Ode to a fighter

I'm wondering what this world is coming to and why have people have forgotten words like Honor, commitment and Integrity??

I'm infinitely saddened by something I heard tonight.

Break ups and break downs happen to all of us, and I could actually draw perverse pleasure in saying “who would know better than me"? But apparently someone does know better than me, and what wouldn't I give to take that away from her, for she grew up before my eyes. A few billion blinks and she went from a lanky, awkward supergenius kid to Lovely woman, wiser than her years.

And she seemed set for life. A job in hand right after graduation, a lovely marriage to look forward to, everything a girl could ask for. But not really.

For after six years of a relationship, the man decided to jump ship, four weeks before marriage. No questions asked, no answers given.

Sometimes people are just not meant for each other, and they might not realize it even after spending a life together. Or they might realize it in a couple of years. However, no one has the right to wreck another person’s life.

Unfortunately, someone else’s sanity no longer warrants the same respect as one’s own.

Every morning I wake up and ask myself" Am i making the worst mistake of my life" ? Is this what I always wanted for myself, all my life and now that I have it, i don't recognize it ? Or am i so blinded by my own love that i can't see what is good for me ? So far I've not been able to find the answers.

Happy thanksgiving !

I know what I’m thankful for. I’m thankful for being here today. I’m thankful for being alive. I’m thankful for everything that god put me through, for it gave me the strength to survive in the face of adversity and made me the person I am. I’m thankful and grateful to my friends and family for being there with their unquestionable faith and support. And their determination to keep me going, no matter what. For putting up with my insecurities (and I have a lot of them) and tantrums. For trying to understand the challenges and working with them. For living with my cold attitude and sometimes, shredding me to pieces for it. For believing that everything serves a higher purpose. I’m thankful to my colleagues for making everyday a little less dull and a little brighter. And most of all I’m thankful to you, Amit, for giving me the strength to dream and trust in miracles. For believing in me and making me believe in myself. For standing by me through a lot of bad times. for loving me at my worst,for seeing through my rage,For pushing me when I wanted to crash, and holding me, when I wanted to lie down. I’m thankful for your sheer presence, for it’s a beacon of strength and happiness.
10.31 AM
26/11/2010

For Amit and Chotu

Its so silent tonight. I cant here you breathe. So this is what it feels like when time stops.
And I’m not ready to acknowledge that that you’ll be a memory someday.
That you almost are,already.
The things you did,the boundaries you crossed.the way I got you home.
Stupid irritating dog,who delivered my dirty undies on a guest’s foot.
The one who almost took my lip off because he didn't like me drunk.
The one who didn't sleep next to me when I was drunk,every single time.
The one whose temperament was like mine,suspicious,cynical,angry.
"Because everyone in this world is out to hurt me.i was caged as a pup.separated from my mother,almost left for dead.and I was rescued,after you paid a price for my existence.
And you’ve been my father,you've been my friend."

It’s so silent tonight and I cant believe you are gone.
I’ll miss you chotu, my friend,my son.

11.51 pm, 28 august

Save me before I burn myself out....

A single lucid moment..

Let my close my eyes,keep my head on your chest and sleep...
For when i sleep this dream seems so possible.
To laugh with you,to fight.to scream at you coz you won't listen.To cry coz you wont bother. to have you hold me and whisper in my ears.To start laughing all over again coz you'd make me..To give into those fits of madness which no one else would ever understand. To listen to your lies and believe them. to see you not care and still love you..
To live all the million dreams in a heartbeat and see a million more in the next,coz thats how you make me feel.
Let me keep my head on your chest and sleep,let me live in this lucid moment,for if i open my eyes,this dream would never be...

I dont know how to say goodbye.
i thought all this was behind me. the hurt,the anguish,the sense of betreyal.the pain of my heart breaking all over again. but i guess i was wrong.
i dont know wat to say or how.
just to come so close to a dream and watch it shatter,standing there and unable to do anything about it..
And now there are a million unanswered questions. why doesnt this misery end if i've already taken the next step ?
I've said everything in my thoughts a thousand times over yet cant to you. After all this time you arent a stranger and yet you arent mine.
And everytime i go through this,something dies inside me.Is this the love we dreamt of ? where we can't talk to each other,can't be there for each other,can't understand each other,and yet wont leave each other ?
I'm ready to take the blame a thousand times over just for one hour of respite.
Just a hint of happiness.
And i know that two years down the line, i might even be able to turn back and look at this with just a shadow of the pain i'm feeling now, but till then...
Till then...

doggy Fever !!

I woke up to an overcast sky. Rain drizzling on cement sheets, small doggy paws making wet splats against the floor, mom screaming at them to get inside the house ,or ELSE !!
Meet nandini, sasha and mischa. The crazy three in the family. The centre of everyday chaos.
Let me give you a brief introduction. Nandini is the golden retriever, she’s 7 yrs old. Sasha the Pomeranian. She too, is 7. And then Mischa, the cocker spaniel. She’ll turn 1 on 14 feb. Yup, you read it right. Valentine’s Day. However, trust me, she’s anything BUT romantic. Or maybe she’s romantic for a dog. I really wouldn’t know.
These days Sasha and mischa are in heat. Believe me, it’s maddening. As I’m typing these words, the guard is ringing the bell to inform us that Sasha has somehow escaped from a LOCKED gate and is strolling with the local Casanova, an 13 year old bastardly lab. I wonder what they see in each other… or maybe the fragrance of hormones can move through barriers like pedigree etc...
After a lot of shouting and swearing madam is escorted back to the house, ofcourse, with the look of a scared mouse on her face. After all, she has to face mom.
So I called mom to tell her that Sasha had eloped, temporarily and is now back after a probable hush hush honeymoon. The problem is, mom is asking me to check if the honeymoon was successful.
“Does she look alright”? “Hmm… she looks fine to me... Kinda dirty” “dirty?? From where??” “Err…”
“Who saw ‘em together?” “The guard” “well, ask him then”!! “Err…”
And so the conversation went, with a lot of inputs about being more responsible towards the kids (read: dogs).
Now as I turn my head to look into the other room, I see the culprit sleeping peacefully on mom’s bed with an angelic look on her face. It’s like she almost knows what will happen when mom returns home.
Sucker.

