Too many thoughts in my head... Too many questions, too many comments, too many options... Life has suddenly become one too many...

I started working again... Like real work.... Not the 'home-based I dont have much to do' kind of work... Work that actually keeps me occupied for most part of the day... Which always means interactions with a bunch of other individuals... People who behave as parts of an organism popularly known as 'office politics'. And its time for me to figure out where I stand... And then express the same... Well honestly I care a damn... I am still upset about Mumbai... I am still angry and disgusted and so on... I have stopped watching news channels, because I am tired of the teary eyed Burkha Dutt showing us the curtain which acted as the make-shift ladder for the people to escape... I am tired of foriegners saying how they still think this country is safe and beautiful... Ofcourse it is... I dont need to be told that... I am not going anywhere, trust me...

I have been getting protest mails, sms-es pointing out the absence of Raj Thackrey, and reading many a blog of people who were actually there somewhere while this fiasco happened... Actually I don't even have a 'word' to describe what happened between 25th and 27th November... Its all still a blur...A real bad dream which I wish was not true... Anyways, the point is, that people have taken offence this time... Real offence... I don't know why it took all these years, but the people pf Mumbai have finally risen with the voice that they dont really believe in that 'spirit of Mumbai' bullshit... It was perhaps true during the riots, or the flood, or the number of blasts that scarred the city... But this time its different... I don't know if its the rare mix of the death of rich and poor alike that has created this havoc response... Or if its the random yet careful selection of locations, the shock of your own homes being ripped apart... The horror and finality... But people seem to have finally woken up...

Here's what I want to tell my fellow Mumbaikars... Please don't get up and portray 'resilience' or 'perseverance'. Hang the Mumbaikar spirit... Yes you should not be afraid... But you can mourn... And you can grieve... For this is that time when you let go of your controls... We all grieve with you...

Mumbai has come in my blog a number of times... I have written about my feelings and experiences here, and god knows how much I love the city... How I consider Mumbai to be my second home... The city which gave me my identity, my friends, my husband and the four most wonderful years of my life.

Then yesterday morning I woke up with a call from a friend... Someone who knew about my ties with the city... She asked me to look... And I saw... I saw a bunch of men mutilating my city... Killing my people... burning my buildings... I watched and watched in horror as flames blew out of the Taj.... Grenades exploding in Oberoi and gunshots pierced through VT, Leopold, Colaba... I sat helpless trying to understand what is going on...

Since then we all have been waiting for this nightmare to end... And as the time passed by, we came across horror stories shared by friends and families who lost a part of them, who are being held hostage for the last 35 hours...

I have been crying... I cant explain the pain I feel right now... Yes I was lucky that my friends having dinner at Colaba escaped, my cousin at VT left just in time.... My other family and friends never went to south bombay on wednesday. But so many others were not so lucky. My city was not so lucky. And I want to know why... Yesterday I saw a man saying he wants to wait and watch the deadbodies of the terrorists coming out of Taj... Because they have dared to touch Mumbai... And I feel the same way. I heard one of the men have been captured. All I could think was that if I had a gun I would have blown his head off right there...

I dont want to know who these people were. I dont want to know where they came from and what is it that they wanted out of this. All I want to know is that what is it that drove these men to walk in on innocent people and shoot at them. If this was a religious retaliation, they could not have avoided killing their own men. If it was for revenge, who are they seeking it from? I keep hearing all this was well planned... Ofcourse it was... Otherwise how could they kill four top police officers in a matter of one night? They knew who their target was. They knew who kill and where to kill. And they did...

They are saying this is the worst terrorist attack India has seen. It was the worst one for America on 9/11. It would be worst for some other country some other day... And I want to know for how long... If you really want to rule the world, why not drop a few nuclear bombs on us? Finish us all and then you can rule... That ways you will save a lot of time... Why do you keep coming into my home and hurting us one by one? How long do you think the fear factor will work?

