MRI Scan For Enlightenment.....

From within the confines of my office cubicle, I have dreamt of a secret escape. An escape to a place so edifying that it forces me to seek answers to the glorious mysteries of life. A place that makes me realize my deepest fears and understand my core beliefs. And then I entered a magnetic resonance imaging scanner.

A doctor recently recommended that I get an MRI scan of my spine done, so that he could point at a picture and declare that I have a slip disc. At the risk of sounding like a vegetable, I have to accept that I was excited. Something about experiencing something I never have, excited me. The doctor suggested that I change into a hospital robe. That excited me too because hospital robes are generally loose and airy, giving you the privilege of feeling thin and frail. I needed to feel so.

I removed every little metal that was on me, including the all-encompassing bra because the male nurse reminded me that the hooks might be of metal and metal isn’t treated well by the scanner. I could have told him that the hooks in mine were plastic but then decided to just go with his assumption. I was made to lie down on a motorized bed while the nurse gave me the necessary directions which included ‘Do not move for the next 15 minutes’, ‘Here, press this is you feel uneasy’ and ‘No, your eyes wont dissolve if you keep them open’. My ears were plugged and my legs were comfortably tucked inside a blanket. Then he left the scanning room.

Gently, the bed started to move into the cylindrical scanner, head first. I lay on the bed staring at the entrance of the scanning room that led to the world outside. There was a sense of calm and a privileged form of loneliness, the kind a baby might feel inside its mother’s womb, i.e, if the baby could feel and think at that time. And then the bed started moving again, taking me well inside the cylindrical dome.

All was well until the machine started to make a deafening noise. I froze inside, betting that what I was hearing was the emergency alarm, screaming that there was something insidiously wrong with the machine. By then I was fully inside the dome, with no light visible at the end of the tunnel. Just me, a remote in my hand and the machine screaming from all sides. My mind decided to make it even worse.

My Hippocampus started playing ‘Final Destination’ and all its sequels. The scene where two women die inside their tanning booths was particularly urging my bladder to burst. May be this is how Deadpool felt inside that glass box. May be I would wake up to be an Avatar. My heart begged me to press the big red button proudly sitting on the remote, but my intuition asked me to have a little faith.

Slowly my body adapted to the chaos around me and my mind started to tune it into a psychedelic trance track. My heart swayed with it and then right in between my artistic endeavour, a sudden realization hit me. I AM BLOODY ALONE IN THIS.

Life has been a little tumultuous of late, especially since I am expected to make decisions that are in the best interest of everybody who matter to me. Lying inside this plastic dome made me realize that through our struggles, we would be alone. No one can get an MRI scan for me. No one will suffer my decisions but me. People will love you, press their opinions on you and pray for you. But what they cannot do is live your life for you and suffer for you. So why take a life altering decision pressurized by the world when in the end, it would be you alone living through it all.

Who knew an MRI scan could be enlightening. May be there is a personal Buddha inside each one of us. Bodh Gaya might be too far, but an MRI scanner isn’t.

Book a scan now!


Image Courtesy- Somewhere in Pinterest.

THE SECRET ROMANCE...

Back when I was a little girl, my favourite game was called ‘Mr. & Mrs.’ While the Mr. was a magazine cut out of an actor stapled to the face of my one eyed teddy bear, the Mrs. was a blushing me. My relationship with my paper husband could be labelled as romantic, since I spoke to him only in dialogues straight out of the Bollywood movies that I watched when my mother wasn’t around. But something that the little me noticed was that this romance that existed between me and my inanimate husband wasn’t present between my Dad and Mom.

Many nights were spent wondering whether my parents were together only because of the common burden that they shared; the burden being me. But then they made my brother, thereby challenging my hypothesis. But how could a relationship continue with no romance in it? There were no cute glances across the hall and though I knew I would barf if they ever said ‘I love you’ to each other in my presence, I sometimes wondered if they ever said anything that did not involve their problematic children, the grocery list, the different kind of bills, their work or their general loathing towards majority of our relatives. The closest to romance that they got was when they dyed each other’s hair or when they took their weekend afternoon naps, with synchronized snores setting up the mood.  After a certain point of time I simply gave up and declared to myself that my parents were suffering a boring marriage.

My mother for some reason was always very protective of her bedroom almirah. A rusty old Godrej almirah, that she kept locked at all times. It was the only place in the entire house that I wasn’t allowed to raid and this fact used to haunt me like dry cough.  Paulo Coelho rightfully wrote, “When you want something, all the universe conspires in helping you to achieve it.” It was this very want in my part that made my mother forget to lock the cupboard one fine day before leaving for work. I opened the cupboard half expecting Narnia at the back of it, but instead got hold of what seemed like a stack of greeting cards and a few old photographs.  The photographs seemed to have been taken soon after my parents wedding, one showing both of them sitting in a garden, my mother laughing maybe at a joke my dad managed to crack. The next picture showcased my parents in goggles, both staring at opposite directions with a serious look on their face. They looked like idiots; idiots in love. The cards were all gifted during wedding anniversaries and it seemed like my mother hadn’t got one in the past few years. Even though I was a child, I knew I was trespassing into her personal space, but there was a certain joy that I derived by knowing that there was romance present in their relationship at least in those initial few years of marriage.  

Last year they celebrated their 25^th anniversary. Dad bought mom a few sarees using the bonus he earned by working extra, mom didn’t bother to do anything and I ordered a mocha cake to celebrate the occasion and ate most of it. There was no grand celebration and no one gave a speech or popped a bottle of champagne. Frankly it was amusing how boring they were together as a couple. 

But then I saw it, their silent and secretive romance. The romance when dad backs mom up when we raise our tone against her, the romance and comfort in those synchronised snores, the romance in dying each other’s hair using old toothbrushes and the romance in cooking a meal together. The romance when dad irons her saree and she polishes his shoes. The romance when dad cleans the ceiling fan and mom holds the stool. The romance even in those farts. The romance that made their children and the romance that made them raise us together. It wasn’t a boring marriage but a successful one.

Anniversary cards with their printed words cannot express relationships like these. Their years together did that for them. I and my brother did that for them. Their hidden romance did that for them. 

If you ask me, I prefer a secret romance. A relationship as carelessly strong as theirs. 

P.S- Yes, I MUST BLOG REGULARLY.

P.P.S- Still getting used to Bangalore. New place, new job and new people. I take time. 

Image Courtesy- onesmedia.com

TO THE MAN WHO BOUGHT A PAD...

There is nothing interesting that you will read in my blog today. There is nothing funny in here, nor anything thought provoking, just like all the other times. This is simply a gratitude post. A gratitude post to a minor section of men.

It seems like my grandfather did not know that he was married to a woman.  Actually, I think my grandmother thought it was her duty of never letting him find out about it. She also made sure that he did not know that there was a daughter among the three kids that they had together. Funny, but true! Ok, let me come clear and tell you that my grandfather lived in a house where the women pretended to never have periods.

It was fun to watch you know. My mother sneaking in sanitary napkins into the house as if it was a stash of cocaine, just because my grandfather was reading newspaper in the veranda. How one second I would be holding my stomach, whining to my grandmother about the first day of absolute pain (the kind of pain you get when your uterus squeezes out blood) and the next second I would be sweeping the house clean because grandfather spotted some dirt on the window sill. We made sure that he never knew about the monthly issue that came our way. We PMSed in private.

My brother too was kept in the dark. Every time he innocently pointed at the Whisper advertisement and asked what it was for, my mother and I became the most creative people on the face of earth. We just could not muster enough courage to tell him about womanhood. It’s like we were ashamed of what made us, us.

And then something magical happened. I heard my mother on the phone asking my father to buy pads on his way back from office. I looked at her and she simply said to me “He is not like your grandfather.”  And mind you, my father did get sanitary napkins on his way back, that too the right kind.

Last week I went to the medical shop to buy Crocin. Now, it was around 6 pm and the shop was crowded. I was waiting to be attended when a man standing nearby said “Bhaiyya, ek packet Stayfree deejiye”. It was amusing how every other man in the shop stared at him as if he had broken some code of masculinity. It was even more amusing to note that this man wasn’t a tad bit uncomfortable with the attention he was garnering. He spent a while choosing the correct sanitary napkin, paid for it and left the scene. I looked at the men around me, all smiling slyly. I wonder if they felt this uncomfortable while buying condoms.

I think I now know what my mother meant when she said that my father wasn’t like my grandfather. I also think I know how difficult it must be for a man to be different from the rest; to be someone who understands women. It’s embarrassing to be someone who acknowledges the strength that is required to be a woman. But yet, these few men continue to be different from the rest because they know their women matter much more.

Women are to be blamed. We keep menstruation a secret, as if it’s a sin instead of an inevitable biological process. Imagine discussing periods with your father or any male member in your life. Trust me, they would prefer you menstruating than being pregnant and not doing so. So why do we hush it up? Why not give them the opportunity to accept our reality?

So today I want to thank the men who are not like my grandfather. We need more men like you. We need more men like the guy I saw in the medical shop and lesser like the rest who were mocking him silently. Thank you for being real.

Dear men, this women’s day gift the women in your life, a better you.

P.S- Dear women, let us promise ourselves one thing today. That we would stop outsourcing our life. We must start making our own decisions instead of letting someone else do it for us. Promise yourself that you would never outsource your life.

IN PURSUIT OF A GOOD BLOUSE TAILOR

Last week, when Barack Obama and his wife visited India to be a part of our Republic Day parade, rumours had it that Mr.Narendra Modi might gift 100 Benarasi sarees to the first lady as a gesture of goodwill. Now this way of tightening cross border friendship deeply troubled me because our Prime Minister failed to answer one important thing, ‘Where will Michelle Obama find a good Blouse tailor?’

Once a girl reaches the threshold of womanhood, she begins to understand that she can no longer inveigle herself into believing that her T-shirt can make up for a saree blouse. It is then that she begins her pursuit to find the one who understands her enough to wondrously stitch out the perfect saree blouse and mind you, a good blouse tailor is not an easy catch.

If you think about it, blouse making shouldn’t be an arduous task. You provide the tailor with the matching piece of cloth which you spent hours to select, leaving you wish that you were colour blind and all he has to do is stitch out a decent blouse by following your measurements. You even ignore it when the tailors, irrespective of the gender, use more of their hands and less of the measuring tape to chalk down your size. You brave it all, just for that one perfect blouse. The result is almost always, disappointing.

My first blouse tailor was obsessed with Egypt. Why else would he stitch out a blouse that made it look like I had pyramids built on my chest? Another tailor made a blouse so tight that I began to think that I had deceived puberty and was continuing to be flat-chested. The tailor I went to get a blouse stitched for my college farewell ardently took down all the measurements and promised to not disappoint me like the others did. Interestingly, I attended the farewell wearing a blouse that resembled a shirt because the tailor didn’t want to upset my family by cutting my back low. Then there was this particular tailor who added pads inside my blouse and his reasoning was a classic “Medem, aapke wo jo haina, wo kaafi nahi hai.” Sleepless nights were spent considering a boob job.

Now it is a universal fact that all women secretly hate each other. There is this woman my mother is friends with whose blouses are so perfect that you might doubt if they were pasted on her. Others including my mother would regularly swarm around her encouraging her to divulge the name and whereabouts of her tailor. Her answer was always, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.” Such a bitch!

Recently, I happened to come across this particular guy who ran a small tailoring shop named ‘OOH LA LAAA’ near my brother’s school. I wonder what might have been the reason behind me choosing him. May be it was the proximity to my place or the fact that he was ready to first stitch a trial blouse to clear my confusion. I was sold! After a week of questioning my patience, this gem of a guy gifted me a blouse that made me wonder if he knew my proportions better than me.  I had finally struck gold after going through so much dirt.

A woman’s relationship with her blouse tailor is unique. He knows what she means when she requires a Vidya Balan style blouse, or when she says “Bhaiyya front deep chahiye. But not that deep ok?”. He knows the contours of her upper body better than her boy friend and he is ready to make alterations to her heart’s desire. He is true to his words when he says he will give her the blouse on Saturday and he never messes with her cup size. He knows when she has gained a couple of kilos and silently increases the length of the blouse to cover up her peeping back tire. He should be declared an Indian Super hero.

I wore my new tailor’s creation to a wedding recently. A friend asked, “Kahan se silwaya?”. I flushed a bit, looked at mother while replying, “Yahan ka nahi hai. He belongs to my village. I got this stitched when I went home.”

I blame it on Muliebrity!

P.S- I am not dead. :) 

An Ode To The Indian Toilet...

Dear Indian Toilet,

Nothing screamed of your slow demise more than the Harpic advertisement, where you were heartlessly replaced by your western counterpart. Renovation after renovation, you were destroyed, only to survive in areas that were yet to be touched by westernization and joint problems. In a world where everyone and everything pretends to be urban and red carpet, you have become a symbol of rural living. But I shall miss you.

You my friend taught me my first and only known yoga pose, Malasana. You made me squat before squatting became mainstream. You would be surprised to read this but you also taught me the art of meditation. You see, with you I only had the option of staring at the opposite wall or the ant steadfastly walking on the handle of the red bucket. Sometimes I would work on my predilection for peeling the paint off the opposite wall by counting the numerous bindis my mother had left on the washbasin mirror, permanently stuck because she found them too unhygienic to be used again. Our romance was always interrupted by the numbness creeping into my feet, forcing me to leave you temporarily. But you knew, I would always come back.

I still remember the day those men came to my house. We already had an English version of you on the first floor of our place, rarely used because we all loved you. But my grandfather was 78 and you knew that he couldn’t garner enough flexibility to use you. He needed a seat, which the western toilet with its ceramic throne kindly provided. Your demise was inevitable but let me tell you something; you served us well my friend.

You are well aware that innovations make life easy and I know that you would scream “traitor!!”, but I have to tell you that it did not take time for me to fall in love with your western avatar.  On the day following a strenuous workout at the gym, I didn’t have to scream out a cuss word or two every time I had to attend the nature’s call because unlike you, the western toilet understood my limitations. But as much as there are pros to something, there are cons. The western toilet has sprouted my yearning for extra entertainment like replying to important mails through phone, watching viral YouTube videos or stalking the ex, which wasn’t possible with you because all available energy was utilized by me towards keeping myself from falling into you.

You might be thinking, why a letter now? Well, I was forced to squat yesterday while fitting accessories on the lowest branch of my Christmas tree and guess what, I fell backwards. Wouldn’t have happened, had I stayed loyal to you.

Until we meet again (courtesy-Indian railways).

Love,

Your once devoted user.

P.S- I know that blogging works on a give and take basis. I also know that I haven't stalked other blogs for long, owing to being a junior lawyers who gets excited at the mere mention of the word 'sleep'. I humbly apologize. I shall stalk you soon! 

I am a winner.I don't even lose weight.

I need to lose weight. The mirror in my bedroom seems to have a concave surface every time I look at it. This reader’s digest with its every damn issue wants me to lose weight. I am so desperate!

Ok, enough, I will start today. I will start my day with a glass of warm lemon water in the morning with a drop of honey in it. Priyanka told me that this chick from college who resembled a vermicelli strand, used to drink boiling hot water after every meal. Helps with the digestion she said. I will also drink boiling hot water. I have heard that lemon water also helps you pass the stool easier. Stool! What a funny word. A stool also means a small bench and it also means faeces. Faeces, even that is a funny word. Reminds me of the cosmetic brand Faces. Boiling water after every meal it is!

I will start working out in the morning. 30 minutes on the elliptical, 15 minutes on the treadmill and some floor exercises, that would be enough to chisel my body to perfection. Actually, I have heard that Jillian Michaels has this video online called the ‘30 Day Shred’ which is an exercise video of 20 minutes but it is said to kick ass. Last time I saw her video, she claimed that giving her 20 minutes is equivalent to ‘spending hours of phonying at the gym’. I will give her my 20 minutes. She is so hot! Lesbians are hot, except those who pretend to be men, like the ones they show in ‘Orange is the new black’. 20 minutes I will give her, every morning. But I have to be at work 9 am and this is when I don’t have a case to attend. Stupid law! Why did I become a lawyer? Ok, I will wake up at 5 am and workout or maybe I will work out after work because then I won’t have that morning ugly face which needs time to fix. Also, because of the food I ate since morning, I would be having high energy levels. Evening workout it is!

Or maybe, I should just diet. I will start with some cornflakes in the morning. Deepika Padukone feels special after having cornflakes. So, what if I don’t drink milk? I will just have cornflakes dry, pretending that it is Bhel Puri. I will not eat the snacks that the cycle chai wala gets us at work. Also, two chappatis in the afternoon for lunch and two cups of green tea throughout the day. I hate green tea! Ok, I will let it cool down completely and gulp it down in one go. I even read somewhere that cold green tea has more anti-oxidants than hot green tea. My problem is solved. I eat so much at night. I will skip dinner. Actually, I won’t eat anything after 6 pm. In that book ‘Lose weight and not your mind’ the author said that your stomach gets sleepy and that it’s at its best between 7 am -10 am. Oh! The book's name was ‘Don’t lose your mind, Lose your weight.’ Maybe I will follow the reverse diet! Have heavy breakfast, comparatively less heavy lunch and little dinner. May be I will just have fruits at night. There is an apple lying in the fridge.

Fridge. There is ice-cream in the fridge.

P.S- I am in the ‘last line’ stage. Everyday

P.P.S- I missed blogging. Lawyering is keeping me on my toes. So many blogs to read!

A BRANDED AFFAIR.....

It wasn't until college that I began to notice a man’s butt. Actually, it would be fair to say that I began noticing men, in whole and in parts, only after I embarked on the ‘self realization’ journey called college.  I was a convent school product, a girl who based her entire judgment on Men-kind, solely on the specimen that her dad was. My Dad is a banker, usually seen wearing a simple shirt and black trousers, both bought from a certain shop called ‘A to Z fashionzz’ at New Market, Bhopal. Malls did not exist and our family owed it to the pot bellied man at A to Z fashionzz (fashion made better with a double z) for filling up our wardrobes with clothes which he believed where ‘In the Season’. We never cared or knew much about the word called ‘BRANDED’. Except for the VIP and Groversons undergarment, our clothes were well, just clothes.

What do you do when you are this socially awkward person, one who has never stepped out of her home solo in the past 17 years of her life and is suddenly states away from her family, attending her first day of college? What you do is, you make friends and ignite the fire of friendship that would not stand the test of time. The first time I visited a coffee shop was in my 1^st year of college, unless ‘Amer Bakery Hut’ and ‘Bajrang Sweets &Namkeen’ from Bhopal, qualify as one too. Me and my two newly made friends would sit at Barista, play truth and dare over shots of strong Espresso and just pretend to not look at the men passing by. It was in this very Barista that I found out about this brand called Levi Strauss. The leader of our group was this beautifully bold girl from Delhi, one who included a man in her ‘Cute hai’ list based on two points- a) Looks b) the red tag on the piece of jeans enveloping his right ass cheek, screaming Levi’s. She was the siren and I was the nerd, pretending to be a siren and badly losing the game. She was a simple girl, a goddess at heart but we were all just teenagers trying to fit in.

During the subsistence of this challenging friendship, I learnt a few things. An underwear with a waistband that screamed ‘Jockey’ was much more important that a man’s IQ, unless he is wearing a ‘Playboy’, in which case his IQ level does not even matter. I learnt the art of checking out a man’s butt before I notice his face. For someone who only used ‘Cuticura Deo’, I learnt about perfumes by Chanel, Nina Ricci, Dior, Davidoff and a certain celebrity called Christina Aquilera. Even though I never owned a Louis Vuitton bag, I corrected everyone who pronounced it the wrong way. I was trying to do college right.

It was in college that I found out about people who aren’t exactly swimming in the rich category,  but will go to any length just to portray that they are. The first man I dated had a second hand Mercedes, with doors that threatened to leave the car the moment the speedometer hit 60. This guy had no personality, no intelligence, nor a face to make up for all the deficiencies. What he did have was a Levi’s jeans, a Pepe tshirt, imported Puma shoes and a Hidesign wallet. Inside the wallet he had 70 rupees, enough to buy him a cup of Green tea from one of the posh coffee shops in Cochin, The Cocoa Tree. I drank sparkling water, which thankfully was free. Of course, I dumped him after 2 months over a phone call, while stuffing my mouth with French fries. I was 19.

From the scholarship money that the bank gave me at the end of 2^nd year of college, I bought my first Levi’s jeans worth Rs 2,400/-. Slim fit and bold curve, with the red tag perfectly placed over my right ass cheek. I worked out at the gym so that it was possible for me to wear tops short enough to not cover up the red tag. I literally lived in that pair of jeans until my mother bought me a new pair from ‘A to Z Fashionzz’, belonging to a brand called ‘ZOLA’. This particular jeans was 600 Rupees and as much as I hate to admit, was a dream to get into. How could I portray my love for it in a world where brands dominated your status? I even thought of cutting out the tag from the Levi’s jeans and stitching it on the Zola one, but did not do so for the lack of needle skills. I decided to give up on brands.

A person is not the brand he wears. My father still shops at A to Z fashionzz and is the best person alive on this planet. The closest he has got to brands, is Peter England and Wills Lifestyle office wear. My brother hoards on everything branded, but secretly prefers to wear flip-flops bought from this Barkheda market at Bhopal for 150 rupees, over the Nike one that costed my father a whopping 1299. My mother happily owns an LV bag without knowing what LV stands for and carries her lunch box containing sambar rice in it to office. Her ignorance makes her adorable.

Coming to me, I have given up searching for that red tag on a man’s butt, except occasionally, because well……..some habits die hard.

P.S- I do prefer brands when it comes to cosmetics. Call me a hypocrite!

P.P.S- Don’t hate me for not replying to the comments on the previous post. I do not have an internet facility except at work. I blog when I find time. I cherish each and every comment. You know I do. J

The Essential Ingredients of a Fairness Advertisement....

I am shocked that no Indian author has written a book titled ‘Guide to Fairness Advertisements for Dummies’. In a country where beauty is skin fair and a whitening cream is a better invention than polio drops, there is a requirement for a precise guide to shooting a fairness advertisement. Since, I grew up in a household where my grandmother applied Vicco Turmeric cream while my beautifully dark grandfather swore by Fair & Lovely, I know a thing or two about fairness creams. Also, being a person who conscientiously took up the 7 day Emami fairness challenge, I have all the required qualifications to write this post. By this post, I mean ‘The Essential Ingredients of a Fairness Advertisement’.

So, the first essential ingredient of a fairness advertisement, besides the obvious Fairness Cream (which by the way should camouflage the names of harmful chemicals like Hydroquinone, Mercury, Clobetasol a.k.a steroids somewhere in between the long list of ingredients at the back of the tube) is an actor/actress. Depending on the budget, you may either choose a known but struggling one or a 100 crore club member. In fact, it doesn’t even matter as long as they pledge that your product which is yet to come in the market is the reason behind their success and popularity.  Don’t worry, people will buy it because ‘naïve’ is much more than just a word.

The second essential ingredient is believing in the philosophy called ‘FUCK SCIENCE’. You need to come up with an explanation as to why dark people are dark and white people are, well white. Make sure you mention the word ‘MELANIN’ and show a pictographic representation of the layers in the skin. Refer to this already existing fairness brand called ‘FAIR LOOK’ which gives a perfect justification for the darkness of African people and fairness of the white clan.  The actress Preeti Jhangiani, of the Mohabbatein fame (the first essential ingredient) says “Look at the Caucasians, they are fair because they live in cold regions where the sun shines less, making the melanin content low. Look at the Blacks, they are dark because they live in hot and humid regions where the sun shines more, making the melanin content high.”  

The third essential ingredient is a fake Sadhu, who also holds a doctorate degree in Ayurveda. Sadhu’s are important because well, you are in India and sadhus rule. Make sure the chosen one talks in crude Hindi making statements like ‘CHAALIS ANMOL JADIBOOTIYAAN KA EK ANMOL MISHRAN’. Pure Hindi apparently makes people believe in your credibility.

The fourth and the most essential ingredient is the existence of a ‘Before & After’ story. For your perusal, I am mentioning a few stories that other brands have included in their advertisements.

  

 This is the story of Ragini who was single at 28 because of her dark complexion. A magical whitening cream enters her life like a genie and grants her three wishes- White face, a groom who would divorce her the moment she gets tanned during their honeymoon at Pattaya and three, a totally different voice. Wonder how that happened....

The story of Priya who neither had the qualifications to be an air-hostess nor the required fairness. In came the whitening cream and now her face glows like a bulb's filament . She still does not have the qualifications to be an air-hostess, but atleast she is fair. 

The final ingredient is Photoshop because how else will you come up with a photo showing the shade wise transformation of your actress from suicidal & soot faced to a jovial & slim snow woman in just 7 days.

I think I have covered it all. If not, kindly let me know by commenting below because I have been seriously considering writing the book I mentioned in the very first line of this post. It would undoubtedly be a best seller. You bet?


P.S- No blogging or blog reading for the next 5 days. I am celebrating Onam. Burp!
P.P.S- This one was posted from Mobile. So kindly forgive me for format errors if any. 

The Curious Case of 'CAN DO BETTER'.....

I have always been a ‘Can do better’ person. It is a person who innocently and implicitly makes fruitful promises but delivers only 80% or severely less. Right from my inception, I was looked upon as a promising entity that would grow up only to bring laurels to the family and possibly find the cure for cancer.  I was the answer or so they thought. But as is universally applicable to all expectations, this too was only a premeditated resentment and I proved it so by scoring an 88.71% in my kindergarten. The reward was a report card that screamed ‘Very Good.Can do better.’ and that marked my tryst with this mighty phrase.

It is funny how parents vouch on the genius of the fruits of their loins. The belief that their child contains this distinct quality, this miraculous caliber that can surpass every hint of brilliance available till date. Maybe it is just infinite affection but the fact is, it irritates the hell out of me.

I was always an average student. More outside than inside the classroom, I never posed a threat to the crème de la crème of my class. I was the student who forged her father’s signature on her chemistry term paper because she scored a 9/20 and I was the one who faked a blackout because the maths pre-board exam was a little too out of syllabus for my interest. Basically, I was the kid who spent a night with Onions stuck under her armpits because some enlightened idiot told her that doing so would bring up a fever which would be the perfect escape from the physics viva scheduled to be held the next day. The fever never happened. The viva voce did.  But through all my misdemeanors, I was always believed in, both by my family and my teachers. They would shake their heads in disappointment, look straight into my eyes and say ‘You can do better’. Their comical beliefs amused me but all I did was nod in affirmation.

Then I cleared an all India exam and entered one of the National Law Schools. To be frank, I was shocked and I still believe that the electronic device that checked the OMR sheet was infected by a bug. May be I was just plain lucky. Either way, it gave a positive reaffirmation to my family. It made them believe that I actually could do better. I continued my stint as an average student, was the opposite of Gandhi while writing papers but still the professors persistently told me how I could do better. It got so bad that I once just asked my dad as to why he believed so much in me. His answer was ‘Lord Hanuman forgot about his divine abilities because of a curse and had to be reminded of it. Once he realised his true potential, there was no looking back.’ My dad has a terrible sense of humour. 

So I decided to actually do better. I joined a law firm and attempted to genuinely do the best I could. I tried hitting deadlines, drafted the sexiest writ petitions in the history of High Courts and researched on the most mundane subjects entrusted upon me. The highlight is the fact that I did do better. For the past one week I was neck deep in this case of a thermal power plant giant and drafted the finest petition that my dying grey cells could come up with and I was sure that there was no room for improvement. I was at my very best and this is exactly why I was confident that my boss would love my work. So as I sat before him carrying around myself an aura of expectation, he said “This is good. Very good. But, you can do better.” I felt like a punctured puffer fish.

It is then that I realized that ‘CAN DO BETTER’ is a phrase that is one step ahead of me. Pleasing someone with my infinite potential should never be my forte. I should be pleased with myself and right now, I am.

I wonder how Hanuman would have felt if after realizing his true potential, he went to Lanka, allowed the Asuras to light his tail and then burnt the entire empire with the fire on his back, only to come back to a Sri Ram who would mouth out the words ‘CAN DO BETTER’.

May be I should ask my dad. 

P.S- September is my birthday month. Just saying. :D

BECAUSE YOUR VIRGINITY BELONGS TO THE SOCIETY....

The western lifestyle is a bad influence on our Indian civilization which is a beautiful rose. A beautiful rose which is a combination of many petals, where each petal is designed to stand for our supreme Indian culture, unique belief, traditional values, societal norms and declared taboos. Our lifestyle deserves to be called sacrosanct and anyone who transgresses our settled path is an evil black cat. We have an invisible wall around our nation, higher than the Great Wall of China that expels every western influence that attempts to trespass our moral lines. In case they succeed in entering our domain and affect our children, we continue to hold our guards up and declare our children as unworthy of our love. We are the greatest society in the world.

Our daughters are our own and their virginity belongs to us. It is her body, but it should be touched under our approval. She does not have the right to violate her body and violation it is because we as a society forbid sexual liberty. We have our moral codes, that may be archaic with no strong basis, but they are still our rules. Rigid and dominant rules. 

So, she broke the rules by letting a man touch her and liking the fact that he did. Love which as hard it is to believe happens without giving any value to society, religion, status, money or such important factors. We abhor such depravity, such lewdness. Sex is sacrosanct, subject to a condition precedent known as the holy matrimony and any violation of this supreme law is blasphemy. Love is unnecessary. Marriage comes above sexual liberty and we do not believe in the freedom of a human body.

We do love our daughter’s, we really do.  But it all comes with an added responsibility of letting them know that they are not anything like the boys. That their actions can bring shame, condemnation and disgrace. That they are like a piece of paper while the boys are needles. The paper will be the one to be torn, forever. But what if she wanted the man to touch her, well, that is just unacceptable. Her body belongs to her family, the society, the religion she blindly follows because we say so and God who is omnipresent only so that he can judge her for her sexual activities.

It is funny how much guilt a woman feels when she thinks dirty. Forget thinking dirty, it is funnier when you realize that you feel guilty even when you hold hands with someone you like. Holding his hand while walking on an empty road and suddenly letting go on seeing as much as a random tea stall. That is how it is and that is what we are shaped into.

All I am saying is raise your daughters in a way that makes them love their own body. Teach them that they hold the leash of their own destiny and that their decisions should always be there own. Let them know that their virginity belongs to them and if they want to save it till after marriage, it should be their own little divine choice. Tell her that her sexuality doesn’t belong to the society and that her body is her own.

But do ask her to make sure that her choices never make her regret. Now that you have done so, leave her alone.

P.S- Judge yourself not me for the thoughts you had about me after reading this little piece. J