Change

‘Change’ one word that I have been literally living for the past 6 months. Self, relations, family, nature, everything seem to be changing. That concept called ‘I’ or ‘You’ never actually exists. What ‘I’ am or ‘You’ are today could be someone just contrary tomorrow.

You take new steps in life and the side effects are new permutation and combinations of relationships, of emotions around you. In fact new permutatoin snad combinations of your own self. I was always scared of becoming one like Sujs but looks like it is inevitable, nevertheless I will try not to be one.  But everything around provokes…words I hear, reactions I encounter..this person within is changing fast..is getting lonelier everyday…and I am watching it all..

But all hasn’t changed..may be somethings will never…there’s still that girl that dreams, that believes, that hopes…probably that nothing change..I still believe we will live my dream oneday..a day when all is settled and at peace…the day when everything is clear and ‘ok’…i still believe it will come and i shall wait…

My friend Suji

I asked her…’Why do you hate him so much?’…She gave me a blank look…and smiled…A smile that had lost all hopes, smile that had been so hurt so many times perhaps that it’s lost any sensitivity towards pain..I was standing at Suji’s cube listening to her…her cube looked like a whole new world to me…I never knew this is how a wife would be treated…

Obviously, it’s not without a reason that a woman would throw her Mangalya away. Why wouldn’t she, if the husband can say ‘May be you get the pleasure from outside..’ when she doesn’t yeild to his sexual urges..that too in front of her own mother? God how awful it could have been for her. I know this could be the first feminist kind of blog that I am writing here..Frankly I am no feminist..I just try to be a humanist trying to look at people as a human being who can sin, who can do good, who can love, hate….But some things and in some aspects I expect human beings to be perfect, as perfect as God could be…that is when it comes to treating parents and treating your family..spouse, kids…specially men should be gods..because I feel they are capable of it…they are meant to be one when it comes to parents and wife and kids…That’s why I hate this man…who can tell his wife..’Both of you are white elephants I cannot take care of you perpetually..few months are ok..So please find a job and get on with your career.’ 

Imagine you are groaning with the delivery pain…and you have to look for a taxi yourself to get to hospital..Imagine you are lying tired on your hospital bed after the baby birth and someone and then you have to get up and settle your delivery bills…with the husband being still alive earning and healthy? Yes that’s how the world is, nature is..man is the provider.. and when he doesn’t while he has the resources to provide…he is called cruel…insensitive..he is not a man..

Suji tells me Jhinuk..I dont want this high flying IT job, I dont want this car that I bought in loan..I dont want people to think I am successful and independent..I hate this word independence..rather I want to be possessed, I want to be questioned, I want to be provided with my small small wants…I want to depend on someone…ask money from someone while I go shopping…want someone who will get furious at me if I look at other men..but here..I have a husband who doesn’t mind me having feelings for another man…he says oh you are so honest you told me … why couldn’t he slap me, why could he hold me tight to him and said ‘listen you are only mine..you are not going anyhwre without me…’ I would have been so happy…instead he just leaves me to stray around with guys… 

They think we are working, earning well, so we need not be taken care of..Independence seems to be the new buzz…how superficial….’Modern Independent Women’….looks like a term coined by the ‘Men of Today’ so things get easier for them…you know things like joint home loans in a posh locality or a joint loan for some posh car…so that they can flaunt it around friends..No we dont want that….we are ready to give up our so called independence…just take care of us….we are delicate…please understand that…we might be going out and working…but we still shiver inside and feel that lump on our throats when bosses are rude to us…You guys..be a man and let us be women…..taking care of you, depending on you…loving you…

Writing after a long time. Actually was a little hasitent getting back to office after a week of being unwell. Somehow I felt as though … kind of feeling guilty…since morning have been trying to console myself that my absence was beyond my control…but what to do we are Indians – genetically always loyal to the source that gives us bread.

As I  walked in, in the morning I saw a plaque lying on my table with my name inscribed on it. It’s an award given to me for my contribution to a company wide initiative. Felt very nice. Actually am all geared up to do good things. But dnt know where to start from.

Let’s see, they say where there’s a will there’s a way. May be I will find my way too!

