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.

The Cathedral

It’s been a busy evening today. Reason being mom’s favourite movie, Hritik-Ash starrer Jodha Akbar was lined up for the evening movie show at channel Colours.
And everytime this movie’s on the show (which it’s been for more than 4-5 times now) I decide not to watch it and as ever I always end up beating my decision, thanks to Ma’s super zeal for the movie.
But out of the the 4-5 times that I watched it, this is the first time I saw it. Jodha’s belief in her MOHAN and her way of living that she’s lived. She agrees to marry Akbar on the condition that he lets her continue her religion and way of living.
I don’t know if there’s any connection, but it reminded me of Paulo Koelho’s thought from THE ZAHIR, that all of us have a cathedral inside us and within that Cathedral there’s a sacred space where not everyone or everything can enter.
Indeed, Jodha must have had MOHANA and her way of living in that Cathedral. May be it is that sacred space that Akbar fell in love with.
I wonder did I or do I have anything in that sacred space in the Cathedral within me? Any belief? Anyone? What I see in there is a journey of phases – the phase when I was told Horiom is the power that can do it all make me tall grow my hair long; then Babamoni who never leaves anyone unheard. I believed what I was told and placed Horiom and Babamoni in my sacred space. Neither of them ever made me tall or had my hair grow think and long, but nevertheless both were with me all through those years as my belief that the tough days would be over, as my confidence to be myself and not adorn any mask amidst the all masked world. I sailed along and reached here keeping alive all my beliefs. But I no longer find them in my sacred space – have they left or are they lying somewhere hidden there, I do not know all I know is I stopped calling them.
Then what is it that I have now in my sacred space then? It’s all extremely cluttered inside, all crammed with thoughts. fear, insecurity, plans am not able to see anything. I do not know what lies in there at my Cathedral. It’s as though am living on the surface, as though lost connection with self. I know my Cathedral still exists, but I stopped going there and it’s been so many days now that am almost forgetting the wyas leading to it; what remains is the glimpse of faded memories of my connection with my Cathedral.
What happened why did I get disconnected to it? Am miserable without connection to my Cathedral. I can’t love, I cant hate, and I can’t live.
Yet I haven’t lost it all. There are somethings which are still in communion with self; some spaces within which still are complete; some of my beliefs that still show light.
I believe in life. I believe life lives its own course and all we need to do is flow with it. I believe I am never right or wrong am just flowing on with life. Where am I today, whatever am doing today have all been decided by that one decider – my life. All my guilts, my secrets, my fears which I think are my creations have all been created by someone else. If I laugh, if I cry, if I hate, if I doubt, it’s all because am made to do it all by that one writer – LIFE. Life is Horiom, Life is Sai Baba, Life is Babamoni. I belive when I want something, it will happen because wanting is only an indication given by that Writer that it will happen to me. So love, hate, cry, laugh, gossip, fail, succeed, work, laze and finally live full on, and never never ever hate yourself cause you are just living what someone else is writing for you. YOU do not exist, or exist only as long as the writer LIFE decides to keep you living.

The Church

I must have been about 6, 7 years old back then. And there aren’t too many things that I remember very vividly. However, one amongst the few that I remember was that Church down the lane where my home was.

Before anyone told me it was a Church, I used to think it was some kind of a dark one roomed house where people go once a week and sing, and some go once a month to howl and cry out aloud. Why, I don’t know. But surely I would always wish that those howlings would end as soon as poosible.

It was one of such days of the month when that Dark Roomed House was all filled with howlings, crying aloud with some words interrupting the wailings. Never was a curious kid unless something hits me real hard and this one did – may be it interrupted the peace within. I went to ma and asked, “What’s that going on in that house – the one with a dark one room?”

She taught, “Na ma don’t call it dark roomed house, it is called Girja Ghor, some people like us go and pray there.”

“Really? But I don’t see ’Hori-Om’, or Durga, or Lakshmi there?”

“No dear, like we pray to ‘Hori-On’ they pray to Cross.”

