I keep wondering .. is it a bad thing to let friends know when you've had a terrible day at work?
You know .. when someone asks you .. "how was the day", im never too sure if they're expecting an honest answer such as "my day was complete shit and left me with enough energy to do just about NOTHING when i got home" or if you're expected to answer it with the casual banter that is expected "gr8 day .. how was urs?" ..
And what about friends? The ppl we're supp to be able to tell everything? Is it ok to load them with piles of "bad day" stories if you know they have a busy enough life of their own ... i guess .. over time it is ... somehow the filtering with friends works in the strangest ways ... turns out .. those people who may or may not be around on ur most smiling days but are always there on ur bad days .. to hear you and take it all in with a smile .. are the ones who stick it in the long run :-) ... the wonderful thing i realized is .. unless they can make u feel like ur of some use in their routinely miserable lives as well, the friendship isnt quite complete! :-)
A very dear friend's been going through a rough time lately ... and he keeps apologizing about talking about it ... yeah yeah we all have troubles ..and sometimes some of us are more laden with woes than others ... so when fate has it that 2 friends go through shit all at once ... it becomes easy to go on a guilt trip and feel sorry about involving someone else in ur own troubles ... truth is (as ive told him time and again) being a part of someone else's life and problems is more fulfilling than being around every sat night to party with them .. u know what i mean? Being able to make him feel better (or a little less like shit) in his bad times is such a good way to feel useful .. its such a blessing to have people who count on you .. coz it makes you feel like a good friend ... who said being a good friend is all about being selfless :-) As Joey would say .. there are no selfless good deeds ... one might argue that its probably a very cynical way to look at relationships, but to a large extent i derive my worth and fulfillment in my best relationships when im made a part of the problem and asked to be a friend through the bad times :-) more so than the good ones ...
So to all those friends who've hear me go .. "it was a TERRIBLE day .. im exhausted .. drained and feel like killing someone"and have still smiled and said "go on .. tell me more" .. AND to all those friends who've gone .. "Life sucks .. cud it get any worse" and given me the chance to go "go on .. im listening" .. u make friendship the wonderful dependable thing that it is :-) thanks for being there!!! :D
Wednesday, January 31, 2007
Marriage
This one's from Adrian as well. He sent it to a couple we know at work when they got married last year. So much of it is new and insightful. So much of it u already know - but see in a new light. For those people who do believe that profundity can be simple and isnt a drain on the brain - read on!!! Ill post my comments on this post tomorrow ( so much to say and so little time!!! )
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Advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not available, single and available, no love life...
Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo Manila University (NB: my university!!!), Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo.
Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and enriching classes but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them every day (if only they could do something about the grades...)
Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems, the highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for flunk), Fr Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn't teach at all...Calasanz got his A+. Read the paper below to find out why.
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PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at
best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence.They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's
habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.
This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.
Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together. After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing
obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you
will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and
practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them byyourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the
heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word.There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes
spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.
Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.
If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative
transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the
bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when
it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter.
But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow
accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a
closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.
So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of
a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly
------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments from a very inspired me - tomorrow!! Until then have a wonderful day / evening/ night depending on where you live :-)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Advice for the married, planning to get married, single but not available, single and available, no love life...
Eduardo Calasanz was a student at the Ateneo Manila University (NB: my university!!!), Philippines, where he had Father Ferriols as professor. Father Ferriols, at that time, was the Philosophy department head. Currently he still teaches Philosophy for graduating college students in Ateneo.
Father Ferriols has been very popular for his mind opening and enriching classes but was also notorious for the grades he gives. Still people took his classes for the learning and deep insight they take home with them every day (if only they could do something about the grades...)
Anyway, come grade giving time, (Ateneo has letter grading systems, the highest being an A, lowest at D, with F for flunk), Fr Ferriols had this long discussion with the registrar people because he wanted to give Calasanz an A+. Either that or he doesn't teach at all...Calasanz got his A+. Read the paper below to find out why.
------------------------------------------------------------------
PARTNERS AND MARRIAGE
By Eduardo Jose E. Calasanz
I have never met a man who didn't want to be loved. But I have seldom met a man who didn't fear marriage. Something about the closure seems constricting, not enabling. Marriage seems easier to understand for what it cuts out of our lives than for what it makes possible within our lives.
When I was younger this fear immobilized me. I did not want to make a mistake. I saw my friends get married for reasons of social acceptability, or sexual fever, or just because they thought it was the logical thing to do. Then I watched, as they and their partners became embittered and petty in their dealings with each other. I looked at older couples and saw, at
best, mutual toleration of each other. I imagined a lifetime of loveless nights and bickering and could not imagine subjecting myself or someone else to such a fate.
And yet, on rare occasions, I would see old couples who somehow seemed to glow in each other's presence.They seemed really in love, not just dependent upon each other and tolerant of each other's foibles. It was an astounding sight, and it seemed impossible. How, I asked myself, can they have survived so many years of sameness, so much irritation at the other's
habits? What keeps love alive in them, when most of us seem unable to even stay together, much less love each other?
The central secret seems to be in choosing well. There is something to the claim of fundamental compatibility. Good people can create a bad relationship, even though they both dearly want the relationship to succeed. It is important to find someone with whom you can create a good relationship from the outset. Unfortunately, it is hard to see clearly in the early stages.
Sexual hunger draws you to each other and colors the way you see yourselves together. It blinds you to the thousands of little things by which relationships eventually survive or fail. You need to find a way to see beyond this initial overwhelming sexual fascination. Some people choose to involve themselves sexually and ride out the most heated period of sexual attraction in order to see what is on the other side.
This can work, but it can also leave a trail of wounded hearts. Others deny the sexual side altogether in an attempt to get to know each other apart from their sexuality. But they cannot see clearly, because the presence of unfulfilled sexual desire looms so large that it keeps them from having any normal perception of what life would be like together.
The truly lucky people are the ones who manage to become long-time friends before they realize they are attracted to each other. They get to know each other's laughs, passions, sadness, and fears. They see each other at their worst and at their best. They share time together before they get swept into the entangling intimacy of their sexuality.
This is the ideal, but not often possible. If you fall under the spell of your sexual attraction immediately, you need to look beyond it for other keys to compatibility. One of these is laughter. Laughter tells you how much you will enjoy each other's company over the long term. If your laughter together is good and healthy, and not at the expense of others, then you have a healthy relationship to the world. Laughter is the child of surprise. If you can make each other laugh, you can always surprise each other. And if you can always surprise each other, you can always keep the world around you new.
Beware of a relationship in which there is no laughter. Even the most intimate relationships based only on seriousness have a tendency to turn sour. Over time, sharing a common serious viewpoint on the world tends to turn you against those who do not share the same viewpoint, and your relationship can become based on being critical together. After laughter, look for a partner who deals with the world in a way you respect. When two people first get together, they tend to see their relationship as existing only in the space between the two of them. They find each other endlessly fascinating, and the overwhelming power of the emotions they are sharing
obscures the outside world. As the relationship ages and grows, the outside world becomes important again. If your partner treats people or circumstances in a way you can't accept, you will inevitably come to grief. Look at the way she cares for others and deals with the daily affairs of life. If that makes you love her more, your love will grow. If it does not, be careful. If you do not respect the way you each deal with the world around you, eventually the two of you
will not respect each other.
Look also at how your partner confronts the mysteries of life. We live on the cusp of poetry and
practicality, and the real life of the heart resides in the poetic. If one of you is deeply affected by the mystery of the unseen in life and relationships, while the other is drawn only to the literal and the practical, you must take care that the distance doesn't become an unbridgeable gap that leaves you each feeling isolated and misunderstood.
There are many other keys, but you must find them byyourself. We all have unchangeable parts of our hearts that we will not betray and private commitments to a vision of life that we will not deny. If you fall in love with someone who cannot nourish those inviolable parts of you, or if you cannot nourish them in her, you will find yourselves growing further apart until you live in separate worlds where you share the business of life, but never touch each other where the
heart lives and dreams. From there it is only a small leap to the cataloging of petty hurts and daily failures that leaves so many couples bitter and unsatisfied with their mates.
