She was in a lying mood

It's entirely possible that I'm going mad

2008-01-24T19:53:00.000-08:00

I think I’ve become a harder person now that I’ve moved back. The daily act of crossing the street to wait at the bus stop is marked with lecherous drivers who slow down to get a better look. The auto drivers who ask my breasts if I want a ride. The casual blaring of car horns as people head back from their morning jog to say “Hey, I see you.” The reports I hear in the news of women being molested. Of men being set on fire for trying to help them. The decency and the bravery shown by Keshav is wonderful, especially in a country where even educated men think that a single woman is fair game. “If a girl is drunk and is walking half-dressed down a street, of course she asking to get raped.” But I don't want to be grateful to a man for standing up to other men molesting a woman, a mother of two children. I feel guilty, churlish, petty, limited and mean for thinking like this about the one supremely decent thing that I've seen or heard of in a long while.

I know the only thing I can change is my behavior and deciding to be careful about what I wear, keeping my eyes close to the ground, not making eye contact, ignoring the voices around me. Does it make a difference? It doesn’t for me. The Tourrette-esque litany of curse words in my head continues unabated. And then the violation. Someone brushes past, pinches me, elbows me. It happens too fast and all I can shout is “naamard chutiye.” The shocked glances around me. Did a girl actually use these words? And the coward has sped off with a leery grin on his face. I almost wish that he turned back so I can confront him. Shout at him, hit him, bloody his face. Vent the bile that is rising. Shout at the people around me saying "this is what you are helping do. I hope you are proud to be Indian."

Would that help? Wouldn’t it make me just like him?

An entirely fictional daily drama

2008-01-24T02:12:00.000-08:00

5:20 am. (Wide awake) Wonder why the alarm hasn’t gone off yet.

5:30 am. (Alarm rings) Hmm, so it’ll take a while for the water to heat up, maybe I should just close my eyes for a bit. It’s too cold out anyway. (Hits snooze button)

5:40 am. (Alarm rings again) (Now groggy) Maybe just another 10 minutes. Anyway, Naanna’ll make me breakfast. (Hits snooze button)

5:50 am. (Alarm rings again) So the azan’s just started. Maybe another 10 minutes. (Hits snooze button)

6:00 am. (Father enters with tea) Father: Are you going to wake up or not? DO you want to drive to work today AS WELL? It’s just such a waste of your money. Who do you think you are helping by taking the car everyday?
Lazy Ass: Yes, yes. Ok fine. I’m up. I’m up. (Door closes. Lazy Ass plops back in bed.)

6:00 am. (Alarm rings and is switched off reflexively)

6:05 am. I can wake up in five minutes. I’m not really sleeping.

6:30 am: Father (through closed door): WILL YOU WAKE UP??
Lazy Ass: (Looks at the clock and bolts out of bed in a panic) Yes, yes I’m up. I woke up a long time ago. I’m nearly done.

Much activity ensues. Sounds of water splashing. Lazy Ass hastily (to her anyway) completes her toilet. Wastes five minutes shrieking at a lizard that has taken up residence in a crevice between the bathroom door and the wall. The gecko flicks its tongue and pays no attention to her. Summoning up all her courage, Lazy Ass girds her loins and runs out, holding the towel over her head. She hurries out of her room and gulps down the freshly squeezed orange juice (yes, I know, she’s horribly spoilt) and runs out the door.The time is now 6:45 am.
Father: Have you taken your cell phone?

Lazy Ass has not, so she hurries back to her room. Can’t find the phone. Father muttering in the background: “Why can’t you just be more organized? Would it kill you to get everything ready the night before?” Lazy Ass is trying to figure out from which pile of clothes the phone’s ring is coming from and ignoring her father at the same time. She finally locates it in the clothes cupboard and leaves the house to her father’s gloomily muttered pronouncements: “You’ve missed the bus anyway. You may as well take the car.”

6:52 am. A hurried half jog and half walk to the bus stop down the lane, skirting past dogs sniffing, and then deciding not to eat, the remains of the previous night’s food that Silver Spoon throws out on to the street everyday. Crosses the street, avoiding the lecherous drivers who slow down to get a good look (Lazy Ass: No I won’t sleep with you just because you blew your horn, your worthless bastard.) and auto drivers who slow down and then look irritated when Lazy Ass says: Nahin, mujhe auto nahin chahiye. Where the fuck are you when I do need an auto?