“Ah, ok. But what’s that noise all about?”

“Ah that? They are confessing to God all their bad things, their bad thoughts, or some sin they would have done.”

“Sin?”

“Bad works – harming someone”

“Ok. And confess?”

 ”Admitting that they have done some wrong.”

“Really? But why would they tell what wrongs they have done. Won’t they get thrashings? Aren’t they scared?”

“Yes it is to get rid of fear only. See when you lie to me and eat pickles without my permission how do you feel when you look at me? You wish na that you could tell me what you have done? And why would you wish so – to feel better hai na, because a lie is a burden and you want to get rid of that burden. Similarly, they have their Father in the Girja to whom they go and get rid of all the burdens by admitting the wrongs they have done.”

At that moment my mother looked to me like a Girja ghor, and just when she completed her explanation I blabbered to her all the burdens within – the sugar I stole from the kitchen, the tea I sipped from the helper’s mug, the lipstick I wore oneday etc etc. She just hugged me and said, “Don’t you feel better?” Yes I did extrememly.

Eversince then, the Church to me became a place where you stand in all nudity of mind and thoughts, you just unveil everything – good, bad, ugly infront of that Father who you can’t see. You cry, you howl and you get cleansed, burdenless.

For me, for a long time my parents were that Church. And today he is my Church. I stand in total nudity of thoughts and mind in front of him, I just unveil to him. Then we fight, we cry and finally he accepts me and that’s how he cleanses me completely. Jandro, that’s another bond that we share amongst the many between us. Am happy and fres again with this cleanliness.

Getting promoted or inviting ambiguity

“Jhinuk, meetings should always be planned at least when it is with the head of the organization,” is what the people’s director at our organization told me today morning in response to the supposedly sudden meeting I fixed between the 3 of us – him, me and the India head of our organization.   

We have been talking about some employer branding activities through participation in industry surveys. This has been on for a while. And today one of those industry surveys begins. We needed to discuss some bit of it with the country head. Both me and the people’s director agreed that we need to meet the chief today. But his reaction my execution of the meeting thought and his subsequent behavior in the meeting, somehow surprised me, rather intrigued me. Every second statement between the two biggies took the defensive guise. It felt like as though I was watching a tennis match with the ball popping from left to right.

And this isn’t a unique case. This is one of the many events i have been witnessing ever since I started working. I have seen an individual contributor (IC) speaks more confidently and honestly with his/her boss than a manager. Why? Is it because an IC is clearer about his/her responsibilities and therefore where he/she stands vis-à-vis that than a manager for whom the role has been getting more ambiguous and unpredictable as he rises up and therefore cluelesness as to where he/she stands vis-à-vis what’s expected out of him? Or, is it the fat salary packages that we get? For instance I and I know many of my friends were much more concerned about the work we are doing than the salary we were drawing. Today most of my well earning friends only worry about how to save the monthly lakh that get credited into their account. And me, surprisingly, my attention is divided into a 50:50 ratio. Salary and the content of work surprisingly hold the equal amount of weight-age for me. Surprisingly because, it is the same me who a year back had left a cushiony corporate job to go back to a journalism job that didn’t even pay half of what the corporate one did. And all these, because I did not like what I am doing. Today I am back to the same corporate job and I do get jittery at the thought of that much money (quite a bit by my standard – for an average IT guy it could be peanut:) not being credited to my account. of course thankful, at least until today I still put in my thinking into my job and try to make it more interesting. but I do not know how long would that continue.

I have seen people tilting only towards money as their salary gets heavier than their work. I do not know if it’s unique to India or is it everywhere. For instance, if i miss a meeting for some reason I make no bones about apologizing and giving out the ‘real’ story, but I have seen my seniors either sliding the miss under the table or when caught becoming defensive if it’s the boss and or offensive and even retributive if it’s a junior. 

