OOOO Why did I see THIS

Though the best of my Bong friends defy my not-so-listenable opinion about Bongs in general, I still can't let go of my bias...but I have to confess I absolutely DOTE on their ROSHOGULLAs (besides Jhal-muri, Tagore's songs, Bong beauties, to name a few).

O why did I decide to sit and blog hop so early in the morning and land at Bongspeak. Hilarious post and an admirable attitude to go with it (very un-Bong-ly), but just as I was jotting my comment and closing that tab, I had a second full look at the pictures.....roshugullas.......and I kept looking.........helplessly.....where in Telegubad would I get authentic Bong Roshogullas...at least I never found the ones of my taste till date.....Even the ones in Delhi were better. Back home, my hometown is flaked with Bongs, Marwadis and Bangladeshis. Though dal-bati-churma could be had by invitation-only (at Marwadi friends house), the Bongs had made their Roshogullas pretty ubiquitous and along with the local Bongs, we Assamese think of it as our staple dessert. Just that we have it with yoghurt (doi-rosogula, as we pronounce it, without emphasis on 'sh' and 'll'). This time when I was home in April, I had this finger-licking-great Khejooror Rosogula (made from dates). And man, it was something tellya. But I have never tasted Kolkatas Roshogulla and it'll be months before Reah-from-Kolkata will come Hydwards.

Good Lord...it's 10 am and I've to wake D up, switch on the geyser, take a shower, pack my lunch, have breakfast and head for work. And I do not have TIME to go surf the city for my Roshogullas. He Bhagwaan aj ka din kaise bitega without Roshogullas.......Boooooo hooooooo
[Just why I steer clear of Bongs]

Me and Machines

Whether God purports that I live like apes sans science or machines, or I am technologically jinxed, I am beginning to doubt. Could all of these be mere co-incidences? Please enlighten me:

1. Immediate context: I cannot send emails from my gmail! I was replying to a mail thread about a Music event we're to attend this Sunday, till one of them replied to me: "Should I guess your reply or is it a cryptic puzzle to be solved" and rummaging through the entire thread, I suddenly realized that my signature was all that was visible in my reply mails and not a word of what I wrote. Hell! I immediately got on to Google Chrome (thinking maybe finally Google declared - if you wnna Gmail, you better use Chrome). Scarlett was patient enough to open all my mails and confirm she saw NOTHING on them. Now I do not know what bug could that be that eats up the words from your mail by the time it is delivered in the recipients Inbox (coz’ I could see my full mails in my 'Sent Items').

2. No machine ever survives hale and long in my life, even though I am everything but clumsy, really. I did not break a single neck or hand of the toys I played with as a child. In fact I have all of preserved (“for her kids”, Ma kids) and all in one piece. This might not be ‘the proof’, but says some thing, does it not?

Machines-gone-bad-made-me-mad examples:

i) My DELL laptop was just 2 weeks old when two keys popped out. I did not have long nails and my fingers, dear readers, are pretty lithe. At least I know how to type without popping out keys of the machine. It must be the guy who fixed internet on my machine, I concluded. After the keypad, within a year the speakers and the motherboard had to be replaced and since it all happened in the warranty period, it did not pinch much. You can read about my experience here. As if that wasn’t enough for one machine – very soon my ‘@’ got exchanged with ‘close inverted commas’ and the ‘back slash’, type ‘#’ is it shows ‘£’, while ‘\’ disappeared altogether and became ‘#’. And since the warranty period is over and I had no faith that this one more repair will be its last, I decided to get used to my ‘new’ keys and Google for back slashes whenever required.

ii) Biometric Fingerprint systems cannot identify my fingerprints. I discovered it when in my second organization they introduced biometric fingerprints for attendance. In that office of some 1500 people, I was the only one whose fingerprints it would not recognize. Two whole weeks we tried to capture a sample, rubbed my fingers so many times to free it of all moisture that whatever little imprint was left that too much have eroded off. Finally we all gave up and while my colleagues did it with a small thumb, I had to write down my entry and exit timings every day in that just-mine register. History repeated itself when I went for my Learner’s Driving License. It was a long, restless queue and my finger lived upto their reputation. Irritated, the security guard put his own thumb impression. Does it mean if I am to be convicted ever, no one will be able to prove it using my fingerprints? Can somebody have no fingerprints AT ALL? And I found this, just that noone came to interview me. Sigh!

iii) My assembled desktop (my 1st PC) became a pain in no time, but behaved after a few slaps and kicks at the CPU (I was the rough n tough type then), so no grumbling about that.

