an Indian guy do to meet girls...

Interesting thought…now take that, turn it on its head and ask yourself…”What does an Indian girl do to meet a boy”?...

As usual, I volunteer to be the lab rat…and as usual I happen to have experience in the futility of trying to meet boys in the ordinary course of life….read on…

Some time back, this rather interesting looking type (tall, shaved head, nicely built) walked into the cubby next to mine….we made eye contact….he left, only to come back to have a rather ‘by the way’ conversation with her while we had a more meaningful one over my colleague’s head….I was seriously intrigued… but my guardian angel is clearly napping on the job…. I bumped into him some time later and this time his large wedding band didn’t escape my notice…..

Boy No 2 happened somewhere around then….he’s on my bus back home. Except he always gets in after me...Which means I can’t go past him and toss my hair in his general direction or accidentally meet his eye...He gets off one stop before mine…so I can again only look at him from afar….now the other day my luck was shining on me…or so I thought….I had managed to get a window seat….he got in right after….and took the seat at the window across the aisle from me….should have been easy-peasy from there….except for this guy who walked up, sat next to him, opened his newspaper and simultaneously tried to read it from REALLY up close and block out the sun….i read that as a divine sign and gave up…..

and no, there hasn't been anyone even vaguely interesting since....

I have clearly missed out on something vital here....any ideas....

Notes to myself...

read Hugh Prather's 'Notes...' many years ago first and thought it super corny. Re-reading it again now and although some of it is still corny sounding to me, it has also set me thinking....so here are my notes to myself....

Love your God. I have questioned my faith over and over again when I was faced with some of the worst phases of my life. But there has been light at the end of my tunnel. And I am grateful. Loving god makes you humble.Makes you able to laugh at everything and gives you a mint fresh perspective on life.

The truth does set you free. I have heard about convicts on death row who swear by this. Normally I wouldn't have thought that this would rank so high up on my notes. Nothing liberates you like the truth. It takes a moment of pain to face upto the truth and a lifetime of sleeping well at night!

Love. Yeah, I am getting corny now but love with all your might. Your family, your friends, life. Wear your heart on your sleeve. Love even if it means having to wait to be loved back. Or not being loved back at all.

Love your family. Being a horribly rebellious teen, I missed out on so many years of being close to my parents. The no of years directly equalled the no of stupid mistakes I made. Irrespective of that, they love me with such a fierceness, it brings tears to my eyes sometimes. And I know no matter what, they are the ONLY people I can really count on when it matters the most.

Adopt a pet: When it turns out to not be your day AT ALL, go home and hug your pet. Has worked for me.

Start each day with an open mind. Yesterday I judged a theatre competition. Today I chatted with a person on the bus I have seen for over a month now but never more than smiled at. Small things that I would have missed if I had set myself a 'grand plan' for leading my life. Take each day as it comes. Yes, its about finding time to stop and smell the roses.

...there are so many more notes that I could add...but this is a work in progress and is what I hold dear as of today... As I face each new day, I'm sure there will be a new note waiting to happen....

shame shame.....

haven't posted in a while...work has been crazy....but had to take time out to do this since i have this disquieting feeling which i know won't go away otherwise....

i watched the news with horror the other day as a bunch of ppl in Andhra Pradesh mercilessly beat and stripped a woman accused of killing her husband, all while a crowd of nearly 100 or so looked on.....this isn't the first time that something of this sort has happened in India i know but the fact that i got to watch a video of it was like a punch to the stomach.....i couldn't sleep well that night just wondering what kind of life that woman has to look forward to....

this is not something that only happens in rural India of course....case in point, the group of men who molested and groped the 2 women in Juhu on New Years' eve. Or the girl who was kept captive and repeatedly raped in a guest house in Bangalore. Then again the jury's still out on that one so its not fair on my part to comment.....

what is it that allows ppl to let their baser instincts out where women are concerned. i'm not even talking about women being mistreated at home or by their own families. that is another issue in itself which i don't want to touch upon here. what bothers me most is that suddenly women are not safe anywhere anymore, anywhere. everyday there's a story in the news of another woman being molested. and it's not a case of 'boys will be boys'. in fact in the video i saw, it was a man who finally came forward to cover the woman up...

read this commentary in the papers the other day and i think this is why i suddenly feel so scared...Its no longer enough if a woman stays away from so called unsafe situations or places...The fact is she is threatened even in ordinary situations, and more often than before....

are we as a society becoming more lenient? refuse to take the blame anymore? it always has to do with her clothes, where she was walking or if all else fails, its the media's fault....take the case of the boys who were photographed molesting the women in Juhu. They hold a press conference accusing the media of blowing things out of proportion and wrongly framing them, then meet Raj Thakarey who declares them innocent and demands that they receive an apology...

someone give the man a medal quick......

Some reason why it's called men-o-PAUSE?

so we all know how men are accused of having one thing only on their minds....but conversations I have had over the last one week have suddenly brought home the fact that we women are no different....We have one thing on our minds all the time too....

2 day before New Years, friend lounging by the pool
My friend is someone who gets super annoyed if you try to talk to her while she is messaging... (Hey, I can do only one thing at a time you know) That day though, she was busy reading, listening to music, eavesdropping on the girls next to her discussing some boy, checking out the 2 cute boys lounging on the other side of her AND messaging me to say that she had found the perfect boys for the 2 of us (Tall and slightly rakish for me, geeky good looks for her)......