6:55 am. (At the bus stop, out of breath and cursing the male populace in the world in general) Please, don’t let me miss the bus.

6:56 am. I wonder if the bus has been by yet. The Chirec buses have just gone by so any time now.

6:57 am. Maybe the bus came early today. Maybe I should call someone.
Strange old guy in dhoti and monkey cap passes by on his morning walk. Lazy Ass smiles at him but gets no response.

6:58 am: (Bus hurtles by, slows down and Lazy Ass jumps on.)
Lazy Ass: Good morning. Fellow passenger: You made it! How come you’ve been coming pretty regularly these days?
Lazy Ass (smiles benignly): Yes. The key I’ve discovered is to push the snooze button only four times rather than six.

2008-01-24T02:05:00.000-08:00

I’ve caught myself talking to myself rather frequently; maybe I should write on my blog…

It's alive! It's alive!

2008-01-10T19:15:00.000-08:00

New Year’s resolutions seem to be doomed from the beginning. The framing of the list on the spur of the moment that you would have to adhere to for the rest of the year and suffer from guilt at abandoning it in February seemed too narrow. So this year I decided to start early with the planning process. I began thinking about the think things that I wanted to accomplish sometime during the course of the year around Christmas and came up with a few things that I think ought to be realistic targets to set for myself. This is the list.
1. Go swimming everyday.
2. Practice writing Urdu on the bus.
3. Re-acquaint my self with French and Telugu.
4. Update my blog at least once in two days.
5. Read the newspaper everyday, despite the preponderance of non-news stories like Saif Ali Khan dating Kareena Kapoor.
6. Learn more about photography.
7. Mail in my PhD applications by November.
8. Finish “My name is Red” and “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk (it’s been 5 years and 3 years respectively since I started these books).
9. Be more social and stop avoiding messages.
10. Be more prompt in replying to e-mails and texts.
11. Pay my cell phone bills and pick up the dry cleaning on time.
12. Paint my room.
It’s been two weeks since the new year started and how many of these have I begun? Well, I’ve posted on my blog…

By the wayside, we find...

2007-08-17T00:59:00.000-07:00

The irony kills me

2006-10-31T15:01:00.000-08:00

Blog-Word! for shraavya

friend's

You're an individual - nobody was found with the same word as you!

Haiku2 for shraavya

it would be that's
the problem with feelings the
body's reactions are

Lalalalala-LAH

2006-10-23T21:47:00.000-07:00

In a fit of narcissism, I googled my name to see what would show up. The first page was my blog! Yahoo! There weren't too many people with the same name as me around. I hope that the reason that the name is not popular has nothing to do with me.
Aside: At this point, most of those who know me and others who may have stumbled here by mistake, would be wondering why I thought it was a 'fit of narcissism'. Really, who am I kidding? The only reason that I'm not wasting away in front of my reflection is that I can be easily distracted by bright lights.
the others who shared my name were a one year old baby and a young lady who seems quite different than me. For example, she doesn't mind being asked questions about whether she prefers to laugh or to cry. My response to such questions would be a derogatory laughter and possible speculation about the questioners ancestry. Apart from the obligatory meanings of names databases, everything else pertained to me. To ME! Yay!

I'm sure there's a point in this somewhere

2006-10-15T14:47:00.000-07:00

I feel like I should have more to say on my very neglected blog. Waxing eloquent on things that are in the grand scheme of things not that important has always been far too easy, again to the chagrin of the people around me. However, on things that "matter", like life, love and the universe, I find that I can never be more than laconic. Worse I use cliches. The horror...
but the thing is that for whatever reason, anything that is of any import bubbles up to the surface in fragmented sentences, usually at inopportune times. To lend voice to thought will be, and has been, more bother than it is worth. It seems a bit silly to drop in lines of an emotional crisis or some such thing without any context or any hope for a future discussion which I know that I couldn't sustain. Not that I am going through an emotional crisis I hasten to add.