So choose carefully and well. If you do, you will have chosen a partner with whom you can grow, and then the real miracle of marriage can take place in your hearts. I pick my words carefully when I speak of a miracle. But I think it is not too strong a word.There is a miracle in marriage. It is called transformation. Transformation is one of the most common events of nature. The seed becomes the flower. The cocoon becomes the butterfly. Winter becomes
spring and love becomes a child. We never question these, because we see them around us every day. To us they are not miracles, though if we did not know them they would be impossible to believe.
Marriage is a transformation we choose to make. Our love is planted like a seed, and in time it begins to flower. We cannot know the flower that will blossom, but we can be sure that a bloom will come.
If you have chosen carefully and wisely, the bloom will be good. If you have chosen poorly or for the wrong reason, the bloom will be flawed. We are quite willing to accept the reality of negative
transformation in a marriage. It was negative transformation that always had me terrified of the
bitter marriages that I feared when I was younger.
It never occurred to me to question the dark miracle that transformed love into harshness and bitterness. Yet I was unable to accept the possibility that the first heat of love could be transformed into something positive that was actually deeper and more meaningful than the heat of fresh passion. All I could believe in was the power of this passion and the fear that when
it cooled I would be left with something lesser and bitter.
But there is positive transformation as well. Like negative transformation, it results from a slow
accretion of little things. But instead of death by a thousand blows, it is growth by a thousand touches of love. Two histories intermingle. Two separate beings, two separate presence, two separate consciousnesses come together and share a view of life that passes before them. They remain separate, but they also become one. There is an expansion of awareness, not a
closure and a constriction, as I had once feared. This is not to say that there is not tension and there are not traps. Tension and traps are part of every choice of life, from celibate to monogamous to having multiple lovers. Each choice contains within it the lingering doubt that the road not taken somehow more fruitful and exciting, and each becomes dulled to the richness that it alone contains.
But only marriage allows life to deepen and expand and be leavened by the knowledge that two have chosen, against all odds, to become one. Those who live together without marriage can know the pleasure of shared company, but there is a specific gravity in the marriage commitment that deepens that experience into something richer and more complex.
So do not fear marriage, just as you should not rush into it for the wrong reasons. It is an act of faith and it contains within it the power of transformation. If you believe in your heart that you have found someone with whom you are able to grow, if you have sufficient faith that you can resist the endless attraction of the road not taken and the partner not chosen, if you have the strength of heart to embrace the cycles and seasons that your love will experience, then you may be ready to seek the miracle that marriage offers. If not, then wait. The easy grace of
a marriage well made is worth your patience. When the time comes, a thousand flowers will bloom...endlessly
------------------------------------------------------------------
Comments from a very inspired me - tomorrow!! Until then have a wonderful day / evening/ night depending on where you live :-)
Monday, January 29, 2007
Love
I dont subscribe entirely to the view of the author ... Neil Gaiman .. yet find parts of this very insightful ... esp the parts about lowering ur defenses for someone and giving them the power to hurt you .. but read on .. this is immensely enjoyable (Another one from Adrian in response to Vidya's Dorothy Parker note)
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"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostage. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination.......Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love"
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--------------------------------------------------------------
"Have you ever been in love? Horrible isn't it? It makes you so vulnerable. It opens your chest and it opens up your heart and it means that someone can get inside you and mess you up. You build up all these defenses, you build up a whole suit of armor, so that nothing can hurt you, then one stupid person, no different from any other stupid person, wanders into your stupid life...You give them a piece of you. They didn't ask for it. They did something dumb one day, like kiss you or smile at you, and then your life isn't your own anymore. Love takes hostage. It gets inside you. It eats you out and leaves you crying in the darkness, so simple a phrase like 'maybe we should be just friends' turns into a glass splinter working its way into your heart. It hurts. Not just in the imagination.......Not just in the mind. It's a soul-hurt, a real gets-inside-you-and-rips-you-apart pain. I hate love"
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So whats Babel all about?
Last week was rich with movies of all sorts ..
Blood Diamond .. a poignant tale of human victory in the midst of greed fuelling the illegal diamond trade across the world .. bringing to us some amazing actors and more than anything else the stark realization that our own lives are so far moved from heartbreaking realities such as the everyday deaths of millions that are so mundane now, they almost go unnoticed.
Salaam e Ishq ... a pointless tale of human beings trying to inflict misery upon an unsuspecting audience in the name of love and entertainment ... bringing to us some otherwise amazing actors reduced to their worst and most irritating selves (Priyanka - I really loved u in Bluffmaster .. what could anyone possibly have paid you to ham the way you did?, Vidya Balan - i still think ur one of the best things to happen to Indian cinema, Salman - need i even say anything? Govinda - Im sorry i always judged u.. u almost made this movie worth watching, Unknown brit girl who plays Govindas love interest - wow!!! but why this movie???, Isha and Sohail - im sorry u were deemed unworthy of a full story track and pushed out midway thru the movie, John Abraham - yeah u still look great but how long will that suffice in the wake of mediocre acting skills? Juhi - Ur pretty but why put up with a shithead who thot of cheating on you? Anil Kapoor - which company pays you for sitting at work all day and staring at the clock? Akshaye Khanna - ick ugh yuck!! What happened to the Sid from DCH i almost fell in love with? Random girl who played his love interest - ummmm, why wud u wanna be with him at all? No man is always better than a loser like Shiven or a coward like the Canadian guy)
Sorry - had to do the monologue with the actors - venting is established as being good for the soul - anyway .. had to walk out of the movie before it ended .. after everyone made a mockery out of the sentiment that is love and carried it on for an unbearable 4.5 hours .. the parathas at the desi joint under the cinema hall did make most of it worthwhile .. but net of it - SEI sucks like few other Bollywood flicks have managed to ... DO NOT SEE IT!!!
And now coming to the one superlatively awesome movie that still keeps my faith in cinema strong :-) Babel - a 3 fiery stories running in parallel and converging in a way that only the very attuned Adrian (co cmker and good friend on Olay) could articulate beautifully and clearly ... Before that - u need to know the legend of Babel and what its all about ..
The legend of Babel cites (and forgive the shoddy rendition of the lyrical Biblical story) that mankind once decided to climb to heaven by building a tower that would bridge the chasm between the earth and the sky ... God in his magnificient kingdom thought this would completely destroy the status quo of his superiority to man and hence invented language ... every man who was building the tower was given a different one making it impossible for communication to occur between the tower builders ... since no man could understand what any other was saying .. the tower couldnt ever be finished .. and all was well in heaven :-)
Babel after a cursory viewing does have to do with language .. set in 3 different time zones of the world each 6 hours apart, it has parallel tracks running through Mexico, Morroco and Japan. Following from this are the 3 different languages prevalant in the movie - Spanish, Arabic and Japanese with smatterings of English thrown in where required.
But the true insight of the story lies a little deeper within ... Babel symbolizes and laments the breakdown of communication in its most basic form ... nothing to do with the semantics of language .. simply to do with the loss of communication .. at various levels .. a broken marriage between Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt with the inability to talk about their childs death, her wounded isolation in Tazzarine owing to a failure of 2 governments to communicate, a 14 year old deaf mute girl driven to sexually disturbing behaviour owing to her inability to communicate with the 'normal' world, the inability of a nanny to communicate with the parents of the children in her care who shes on the brink of losing...
At the risk of being a tad philosophical (yeah i dont care much for judgement anymore) may i just say that its ironic that communication - the very thing that comes most naturally to most human beings is the very thing which when it fails can cause most rifts to appear and deepen over time ... in relationships between nations, friends and lovers alike .. nothing to capture this better than a well made movie :-)
Do catch it if u havent yet .. and i reiterate .. avoid Salaam e Ishq unless someones paying you to watch it ..
Blood Diamond .. a poignant tale of human victory in the midst of greed fuelling the illegal diamond trade across the world .. bringing to us some amazing actors and more than anything else the stark realization that our own lives are so far moved from heartbreaking realities such as the everyday deaths of millions that are so mundane now, they almost go unnoticed.