New Years eve, airport lounge, me and girl friend
I realise she has been nudging me in the ribs for the past 3mins. Her tongue is doing a clean sweep of the floor as she ogles hot bod in white t-shirt. As if on cue, he decides to change in the middle of a busy airport into something even more figure hugging. By now, I think she was already wondering what to name their kids... Till his girl friend walked up... I could only silently offer her my shoulder to cry on....

3 mins later, her elbow in my ribs again. This time she's eyeing pilot boy.
Me: Eh....why you looking the other way if you are trying to catch his eye?
She: I'm playing hard to get.....
Me: (Silence--how could I try to explain that its not playing hard to get if the other person doesn't know you even exist?).......

3 mins later she suddenly decided he didn't seem too hot....i dunno.....

New Years Day, me online with female friend
She: So he messaged saying its the new year and we must make a fresh start...
Me: Eh...didn't he say the same thing last year??...
She: Yeah...but you know its different this time....

Couple of days later
Close friend I haven't spoken to in a really long time calls me out of the blue. Her 2min conversation is to tell me her boss was getting married. The same one she had tried to set me up with while denying she had the absolute hots for him.....

Women, it seems to me, spend a lot of time thinking about men. Wondering why they are such b***ards for calling too often, for not calling often enough, for being too committed, for not being committed enough....read this quote somewhere...All women are emotional bastards...and considering we obsess about men all the time it pretty much sums up the situation I think.....

Which leaves me wondering .....is there some point at which women stop obsessing about men? Will I ever be forced to deal with a situation where my I catch my mom saying..."Oooh nice!!"....or is there really a reason why they call it men-o-PAUSE?...... ummm......

Am I blowing this out of proportion?

so I'm talking about smoking and in that content I guess the subject line is a little corny but the first thing they teach u in J school is to always have a catchy line which will attract the attention of your readers. So. And as usual i digress.

Here I talk about smoking in general and women smokers in particular. I know the talk. Smoking causes cancer, it ages your skin, stains your teeth, women smokers have it worse blah blah blah. None of this bothers me too much because I know my limits and never smoke more than 2 cigs a day. What does get my goat however is the way people react when they see a girl smoking. Agreed, the average Indian woman does not smoke and so it must be a little out of the ordinary to see one smoking openly. The average Indian woman also does not have the privilege of going upto the local chai-kada and stand around smoking. I accept all of this. As much as I am a rebel-without-a-pause at heart, I'm also practical. I don't expect a patriarchal society to really accept a lot of things, especially those considered 'manly'.

What I hate is that I don't have the choice to do so when I want to. I smoke not because of some need that I have but because I like to. I work in a campus with 16,000 other people and I was the only girl smoking. I ignored the weird looks initially but today is Day 2 that I have quit smoking... Again, its not being able to if I want to rather than actually being able to that bugs me. What happens when I wake up on a lazy Sunday morn and feel like a smoke? I can't excuse myself like my bro does now to "just go up the road". There is no where to go. And I realise that it is not just just a smoking thing anymore but has become this whole emotional thing now.

Did a google search. 75% of men said they did not like a girl who smoked since it felt like inhaling stale smoke. None of them however talked about what their girlfriends said when they smoked. Not surprisingly, most of the opinions online (both men and women) were skewed against women smokers. How it is not 'done' and blah blah blah.... But there was this one girl who completely summed up the entire thing in these lines....and I'm hoping there are more people who think like her.....

When I see a girl/women smoking I think she is either low class, high class, a hoar (sic!), a virgin, a lonely single woman, a happily married CEO, a total addict, a frivolous spender, an alcoholic, a con artist, a school teacher, an artist, deep, naive, unhealthy, on a diet, a coffee lover, foreign, self-destructive, unhygienic, classic, a joke, daring, ordinary...

...and a brilliant New Year!!

so i succumbed to the demands of the populai and decided to pay insanely huge amounts of money just to be able to have a non loser-ish answer to the eternal question, "So wot did you dooo"?... i refer of course to New Year's....

I have realised that of all my holidays, the only ones I have EVER enjoyed are the ones involving sun, sand and surf. Although my holidayness is restricted to Pondicherry and Goa at the moment... Velankani was an exception but that experience was so traumatic I prefer not to go into the minors of that.

Maybe it is the calming effects of a brilliant clear blue sea. Or the luxurious feeling that comes with a $1000 per night room, which since you haven't paid for it, seem even more luxurious. Or lounging in what my friends call my 'skimpies' (never mind I nearly passed out from all the trying not to breathe thing). Maybe its just the feeling of knowing its ok to have no plan at all....so I'm back from holiday, v refreshed and ready to take on this new year.....

Made a couple of resolutions for the new year. I quit smoking. But today is Day 1 since and I have already discovered a smoking buddy.... bad girl....I have resolved to hit the gym in right earnest... And yes I will drink less coffee and stress less...wait that's last year's resolution.... ....Listened to this horoscope thingie this morn on the radio and the lady said that all matters of the heart will take a back seat and my career will come to the forefront....umm... seeing how I have so much to look forward to this year, I think I will go with this particularly Goan (I think...) custom before the New Year...make an effigy of all that I hated both in myself and the world around me and burn it...so that I am ready to start the year on a fresh, optimistic note: