100th Post!!!!!

Yipeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.... this is my 100th post.... I am so thrilled about having achieved such a milestone.... and all those who leave comments on my blog will get a personal thankyou blog!!!

Talking about popularity, I think my blog is one of the least viewed... as in apart from a handful of people my blog pretty much continues to reside in the vast backlog of blogs... so when I see other blogs who have like 5000 visitors in 3 months I am like- how do they find out about this blog? Hmm...

But like my friend said- my blog is not intended to feel popular...it is intended to be a conversation with invisible friends..... and that is the way it shall be.....

Having said all that, I am not all averse to people leaving comments on my blog about how much they like it or not... just a bit of self indulgence....

Back to the blues

Okkk it seems that blue day is back... cos I was told that I will never be able to afford a private jet and fly out to Paris for a day.... that chocolate is beckoning me again....

but the good part is that I am going to have breakfast with baby george tomm.... since he is already flying around the room in my arms I am sure he will definitely be in a sunny mood.....

Sunny Days

Well today it is back to sunny days... and yes I did eat a chocolate y'day when it was one of those terrible "stormy" days.....

Things that make me go blue

Just like any normal person I go through my share of "phases"

First there are the normal "sunny" days where I am at my cheerful best... I feel as if the world is full of opportunities, life is great, people are great, I am the luckiest person in the world blah, blah, blah..... and then there are the mellow "rainy" days when all I feel like doing is gazing into the vast expanse of nothingness and contemplate my journey through life, my place in the world and the place of people in my world... and then there are the terrible "stormy" days when I feel like my life is a total blackout and ponder over how I could ever be happy again- most often these days usually end up with me eating a chocolate and feeling good at having eaten something forbidden...

Usually my blue days are triggered by very mundane things... something like my mom not understanding why I live my life the way I do and making her problem my problem, or my sister being sad for some reason, or if I have not slept properly, or if I have not been able to take christy to Atria Mall, or if a really close friend says something mean..... sometimes I cant really explain the reason why I am blue...

Needless to say today is one of those blue days....I have not slept for day... have not met anybody for days... have not eaten home cooked food for dayyyyyyssss... have not met baby george for days...... ... I need to do something drastic now.... like go and stay in a place without electricity for a week, or just throw my phone into the sea and not be contactable for a week (all the ensuing attention will definitely make me feel great ), or just splurgeeeeee on a private jet and fly to Paris for a day and come back... something so drastic that I am shocked back into normalcy.....

Hmmm...

Love Stories

I am sitting up at 12:30 in the morning cos of work... and usually when I am all alone I start thinking about the weirdest things...

For instance today the topic that is paramount in my head is love stories!!!.. I am a secret sucker for great romantic love stories... I love hearing stories about how strangers met each other, fell in love, and lived happily ever after.... so in a crowd Iam usually the first person to grill a newly married couple about how they met.... and almost to the point of appearing like a person who doesnt have any romance in her life, I just keep bombarding them with questions- "so what did you think of him when you first saw him?" or "so did you know at the start itself that you were meant for each other?" (yeah, stupid I know) or "when did you realise that you cant live without her?" etc etc... and now looking back I must have appeared like an eager fool... like someone living vicariously through other people's lives....

But none of that is true... I would be equally interested in a love story even when my own love story is at its peak... I just love love stories ... it warms my heart... oh come on! it warms your heart also....

what is the most beautiful love story I have heard??

Well it definitely is not Romeo and Juliet.... I mean I find it extremely impractical .... and needless to say it teaches gullible youngsters the wrong thing about love....

on the other hand Eric Segal's Love Story is quite decent.. when I read it for the first time at 19 I cried for poor Oliver... I bawled at the thot of Oliver having to live without Jenny for the rest of his life.... wouldnt every road remind him of her? How would he move on in life? ofcourse now that I am in my thirties I realised life does go on.... but the story is really touching in many ways... to feel that sense of loss for someone is indeed a very powerful feeling....

another love story is the story of Doctors, once again by Eric Segal... two best friends falling in love after having gone through all relationship issues with other people... in a way you want them to get together but at the same time you are wondering whether their friendship will be spoilt cos of that.... well it is a book so I am just going to keep assuming that they never fell out of love....

ofcourse there are other love stories I will always cherish in my heart like the "Far Pavillions" by MM Kaye.... the romance of a white man falling in love with an Indian princess is too much of a good thing ..... favourite part is the last scene where Ash and his beloved Anjuli ride off into the valley leaving behind a life of strife, separation, betrayal and sadness... all in the hope of a peaceful loving life.... ohhh my eyes are moist now just thinking about it...

The one love story that still makes me cry even today is the short story by Jeffery Archer called "Christina Rosenthal".... well ... I find it difficult to describe the emotion that I go through when I read that story...it is not just the love of a man and a woman... it is also the love of a father.... it is the love and devotion of a son... its just about love...

Ahh love...

but for now I would just love to sleep..... and would love it even more if i could hug baby and sleep....but Baby George is far far away....

Apologies

I think I unwittingly offended my friend in the UK by writing about my reasons for not liking a life abroad.. I could almost sense her coming out of the computer screen and giving me two tight slaps....

She clarified the following to me:

a) she loves India even more now that she lives abroad

b) She thinks colour is more of an issue in India than abroad.

So she seemed pretty offended that I could make such general statments about people living abroad... And this blog is to apologise to her and also perhaps acknowledge a few facts to myself...

a) Yes some people do behave badly when they are in India. Perhaps it is their lack of knowledge, cultural enlightenment, or just simple lack of courtesy to a country that makes them feel it is ok to put down India. Sometimes I feel they do this here only cos we let them get away with it. Would they behave in a similar manner if they were say in Paris? or say in Venice? No they would just keep quiet. Indians on the other hand also take it cos for centuries we have been fed the BS that we are so inferior to the white skin. It is very acceptable for a foreigner to come to our land, show off his wealth and look down on the brown fellows and tell them how screwed up their life is.

b) I do remember people telling me that I have become more of an Indian after my return from UK. Even I acknowledge that. I remember my mallu accent became more pronounced and all my arguments with foreigners were about how we in India dont have such a bad life. I appreciated even the architecture of my country more when I saw what was on offer abroad

So perhaps it was not fair to make a general statement like that.. so apologies for that...

Baby George's Antics

Now my Saturday routine is something like this...I go to office or work out of home till about 3 in the evening...after which I scream all the way to my sister's house to baby sit Baby George while his mother goes out for about 3 hours to meet her friends...well not that I am complaining at all.... I love looking after Baby George and if at the end of it my sister feels eternally indebted to me and feeds me mallu food at my beck and call- why not?....

so for the past 3 Saturdays I have been assigned the role of the baby sitter... and baby george has been an exceptional nephew I must say... he cries only when left on the floor alone cos he wants to travel.... and he cries only when he wants his milk.... otherwise he is pretty engrossed in his own little world watching and taking in the world perched peacefully in my arms..... and sometimes in the course of his world gazing he falls off to sleep...... sometimes I wish even I could fall off to sleep like that...

Baby George has also started flying now... I swoop him up, hold him straight like superman and make him float around the room.. first few times Baby George was extremely surprised by the new angle from which he was seeing things...but now I think he likes it.... especially when I float him and take him to his mother/brother.... or me...

Baby George smiles a lot also.... I am extremely curious to know what he is thinking when he smiles at me.... does he see me as a blob who is dancing in front of him, making funny noises and even funnier faces... or is he genuinely happy to see this familiar face ... or is he just happy to see someone new.... whatever the reason he genuinely seems happy on seeing me....

Well I am told that he will become more interesting in the coming months... I cant wait!!!!

Women I admire

Even though I grew up in a traditional mallu home I was exposed very early on to the potential of women...

the first such lady was my grandmother ... she was one of the first lady doctors of India... at a very young age my grandmother did the unthinkable in those days- took a train all the way from Kerala to the State of Madras. All alone!!!... and enrolled herself in the medical university at Madras... she was one of the four women students there in the midst of about 40 male students .... one of them ofcourse being my grandfather.... they fell in love in medical school and defied parents to get married ...... well the romance of their lives is another blog but today it is about the phenomenal grandmother that I had.... she went to practice medicine till she died.... I am named after her and she died within a year of me being born.... and not only was she smart people remember her even today for her generousity..........sometimes I wonder - if she had been alive today would she behave like a typical grandmother and tell me to start producing babies or would she understand that I am embarking on the same journey similar to the one she embarked on about 70 years back... I dont know and I guess I will never find out....