Salaam e Ishq ... a pointless tale of human beings trying to inflict misery upon an unsuspecting audience in the name of love and entertainment ... bringing to us some otherwise amazing actors reduced to their worst and most irritating selves (Priyanka - I really loved u in Bluffmaster .. what could anyone possibly have paid you to ham the way you did?, Vidya Balan - i still think ur one of the best things to happen to Indian cinema, Salman - need i even say anything? Govinda - Im sorry i always judged u.. u almost made this movie worth watching, Unknown brit girl who plays Govindas love interest - wow!!! but why this movie???, Isha and Sohail - im sorry u were deemed unworthy of a full story track and pushed out midway thru the movie, John Abraham - yeah u still look great but how long will that suffice in the wake of mediocre acting skills? Juhi - Ur pretty but why put up with a shithead who thot of cheating on you? Anil Kapoor - which company pays you for sitting at work all day and staring at the clock? Akshaye Khanna - ick ugh yuck!! What happened to the Sid from DCH i almost fell in love with? Random girl who played his love interest - ummmm, why wud u wanna be with him at all? No man is always better than a loser like Shiven or a coward like the Canadian guy)
Sorry - had to do the monologue with the actors - venting is established as being good for the soul - anyway .. had to walk out of the movie before it ended .. after everyone made a mockery out of the sentiment that is love and carried it on for an unbearable 4.5 hours .. the parathas at the desi joint under the cinema hall did make most of it worthwhile .. but net of it - SEI sucks like few other Bollywood flicks have managed to ... DO NOT SEE IT!!!
And now coming to the one superlatively awesome movie that still keeps my faith in cinema strong :-) Babel - a 3 fiery stories running in parallel and converging in a way that only the very attuned Adrian (co cmker and good friend on Olay) could articulate beautifully and clearly ... Before that - u need to know the legend of Babel and what its all about ..
The legend of Babel cites (and forgive the shoddy rendition of the lyrical Biblical story) that mankind once decided to climb to heaven by building a tower that would bridge the chasm between the earth and the sky ... God in his magnificient kingdom thought this would completely destroy the status quo of his superiority to man and hence invented language ... every man who was building the tower was given a different one making it impossible for communication to occur between the tower builders ... since no man could understand what any other was saying .. the tower couldnt ever be finished .. and all was well in heaven :-)
Babel after a cursory viewing does have to do with language .. set in 3 different time zones of the world each 6 hours apart, it has parallel tracks running through Mexico, Morroco and Japan. Following from this are the 3 different languages prevalant in the movie - Spanish, Arabic and Japanese with smatterings of English thrown in where required.
But the true insight of the story lies a little deeper within ... Babel symbolizes and laments the breakdown of communication in its most basic form ... nothing to do with the semantics of language .. simply to do with the loss of communication .. at various levels .. a broken marriage between Cate Blanchett and Brad Pitt with the inability to talk about their childs death, her wounded isolation in Tazzarine owing to a failure of 2 governments to communicate, a 14 year old deaf mute girl driven to sexually disturbing behaviour owing to her inability to communicate with the 'normal' world, the inability of a nanny to communicate with the parents of the children in her care who shes on the brink of losing...
At the risk of being a tad philosophical (yeah i dont care much for judgement anymore) may i just say that its ironic that communication - the very thing that comes most naturally to most human beings is the very thing which when it fails can cause most rifts to appear and deepen over time ... in relationships between nations, friends and lovers alike .. nothing to capture this better than a well made movie :-)
Do catch it if u havent yet .. and i reiterate .. avoid Salaam e Ishq unless someones paying you to watch it ..
And u call me cynical?
Oh, life is a glorious cycle of song,
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
- Dorothy Parker
(Thanks to the lovely Vidya Ramachandran who sametimed this to me in the afty)
A medley of extemporanea;
And love is a thing that can never go wrong,
And I am Marie of Roumania.
- Dorothy Parker
(Thanks to the lovely Vidya Ramachandran who sametimed this to me in the afty)
Wednesday, January 10, 2007
Its all contextual .. or IS IT?
How important is a common context to the quality our friendships with the people around us? I ask the question as I notice how increasingly my conversations with distant friends either reach stalling halts for lack of common topics to discuss .. or turn back to the common context we once shared for saving grace. And funnily enough people I share little with in terms of POV or attitude, I have little trouble talking to for extended periods of time … simply because we have common context to fall back on. Procterites are infamous for their irritating ability to break into acronym talk when put together in a room. Is it cause the company culture binds us all together so strongly (!??!) or because all of us wonderfully creative inspired souls have little to be creative or inspired about once we step outside the walls of the P&G office? Spouses and families of procterites will tell you about instances where they almost killed the errant procterite member (or themselves) for indulging in excessive TLAism (TLA – Three Letter Acronym). There has to be a good reason this happens right? There has to be a wonderful explanation somewhere that acquits these brilliant people from the crime they’re being accused of right? And an explanation to describe what drives distant people apart for real? Is context the answer to all this?
There are the rare friends we make regardless of context of course … like when Kunal walked into my hostel room on our first Saturday in IIMB and struck up a conversation about nothing in particular … we drifted from talk of his Sudipta to my Sharmili .. my mom and his mom .. and his grand mom … about campus life and our ambitions .. about his Bombay and my Bombay (both very different Bombays mind you!) and we talked on until the first rays of the sun shone into my room and shocked us both out of our conversational inertia and we decided to call it a night!!! And became incredibly good friends thereon! No context or common past to hold us together … no common interests … just 2 people talking and listening … rare .. but possible! Similar stories do exist … Kavita (what a weird connection to have with someone I only met thrice!), Kinky (dude .. how did it start???), Sai (bless his wonderful soul for just being there) and so many more!!!
But most friends are created of context aren’t they … like Sharmili who ended up traveling with me to Borivali every evening of March 2002 because a common friend was on leave preparing for the GRE… and thus we were brought together of sheer habit … this isn’t to undermine in any way how wonderful Shamu is .. or how well she ‘gets’ people .. and a very difficult me in particular … but it was really just our circumstances and the 8.10 local that paved the way for the amazing no bounds friendship we share today … similar stories can be told of Sohit (elections at IIMB .. gah!), Nayak (moving to Singapore together), Aparna (living together) … and so many more!!!
The big ‘HOWEVER’ I’ve concluded over time (and some amazing friends) is that context only matters to how relationships start … it never bothers how they survive … all that matters is how relationships survive time and disagreements … the ones that go through more time (and expectedly more disagreements) thrive and flourish the best I guess :) Context has so little to do with the quality of any of my most cherished relationships … faith and support (yeah yeah did I really expect anything else!) respect and tolerance have a much much larger role to play … and of course that thing we choose not to not mention too often cause we’re all mature adults who abhor shmuck – LOVE!!!
Which leaves the procterites guilty as charged … but id be lying if I said I didn’t see THAT one coming!! :D
Coming up next .. useless post number 8 ... resolutions for 2007 ..
There are the rare friends we make regardless of context of course … like when Kunal walked into my hostel room on our first Saturday in IIMB and struck up a conversation about nothing in particular … we drifted from talk of his Sudipta to my Sharmili .. my mom and his mom .. and his grand mom … about campus life and our ambitions .. about his Bombay and my Bombay (both very different Bombays mind you!) and we talked on until the first rays of the sun shone into my room and shocked us both out of our conversational inertia and we decided to call it a night!!! And became incredibly good friends thereon! No context or common past to hold us together … no common interests … just 2 people talking and listening … rare .. but possible! Similar stories do exist … Kavita (what a weird connection to have with someone I only met thrice!), Kinky (dude .. how did it start???), Sai (bless his wonderful soul for just being there) and so many more!!!
But most friends are created of context aren’t they … like Sharmili who ended up traveling with me to Borivali every evening of March 2002 because a common friend was on leave preparing for the GRE… and thus we were brought together of sheer habit … this isn’t to undermine in any way how wonderful Shamu is .. or how well she ‘gets’ people .. and a very difficult me in particular … but it was really just our circumstances and the 8.10 local that paved the way for the amazing no bounds friendship we share today … similar stories can be told of Sohit (elections at IIMB .. gah!), Nayak (moving to Singapore together), Aparna (living together) … and so many more!!!
