Boycotting Normalcy

We've long back crossed the age of excitement and astonishment trying to figure out the meaning of marriage and wedding, while learning the difference between the two. After close to six months now, when all fascinating aspects of marriage seemed to have found the answers, I sense the state of ‘being settled’ trying to seize the schedule and painting it in the bland colors of routineness, while shouting on top of its voice, ‘Congratulations! Now that you’re freaking hitched, you’re settled now!’

The only thing I am reminded of by this phrase ‘being settled’ is a heavy stone sunk to the bottom of a water tank, because there wasn’t any space to dig down further and lie there. It’s like a bottle of champagne being decarbonated just to get a more calmed down, fizz-free drink, like a cat being belled just to keep a tab on all her ‘catty’ acts and more like gaseous CO₂ being converted into dry ice to keep it all, integrated at one place.

You seldom hear parents wishing a life full of adventures, while bidding farewell to their daughter-turned-bride, or a life full of last-minute plans, shocking revelations, exciting explorations, daring decisions, creative enlightenment or mental growth, for that matter. All that they would wish her is a life as calm and peaceful as still water, a life which certifies her as a nice wife, daughter-in-law, mother, neighbor, colleague and citizen!

This generation, who I belong to, regards more meaning to the life post marriage than what settlement holds for them. For many like me, marriage brings along a possibility to try the things never tried before, breaching the rules and heading out untrained to face life head-on. Thankfully, I am surrounded by friends and family who think the same; for instance, one of my close friends chooses to be an Army wife instead of going for a ‘normal, settled’ boy because she thinks she can pull it off with fun; one other friend heads out for a road trip to Nepal and one, last, who is learning to knit because she finds it utterly creative. All these have one thing in common, they have refused to stay stuck in normalcy – all of them are happy being called jerks because they think this tag describes them the best. 

I reckon one famous saying by Paulo Coelho (a little down here) and this one brings me the feeling of euphoria, for there are millions of things I would like to try while they are still calling me young and cover it all under the sheath of ‘experimentation’. I feel this is THE time when we could be crazy at our best and still feel grounded, for we have explored the true meaning of being mature and are coloring our life with the hues of sense. 

Refusing to stay stuck in normalcy, here I am saying, 'I'm bad, and that's good. I will never be good, and that's not bad. There's no one I'd rather be than me!'.

An Attitude of Gratitude

Here are some of my happy realizations, which make me want to give my life a bunny hug.

1. Living in the real skin

This incidence happened while I was preparing to head back to my home having taken steam bath in my fitness center. I bumped into this maid who was cleaning the washroom. Looking at my choorha and having concluded that I was recently married, she asked me if I was living at my in-laws’ place. Giving in to her curiousness, I answered affirmatively. I can’t really articulate the astonishment I saw on her face; I am too sure gravity had no role to play in making her jaw drop to the floor! She, very skeptically, re-asked me if they (my in-laws) do not object my wearing shorts despite my marital status. After seeing my what-is-this-nonsense look, she went ahead to explain to me the reason behind her bizarre reaction - back from where she came, she was not even allowed to let her scarf budge from her head to show off her hair. I got the gist and thanked God my ‘usual’ life lets me wear whatever I get my mind on. 

2. Technology, the savior

This was way back in time when I had begun working for Kobo, Inc. Since I worked from home, all my work was dependent on this black box I am fiddling with right now – my laptop. I remember the reaction on my maid’s face the first time she saw me and my boss video-chatting. She was all drenched in bewilderment seeing how I could see a person sitting millions of ‘houses’ away from me. Actually, she could not grasp how I could talk to a person AND see him on a ‘box’. I remember her telling me how many problems she faced while connecting to her mother back in her hometown, Nepal – financial being the first. I had to look at the sky and pass a flying kiss. 

3. Decision making

This doesn’t come easy to an ‘Indian’ married girl. All her decisions, big or small, financial or otherwise, relating to herself or her family, do not opt for an easy path to go her way. They demand an intervention at all levels, starting from her husband, to his family to the neighbors to everyone else but her. Finally, she consumes a broth everyone's but her mind has cooked. No wonder, Christ had me at the first alphabet of his name (it’s the same as my)!

4. Compliments from strangers

This one elates me to the core! During my internship there, I was waiting at the reception of All India Radio, holding a bouquet, for my aunt who had her birthday that day. I remember this beautiful lady, who passed by me, turned around, came back to me and said while lowering herself to my ears, ‘you're a flower holding a bouquet’! For once, I could not believe my ears - that was the best compliment anyone had ever given me. I could not help but smile that entire day and, worst still, almost everyone who knows me has listened to this incident more than once. Following that, there have been many from people like my gym trainers, kids playing around, my cousins, my friends and the family but it's the ones I have received from strangers that entered my mind and never really left.