3. My BSc 1st year exam results had highest in English, 2nd highest in Zoology, while I flunked in Chemistry. I could never accept the theories at face value

4. Little did I consider these things when I decided to join this software giant. What ensued is a little hard to believe considering its reputation as one of the best workplace in the globe. If I go on to tell you point after point, it will make a thesis to prove that I'm tech-jinxed.

However, being the optimist that I am, I can tell the God of Technology has not completely disowned me. My 2 year old Nokia 3230 alive and ringing and as handsome as a 6 month old is a glaring testimony, besides the newly bought gadgets and machines post marriage.

At the moment, the few glaring ones are all I can recollect, but tell you my life has seen much more and over the years I only feel surprized if a machine is behaving itself for too long with me. Sure you have your share of experiences.... Or is it just me???!!!??? (Thinking....)

Too HaPPy, Too SaD

Have you known people who are so happy, when they’re happy, that they do more than just nip at the moment ---
>> "Whoa, I have never been so happy!" (same conclusion every time)
>> "O God (imagining Morgan Freeman), I’d have hugged you and made you your favourite cookie had you been around!" (meaning returning the favour with an almost impossible, gargantuan task)
>> "I deserve it right?" (undeserved rewards are either illusions or they don't last, so they believe)
>> "Of course I do – didn’t I go through all that pain of relationship & heart-break shit." (nonzenze!!!)

>> "And did I not adopt 6 street pups at the cost of temporary excommunication by my landlord and MaPas threatens to get me “ta Delhi” if I do not concentrate on my career instead!"
>> "And how can I forget that gleam in that beggars eyes when I shoved a 100 rupee fresh-from-the-ATM note into his hand out of my first salary!"
>> "Yes, I really deserve it."
>> "Touch-all-wood-on-earth!"

And have you known those who’re so sad, when they’re sad, that they want to cease existing altogether ---
>> "Oh God, why me???"
>> "What did I do to deserve it???" (I DO NOT DESERVE IT, NO NO NO I DON'T!!)
>> "TOO MUCH! I CAN NO MORE TAKE IT! HELP GOD!"
>> "If only I could just melt down and evaporate (like Amelie did in "Amelie" when her guy found her finally) and wait in oblivion till this phase is over!" (like everything else gloom also is impermanent)

>> "May I be bombarded with diversions enough to miss this one through!"

Now, what do you think would they do when they’re bombarded with both extremes at the same time?

(To be contd. when I find the right answer!)

Almost 20 days later:

I had to bring myself to a certain state of mind to be able to follow up this one. And surprisingly, when I read it now, I can barely bring myself to feel that irksome pendulum-minus-the-swing-in-between state. Which perhaps automatically answers my question (silly that was - propensity to crap, I'd call it). I let the good times heal the bad ones.

D. (yes, yes, you're right I'm obsessed about squeezing my man into every post) says: Life's a stream between birth and death and you are programmed to choose its course.

My last "pain-assault" was arse-kicked with very little tearbath and looking back I am convinced: I took some queer pleasure in being sad.

Early teens: I was a crab.

Late teens: I would blow the trumpet (LOVE ME, Me's so sad)

Early 20s: Always needing cushions (name is "men") to lean-on-and-cry.

Late 20s: Crab. Shell=Armour! Especially, under the influence of another undeniable-compulsive-all pervading-potent Crab (the Don).

You may or may not control/influence your external environment - natural catastrophes do occur, accidents happen - but you can always control your reactions. And no parroting this is! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

D.'s response, lest it is lost to you in the comments section:

As Master Oogway (the old turtle in kungfu panda) would say, "There are no accidents..." Everything happens with a purpose or because of a reason. Yes even natural disasters are caused as an outcome of a bizzare stream of events...Think about it. Why is it that we are here on this planet? Stephen Hawkins described it in his book (The brief history of time) the presence of another life in this universe is almost as bleak as "a zillion monkeys typing away randomly on a typewriter each and one of them, by bizzare chance, typing out a poem by Shakespear". How unlikely is that.

So nothing really is an accident. It happened because it was bound to happen. Either intelligently willed by someone/something, or caused because of some event.Yes you can't control the cause or the will. But think about what Master Oogway means when he says "There are no accidents". He means that if you think that everything happens with a purpose you won't feel too bad. If you think that although things are not so good at the moment but I am sure I do not understand the complete picture and "eventually" it is all going to turn out fine. If you look at the big picture, life as a whole or even large revolutions, I am sure it will help you resolve your small issues and help you achieve those calm mid-swings of the pendulum when you are neither orgasmically ecstatic nor GRAVEly sad. Just manage your volcanic anger pangs...