The big ‘HOWEVER’ I’ve concluded over time (and some amazing friends) is that context only matters to how relationships start … it never bothers how they survive … all that matters is how relationships survive time and disagreements … the ones that go through more time (and expectedly more disagreements) thrive and flourish the best I guess :) Context has so little to do with the quality of any of my most cherished relationships … faith and support (yeah yeah did I really expect anything else!) respect and tolerance have a much much larger role to play … and of course that thing we choose not to not mention too often cause we’re all mature adults who abhor shmuck – LOVE!!!
Which leaves the procterites guilty as charged … but id be lying if I said I didn’t see THAT one coming!! :D
Coming up next .. useless post number 8 ... resolutions for 2007 ..
Friday, November 24, 2006
Delicious is ...
The feeling of bare feet on wet grass ..
The feeling of being kissed by the first showers ..
The melody of music that heals the soul ..
The melody of a love that makes you whole ...
The sight of a sunset and its million hues
The sight of the horizon on the ocean's blue ..
The laughter of a child .. fearless and unbound ..
The thrill of old friends you lost then found
The exquisite joy of an amazing book just read ..
The exquisite joy of a life well led ...
The memories of friends, of laughter and tears
The memories of thoughtful gifts over the years ...
Chocolates and Cheese and such sins galore
All of the above in a loud Encore!
Delicious is the little things that let you enjoy the journey, lest the worry of finding the destination get in the way :)
The feeling of being kissed by the first showers ..
The melody of music that heals the soul ..
The melody of a love that makes you whole ...
The sight of a sunset and its million hues
The sight of the horizon on the ocean's blue ..
The laughter of a child .. fearless and unbound ..
The thrill of old friends you lost then found
The exquisite joy of an amazing book just read ..
The exquisite joy of a life well led ...
The memories of friends, of laughter and tears
The memories of thoughtful gifts over the years ...
Chocolates and Cheese and such sins galore
All of the above in a loud Encore!
Delicious is the little things that let you enjoy the journey, lest the worry of finding the destination get in the way :)
Saturday, November 18, 2006
Of dogs and love ...
Leo is the coolest golden ret in the planet ... well behaved .. wonderfully possessive of his owner ... with lovely brown eyes and a perpetually wagging tail ... He belongs to .. and now is a little confused between which of her two flatmates (K and Me) and her are his real mom .. he tries to be wonderful about it by evenly distributing his love among us all ...
Leo's real special in that he understands the days that we're too busy to notice him ... understands when we don't take the time to appreciate him .. but his understanding comes with the hope that his wagging tail will let us know he's been alone all day and that we'll consider sitting with him and telling him how much we love him .. it comes with the hope that despite the affection we show strangers .. esp other dogs, he's still our number one .. and that we still love him ... and that we see his affection and his loyalty .. and reward it with simple things like a pat on the head or a tummy rub :) or a walk to the garden ... or even some gibberish doggie conversation just to humor him ... its just that simple an expectation .. and guess why?
U see .. Leo's a dog ... he knows we love him .. but needs us to show it sometimes ... im not sure we always comprehend it .. but we try hard .. coz if not .. Leo becomes like a withering flower .. u know how it dries up when u leave it out for too long .. hoping itll get its moisture from around, even if u dont water it ... flowers do wither eventually and give up on you when u dont see the signs and do something about them ... Leo hasnt given up yet ... thats coz each time he feels ignored or unappreciated he makes sure he calls it out to us .. and we make sure we do the little things that restore his faith in our love ... not as a favor to him .. but coz we really love him .. and want him to know that despite our sometimes off behavior .. he is really our number one ... it feels like a burden sometimes .. but its outweighed by the wag of his tail and the virtual dog smile on his face :)
Im sure its easy enough for us to assume he'll always stay this wonderful and patient .. but i think its easier if we show our love for him more often in more explicit ways ... makes everything so much simpler .. doesnt it?
Leo's real special in that he understands the days that we're too busy to notice him ... understands when we don't take the time to appreciate him .. but his understanding comes with the hope that his wagging tail will let us know he's been alone all day and that we'll consider sitting with him and telling him how much we love him .. it comes with the hope that despite the affection we show strangers .. esp other dogs, he's still our number one .. and that we still love him ... and that we see his affection and his loyalty .. and reward it with simple things like a pat on the head or a tummy rub :) or a walk to the garden ... or even some gibberish doggie conversation just to humor him ... its just that simple an expectation .. and guess why?
U see .. Leo's a dog ... he knows we love him .. but needs us to show it sometimes ... im not sure we always comprehend it .. but we try hard .. coz if not .. Leo becomes like a withering flower .. u know how it dries up when u leave it out for too long .. hoping itll get its moisture from around, even if u dont water it ... flowers do wither eventually and give up on you when u dont see the signs and do something about them ... Leo hasnt given up yet ... thats coz each time he feels ignored or unappreciated he makes sure he calls it out to us .. and we make sure we do the little things that restore his faith in our love ... not as a favor to him .. but coz we really love him .. and want him to know that despite our sometimes off behavior .. he is really our number one ... it feels like a burden sometimes .. but its outweighed by the wag of his tail and the virtual dog smile on his face :)
Im sure its easy enough for us to assume he'll always stay this wonderful and patient .. but i think its easier if we show our love for him more often in more explicit ways ... makes everything so much simpler .. doesnt it?
Friday, November 17, 2006
There was a time
There was a time ... when my English teacher .. Mrs Fatima .. told me i could write really well ... why did she never venture to suggest that i make a career out of it ..if she had .. if anyone had .. id have been living a scary but adventurous life doing something i loved once upon time but stopped .. coz i started working ..
There was a time ... when i sat at the end of the day and spoke to amma .. we just sat across the table and she indulged me as i proudly told her what id done through the day .. the little instances of answering the questions no one knew ... being prepared for exams .. the new friends id made ..and in turn she regaled me with her stories of train friends .. my childhood .. and how i was an easier kid to manage than that brat of a Sandeep .. :-) ... why did she never tell me id grow up to be distant and trying to cut her out from my life unless when i was really alone and unhappy ... i would have made an effort to stop becoming who i am now ... a successful professional but a poor daughter ... for better or for worse ...
There was a time .. when i read 3 books in a day if i could ... i spent lunch breaks in school swapping my own issued books .. the ones id already devoured in an hour .. with the girls who never cared for their own ... entire summer breaks were spent reading novel after novel and falling in love with the nuances of the language .. so much so that i find myself impressed and swayed by people with an interest alike ... esp people who write wonderfully ... and touch your heart with words ... i wish someone couldve told me nothing is worth the sacrifice of a hobby ... i wouldve stubbornly stood by reading as ive stood by and maintained so many traits so many people always wanted me to change .. if for nothing .. then simply to be able to meaningfully claim atleast one hobby ...
There was a time ... when i cried at movies ... it was such a delicious feeling ... sympathizing while Forrest continues to unconditionally love the woman he can never have ... or when Harry practically reads out to Sally an itemized list of the reasons he loves her .. happily enuff .. i still do that one! :D No regrets there! :)
Its funny how the very changes that make us more acceptable to others sometimes end up eroding the very essence of who we are ... and how when a few people insist on being themselves .. judgement is right around the corner .. personally i lack the courage to be who id love to be me .. so power to all those who can pull it off ... maybe someday i can be like them and not care ... :D .. the world would be better off with fewer 'there was a time's :)
There was a time ... when i sat at the end of the day and spoke to amma .. we just sat across the table and she indulged me as i proudly told her what id done through the day .. the little instances of answering the questions no one knew ... being prepared for exams .. the new friends id made ..and in turn she regaled me with her stories of train friends .. my childhood .. and how i was an easier kid to manage than that brat of a Sandeep .. :-) ... why did she never tell me id grow up to be distant and trying to cut her out from my life unless when i was really alone and unhappy ... i would have made an effort to stop becoming who i am now ... a successful professional but a poor daughter ... for better or for worse ...