Two parts salt and nothing....

So we pretty much hate Slumdog Millionaire...uh, don't us wrong, it's a WONDERFUL movie, the kids are Fantastic-so..... SLUMLIKE, you know, REAL, they grow up into fine slumdog specimens. so wat if you can make out that the dirt and grim is actually shoe polish and so what if the lead speaks with a very pleasing accent. but it does not show India in the correct/right light. We are about SO much more than Dharavi and it's, roughly put, two million slum dwellers. We are about colors, agriculture, villages, technology, education, youth politics, elephants and not to forget, snake charmers !!
What i fail to understand is why are people so vehemently against the idea of an outsider succeeding at what we love to fail at.
We DON'T want to see what this movie shows in graphic details.
How many times do we stop at red lights and wonder, "WHAT THE HECK happened to this kid" ?? I know i do.
Because when i was really young and eager to explore the world, my dad would tell me,"don't go out because in India people grab children and do nasty things to them so that when they beg people pity them and give them money".
I think my dad would really appreciate Mr Boyle's work.

Or the part about the police beating up a poor kid just because a well known personality suspects him of cheating. or the railway urchins who sell everything from nail cutters to soft porn books. We've seen it all. We still see it all.

To me, this movie is all about what I've 'almost' successfully ignored for the last 18 years.
The poverty, the stench of an entire unwashed population, the undeniable greed for power, money and sex, the need to hide our base reality and deck up the beautiful exterior.
The fact that a "phirang" can make us see all of this again seems to have rattled and challenged our indianness.

So i forgot how to log in. here, on blogspot. and then i tried all types of combinations of mail ids and passwords and finally hit gold. which got me wondering if my braincells are goin kaput becoz i simply have too many passwords to remember !! IT ppl at office hate me becoz they have to reset my mail and LAN password every three days. i mean now random IT ppl know my password and i don't !

I honestly think it happens bcoz i dont pay attention to detail. i mean, it's not like i have an early case of alzeimer's. ok, maybe not too early. It's just that i'm not into details when it comes to abstract nouns.

I think i'm like that everywhere. i end up lookin at the larger picture, ignorin the little things. but it doesn't work too well. becoz the little things start piling up, one by one, and suddenly you realise that there is a mountain in front of you and no way to go around it. and you definitely dont have the guts to go through it. That is when things start falling apart. And one fine day you wake up with no clue as to wat to do, bcoz you just dont know wat went wrong in the first place.

And then you write stupid snippets like this.

I really wish i'd become a little smarter, no, a LOT smarter actually.

Disbelief(my first reaction to what happened in Mumbai), immediately followed by shock, anger, pain and finally, fear.

Let's start from the beginning. I'm a Delhite. I've never been to Mumbai. Ever. clubbed along with a love for wide roads,open spaces and some margin of cleanliness, and, a genetic dislike for the smell of sea food, rotting garbage and a hundred bodies stacked together in a train compartment, i have blissfully led a charmed life believing in the spirit of my city and looking at the rival with a baleful eye.

Not any more.

I felt more like a Mumbaikar than I've ever felt like a Delhite when i watched one of India's greatest cities fall victim to a handful of religious zealots. It was the most sobering and panic inducing incident I've ever witnessed. The sense of helplessness was overwhelming as i witnessed scene after scene of mindless, bloody killings across different locations in Mumbai. I think i cried every single time i saw the Images Of The Taj being put to fire(and believe me, i saw pictures of The Taj for the first time on 11/26). it was like watching your history being tortured and then set to fire.

This massacre set me thinking about how clueless, inept and frankly apathetic our government is. They had to call in all the three forces to tackle the situation and by then, hundreds were already dead. To top it all, Mumbai police lost three of it's best officers simply because their government had not equipped them with the tools required to fight such an attack. what kind of a government sends it own people to their sure shot deaths while the politicians sit on their fat,over stuffed couches and siphon off money(meant for the same organizations who fight for us) to Swiss bank accounts?? What kind of officials can brush off such a barbaric act by saying such things happen in big cities?? WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ELECT SUCH RIDICULOUSLY CORRUPT/INEPT/ASININE POLITICIANS TO RULE???

It's a systematic failure of a pointless democracy. We don't cherish our freedom. We don't respect the forces which fight tooth and nail to keep us alive. We question the integrity of those officers who have had the bad fortune of cornering a Hindu extremist. We abuse the power of expression in the most vicious means possible.

So finally, Terror reigned supreme.

Are we actually shocked that this happened to us ? Is it that unexpected ? Or are we again passing the buck ?