As a closing note, here's another quote by Master Oogway, "One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it...!"

Me: Yes, everything happens for a reason! And one of the many reasons "us" happened is -- so that this one Soul (me) can live, love, understand, appreciate this one life better!!

Where art thou my pen?

Lately, I am being traumatised by a queer kind of guilt conscience – of not being able to blog! My pile of journals stopped getting any taller and Dad no more worried about his latest diary (seen those SBI or LIC ones?) disappearing from his table without notice – ever since I got “introduced” to blogging. True, it could not give me the comfort of writing “just about anything” with as much honesty, and without a little chiselling here and there like my tucked-in-with-care journals would, but the facility to record things instantly (since me and my machine are almost inseparable) and a desire to “advertise” (now come on, isn’t that one of reasons you blog?) lured me away from the pen and paper to the keypad on lap.

I, however, miss making my “bold confessions”. For example, when I was in Class V, the last page of my diary read these small lists: of people I wish were dead (included my Dentist and my music teacher), of my crushes in that year (if you think I was too young for that, how about my first crush in KG II?), of dreams as queer as “I want to be a maid at my crush’s house” (influenced by Maine Pyar Kiya), “I want to have a twin sister” (cloning was unheard of back then), “I want to grow tresses like Baby Doll Alisha’s” (remember that audio cassette?) and what not!

I know many bloggers who considered their blogs as much a confession box as I did my diaries and pour their hearts out with as unrestrained honesty. To be that today, as a blogger, I would have to hammer off a lot of my Cancerian crabby shell, and could I or would I do that? Well, at least I have not, so far! This way, a lot of "me', goes ‘unworded’, unrecorded. But then again, I am beginning to reckon the capacity of the human mind – I remember the paranoia post my first break-up as explicitly as I do the storm of thoughts that muddled me the day I first met Don (my husband). You don't forget things if you want to remember them. That is to say, things that you remember very often, keep getting refreshed in your memory and there comes a time, when you just know them by heart. For example, you’ve repeated “Baa Baa Black sheep” so many times in your life that even if you don't chant it for the next 10 years, you will still be able to sing it to your kid. Now this hypothesis is purely deduced from my personal experience and observation and you are most welcome to contradict (and I’ll so love to defend). Which means, we may safely leave a few things unrecorded and not fear losing them somewhere “down the memory lane”, unless of course it is some natural calamity.

But feeling guilty just because I have not been “recording life” as regularly as I used to, still seems too queer a reason, especially in light of my aforesaid hypothesis. After much thought and afterthought, I painstakingly concluded - it must be what is called the “writer’s block” that is troubling me. Or maybe my profession leaves me so drained of words that I’m left with none for myself. Maybe I am too overwhelmed with my “brand new life” for words! Or is it that I’m losing myself and I do not want to confess? I wonder...I wonder.....

God Must be Crazy!!!

.....To have anchored a dentition so irregular in my mouth that dentists see "$" (the sign) embossed on every teeth the moment I open my jaws.

Don must be crazy too! He says I wouldn't be me if I got them straightened and he might as well love me a little less!


NOW WHAT THE HELL DO I MAKE OF THAT!


And is this SWELL ON MY CHEEK going to stay?

Rest in Peace!

I could have left it at C Block, Lajpat Nagar. Or it could have been Khan Market. It could have even been Nagaon (Assam), for that matter. It has been troubling me that long. But it was destined to 'rest in peace' at Road No. 12, Banjara Hills.

I post-poned till it became imperative - I had to let go of it. Surprisingly, it wasn't as painful as I imagined. Just that it left a swell on my cheek and I was completely bed-ridden for two entire days.

And all for Rs. 4500!

"Rs. 4500?", Ma gasped. And I nodded with repugnance - Rs. 4500 for a TOOTH EXTRACTION! DAMN!

A paranoid Wisdom Tooth that wanted to make its way into my jaw bone instead. Why Me!!

Today, at 22:53 pm, it sure is resting in peace somewhere at Banjara Hills. Two days have passed. Look at my left face profile and one would think a 72 kg torso would follow! Damn!

The Dentist:

Dr. Gowd's Dental Hospital,
19, Durga Enclave, Road No. 12, Banjara Hills, Hyderabad - 500034
Phone: +91-40-23326777 / 23326888
Verdict: Reasonably good. Has a huge team of apprentices, though. But complicated things like surgeries, are done by specialists. Good customer care.