There was a time .. when i read 3 books in a day if i could ... i spent lunch breaks in school swapping my own issued books .. the ones id already devoured in an hour .. with the girls who never cared for their own ... entire summer breaks were spent reading novel after novel and falling in love with the nuances of the language .. so much so that i find myself impressed and swayed by people with an interest alike ... esp people who write wonderfully ... and touch your heart with words ... i wish someone couldve told me nothing is worth the sacrifice of a hobby ... i wouldve stubbornly stood by reading as ive stood by and maintained so many traits so many people always wanted me to change .. if for nothing .. then simply to be able to meaningfully claim atleast one hobby ...
There was a time ... when i cried at movies ... it was such a delicious feeling ... sympathizing while Forrest continues to unconditionally love the woman he can never have ... or when Harry practically reads out to Sally an itemized list of the reasons he loves her .. happily enuff .. i still do that one! :D No regrets there! :)
Its funny how the very changes that make us more acceptable to others sometimes end up eroding the very essence of who we are ... and how when a few people insist on being themselves .. judgement is right around the corner .. personally i lack the courage to be who id love to be me .. so power to all those who can pull it off ... maybe someday i can be like them and not care ... :D .. the world would be better off with fewer 'there was a time's :)
Saturday, March 26, 2005
The long and winding road....
A very special friend got me introduced to the Beatles .... picked out music he figured i'd like and put em on my pc ... I'm offically hooked now! And the long and winding road is one of my fav 'keep awake while i study' songs coz its so non- intrusive in nature. Its also the most apt to this stage of our lives ... We're 3 days away from leaving behind the most memorable experience of our lives ... Atleast for the mark chasing home loving simpleton that i have been all my life, this place has been a roller coaster ride ... treasured moments, the biggest highs and the deepest lows ... spurts of good luck .. good friends ... so much space .. and independence ... and an official intriduction to the world of brands ... (Rs 900 at Westside and Rs 450 at Khadder yesterday should make my point abundantly clear!) Unpredictable has admittedly made the big leap in a drastic paradigm shift of lifestyle. :)
Cheers!
Cheers!
Wednesday, January 26, 2005
ORSI
Nah, not some cool phrase put together in a 4 letter word ... ORSI - Operations Research Society of India ... An annual convention held at IIMA every year apparently ... 1st time we heard abt it was when this really nice professor we worked under for our CCS (Contemporary Concerns Study) in the 4th term asked us to go present our work at ORSI's student paper competition. So Vidya and I figured.. yep wat the hell .. once chance to try and score a win somewhere ... She's more enthu having worked so much more on it than i ever did.... So tickets were booked et al ... My travel life's finest hour i must say ... Money saving spree that i am on (Living 2nd year on the money wonderful wonderful Citibank paid during summers and on a borrowed sum on 3 k from parents ... and reluctant to borrow any more!) i figured I’d give traveling alone a chance ... Vidya had to go off ahead to meet some friends at Baroda ... and had to stay on at IIMA for longer than me ... So there i am ... Traveling Bangalore to Ahmedabad ... Alone ... 2nd Class ... in a 36 hour journey spanning the south to the west of the country ... FOR THE FIRST TIME IN MY LIFE ...
Travel plans were made ... tickets booked ... and as is my tendency .. news broken to parents post preparation and decision were both irrevocable. Her reaction of course was the same as when i colored my hair red (HOW HOW HOW CUD U DO THIS WITHOUT SO MUCH AS TELLING ME FIRST!! HOW DARE U COLOR IT AND THEN COOLY LET ME KNOW! ) So there's all this selling that happens as to how her silly younger son so used to the plush luxury of Autos (v/s the buses i used to travel to school by) and Flights (latest trips have been train free and flighty thanks to mum and dad's LFC provisions)... I'll be the only kid in the family to actually go out thr and travel by myself .. be brave .. take risks and all that jazz... darned pathetic salesman id make coz she didn’t seem to buy in to much ... saving grace seemed to be the fact that i was hell bent on going alone ... and sitting there at home in Bombay she really cudnt do much (Me is beyond emotional blackmail now)... and had to lemme go.
All pals at IIMB simply stared dumbfounded when i told em ... apparently this is the nutttiest thing neones ever done ... why travel liek this by shady train for 36 hrs ALONE!!! wen u can easily fly in 2 hrs???? Well ... i started off again .. its abt the money .. abt the independence and abt getting used to travel like this coz I’m all set for a sales stint (Day 2 being one of my placement slot considerations) ... then the usual smirks from my IIMB family ... then concern ... then chipping in to make my trip a painless one ...Bags to pick and choose from (Thanks Srikant!), Cd's written with my fav music ... (Thanks Dush!!) ... Cd Player lent (Thanks Kunal!) .. Dropping the kid of the family off to the station (Thanks Sohit!!!) and tonnes of smses in the train so long as i had a network (Thanks Sai!)...
My last 5 mins in the train i had this moment of utter indecision... felt like it wasn’t tough to jus pack up and run bak ... Then with Sohit saying he'd have gone bak if he’d had dounbts ... I wasn't getting anywhere ... but decided to stay anyway ...
Journey to A was cool ... Stayed up .. Heard music ... (Dush says if the tam songs didn’t play then its the CD's fault - so i forgive him that :) ) read (NO LOGO is the worst book in the whole wide world ... EVER!!! .. but good if all u wanna do is keep falling asleep) and munched on biscuits and chips for 36 hours ...
IIMA was very cool ... loved their campus ... and MR Lehman Ankur Goel took us to lunch to this awesome place called Mirch Masala ... Damn good LAssi i say !!! and showed us around campus ... Well that was all i cud do .. left that evening itself all set for another 36 hour long journey ... this time broken into 2 - A to BBAY and then BBAY to BLORE. Mum came to see me at BBAY- went home for a half hour .. pained bro a little ... gave him my ORSI T shirt and Parker .. Then boarded train to BLore at DAdar ... was back in a jiffy .. .seems like it now ... didn’t seem too bad then either...
All in all a great great experience - for the sheer joy of doing something like that for the first time ever! Plus we won the Student paper contest ,... paid a measly 250 bucks but Vidya and Me are absolutely thrilled!!!
Cool True Story NO ????
Travel plans were made ... tickets booked ... and as is my tendency .. news broken to parents post preparation and decision were both irrevocable. Her reaction of course was the same as when i colored my hair red (HOW HOW HOW CUD U DO THIS WITHOUT SO MUCH AS TELLING ME FIRST!! HOW DARE U COLOR IT AND THEN COOLY LET ME KNOW! ) So there's all this selling that happens as to how her silly younger son so used to the plush luxury of Autos (v/s the buses i used to travel to school by) and Flights (latest trips have been train free and flighty thanks to mum and dad's LFC provisions)... I'll be the only kid in the family to actually go out thr and travel by myself .. be brave .. take risks and all that jazz... darned pathetic salesman id make coz she didn’t seem to buy in to much ... saving grace seemed to be the fact that i was hell bent on going alone ... and sitting there at home in Bombay she really cudnt do much (Me is beyond emotional blackmail now)... and had to lemme go.
All pals at IIMB simply stared dumbfounded when i told em ... apparently this is the nutttiest thing neones ever done ... why travel liek this by shady train for 36 hrs ALONE!!! wen u can easily fly in 2 hrs???? Well ... i started off again .. its abt the money .. abt the independence and abt getting used to travel like this coz I’m all set for a sales stint (Day 2 being one of my placement slot considerations) ... then the usual smirks from my IIMB family ... then concern ... then chipping in to make my trip a painless one ...Bags to pick and choose from (Thanks Srikant!), Cd's written with my fav music ... (Thanks Dush!!) ... Cd Player lent (Thanks Kunal!) .. Dropping the kid of the family off to the station (Thanks Sohit!!!) and tonnes of smses in the train so long as i had a network (Thanks Sai!)...
My last 5 mins in the train i had this moment of utter indecision... felt like it wasn’t tough to jus pack up and run bak ... Then with Sohit saying he'd have gone bak if he’d had dounbts ... I wasn't getting anywhere ... but decided to stay anyway ...
Journey to A was cool ... Stayed up .. Heard music ... (Dush says if the tam songs didn’t play then its the CD's fault - so i forgive him that :) ) read (NO LOGO is the worst book in the whole wide world ... EVER!!! .. but good if all u wanna do is keep falling asleep) and munched on biscuits and chips for 36 hours ...