5. The finest of the lows and the finest of the highs

Been there, done that. I have rode the wavelength of life, had my best smiles with tears and my worst tears with smiles at my crests and at my troughs. All in all, it has been a wonderful roller-coaster ride and it has always been about moving ahead, in the right direction. The best reason to look forward to life is that the best of it is ‘yet to come’!

6. Good food, good workout and good vibes

This feeling of being surrounded by exactly the people you have ever wanted to be with, the no-nonsense thoughts, the art of controlling the senses, love and prayers – this realization of how the best things in life don’t cost a dime is, surely, priceless.

7. Great books by my pillow

How could I not realize the immense power these little lumps of pages have before! Now that I have, I am not going to let this habit go till I am breathing. 

8. Chase them dreams

The feeling that marriage should set oneself free is contrary to what we are taught our entire spinster life. We've only got one life to dream big and fight for them!

9. The night outs!

Not that I was handcuffed when in home or there was curfew outside that I could not step out, but you know when you have doting parents back home who are curious to know what goes on in your life, it IS tough to go out on dates. The worst restriction on me was no night outs. Things seem to have changed now that I am hitched – we party all night, watch late night movies, dine late and never look at the watch while we're havin' fun. 

10. My blog

This crucial part of my life has not only brought me closer to some of the most wonderful intellectuals I would not have ever been able to meet otherwise, but also has made me embrace solitude like a warrior. Nothing really makes my day mighty fine more than writing and publishing a post and, further, reading the comments my readers leave on my blog - pure bliss! 

Lastly, love, love, love - parents, siblings, elders, colleagues, kiddos, acquaintances - it's raining everywhere and I feel it on my skin. As they say, good vibes are extremely contagious, I feel them sinking in :)

I Love My Earphones Plugged, Anyway

So, here it goes. I am not a crazy music lover, a person who spends the best part of his day listening to beats, catching hold of the lyrics. Music is a thing which comes as rather an opportunity to me. While listening to the radio, news, sitcoms or while travelling, I might just run into some good music being played in the background that would pull me by my collars and cast a spell right there. This point on would initiate an irritating, sometimes insatiable, urge to know that song and to have it loaded in my iPod. Genres, singers, instrumentation, formats or styles – nothing really governs my playlist.

I remember one friend asking me if I listened to country music and all I could do was scoff at the thought of sticking to one kind of music for all my life. My playlists might have the slowest songs ever sung by anyone, to a wacky Bhojpuri number I might have stumbled upon at a crazy pajama party with friends.

The best part about my this love for music I would lovingly call as ‘cosmopolitan’ is that I enjoy the silence they leave behind, when they end. I would listen to one song on repeat mode for half a day and, then, decide to not repeat it finally and, still, keep the earphones plugged in my ears hours afterwards. I love the fact that my earphones do not decide to jump off my ears having played the same song for hours; thinking good of me, they would still fight off the noise outside to enter my ears and spoil the sweet residue the song just played has left in my ears and a bit in my brain. The headphones: they also do to my ears what quilt does to my body in winters: provide a warm hug and just be there, holding the warmth. So, while listening to a song I discovered on radio a couple of days back on my iPod, I realized how I love this physical object which has become as good as an extension of me. Playing music or not, I so love my earphones plugged, anyway!

There's A New "Hair"sitter in Town!

A long stint of trial, patience and hard work but were the efforts all worth it? You’ll have to read on till the end of this post in order to get the answer. I am talking about my hair and the amount of efforts it has demanded of me to bring them up right. This might be the first time in my life (another first!) when I have thought of cultivating this natural harvest to the extent it happily could and I dare say it has brought out the best in my behavior. How? Ohkay.

I, now, feel as if, being a child psychologist, I am writing the best of parenting techniques parents should practice but I must concede growing your hair right to see them how exactly you’ve wanted them to be is no way a lesser job. I have seen myself go through a lot of behavioral changes in order to accommodate the pain: tears, worries, fears, anticipations and, finally, bliss that growing my hair right has brought along. I confess I am now more patient with them falling and have learnt how to toss the blame on to the environment - you have to control your tears when you see them going down the drain or leaving their home to elope with the comb – great deal of perseverance, indeed. You have to make friends with the fact that some seasons are there in existence because they have some number targets of hair strands they have to register as fallen before they bid adieu to that place.