But I liked Dr. Vohra in Delhi better. Sid took me there and though my treatment rarely began and I had to relocate, that one visit was pretty impressive.
Dr. Vohra,
Specialist in Prosthetic and Restorative Dentistry,
62, Khan Market, New Delhi - 3,
Phone: 011-24603866

Spare me - Beggar buggers!

I did not quite know of Mumbai’s 180 crore/year Beggary Industry until I watched Madhur Bhandarkar’s Traffic Signal. The film-critics rant what they may, me thinks it was an influential work of art and whether it left a negative impact on the said industry – I don’t care and I refuse to partake in any argument pro-beggars.
Every day I go through the trial – 3 Traffic Signals on my way to office. There are more, but when I speak of it with a capital ‘T’ and ‘S’, I mean the one’s that matter to me most. And not because they remind of how I clung on to my boyfriend the last time we rode that road (I have never been that nostalgic thankfully) --- but because these Traffic Signals are plagued with beggars.
Skeletal forms of all shapes and sizes, clones, necessarily deficient of flesh (purposely or due to poverty I can no more say), shrouded in blackened skin (by birth or purposely, I can no more gauge) that sparsely covers that skeleton they move about in. I exempt from using terms such as ‘malnutrition’, ‘poor’ and other such words designed to create sympathy, empathy, whatever. I say it all with disgust and with so much of it that I don’t care if you think I am a brute.
Like their bodies, their parodies too lack variations. Unhealed scars, bandages taint in blood, acrobatic stunts, suckling babies (equally sketetal) – they come up with just everything targeted at the human ‘heart’. Heart will be too sensitive a word for that, for they will bug you so much that heart, half-heart or no-heart, more than often you end up taking out that wallet – just to get rid of them. Something that shoots my mercury level even higher is when on Saturdays they appear with little steel carriers with black oiled sheet of their Shani Devta. I am an atheist but I respect religion and using gods for begging is JUST NOT DONE.
A walk at popular hang-outs like Connaught Place or the Priya Shopping Complex would leave one flabbergasted by unending beggar beeline. I rate the CP one’s the smartest in the city – they actually have the audacity to specify what they want – pennies won’t do. The ones at the New Friends Colony Community Centre are smarter. They have not just cracked what it takes to get people get them what they want, but also how to strike up a friendship. Put in other words, the lot here make permanent clienteles. Whoa! Now look at what I have scanned for the blog. I got this while snoozing in the DTC bus. A beggar limps into the bus and hand over these leaflets to everybody. What business strategies man! And successful too, for out of the whole lot at least 50% gave him what he wanted – money!
I have fond memories of some of the people from my native town who would come begging at Sundays. I don’t even feel like including them in the same group as these out here in the metros. How simple they were and it felt warm to see their eyes glow when you handed them something – anything that might be of some use to them. They are all ‘parasites’ at the end of the day, I agree, but bugging the host to paranoia and when the host is me, us – no not done!
My wrath is against the industry, not against the humans who make it up. Such is the ‘pressure to perform’ that given a chance they would rip you naked.
Ok, let me talk man-on-man. I labour and every penny is hard earned, they too labour (all that acting, creating pitiable faces, running about under the scorching sun is labour nevertheless) and hence every penny is hard-earned, but they will never have the glitter, I have in my eyes on seeing the sms alert that my salary is transferred.
You know what I mean!
I thought, schemed many solutions, but none of them could clear the logic-cum-realistic questionnaire test I put the solutions to. It is plaguing, especially the metros and high time we STOP surviving them. Dishonesty, exploitation, emotional blackmail, living on another’s mercy, bugging others for your profit are vices in human beings, aren’t they! Besides, living with dignity isn’t that difficult, is it?

How to do it: STOP MAKING EYE-CONTACT WITH THE BREED…Try this till I come up with more plans!

Understanding 'Pride & Prejudice'..

It took me some 25 years to understand Jane Austen’s Victorian classic Pride & Prejudice.

Preface….

As a teenager, mostly fed with Tinkles, Nancy Drews, Sidney Sheldons and the likes, Pride & Prejudice, honestly, wasn’t one of the books I considered shifting to my little book shelf (made of shoe-cartons) from MaPa’s huge one. Nevertheless, Kamala Das’ Life Story, and this other novel called The Song of my Heart, did sit there (in my shelf) like misfits. My love for “Life Story” is that old. And the other novel qualified to be there just because it had pages (that I dog-eared) I was not supposed to read at that age.