Yet Again A New Day – By Jhinuk

The writer’s twinge bawls yet again
To pen the unwritten, the unsaid

The surging spirits are yet again
Drunk in the gusto to do the undone, explore the uncharted

The crystal laughter yet again whispers into my ears
Of possibilities, of many yes’s, of countless flowers, of myriad suns

My pakhi (bird) within smiles yet again today assuring
I am worth it, I am good, I can do

Like the fretted ship now holds a string of vista
To come ashore, to be sheltered

Like the forgotten child in a bazaar crowd is now noticed
Will be back homed to its mother

Like the dismissed white sheet that shows up yet again
Breaking to engrave the unbounded

Am feeling the girlish zeal yet again
Am feeling the indubitable confidence yet again
Am feeling like Jhinuk yet again

Men need a Mum around, always

Men actually are kids – they always need their mum around – be it in the form of a sister or a wife or even a girl friend. Take my man for instance – the passionate amateur radiologist. He planned some weekend with friends for an amateur radio adventure starting today. Since morning Sir wasn’t really in mood. Infact it started from yesterday night, “Baby while am away you keep your inhaler with you, don’t forget to take your daily medicines.” “And listen anything urgent just call I will be back before you know.” “And you will be ok na alone – don’t get scared or something – just a day right?” “And if you feel you are really uncomfortable and can’t stay you call me I will be back.”

I kept nodding for all he was saying. Morning he says, “Emmm let me see if am going today.” Then laughs to himself and says, “Heck am becoming such a ghar ka murga.” Just a while ago he messages me, “Baby am not going today, we can be together.” Hehehhehehhhe such a kid he is.

I feel nice about it. Watching him depend on me. Actually he is much more emotional than me – but because he’s a MAN he wouldn’t show and put up that rock kinda image always – ‘I don’t cry, I don’t get hurt’ stuff…..but all these for the world..I see a different him….a kid who so depends on me…may be all men are that way…they need a mum around always…

Just the fact that he is

It’s been quite sometime that I wrote anything last.
Well loads of thoughts to share, loads of changes in life. All jumbled up, each thought trying to make way before the other like that crowd in city buses each one trying to get off before the other everytime the bus stops.

Well, let me start with something that’s top of mind right now.. though I really do not know how far I can go ahead with this thought yet no harm in just giving a shot.

Yesterday, in this very interesting Website (tickledbylife.com) I happened to read this one liner liner: Love is not physical or romantic, it is just acceptance of what is, what will be and what will not be’. Somehow found this one amazing and inspiring. Just before reading this one liner I was conversing with myself on how my husband would do things in a particular way (which i would not approve of) and how I think he ’should have’ done the same thing differently. And this one liner and I burst out laughing at myself. It was just a fraction of second and all the ’should haves’ that I had in my mind for my husband seemed to have gotten washed away. Since then till now am just happy that he is, and it’s a joyful experience to be content with that feeling.

He loves cooking and being in the kitchen and
I alway hated him to do that. But yeterday I just gave in and let him be in the kitchen. He was so happy and relaxed. And that was just enough
for me.

In fact the more I see him today the more do I realize that even a man can be a mother. He just happens to know (even before I realize it for myself) what i would need. We have breakfast very early on everyday and leave for office that makes me hungry before lunchtime and hungrier towards the late afternoon. Today as I open my dabba to have lunch I see a small box with biscuits. Ma used to do this when I was in school and now he’s doing it. You know before we got married he promised me, “I will ensure you don’t miss your parents too much” and he’s keeping it up so well (touchwood). In front of his affectionate gestures and everything he does for me on a daily basis
I feel all my stuff towards him (sending ecards and all) are so small and artificial. I hope every woman gets a husband like mine, surely the world will be a better place to live.

Awful, awful awful…..

Somehow feeling extremely out of place in this workplace where I have been there for past so many months. Never thought with my status change even this place would look so unfamiliar to me.

I know it’s after a month of comeback. But it’s all so blank. Feeling awful. Very. There’s nothing to do. It’s like I just come and go. It’s Bengali new year and I haven’t even wished anybody, cause am feeling so very low. I just want to run back to home. You know some places where you just don’t belong..this is like kinda that to me.

I s coming back from vacation that difficult? As it is my role’s so unstructured and now this to add to it. Am feeling awful. Dnt knw how long this would continue.

May be I got to be a little patient and let this phase pass through, let things just flow. Yea after all what more can I do…may be I could just let myself enjoy and relax till I get back to thast working mode again….

‘Notice me! Hear me Out’

Lately, I have been noticing some trend that I can’t afford to ignore. Thanks to the behaviors I observe and conversations I have in the office.

It’s about those quite a few ladies I come across everyday. They earn more than their husbands, are not divorced or separated, but stay away from their men – mostly with their kids. 

All the cases I have come across have their husbands staying in a different city and they seem to want it that way.

 

All of them, meticulously dressed well everyday to an extent that their over alertness of wanting to look good might almost get visible to the other person. Not looking good/for some not being attractive seems to be a complete no-no. Frankly when am with them, at times I kind of feel privileged to have the liberty to look casual and not so neat saving myself the toil of frequent rest room trips and minding my hair, kajal, ear-rings phewww..Ah and that extra responsiveness to compliments and attention (they get it and for most if they don’t they get surprised).

Ah and how can I not mention about their shopping sprees. Do a survey and you will find out that after those college Teenies, it could be them making Indian retailers mint money this way. They are most of the time low and everytime they are that they go shopping. ‘Splurging money on yourself is quite a high’, someone told me! Eh..OMG.