Advertently alliterative (in parts)

2006-08-03T00:22:00.000-07:00

I am most upset that there aren't more comments on my blog. After rational reflection (please stop laughing, dear family and friends) I realized that this absence of interest in my blog may be because it hasn't been the active-est. Further rumination revealed that essence of communication with the world, and this is amplified a billion times when one is using the Internet as a channel of communication, is reciprocatory (yes, I made up that structure) responses to other people's sometimes rants, sometimes soul searchings. I have, therefore, resolved to drop in reminders of my existence on other people's blogs. I think it should shock them nicely, they won't need a vacation this year. Ha!

Tagged

2006-07-26T11:10:00.000-07:00

My sister tagged me a while ago and I, naturally, never did anything about it. I was supposed to list six weird but unknown things about me, which naturally I never did- there really isn't any need for me to add to the reasons for people to think that I am a basket case. So I decided to tweak it a bit and list six of the things that stand out in my memories about a fake camping trip that I was just shanghaied on.
1. I experienced an extraordinarily unexpected moment of peace while crossing a mile high suspension bridge between two mountains. The bridge was made of metal and it was a windy day so there was considerable swaying involved. The wind, as it blew down the bridge, created these unbelievably soothing sounds which created an almost choral effect. Feeling safe and warm and at peace while I was walking down a narrow strip of metal bars that hung suspended on wires between two mountains, while there was a near-gale blowing and there were people milling about, was such a contradiction in terms that that time-space moment will always be unforgettable.
2. The odd homogeneity of insect life that I saw on the trip. I kept seeing the same species of spider wherever I went. I was convinced that it was following me around but then I saw two at the same time, so now I know that there were two that were stalking me in shifts apparently.
3. The dispelling of my notion of what a nature photographer does. In my mind, this species of photographers trek through the wilderness in waistcoats with too many pockets and take pictures of bark and such like. But not so any more. Apparently one can be a nature photographer from the comfort of one's car and the "nature" that one sees at the designated stop points along the highway are enough grist for their mill.
4. The sweet-turned-creepy old guy who offered to whisk me away to the beach in his private jet but abruptly stopped talking to me when I said that I didn't speak Malayalam. Yeah, I don't know.
5. The complete lack of curiosity or interest or individuality in the people that I went with. It really never fails to amaze me that there are adults who follow like drones what other people tell them. There is not, evidently, even the littlest shred of critical thought that pops into apparently rational human beings. And what is worse, the mere mention of a contrary opinion is considered disloyal. Who lives like this?
6. The insensitivity to other people's opinions, wants, comforts and to a certain extent, existence. I had always considered myself, and was frequently reminded that, I was too self centered and dismissive of what other people thought. I have found however, that there are people who are infinitely more self involved than me.

That was it. My first tag. Althuogh can this actually be a tag since I haven't tagged a bunch of people as well?

An old one

2006-07-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

This is an old post from a now defunct, ill fated blog. I thought I would put this up here since I can't really think of anything else to say and have this strange compulsion to post something on the blog.
So I sit here in my room again. I've been in bed for the better part of the day. It worries me, if i can remember to think about it, that if i don't push myself to talk to people, I could very easily retreat into the world in my head. The eternal conflict for me isn't tuning out the world, but making myself acknowledge its presence and that i need it. It is what makes me, me. I react. I exist because I react to the world and my immediate surroundings. The funny thing is that I think most people would consider me to be individualistic and independent. the irony of that thought always amused me. Right down to the way I talk, I mimic the people around me. Maybe there is a part of me that is different from others-- that makes me see things differently. Maybe this is what people see and say is the essential me-ness. Oddly perceptive of them. Funny really, I am different to different people, but this part endures and is close enough to the surface that everyone can notice it. I do underestimate the world.

Passive-aggressive? Who me?

2006-04-29T09:24:00.000-07:00

So, contrary to popular opinion and ardent prayers, I am still alive. There have been no new changes to my self imposed seclusion to report-- the isolation continues unabated. Just wanted to post a few lines so that the world is aware that I'm still around. The two minutes that it will take me to write these few lines will also allow me to say to those of my friends who are concerned and angry with me for not speaking to them, Ha! I wrote, I stayed in touch (that was a quite mired sentence). Thus I maintain my tenuous grip on the moral, I-am-wronged high ground.