IIMA was very cool ... loved their campus ... and MR Lehman Ankur Goel took us to lunch to this awesome place called Mirch Masala ... Damn good LAssi i say !!! and showed us around campus ... Well that was all i cud do .. left that evening itself all set for another 36 hour long journey ... this time broken into 2 - A to BBAY and then BBAY to BLORE. Mum came to see me at BBAY- went home for a half hour .. pained bro a little ... gave him my ORSI T shirt and Parker .. Then boarded train to BLore at DAdar ... was back in a jiffy .. .seems like it now ... didn’t seem too bad then either...
All in all a great great experience - for the sheer joy of doing something like that for the first time ever! Plus we won the Student paper contest ,... paid a measly 250 bucks but Vidya and Me are absolutely thrilled!!!
Cool True Story NO ????
Sunday, January 02, 2005
A different way of life
I wrote this one for a speech at toastmasters ... like it a lot coz it reflects the state of mind of most of us MBAs passing out .... read on ...
A year back when I walked into this place, these were the words I kept hoping I’d get to say to myself two years down the line. Today, I look around with a hint of disappointment… at how I betrayed myself and how this place has betrayed me and everyone else. I guess we all came in here hoping to find our unique purpose in life – unique as we all are. Once in I don’t think most of us have managed to resist the charm of being one among the crowd. Of being accepted universally. Isn’t it amazing how all of a sudden all our dreams, all our aspirations seem the same – different as we all claim to be? And what is more amazing is how predictable a life we’re all set to lead – busy, cash rich, with no time to spare for anything but work – look around .. And you’ll see a bunch of wannabe corporates – all individuals who in the race to be different – have funnily ended up looking all alike! And standing here in the next 5 minutes I wish to talk about what I call “ A Different way of Life” – something we all have envisaged at some point of time – but something only a few will have the courage to follow through!
I visited a very different person yesterday. Let’s call him professor X. Someone who teaches students like us and is completely disillusioned by what he sees. So disillusioned, in fact that he’s decided never to teach them again. I think I’m supposed to be on the other side – with my kind – the students. But strangely enough I found myself strongly agreeing to everything he said. About what we’ve turned into.
And I’m going to tell you exactly what that is. We’ve turned into disinterested youngsters who treat the classroom as though it were their personal quarters. We treat the professors as though we’re doing them a favor by listening to them. We treat attendance as the be all and end all of existence. Lectures hold as much meaning for us as an advertisement that we zap through disinterestedly. Better still; lectures are where we catch up on our sleep – the busy all important souls that we are, its impossible to catch sleep back in our rooms. And of course the great communicators that we all are, we never miss a chance to have a hearty laugh at the odd professor who can’t communicate to save his life – notwithstanding the fact that saving his life is not really the point of the lecture. The point is to educate a bunch of uninterested “students”!
What is really sad is that not all of us were like this when we walked in here. But to be accepted as one of the crowd it is important to blend in – to do what the majority does. And that is what i mean by us having lost our individuality. The few of us who do want to stand by what we believe in end up being ridiculed by the rest. After all being conscientious is so uncool! And staying awake in class – you have got to be kidding! What kind of loser are you if you stay up through class – and god help you if your reason happens to be sheer respect for the elderly individual who is teaching you!
Let me not limit myself to the classroom. Outside of it, look at the job scene. What? Landing a pseud well paying job isn’t your dream? Then what on earth are you doing here? Here a bullet point there a bullet point … everywhere a bullet point … sounds like a poem … the finance guys all want the investment banking job. The marketing souls are all fmcg freaks. Every SOP reads “my ambition in life is to contribute to a better world by way of my unique skill sets and talents!” what an oxymoron our resumes have turned into!
So what would a different way of life be like? Well to me it would be one where I could live without having to be careful of what I say. Where I didn’t have to tread carefully because judgement was always around the corner. Where I could say I wish to work with an NGO and not have to be laughed at. Where I could dream of a non competitive work environment without sniggers behind my back saying what a wimp!!! She can’t even take challenges.
A different way of life would be one where we would all be secure in our identities and not give a hoot about what others would think. Where we could participate in activities without having to worry about whether they make for good bullet points or not! Where we could pursue our dreams no matter how weird they sounded to the rest of our batch mates. Where living in a place like this would actually be a great learning experience as the outside world sees it! Not a foolish endeavor at getting grades and bullet points. Where a good job would be the best job for you … not the best job as everyone sees it!
And all it would take to make this blissful dream become reality would be that rare thing that we see around here and call courage… to stand for beliefs and against the tide. The day that happens I’m sure Prof X will be happy to come back to a class that’s there for the education – not for the signature!
Bombay - Love it, love it not, love it ....
A few things that make Mumbai the “wonderful” city that it is:
1) Its roads:
Try imagining a smooth road ... a really smoooooth road.
Who am I kidding? If you’re a pakka Mumbaikar (and u most probably are), a road so smooth and so free of potholes is almost difficult to imagine! (Considering of course the very significant fact that u happen to be a well traveled resident of this city.) Because even deep down in the subconscious realm of your imagination, you’d know almost immediately that u are either deep asleep and dreaming (certainly not in your car!) or that you're not actually on a road. The potholes of this city, the scowling, paan chewing traffic police, the urchins selling flowers and knick knacks of the most unimaginable kind, the ubiquitous you-know- who’s at every signal peremptorily forcing blessings down your reluctant throat and the very- eager- to –make- its- presence- felt sound of blaring horns are all so quintessentially ‘Mumbai’ that we’d probably feel deprived without them!
2) Its fauna:
Think hard and try and remember the last time u were almost run down by a cow/buffalo/ox or the last time u almost stepped on the tail of a peacefully snoring dog/cat or the last time you almost stepped into a pile of generously proportioned of you- know-what donated by one of the above mentioned species (or their kin … how on earth could anybody tell who really left it behind to polka dot our otherwise drab streets?). Think really really hard and assuming you've taken your time to ponder and recapitulate I’d say not more than a week. See! And people tell us we haven’t enough animals in the city. I say we collect all these animals in a menagerie of sorts, hypothetically of course, and I’m pretty darned sure we could put the animal -head count of the best zoos in the world to shame. So the next time someone accuses you of insensitivity or bigotry towards animals, just throw this paragraph in their face (that, if nothing else, should be punishment enough!)
3) The suburban trains:
All those of you bus travelers must have your own wonderful stories to share, but the train-frequenter that I am, all I can rave about is our local trains. The thrill of travelling in a 26 seater that seats 32 and serves as standing/hanging support for another 20 –40 (or even more!) can beat hurtling down even the raciest of roller coasters! Seriously, the trains bring some outstanding bravery and foolhardiness out of the most timorous and shriveled of human beings. What else makes it possible for women over 40 to fight their way into already overflowing compartments? What else could account for men travelling on the roofs of trains in the peak hours of evening (trust me from up there, the evening sky seems anything but beautiful)? And in a much lighter vein, I've always wondered if acquiring a lean mean figure was in fact a lean mean task. As I realize after four years of train travel, it is actually pretty simple. Here’s a brief overview of the procedure (my views are strictly confined to the ladies compartment). First, select a train in the right direction and at a time closest to peak hours. Actually that’s about it. The other women in the crowd (inexplicably!) see to it that u are pushed into and out of the compartment. It’s a guaranteed weight loss course. Lose an mm for every ride. Saves time, money and effort (others make it possible to contract by pushing u further into yourself (literally!) so u just stand still and let them do their job!)
Besides, the swarming crowd inside teaches you
a) Gymnastics: How to stand inclined at anywhere between 45 –90 degrees to the horizontal, how to escape stampeding feet encased in pencil heels, how to hang on to the train using a single handlebar with a single hand, and what’s better, it’s all free!
b) Vocabulary: Remember that phrase about “girls being nice and full of sugar and spice”? Well I’d suggest we put the sugar away, atleast while in the train. Because I've heard well-dressed and seemingly decent women hurl the choicest and most unheard of abuses at each other in a wide range of languages. So there u have it! A language class and a live entertainment show all rolled in one! And we haven’t even included the fisherwomen yet!