Pride & Prejudice appeared again during early twenties, and this time, it was a part of my curriculum. Impromptu it disappeared from MaPa’s book-shelf and got shoved into mine (a metal shelf this time), amongst Kafkas and Coelhos, and other books of my curriculum. P & P was digested and excreted (read done away with) at the examination hall, without an ounce of affection. In fact, it was George Eliot’s Mill on the Floss’ Maggie (her identity crisis and later, self-discovery) and Tagore’s Home & the World’s Bimala (her feminism), that enamored me completely.

Pride & Prejudice – My take

I was really amused, when at 25, one fine day I looked back at life and found it so resembling the crux of that much-ignored, never dog-eared, Pride & Prejudice. The novel, as you know, centers on the theme of marriage in a Victorian society, illustrated finely through the parable of a family with four marriageable daughters and the urgency to get them married.
And whether Gurinder Chaddha’s Indian take, Bride & Prejudice, was released or not, I can vouch that an average Indian woman of my situation, i.e. one who has read the book, belongs to a middle class family, is of marriageable age and unengaged, and at home, will be able to relate to it in someway or the other, if not completely.

It was not without a pinch of salt (add pepper and chilies) that I gulped down MaPa’s ‘landing’ me to the Marriage Market. Well, a ‘market’ it has to be, because there the unmarried (men and women alike), get ‘commodified’ and their chances of getting a good mate (consumer) depends on certain definite and defined attributes. For men, it is profession and education, while for women, it is her face and character. This might sound too generalized and narrow, to say, very Victorian, but ironically that is how it is. Try peeking into the matrimonial advertisements and you will know what I mean.

Ma, like Mrs. Bennet, picked this famous one-liner: “Eir karoney eta bhal lora sabo soon dei” (Please search a good groom for my daughter), and gave it to relatives, acquaintances, you name it. I either grow red with anger or blue with embarrassment, but who cares! Was it not declaring to the whole world that her daughter has been incapable of finding herself a good match – I would often ponder!

Having brought up in an atmosphere that saw not a trace of patriarchic misgivings or gender bias, the recent developments at home were a ‘shock’ through and through. Every dictum had an underlying ‘this is what a lady is supposed to do’ and no action escaped scrutiny. I was even served a home-arrest of 6 months before I really got married, so that I could be groomed to be a ‘good wife’ (reminds me of the ‘accomplishments’ Lady Catherine defined that an ideal lady should possess). My outings were restricted. Maa’s advising to grow my hair long, left me slack-jawed, because ‘boys-cut’ was all I was allowed till I gathered the guts to revolt. Tresses, academic degrees, certificates and what not – all seemed ornamental accomplishments, that would decide my ‘value’ in the ‘Marriage Market’.

I could understand what made Lydia elope with that unworthy Wickham. The pressure boils down to a mental state that ‘escape’ is all you can think of, be it through marriage or elopement. How I hated being the Jane Bennet, at the receiving end, waiting to be ‘whisked away’, not ‘deciding’ but ‘accepting’ what others decide fit for her. The penultimate decision seemingly lies with the girl, but when ‘it’ is arranged between families and all factors (families, charkas etc.) seem compatible, the girl (sensitive and under ‘pressure’), has very little to ‘choose’, you see. Besides, the mind gets conditioned to the threaten - ‘aru bhal lora napaba’ (you will not get a better guy, if not this one) and like Charlotte Lucas you tend to ‘hold on’ to what seems ‘best’ your situation could afford.

Whether Marriages are made in Heaven, by Ma-Pa or by me, it hurts my self-respect to just ‘stay there’ waiting to be ‘selected’. Are living this ‘Victorian past’ and arranged marriages an assurance that you will live ‘happily ever after’? Is it right to groom daughters into believing they are ‘equal’, only to expect them to conform to ‘patriarchy’ in the end? For example, docile and unambitious women are preferred over ambitious and career-centric ones, and the parents do not raise a brow if that becomes a condition for marriage. Resembles Mr. Collins’ preferences, don’t they?

My situation, resembling a Jane Bennet best, with occasional impulses of a Lydia, depressions of a Charlotte, weird takes of a Mary (minus the snake dances, though), is an anti-thesis to everything my ‘accomplishments’ has made of me.

Transported to and caged in Jane Austen’s Pride & Prejudice, Elizabeth seems the only role ‘livable’ and the hope of finding a Darcy in good time, the only respite.

Dated..2nd December:

Darcy made it in good time.......wonder which novel it is going to be like next....till now Erich Seagal's Love Story is all I can think of..but I'll have to find another one soon..the heroine dies young, if you remember ;)