Daily stuggle with death

2005-11-27T12:52:00.000-08:00

I can't understand the sheer vindictiveness and malicious cunning that has gone into urban planning in small town America (this display of cowardice in not naming the specific city that is the raison d'etre of this garbled spewing of bile is a result of a recent addition of a fear of being sued to my already vast canvas of perscution mania. I am inclined to assume that this latest acquisition is more of a rubbing off from the society that has been thrust upon me rather than actual experiances). While I had heard storied of how walker-unfriendly the streets of the land of opportunity were, previous experiance and, as it turned out a misplaced faith in students being a different species of the human race, had led me to believe that University towns would be exempt from this spite. This however, is not the case. The people who drive here appear to think that the very act of seeing some poor soul walking to the grocery store or the laundromat across the street, is a personal affront to the dignity of the person behind the wheel and an unbearable slight to the aesthetic integrity of the patched and pot-holed roads. Never before has the simple act of crossing a street been more fraught with peril, and this coming from someone who has crossed the streets of Hyderabad with scarcely a scratch and with a sister who, very considerately uses one's body as a battering ram against the oncoming traffic.
Woe betide those unfortunate mortals who decide to their bit for the environment and cycle to... wherever (bleedin' heart liberals!) or those young mothers who bravely strap their precious cherubs into prams and wheel them out for a bit of sunshine. There is no seperate bike path of course, and one is forced to use the main road. Why not use the sidewalk/pavement you say? Because, dear child, the sidewalks don't have ramps on both sides. This is truly where the vindictiveness is laid bare. You get on the sidewalk at one end, praising the kindness of the civic authorities who have been considerate enough to lay a sidewalk, "proceed along" the stretch of the road as cars zip by you and drivers stare evilly at you for about a quarter of mile and then realise that the pavement doesn't have a ramp built at the other end! Surely, you think to yourself, this must be an oversight. They probably was a drafting error on the blue print. You make mental note to avoid this particular sidewalk in the future as you back track and start again. After dodging death as you are walking/cycling/wheeling on the road, you find yourself approaching another sidewalk and breathe a sigh of relief as a blue mustang misses you by a hair's breadth. You clamber onto the pavement and resist the urge to kiss it. After a brief examination of your limbs you set off again, your leg a bloody mess and three vertebrae dislocated. A sinking feeling starts making itself felt as you approach the intersection. There is no ramp! Maybe there was mistake in the blueprint of this particular street. Your mind is now working overtime devising alternate routes to the library and work. Also is helps to be distracted as cars are gunning for you and horns are blaring. The trick is to convince yourself that you are not being singled out and the murderers driving the cars are probably lovely people when not behind the wheel and are kind to animals. If by mischance you surrender this belief, then you are doomed to spend the rest of your life in a solitary, pleasant room with people in white coats being obnoxiously cheerful around you.
As the days progress and the medical bills mount, you realise that this one-ended ramp phenomenon is all pervasive. They entice you cunningly onto the pavement and then you realise that there is no way to get off at the other end and are forced to battle the traffic who exhibits a droit de signeur attitude towards the road and views you as a malicious trespasser who must be shown up for the sheer effrontery of being on the same road as them, especially as there is perfectly servicable sidewalk built for the express purpose of hiding their miserable carcasses from the view of the God-fearing public.

The story so far

2005-11-04T11:45:00.000-08:00

This blog is quite an uncharecteristic move on my part. I haven't really been in touch with anybody, family or friends, these past few months. It had got so bad that at one point my aunt was considering sending the police to check up on me. My mother and sister refused to speak to me when I did finally call them. Fortunately things are slightly better now, although the most of my friends are convinced that I've pulled a Rip van Winkel and have not woken up in about three months. So many bridges to mend...
I don't actually have a good reason for what I did. I don't even think I have a very bad reason for it. I just decided that, one day, I would stop making an effort to talk to people. This led to actually avoiding phone calls, emails and such like.
I am quite despicable.

The First One

2005-10-27T11:56:00.000-07:00

So, this is my second attempt at maintaining a web journal. My sister started a new one recently and in a weak moment I decided to be tempted into opening an account for myself. The capitals in the title are not excessive as there is a very likely possibilty that it may be The Only One; if it is going to be short lived, the poor blog can at least boast a grand title. After all, there is something to be said for living in style.