Now give me another mode of transport that offers anything as impressive!!
There’s so much more I could write about. From the smoky fumes that fill the void in our lives (or lungs as you may prefer to call them) to the colorful chemicals that add color (and a lot more I’m sure) to the very boring clean colorless water in the city. About people who take the line “Mumbai is my home” so seriously as to treat it as their very own bathroom! About people who are so generous as to bless the city with a generous helping of wrappers, papers et al (the contents of which they’ve previously consumed).
Then, of course, there’s that thing they call the silver lining to every dark cloud. But I’ll just save that for the optimists.
1) Its roads:
Try imagining a smooth road ... a really smoooooth road.
Who am I kidding? If you’re a pakka Mumbaikar (and u most probably are), a road so smooth and so free of potholes is almost difficult to imagine! (Considering of course the very significant fact that u happen to be a well traveled resident of this city.) Because even deep down in the subconscious realm of your imagination, you’d know almost immediately that u are either deep asleep and dreaming (certainly not in your car!) or that you're not actually on a road. The potholes of this city, the scowling, paan chewing traffic police, the urchins selling flowers and knick knacks of the most unimaginable kind, the ubiquitous you-know- who’s at every signal peremptorily forcing blessings down your reluctant throat and the very- eager- to –make- its- presence- felt sound of blaring horns are all so quintessentially ‘Mumbai’ that we’d probably feel deprived without them!
2) Its fauna:
Think hard and try and remember the last time u were almost run down by a cow/buffalo/ox or the last time u almost stepped on the tail of a peacefully snoring dog/cat or the last time you almost stepped into a pile of generously proportioned of you- know-what donated by one of the above mentioned species (or their kin … how on earth could anybody tell who really left it behind to polka dot our otherwise drab streets?). Think really really hard and assuming you've taken your time to ponder and recapitulate I’d say not more than a week. See! And people tell us we haven’t enough animals in the city. I say we collect all these animals in a menagerie of sorts, hypothetically of course, and I’m pretty darned sure we could put the animal -head count of the best zoos in the world to shame. So the next time someone accuses you of insensitivity or bigotry towards animals, just throw this paragraph in their face (that, if nothing else, should be punishment enough!)
3) The suburban trains:
All those of you bus travelers must have your own wonderful stories to share, but the train-frequenter that I am, all I can rave about is our local trains. The thrill of travelling in a 26 seater that seats 32 and serves as standing/hanging support for another 20 –40 (or even more!) can beat hurtling down even the raciest of roller coasters! Seriously, the trains bring some outstanding bravery and foolhardiness out of the most timorous and shriveled of human beings. What else makes it possible for women over 40 to fight their way into already overflowing compartments? What else could account for men travelling on the roofs of trains in the peak hours of evening (trust me from up there, the evening sky seems anything but beautiful)? And in a much lighter vein, I've always wondered if acquiring a lean mean figure was in fact a lean mean task. As I realize after four years of train travel, it is actually pretty simple. Here’s a brief overview of the procedure (my views are strictly confined to the ladies compartment). First, select a train in the right direction and at a time closest to peak hours. Actually that’s about it. The other women in the crowd (inexplicably!) see to it that u are pushed into and out of the compartment. It’s a guaranteed weight loss course. Lose an mm for every ride. Saves time, money and effort (others make it possible to contract by pushing u further into yourself (literally!) so u just stand still and let them do their job!)
Besides, the swarming crowd inside teaches you
a) Gymnastics: How to stand inclined at anywhere between 45 –90 degrees to the horizontal, how to escape stampeding feet encased in pencil heels, how to hang on to the train using a single handlebar with a single hand, and what’s better, it’s all free!
b) Vocabulary: Remember that phrase about “girls being nice and full of sugar and spice”? Well I’d suggest we put the sugar away, atleast while in the train. Because I've heard well-dressed and seemingly decent women hurl the choicest and most unheard of abuses at each other in a wide range of languages. So there u have it! A language class and a live entertainment show all rolled in one! And we haven’t even included the fisherwomen yet!
Now give me another mode of transport that offers anything as impressive!!
There’s so much more I could write about. From the smoky fumes that fill the void in our lives (or lungs as you may prefer to call them) to the colorful chemicals that add color (and a lot more I’m sure) to the very boring clean colorless water in the city. About people who take the line “Mumbai is my home” so seriously as to treat it as their very own bathroom! About people who are so generous as to bless the city with a generous helping of wrappers, papers et al (the contents of which they’ve previously consumed).
Then, of course, there’s that thing they call the silver lining to every dark cloud. But I’ll just save that for the optimists.
Saturday, January 01, 2005
New Years Eve
Happy New Year!!!
2005 is finally here and the first thought early in the morning was ‘What a great day to be alive!’ Methinks there couldn’t be a better way to start of course except waking up next to someone u love. Ah well... some things must just wait until we’re either old or ready. Maybe I am not one of those two. Maybe neither! Doesn’t matter I say! Waking up in my favorite place in the whole wide world to meet some of my favorite people in the world makes this probably the best new years’ eve ever!
Thought I should start on a clean note and all that jazz so got a bath before dusk for a change. Went for a walk around campus. Delightful I must say. Still looks like 6 am with chirping birds and light breeze with no trace of the sun.
Back to room and papa’s msg says we shouldn’t be having lunch in the mess. I agree wholeheartedly. Lets wait – as papa says – for our drunken soldiers to wake up to the first ray of dawn till we decide exactly when and where.
Have flicked Dushyanth’s newspaper for today. Hope to read it sometime with all the enthusiasm expected of a prospective recruitment candidate. On second thoughts might have to hire someone in lieu of an attractive pay package to coerce me into reading the newspaper everyday. Because something in the back of my mind thinks companies would expect me to know more than the latest releases and their box office status. So there!
Haven’t thought of resolutions to this year. Maybe I’ll do that one new thing a month thing.
· Learn to ride the bicycle. Learn professional singing. Driving. Swimming maybe.
· What else? A new language? Ah maybe I’ll learn to read and write Tamil – my mother tongue – to rid myself the shame of being a fraud tam. Point is my parents are almost as fraud as me, so it might be an investment that never sees returns. As a future business person I see that as a waste of effort expended. Maybe I’ll go bungee jumping or better still parasailing. Just need the money. But I’ve promised myself some things I’m going to gift myself.
· A diamond ring set in platinum. From my first pay.
· Pay dad back cause I’ve already gotten me that much desired camera.
· Buy more time to get married. Am lucky to have gotten out of IIMB without having to make crazy career compromises. That’d make me rather unhappy. So will make the best of that. Will try and spare parents the trouble of looking for someone though.
· Will collect money to take a tour of Europe – with friends or neone at all. But I guess having close friends around makes the trip worthwhile. Will also take a trip of Singapore and Bangkok – if I don’t end up there anyway ;)
· Will shop at shopper’s stop atleast once. Buy me a skirt or something equally incredulous (from moms point of view that is).
· One self owned Nina Ricci perfume.
· One tiny strappy black dress – though I don’t plan on attending any parties still and tiny things I’m still not sure I’ll wear outside of this place. But then maybe there are some things we should buy cause we wanna buy – not necessarily wear. So Tiny Black Dress it is.
· I’ll wait to get a car. Until life and location are somewhat more stable.
· Will adopt a daughter. Will fight it out with family. Mom will freak out. But it’ll be fun watching her soften to the child. Fine – I agree this one might just not turn out the way I plan it. But will try getting the husband person to get a buy in from rest of family.
· Will sponsor a child. With CRY or someone like that.
· Will take a serious relook at that NGO career idea.
· Will work toward becoming Lakme brand manager by 2007. (HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA – thanks for the applause!!!)
· Will get back in touch with my spiritual side and friends from the past. Honestly will try. Art of Living and all that jazz.
· Will learn to dance with both feet and actually do it sometime!
· Will ask one guy out – yes I meant on a non professional date. Just want to see what it’s like – this one’s subject to quality of men in the world around me – don’t expect me to ask out the beer guzzling chimney type assholes!
· Will pray more. Honestly all of us could do with more prayers for others and from others.