In conversations they would come out a little too vocal and blabbery. ‘Who cares whether I talk sense or not but I should be talking when with people’ is obviously behind minds. Always conscious that they should not be left out in a conversation.  

 

They talk a lot about themselves, infact only about themselves. Smallest of incident’s a story: “You know I got up in the morning, wanted to drink water, poured some water into the container and suddenly dropped the container…hahhahahha…I am like that only you know”. (So? Trust me audiencing them at times can get shit boring).

 

Most of them little towards middle age, but boy you bet most look like just outa college. Something very attractive about them (though I don’t know or see what it is but…) men (OMG) are bowled over left and right (hehheehe!).   

 

All of them I have seen are nice, warm, confident and practical women. And all of them have some kinda blankness on their face. Their faces, eyes do give you a hint of being in spring at some point of time, but seem to have deserted them long back. What is left is just that hint…

 

I don’t know what to make out of them. They are nice, very nice, adjusting. But there’s some chase everyday for attention, at times even for possibilities to get intimacy. ‘Notice me! Hear me out’ as though are words screaming out of their attitude. What I gather from it all is that they are lonely, extremely lonely.  Compliments may come and go, attention is never static..what you are left with end of the day is yourself. You go back to a lonely home – no one to fight with, no one to pamper or be pampered, no one to listen to you – it’s all you and you everywhere. That gets onto you. Everyone around you thinks you have money you can buy it all..but can someone buy some company for them? Perhaps no. Sick? Ill? Down? Repair it all yourself or it remains thas way.

I don’t know I feel sorry for them..somewhere they are losing that softness, actually no probe deeper they are getting softer. I have been observing this colleague of mine who would project ‘nothing touches me’ kinda attitude but inside this lady gets tears in her eyes for smallest of thing.

These are just few thoughts am jotting down. Am somehow not able to put this into any perspective.

Transience

Life is such a transient. It sees people come and go. At some point some people hold such importance and then our contexts transform and something/someone else assumes that importance.

Every relationship is transitory. As a child I could never ever think of staying away from parents. Today am waiting for my wedding date, so I could be with him. As a late teenager, I couldn’t think beyond friends, today I am sitting and staring at gtalk to find some friend who can go with me for the weekend play.

At some point I thought, career’s all that I care for. Today the talks about lay offs in the industry doesn’t make me worried at all; I rather look at it as an opportunity to stay at home.

I keep wondering about his and mine relationship. Some day even that will transcend. And both of us will have different things on our priority lists other than both of us. Scares me!!  

If I hold the flow, it will stagnate and start rottening. If I let it flow, it goes leaving impressions of what it was once upon a time.

It will hurt, but as they say ‘let go’. Cause if it starts rottening the stink will be unbearable. I feel, consciously subconsciously, all of us are saints in our ways. A mother gives up her son to the newer woman in his life, a father quietly watches his daughter adorning the ‘hero-crown’ on someone else’s temple. And we watch it all, silently. We get attached to an extent that we do not accept a life without it then slowly we detach ourselves, without complaining without daring to remember that once we possessed it so jealously.

If not saintlihood, if not renunciation what else is it? The penance, the detachment – it has all.  

I might sound a pessimist, but they talk about keeping the fight for life on…I feel like laughing..afterall aren’t we just supposed to be watching life as it slips away…hold it back? And let it stink?

But then did anyone die by letting go..no, no one has…we are wired such that our system starts preparing for it … mom clung boy grows to be a teenager, gets addicted to the peers – mum loosens the cord a little…he falls in love…mum loosens the hand holding the cord….he becomes a man gets a wife….mum let’s go the rope completely….empties her hand…   

From us To You and Me

I confess, and he thinks I am the sinner
My Church, my inner self, snatched himself away from me..using words

I tried words too to keep him
But couldn’t play with them with the finesse he did

And I lost
And he snatched himself away from me….

What will remain is not the one-ness
Not the I in him or him in me

But two separated bodies
With two gradually disconnecting souls
Drifting further apart with cautiously woven nice, calculated words

What will remain is not the mirror
Where once I saw myself and where once he saw himself
But some tinted glass, where we see only what we want to
Cautiously calculated again, so there’s no unrest, but only peace like the dead, the lifeless

And all these because ….
I confess, and he thinks I am the sinner

My Church, my inner self, snatched himself away from me..using words

I tried words too to keep him
But couldn’t play with them with the finesse he did

And I lost
And he snatched himself away from me….

What will remain now is just the artificiality, of niceties – that which is flawless and perfect

What will go are those imperfections strewn over the bland plain and perfect knot between us
The jhoot moot ke shikwe gileh, the nauk jhauk

What will go is the Us, what will remain is the You and Me.