Weight pain

Ten years back, I weighed 42kgs. Five years back I was 54kgs. Today I am 69kgs. For those who have known me all these years, I am sure it is a shocker.... Trust me, the growing waistband, fuller face and hips have left me quite surprised as well... I started with denial, moved to arrogance, irritability, downright heartache and finally resignation.... When I meet my friends from school or college, they all, usually as politely as possible, mention that I have gained a lot of weight... And I do the head bob routine in answer...

Does it bother me that I no longer fit into my favourite clothes? Does it bother me to see other people around me looking trim and fit, sporting trendy attires while I struggle with my ever expanding tummy? Honestly, it still does. But perhaps not as much as it used to be... And this is huge... Why? Well, it happens to be the essence of my weight loss regime...

I have read a thousand articles, sat through talk shows on TV, spoken to friends, doctors, and god knows who else. Of course, each one had their own take on the topic of weight loss... I was recommended diets, strict exercise routines, pills, and a whole gamete of advice as to "what really works"....

I followed some, chucked the others, but with minimal success. I often ended up feeling extremely unhappy because I would have failed to follow the diet (rice, potatoes and sweets happen to be staple diet). It was only after I got married that my husband pointed out that I have started obsessing about losing weight, and growing progressively unhappy in life. So this is what he had to offer: Don't be hyper about your weight. You should be careful about being fit, thats all.... Don't stop yourself from eating things you like.... And there is absolutely no need to spend boring hours in a gym, feeling terrible about yourself. We all need physical exercise... So do you like doing... Go play a game you like once a week... or swim... or walk.... Don't be too hard on yourself...

And guess what...That actually worked :) I have been swimming, and I feel good... The flabs are still there, but I don't care... I can see I am getting fitter.... I do a lot more laps in the pool now... And I tire less frequently... I feel good about myself... And I have actually started to lose weight!!!!

So here's the bottom line... All those who are getting worked up about weight loss or gain... Just drop it... Obsess about being healthy, not slimmer or fuller.... Eat what you like, do what you like... But just feel happy... Because at the end of the day, that is all that matters... Your body is not for experimentation.... Your body is for you to enjoy... So be good to it darlings...

Freestyle

I fell in love with swimming as a child... I was about 10 or 12 when my parents took my brother and me to a swimming club nearby, and that is how it all started. I have very fond memories of jumping into the pool, splashing all over, playing with the other kids, and before long I was actually swimming by myself in the 20 ft deep lake next door....

Over the years I have tried to swim whenever I could. Of course, it never really happened on a regular basis, till I landed up in Bangalore and found this really cute pool nearby. I have tried swimming regularly ever since, till day before, when someone came and spoilt it all.

I had just come out of the shower and was walking towards the pool when I heard a mother telling her son to pay attention to the instructor. Normally, I would not have cared, but this was someone speaking my mother tongue, which is not that common in this part of the country... I would have still ignored her, but she had taken over a side of the pool, screaming constantly at her son, trying to make sure he is his lesson seriously. I also heard her telling the instructor that he needs to scold the boy... Otherwise he wont listen....

After about fifteen minutes of non-stop instructions, the mother finally decided to get down to action herself. She got into the pool, caught her son, and tried to teach him herself. The kid, about 5-6 years old, is more interested in playing with the other kids in the pool, who were having a good time playing with a ball on the kiddie-side of the pool after their lesson. While the son kept pleading the mother to let him play, she kept pushing him to demonstrate his skills to her. She was determined to correct all his flaws in the next ten minutes.

This struggle went on for the next half an hour... The mother-son duo took over a side of the pool (much to the inconvenience of the other swimmers). Since most of their dialogue continued in my mother tongue, I had no option but to hear it all... (In my defense, its just a 25 mts. long pool. How far could I have gone?) The son was required to swim back and forth, with the mother following. She kept telling him he was not doing it right. And the poor child kept trying. Every few minutes he will ask if he could play for a bit. The mother continued to criticize his skills, telling him "You are not doing it right". While he is trying, the mother kept instructing him...
" Head down, roll your hands, blow bubbles... etc etc"

The son got bored in a while, and tried to get away as many times as he could. In the end it started getting ugly, when the mother, after trying cajoling, scolding, fear of punishment in vain was about to hit the child. Thankfully, she finally gave up, and decided to concentrate on her own swimming, and that is when I realized what the problem was. Our lady here has no idea how to swim... She needs help, ASAP!!! I guess the pool lost quite a bit of water thanks to all the thrashing....