The other ladies who have always been a source of inspiration for me are my father's aunts- his mom's sisters.... now they were 4 in all - my grandmother being the eldest........while my grandmother completed her class 10th (a big thing in those days), my grandmother's sisters went on to study medicine!!! yes all three of them were doctors .... and all of them also did the unthinkable those days by travelling all the way to Chandigarh no less to study!!! well I dont know what it was like in those days but I have to admit even now going alone to Chandigarh is not an option that I would readily jump at.... and these grandaunts have often told me about stories of people harassing them on the way to Chandigarh... including that of a stalker whom they finally managed to catch and beat the hell out of .... well I do the same now at bandra train station.. hehe...

And then ofcourse there are the slightly distant relations who are equally impressive... one of them being Anna Malhotra who has gone down in Indian general knowledge questions as the first woman IAS officer of India... from early childhood her name was taken as a role model for me... "when you grow up you must become like Annakoch"... and I would imagine this superwoman lady and wonder whether I will ever be that revered by family..... and about 3 years back I finally met the great Annakoch face to face... and while she was stiff and not really warm, for me it was like meeting a legend... in my eyes she was.....

Having grown up in an environment where it was normal for a woman to have a job and a family it really shocked me that women of my generation are really living in an age beyond that of my grandmother.... for instance the girls in my batch of 12th standard had picked out the names of their children!!! and to be a part of the crowd I would also pick out random names for my as yet unborn children.... and some girls would also counsel me sometimes about how I should try and "tone"down since boys will never marry me if I am so bold.... and to be honest at that age I did start believing that being a woman with ambition was really a disease.... while in hind sight I realised that I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time I did go through some soul searching for being the way I am ....

To be honest I still have not met women as amazing as my aunts and grandmother... today we are given all the opportunities on a platter... we didnt have to make the opportunity ... and these women made their opportunity ........... and I am proud of them......

Women- Just Do It, I say!

The reason why...

I dont think living abroad is cooler than living in India:

a) It is not India

b) There is no Indian food

c) There is no domestic help

d) You have to help the host clean up after dinner at their place

e) Your skin colour determines the worlds attitude towards- when people are kind to you it is "progressive" and when people are rude to you it is "racism". Dont know if it is any other reason.

f) You are always insecure about your place in the country (this is personal)

g) You cant take a taxi (at least in London)

h) You never have conversations with the Sabji walla cos you pick it up off the shelf

i) You cant call up mom and tell her that you are coming over the weekend for a break

j) You are sometimes lonely in the crowd.

k) watching hindi movies abroad is just not the same

l) You tend to forget the wealth that your country has and has given you

m) You genuinely start believing that your country is really backward.


I dont know whether this makes sense to the people reading this... and this is not to say that I will never go abroad ever but I genuinely miss all of the above when I am outside India.... especially Indian food and my place in the system.... .... and no I am not blind to the problems of India either... Its just that I will always be a misfit abroad.... no matter how much I adjust...

Nostalgia

One of my favourite stories is Eric Segal's "The Class". Somehow the story of an entire batch of Harvard, their journey through life, their tribulations and finally taking stock of each others life at a college reunion gripped my fantasy... Does every batch of every college go through that? Would I go through that? What would it be like at my class's reunion? How would each others life look compared to the promises we made to the world and ourselves about how we would lead our lives?

I think there is one crucial thing that each one of us realises when we move on in life from college... that the plans we made will sometimes remain just that - plans... it is mostly unplanned things that happen that becomes our life.... I have seen very few people - perhaps a handful- whose lives have gone exactly according to plan.... Well good for them... and at the same time good for others whose lives did not go according to their plan- sometimes at 20 you are ready to marry even Charles Shobharaj....

I dont know why but I am just curious to find out how we all will be doing at the end of 30 years of life outside college... will we be more cynical? Will we have the business tycoon regalling us with stories of corporate acquisitions? Will we have the prime minister sitting in our midst? Will we have the best corporate lawyers trying desperately for one night not to be a shark? Will we have happy people or just highly wound up people? desperate to put up a facade of good life and of dreams achieved?

As for what I would like to end up looking like at the class reunion- one word sums it up- Cheerful... I hope no matter what life brings along in the next two decades I still maintain my cheerfulness... so even if I am leading a life as a corporate lawyer or as a housewife, or as a working mother (!!!!), or as a wife who lives off her husband's well earned income or as a waganond who does not have any base or as a solid anchored person living my life in the same city for the past 30 years-I just wish I am still as cheerful as ever... and still as curious about the world as I am today.... and have the ability to say "Que Sera Sera".......

Okk enough of Ms. Goody Two Shoes..... I also want to look HOTTTTTTTTT at my class reunion!!!