· Will travel tons. On my own.
· Will learn to be alone and be happy. (Wonder what that’s like).
· Will come to peace with myself sooner in a new environment.
So there!
2005 is finally here and the first thought early in the morning was ‘What a great day to be alive!’ Methinks there couldn’t be a better way to start of course except waking up next to someone u love. Ah well... some things must just wait until we’re either old or ready. Maybe I am not one of those two. Maybe neither! Doesn’t matter I say! Waking up in my favorite place in the whole wide world to meet some of my favorite people in the world makes this probably the best new years’ eve ever!
Thought I should start on a clean note and all that jazz so got a bath before dusk for a change. Went for a walk around campus. Delightful I must say. Still looks like 6 am with chirping birds and light breeze with no trace of the sun.
Back to room and papa’s msg says we shouldn’t be having lunch in the mess. I agree wholeheartedly. Lets wait – as papa says – for our drunken soldiers to wake up to the first ray of dawn till we decide exactly when and where.
Have flicked Dushyanth’s newspaper for today. Hope to read it sometime with all the enthusiasm expected of a prospective recruitment candidate. On second thoughts might have to hire someone in lieu of an attractive pay package to coerce me into reading the newspaper everyday. Because something in the back of my mind thinks companies would expect me to know more than the latest releases and their box office status. So there!
Haven’t thought of resolutions to this year. Maybe I’ll do that one new thing a month thing.
· Learn to ride the bicycle. Learn professional singing. Driving. Swimming maybe.
· What else? A new language? Ah maybe I’ll learn to read and write Tamil – my mother tongue – to rid myself the shame of being a fraud tam. Point is my parents are almost as fraud as me, so it might be an investment that never sees returns. As a future business person I see that as a waste of effort expended. Maybe I’ll go bungee jumping or better still parasailing. Just need the money. But I’ve promised myself some things I’m going to gift myself.
· A diamond ring set in platinum. From my first pay.
· Pay dad back cause I’ve already gotten me that much desired camera.
· Buy more time to get married. Am lucky to have gotten out of IIMB without having to make crazy career compromises. That’d make me rather unhappy. So will make the best of that. Will try and spare parents the trouble of looking for someone though.
· Will collect money to take a tour of Europe – with friends or neone at all. But I guess having close friends around makes the trip worthwhile. Will also take a trip of Singapore and Bangkok – if I don’t end up there anyway ;)
· Will shop at shopper’s stop atleast once. Buy me a skirt or something equally incredulous (from moms point of view that is).
· One self owned Nina Ricci perfume.
· One tiny strappy black dress – though I don’t plan on attending any parties still and tiny things I’m still not sure I’ll wear outside of this place. But then maybe there are some things we should buy cause we wanna buy – not necessarily wear. So Tiny Black Dress it is.
· I’ll wait to get a car. Until life and location are somewhat more stable.
· Will adopt a daughter. Will fight it out with family. Mom will freak out. But it’ll be fun watching her soften to the child. Fine – I agree this one might just not turn out the way I plan it. But will try getting the husband person to get a buy in from rest of family.
· Will sponsor a child. With CRY or someone like that.
· Will take a serious relook at that NGO career idea.
· Will work toward becoming Lakme brand manager by 2007. (HAHAHAAHHAHAHAHAHA – thanks for the applause!!!)
· Will get back in touch with my spiritual side and friends from the past. Honestly will try. Art of Living and all that jazz.
· Will learn to dance with both feet and actually do it sometime!
· Will ask one guy out – yes I meant on a non professional date. Just want to see what it’s like – this one’s subject to quality of men in the world around me – don’t expect me to ask out the beer guzzling chimney type assholes!
· Will pray more. Honestly all of us could do with more prayers for others and from others.
· Will travel tons. On my own.
· Will learn to be alone and be happy. (Wonder what that’s like).
· Will come to peace with myself sooner in a new environment.
So there!
Christmas Eve
Am listening to Christmas carols right now. Life suddenly seems kind – even peaceful - like the proverbial calm before the storm that is placements. Well we’ll see when we come to that.
What else what else… well 6th term kinda makes u come stand at that place where u have to take ur pick from amongst the people u know and decide which ones will stay with you on the journey beyond the IIM. Interesting, cause you start to look at previous relationships like u never did before. And you start to invest more time in yourself.. Discovery.. The purpose of life … and all that jazz. Doesn’t seem like so much fluff when ur neck deep in the middle of it. time to also start thinking about career stuff like will I stay away from apping to a company coz it sells cigarettes? Or cause it sends me off abroad and I wanna be with my family? Do I wanna be with family? Or settle down in another place? Is marriage important? How much will I give up? Cause really speaking it isn’t really all that far! Pressure will start in due course of time… am sure most 23 year old women are going through their share of crap too.
Kinda makes me think those carefree days in VJTI and Ruparel were so much better. We didn’t have to worry too much about the consequences of our decisions. Cause they weren’t this irreversible. Now they are. Like i can’t walk out of a marriage cause I don’t get along with the guy all of a sudden. But I could’ve given up talking to some people in college for e.g. if I didn’t like them too much!
Its close to new years eve. And I’m suddenly thinking it’d be nice to have all the people in my life close by so I could meet them and tell them they meant a lot to me. I’ve always loved Christmas eve .. and will b singing carols this time at IIMB with some other singing enthu junta. God’s way of saying what you didn’t find at home, you’ll find in this home. Like freedom, space to grow up, hanging out with friends all night … inordinate attention to nature J and all those things dreams are made of! This place has been more than wonderful to me. Have learnt so much. About men! About friendship! About work! And about myself! And still feel like a kid who’s setting out on one more adventure in the open sky with nothing to anchor me to the ground. And far from scaring me, its exciting. I’ll shed an ocean of tears when I leave IIMB. But am looking forward to the outside world all the same!
Dunno if wat I wrote makes any sense! But I love all my friends! For all the time we spent together.. for our minor spats and the stupid jokes we laughed at. For the beautiful campus we were at for all those years … have a great new year! And the best Christmas ever! May god shower all of you with his best set of blessings and millions of smiles in the days to come!
What else what else… well 6th term kinda makes u come stand at that place where u have to take ur pick from amongst the people u know and decide which ones will stay with you on the journey beyond the IIM. Interesting, cause you start to look at previous relationships like u never did before. And you start to invest more time in yourself.. Discovery.. The purpose of life … and all that jazz. Doesn’t seem like so much fluff when ur neck deep in the middle of it. time to also start thinking about career stuff like will I stay away from apping to a company coz it sells cigarettes? Or cause it sends me off abroad and I wanna be with my family? Do I wanna be with family? Or settle down in another place? Is marriage important? How much will I give up? Cause really speaking it isn’t really all that far! Pressure will start in due course of time… am sure most 23 year old women are going through their share of crap too.
Kinda makes me think those carefree days in VJTI and Ruparel were so much better. We didn’t have to worry too much about the consequences of our decisions. Cause they weren’t this irreversible. Now they are. Like i can’t walk out of a marriage cause I don’t get along with the guy all of a sudden. But I could’ve given up talking to some people in college for e.g. if I didn’t like them too much!
Its close to new years eve. And I’m suddenly thinking it’d be nice to have all the people in my life close by so I could meet them and tell them they meant a lot to me. I’ve always loved Christmas eve .. and will b singing carols this time at IIMB with some other singing enthu junta. God’s way of saying what you didn’t find at home, you’ll find in this home. Like freedom, space to grow up, hanging out with friends all night … inordinate attention to nature J and all those things dreams are made of! This place has been more than wonderful to me. Have learnt so much. About men! About friendship! About work! And about myself! And still feel like a kid who’s setting out on one more adventure in the open sky with nothing to anchor me to the ground. And far from scaring me, its exciting. I’ll shed an ocean of tears when I leave IIMB. But am looking forward to the outside world all the same!
Dunno if wat I wrote makes any sense! But I love all my friends! For all the time we spent together.. for our minor spats and the stupid jokes we laughed at. For the beautiful campus we were at for all those years … have a great new year! And the best Christmas ever! May god shower all of you with his best set of blessings and millions of smiles in the days to come!
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