Thanks to this show of 'good parenting', by this time I had lost all interest and pleasure of swimming, and decided to get out of there. But I couldn't take that kid and the mother out of my head.... I am no expert in child raring, but what I saw didn't seem right. It just broke my heart.... Why are parents hell bent on turning their failures into their child's success? How can they turn a pleasurable activity into a boring and unpleasant experience for a child? Have they forgotten how their own childhood used to be? I don't think this child will ever like swimming they way I liked it... Simply because I was left to my own devices... My mother was not standing on my head making sure I 'perform'. Unfortunately, 'performance' appears to be THE buzz word of the century.... Everybody wants to make their child some sort of a talented genius. My friend's 3 year old toddler is required to speak in English in kindergarten... I heard of another parent who is planning to send her 5 year old for piano lessons and horse-back riding.... Another one is sending her 2 year old to school right away.... I honestly don't understand this.... I always thought children had the freedom to do things they want to.... Looks like we are all set to turn them into responsible adults the day they are born....

Global Chilling

After living in this city for almost four years, I, like many others, faced the rather unpleasant surprise of experiencing a chilly Mumbai. The city is actually cold these days, with the wind piercing through my bones when I am travelling or walking through an open space. I believe the temperatures have gone down up to 11 degrees over the last one month... And it’s not been a single day phenomenon.... And its not only Mumbai... A number of cities (except poor Chennai I guess) have been a victim of this untimely cold waves...

This has been a rather depressing time for all the Mumbaikars. The city has not only turned cold for us, a few people are actually threatening the existance of the large population of migrants... I could not help but wonder, if Mumbai today was cleaned of all the outsiders (bengalies, norh indians, south indian, sikhs... every non-marathi that is), what would happen. For one thing, the city would be much less crowded. But will the cabs and the autos run? Will we get roadside chats, kebabs, sandwiches and Chinese food? Who will do your domestic work? Who will do the construction work? Who will clean the buildings? Who will sell the thousands of essential items around the corner?

Why is this city becoming such a cold cold place? What is with this growing intolerance and hostility towards fellow human beings? Why do I have to feel unwelcome in some part of my own country? And why should some fellow countrymen be mistreated because they look different or speak a different language? Are we really justified in insisting that in order to file a police complaint I need to be able to speak the local language? Is it essential that the public transport have destinations and numbers written in the local language? How will changing the names of cities help in retaining their ‘identities’? Why are we so insecure about our vernacular film industry that we take the drastic step of banning all other language movies in our theatres?

I do not have the answers for this. And something tells me that the propagators of this mass hatred and foolishness don’t have it either. I do believe that this problem too has a solution. And as always, it is in our hands only. The next time someone tries to bully me or someone aorund mebecause I am supposedly an 'outsider' to myown country, I have pledged not to take it lying down. Such an act requires fervent protest from any sane mind. And I shall do my part.

Writing

Over the past couple of months, I have been toying with the idea of initiating some serious creative writing... As a kid, I used to often write what is called 'chhoda' in bengali... Small rhymes I guess is the best way to describe that... The closest I have ever come to writing a prose has always been the essays that we had to write for homework. I used to always chose the more 'personal' topic... Could never rely on my general knowledge to pull of an informative one you see. I guess I also once tried to write a crime novel for kids when I was 10... That one never saw the light of day after about five pages...

So now I have started feeling the need to write some prose again... May be a little story... Just to see if I have the capability of building a plot, building charecters and dialogues and narratives around it, and turn into a pleasent read.... One of the reasons I started writing this blog was also that... I wanted to figure out the nature of my writing... And of course, much to my dismay, I realised that is quite erratic, just like myself....