Why? Is it because the power gets into your head? Or, is it because you feel more powerless with the fear of losing the power and money you have. I do not know.  I am really really surprised to see the kind of show senior people put up to project they are busy and that they are doing their work. I mean of course that’s why you are where you are. Many a times when I would ask for responses from managers through emails, they would not respond or say the ‘this week is tight’. And in many cases when I land up at their work station I spot them playing cards, or games or on some social networking site at times or even at job portals. In meetings you argue not because you do not agree about a matter or because your are ‘thinking’ otherwise, fact is you might not be even ‘thinking’ about it, but you still argue to snub the other person’s statement lest others think you are dumb and he isn’t. Senior management meetings are like a snakes and ladder game!!

But quite oddly, most of the attrition at these senior management level aren’t because the companies have asked them out, or some other companies have voluntarily offered them but because they leave themselves. Given the kind of insecurities they have about losing what they have, I wonder why would they leave those themselves (so what if they are getting opportunities elsewhere, why leave this one in the first place and go through the hell of looking  for another job, when you have a cushiony one already at hand)? 

At this point I would imagine it could an insecurity within self. may be we think we aren’t good enough vis-a-vis what we are getting and as we rise that vacuum keeps growing, so we decide to quit before anyone finds out we aren’t good enough. Problem is there isn’t any fault within us. Actually rising up the ladder is all about getting more ambiguous about what you are doing, and that’s why getting more adaptive to any situation. Every time you get promoted your work gets more ambiguous handling which is the toughest job and that’s what the company pays those managers for – handling the unknown.

 

The school girl and her silly heartaches

Ah the school girl and her silly heartaches. I thought she’s grown up, alas like always am wrong again. Since morning I kept gyaning  her - who loves you how much and less than whom isn’t in your hand, it’s their right their freedom.

But the more I give her these gyans, the more I realise my uneven growth internally and externally. While outwardly am a little short of completing three decades of being in this world (save my height), inwardly that silly teenager stopped growing beyond 15. Can you buy it, she still gets insecure about Ma loving other Jhumur more than me. Lol.  Hehhehe I still notice whenever Ma asks Sandeep to boil eggs for Monu and give it to her once she’s back home from office while she would miss ordering the same for me. I keep telling that teenager, “so what?” But would she ever listen to me?

Baba ‘towards me’ has again remained the same teenager of school days. So that silly girl doesn’t have any complaint. She enjoys the importance Baba gives her, how he treats her above everyone else at home, how he protests everytime Ma misses boiled eggs for me.

Many a times I feel it is this silly soul in there who fights with my Jandro. I never fight, she does. Ok with me if he doesn’t call for hours together, not ok with her. Ok with me if he sleeps of without saying good night, not ok with her. He keeps asking me, ‘how can you act so kiddish?’ How do I tell him who’s behind all these.

It’s really as though I came out to Guwahati, then stinted 7 years with Delhi University, and now in Bangalore. But she styaed on there, I know I can still find her at the entrance gate of my St Agnes convent school. I know she’s still sitting on one of those stairs at the gate.

Who does she wait for, what does she want to complete i do not know. But looks like there’s some ends yet to be met. I know I am yet to come over her. Everytime I dream, I do not see the I as of today, I see that girl in sky blue tunic white shirt red tie with a short red ribboned pony. It’s she who plays with Puchu and saves her from ghosts; it’s she who runs and runs and keeps running with Jandro from some odd enemies.

Looks like the formal churidaar clad, late 20s communications professional is something I aspire to be, what i am within is still that sky blue tunic and white shirt clad girl, who thinks her mother might like others but loves her the most. Who still thinks she can ’chowdhury’ for the rest of her life. But despite all these, that uneven-ness seems to be getting narrower. Do I still laugh like an idiot for no reasons? Nah I stopped that. Do i still dream that tomorrow morning God will suddenly come and make me tall and grow my hair below my elbow? Nah now I know that won’t happen. Do I still pray to God to make me look like Farah or Amrita Singh or Sridevi? Nah I know I can’t look any better.   

So I stopped a lot of those teenish stupidities. Any which ways, these days everytime I wake up in the morning, I see a stranger in the mirror.