I get a feeling that I have become an erudite “hair”sitter, capable of writing a book on good “hair”sitting (I would love to call it that because I hate to repeat what I’ve said before). I must have read thousands of magazines and blogs online talking about the best hair care tips by everyone from amateurs to professionals – I had a patient ear for everyone. One side-effect of this whole activity was that a lot of times, I was directed to some fabulous recipe websites from these blogs; there was so much food to be applied on either hair or scalp being talked about that I finally gave up on covering my head with them and thought of becoming an unrepentant sinner indulging herself in gluttony J

Anyway, one year of persistent determination, eating right, oiling my hair twice a week, taking multi-vitamin supplements, working out regularly, combing with utmost care, breathing right, burping less, blogging more, praying even more, turning a blind eye to all the ‘good’ things in the world, watching lesser television, drawing constellations on assumed-to-be starry nights, bitching less, smiling to all the relatives, saying yes and all the ‘sane’ stuff those blogs could ask me to do - I have done IT ALL; some tips worked, others were fun to try; some gave good results while a few reassured there’s more to life than long, healthy hair. Finally, here I am, with THE results. I am sharing a few pictures with y’all – a few experiments I have done, now that I have learned to tame my hair. While I prepare myself for my first trimming session in all this time, I pray to God that I don’t return with a bad face and a back-on-track behavior (to hell with perseverance, I want them to stay for long!) J

Keep Calm and Use This!

It is one of those days when I feel the presence of so many bitches surrounding me, keeping a check on me to know what I do, how I do it and if doing nothing, then just being there like a spy counting my breaths. It’s like you were leading your life peacefully, oblivious to all the political, social and miscellaneous shit happening around and suddenly, you get poked in your ribs, jabbed on your back and punched on your face for the sheer reason that you were not paying attention. Why does the world starve for my attention to begin with? I doubt if it is made of gold!

There have been instances when I was so less concerned about the people around me that they had to do something as silly as climbing a tree on their back to get my eyes on them. And then, there have been those instances, too, when my response to any situation they pulled me in was appalled at just because my (weird) thoughts fertilized those words.

I am a person who loves to live in my dream-bubble, which is so often gemmed with luxuries like creativity, experiments, yearnings, desires, aim, talent, plans and more plans. I am so happy dwelling in my-this-prized-mansion that many a times, I do not feel the need of any next-in-number thing around me (living or non-living). Since the bitches around do not pay attention to the implied meanings of my face expressions, most of the times, they end up calling me anti-social or worse, arrogant.

This is one of those days when I see my ‘self’ getting lost in the smoke these bitches have filled my mansion with. Well, I stay calm and wait for this bad air to get cleared. I am sure moods change and so do people; for bitches, I could never say anything with absolute certainty but I am sure even they would someday get tired of being ignored and would opt for an alternate path to tread on. I wish I had something like this to shoo them all away! 

 

Soliloquy: Who cares anyway!

When the things that happen around have way more impact on the atmosphere within; when the perceptions, opinions, thoughts and interpretations all battle amongst themselves to have a stand; when the matters boiling over in mind seem too crazy to be spilt out; when the world looks like a crazy sphere and us the sanest mortals alive; when fluxing out what mind has to say becomes a necessity and identifying who will understand it perfectly seems too much of a task, speaking to oneself DOES help; soliloquy, in fact, then acts like a medicine, an elixir or a monitor who ensures that sanity is in place.

When seen being practiced in public, it looks absurd but soliloquy is something which we all do, at some point, at least once in a day. While walking on my way back home one evening, I saw this half-awake, heavily drugged person lying on the footpath loudly complaining about the system, talking to himself, completely oblivious to the people passing by him. Living alone, may be, in a noisy world has made him struggle too much for silence in his life. For once, I did not see anything funny in his behavior; he did not look as if he has lost it or if he is a daft. He looked normal, a person who did not have a live person to talk to or to bounce ideas off of.

I, in fact, love this concept, of talking to self. This practice brings along multiple benefits which goes like follows. Firstly, since I am not saying the trash (that comes to my mind way too often) in front of the person who it is about, I’m saving my ribs from being broken or my face being deformed. I happily stay insured and safe. Secondly, there will be no complex in self-accusation. I could build upon the feeling of being wrong, identify the factors that could have averted the trouble and the things I could possibly do in future to insure I do not make an ape of myself again. Thirdly, I could criticize, applaud, appreciate, make commitments, over-estimate and curse myself without having to take anything on my ego. Everything, anyway, remains at home, no?

Further, I could discuss my dreams, no matter how absurd they may sound, and the possible steps I would want to take in order to inch them closer without having to explain whys and hows. I would want to learn belly dancing, dress in a neon-colored bikini, sip the most expensive wine on a private beach, become a multi-billionaire in a perfectly legal way, buy a lottery ticket every weekend, adopt a cub and NOT explain the ‘why’ part to anyone on the planet.

Lastly, when I am talking to myself, I might appear kooky to everyone but never to myself. I know I am the sanest person around with sound sense of judgment and fine taste in all spheres. Case Closed!