I was having a chat with someone who had recently started the serious writing practice for herself. She was telling me how she things blogs are not perhaps the best way to explore one's ability to write meaningful/creative/imaginative prose... While she sited a number of examples where bloggers have moved to become authors, she also mentioned that the quality of their work has not necessarily translated into something beyond ordinary. She said that most of the times we end up restraining ourselves while writing on the public domain, thus stiffling the creativity itch that would have prompted us to write in the beginning. And then it struck me... This is perhaps the best explanation of my never-ending writer's block... I have complained to myself and on this domain a million times that not only do I often face the block when I try writing here, I also often feel that the content is lousy... I have felt that the end product of my attempt has been of rather poor quality, poor sontent, and ofcourse, quite borning. There are times when I look at some entries and cringe... God knows what i was thinking when I wrote them...

It is not possible for a lot of us to pour our hearts out to strangers. It is a ctually a scary thought that my darkest thoughts are being published in a webpage... Easily accessible by anybody and everybody... So I guess I will revert back to my old habit of maintaining my journal... Like I read somewhere, there is already enough crap in the literary world, dont add more to it... So I have decided to keep my crap to myself...

Cullinery Delights

Food makes me happy…. Food is my anti-depressant, my means of celebration, my eternal support. I live to eat… I can’t ever get enough when it comes to food… I am not ashamed of admitting my addiction to food. I believe one can only enjoy food when it has pleased all your senses. Well its actually common sense… You can never resist food that looks delicious, with an aroma that turns you on, which melts in your mouth and tastes like the best thing you have ever had….

My craving for food changes with my mood… Coffee and pakora on a rainy day, mashed potatoes and roasted chicken to boost up my morals, creamy chocolate cakes to celebrate, or simple daal chawal for comfort.

Incidentally, I also enjoy cooking. I learnt to cook completely by the use of common sense and memory. Growing up, I had watched my mother cook everyday. And when I myself started cooking, I found myself doing what she does. Of course, I am not as good as her… Not yet… But like my husband often remarks, I am unbelievably confident about my cooking. You will always hear me saying, oh I make great pulav, or chicken, or mutton, or garlic bread and pasta … So you can imagine the unpleasant surprise I had to bear not once but repeatedly when I goofed up again and again while trying to cook for my in-laws. Yes, it also creates performance anxiety for me.

I guess comparing cooking to performing arts is quite cliché… But that’s how I have always found the exercise of cooking to be… A piece of art brought together painstakingly… It requires tremendous patience, an eye for details, and the courage to walk off the beaten path… What can be more inspiring than creating art which is also edible?

When it comes to cooking, I enjoy the entire process immensely. I have often used it to relax at the end of an exceptional tiring day, or as a source of utmost pleasure in an unbelievably dull time … I find it fascinating as I witness completely unrelated things being concocted into a tasty meal in a matter of a few minutes or hours…. The sight of chicken curry shimmering on the stove, the smell of ghee in peas pulav, the feel of fish fillets as I marinate them for frying… The entire process, right from gathering the ingredients, preparing them, watching over the pot while they blend, fretting over the concoction till the time it is served, is ritualistic for me. And once served, the aroma of spices, the sheer sight of colours starts creating havoc in my brain…. And its time to let loose… And finally, when I have served it, watching my blissful audience lick their fingers gives me that high… yes, nothing pleases me more than to serve or to be served with some mouth watering cuisine on a platter…

Gibberish

I started my day with this hopelessly happy feeling... I was feeling very warm inside... Happy... content.... and generally in a mood I would like to find myself in everyday.... I hardly noticed the horrible traffic and sung my way to work....

Work, however, has become awfully boring these days.... I have been having a rather hard time to concentrate for more than a few moments... leave alone being productive.... Have not demonstrated an iota of productivity over the last couple of weeks I guess.... Ridiculous I say :( Infact it is so annoying that I want to flush it out of my system... This boredom is killing me... And I have stopped asking myself the question whether this is what I want to do in life... Well I dont...ofcourse... And its a pity that the ppl are sooo nice here.... This had been the best work environment that I have experienced so far....

But I am ready to get the hell out of here... I am ready to go to the next 'new' place and start the 'new' life.... And that is how I have proved yet again i have severe attention deficiency syndrome... Will this ever leave me... Kinda hard to not be yourself, right?

Things bore me so easily that these days I am scared of starting anything new... I think I need a proper break from mundane things... I mean jobs.... I wont get paid at the end of the month... And that is a concern... But I really want to do something else... Like really really different.... I told my husband I want to write a book... He thought I was joking :( I told my mom I want to just stay home and be the model 'home-maker'... She laughed... So if anyone has any idea abt some fun stuff that they want to do, pls share with me... God's blessing shall be showered on you........

Memoires of an almost perfect honeymoon: Chapter One

Lost and found: Kuala Lumpur

No matter how much I love travelling, I always get a panic attack whenever I am travelling somewhere. I always catch myself checking the umpteenth time whether I have booked the right tickets, whether I have the necessary paperwork, whether I have switched off the geyser and the gas, whether I have locked all the doors, whether I am carrying all the necessary items and enough clothes… The list continues.

Ofcourse, all this planning never ensures a 100% success rate. Infact, I often find that I plan and plan and plan, but never plan enough time to actually execute all of it. Result: chaos and more panic.
This time too, I was quite nervous about every small thing that I could think of. But apart from forgetting to switch off the lights at home, I don’t think there were much goof-ups that happened. We reached the airport on time, only to find out that our airlines counter hasn’t even opened. We got good seats, changed our money, declared the valuables at customs and got onto the flight. A rather friendly crew greeted us and ensured that our journey was comfortable. I, however, being the fidgety self, hated the length of the journey… It was just five hours, but it seemed a lifetime before we finally landed at Kuala Lumpur.

It was perhaps the biggest airport I have ever seen. While my husband was happily soaking in the excitement and funfair at the airport, I started getting panicky again, this time about finding our way to the baggage claim and immigration. As a result, I never managed to enjoy the airo-train ride to the other terminus, or the festive decorations that adorned the airport.

Immigration turned out to be a smooth affair, and we moved on for baggage claim. We had already heard about taking KLIA express into the city, so I hurriedly bought the tickets… By then the conveyer belt had started spewing the bags…. And much to my disappointment, one of our bags was missing. We waited and waited and waited for the bag to come, and finally my surprisingly calm husband went ahead to speak to the airport crew. We were directed to the Lost and Found Department, where some very cordial officials came to our aid. The place was very comfortable, and people came in and went out with their luggage. I waited for a miracle, where someone would bring out the bag and say hey, we were just kidding… Here you go…

Ofcourse, miracles don’t happen… They took down our details, the bag’s description, and gave us a receipt. They also informed us that most likely another passenger would have taken our bag by mistake. They would try to track the person, ask him to return the bag, and deliver the same to us at our hotel.

My heart broke… This was supposed to be my perfect honeymoon… And look what happened!!!! My husband, ofcourse, continued to remain absolutely calm. The bag had his clothes… And he kept joking that this is his opportunity to redo his wardrobe…

On our way to the hotel in that awesome train, I continued to remain glum, while he tried to show me the brighter side of the situation… If you ask me, the brighter side is that I married him… had there been someone as emotional as me, we would have both been crying our way into the city…

Upon reaching the hotel, we narrated the saga to the receptionist, trying to explain to him that the airport authorities would be delivering our bag. And he says, “One of our guests brought in a wrong bag from the airport. Let me call them and check. May be its yours” You can imagine how my excitement rose as soon as he spoke… We both started at the elevator till the time it opened and two men walked out, pulling behind… Behold… OUR FREAKING BAG!!!!

I don’t remember dancing, but I do remember the stupid grin on my face… I completely forgot to scream at the man for being stupid enough to take our bag which had our name on the tag… I was so excited that I almost pushed my hubby to go to the airport with them and bring the bag back… (The rule is that if you take someone else’s bag, you need to return it to take back your own). My sane husband obviously realized what a bad idea that was, given the fact that it was late in the night and the airport was so far away… However, he did manage to send the bag-lifters back to the airport….

The very next day, the airport authorities delivered our bag at the hotel… It was a public holiday, but I believe that’s how responsible they are… Quodos to the airport authorities in Malaysia…..